I m just curious. I m not a native speaker who, over the years, have adopted american accent through an american schooling system in his country. I came to Australia two years ago and have noticed that not only Australian speak different English (in some situations), they dont understand me some time ( I begin to wonder that maybe my English hasnt improved at all after all these years..lol).
I could be wrong by all this. After all this is just my opinion. Comments please.
I think the problem is not that you speak American English, but that your English still isn't the best.
Anyway, American and Australian native speakers can understand each other perfectly fine.
I understand it completely.
How many Americans know what "Fair dinkum" means?
Bennito:
May I ask you in which country it was that you first learned to speak English? Would it be in Europe? Your name suggests it might be. Many countries, including those in Continental Europe, do prefer to teach American English rather than any other version and promoting a standard American accent, presumably...that's fine.
So you've landed yourself in Australia....a country with strong links with the UK however much those Aussies who were born and raised over there, as were their parents and grandparents before them, like to think otherwise. In addition to that British people have continued to emigrate to Oz over the years following the so called "Ten Quid Poms" program after the end of WW2, probably making Australia the most popular emigration choice for Brits, followed by NZ and Canada it seems....all Commonwealth countries therefore making emigration that much easier.
It's true that Australia has formed a close relationship with the United States over recent decades, and have adopted certain features of what they perceive to be aspects of the American way of life up to a point, when it comes to accent I reckon that the standard Australian accent, the one we are familar with through such TV programs as "Neighbours" (see...the Aussies do use American spellings rather than American!) and "Home and Away" has more in common with the English English Cockney accent in many ways than it does with the standard American accent, and many Brits have the gall to say that the accent of the average Aussie is "rough round the edges!", conveniently forgetting Glaswegian, Brummie, Scouse and "Sarf Landun" (South London) Estuary, but I digress now.
Perhaps all those Aussies do speak "different English" because they do, it's as simple as that. It's not standard British and it's not standard American, both of which most Aussies themselves have no problem with as they are very familiar with both through mass communication.
If your written English is anything to go by maybe you need to work a bit harder on your standard of English generallly, both verbal and written. If your English is "broken" in spite of your learned American accent then naturally it makes it that bit harder for the Aussies to understand you.
You do need to make more of an effort to improve your competence in English I would think. Do you wish to maintain your American accent even though you are in Australia?
Whatever you do do NOT try to adopt a British (English English version) accent over there at the minute....England has just hammered the hell out of Australia in the Test Match cricket series here in England and England has regained what's known as The Ashes (don't ask! - I'm only a Scot), and the last thing the average Aussie wants to hear right now is an English English accent as they sit in their crappy bars weeping into what passes for beer Down Under - drowning sorrows as they wallow in their profound misery over something as obscure as cricket.
The fact that Australians are as crazy about cricket as are the English further emphasises the very close links the two countries still have bonding themselves together, however much the Aussies (and perhaps many Sassenachs) protest to the contrary...it's all a sort of "love-hate" form of banter really....nothing too serious. Time and time again some die-hard Aussies have sought to kick the British Queen and the Commonwealth Constitution to the kerb but it never seems to happen and probably never will. I can't ever see them ditching cricket in favour of baseball or whatever, in spite of your American accent.
Good luck anyway. Cheers.
Bennito comes from Indonesia...
Am I right?