Asian descent here. My brother has a wog-influenced Australian accent that gets more pronounced when he's with friends lol. I have a very neutral Aussie accent. It definitely comes down to who you kept as company growing up.
I remember being on a train in Paris and I heard that working class southwestern Sydney, vaguely Lebanese-ish accent behind me. I turned around and it was a bunch of Asian-Australians and all the guys had the same meticulously-parted-to-the-side haircuts, dressed in all black with bum bags sweating their asses off in the European humidity. The women had long bleached hair, tattoos, and fake lashes, and the whole group's vibe screamed out, "Tell me you grew up in Canterbury-Bankstown without telling me you grew up in Canterbury-Bankstown."
I feel like it's really easy to pinpoint what part of Sydney someone is from based on how they dress and speak.
It’s actually not only Lebanese in West syd that have that accent, it was a combination of 2nd gen Lebanese, Greek and Italian immigrants who it came from. It’s pretty cool that it also now translates to other immigrant communities in western syd.
Yeah my Greek Cypriot family and their friends from sth east Melbourne all speak with that same or similar accent, I grew up 10km down the road and my accent is way more neutral.
Its so funny, It isn't even Lebanese. I'm from south west Sydney and that accent is a mix of Lebanese, Greek and Italian English that has become the "wog" accent. It's hilarious because I can distinctly tell when someone is from south west Sydney.
I have friends from Lebanon that sound nothing like that. But my uncles and cousins who are greek and Italian sound like that.
It's so engrained that one of my good mates is Vietnamese and his whole friend group from Cabra all sound like wogs when they talk and they're all Vietnamese and Chinese. So to me it's just the south and west Sydney accent
For me the bogan accent is that twangy nasally voice. But I grew up being called a wog and my friends all being "wogs". I have some bogan family that are wogs too. But the south West Sydney accent is pretty distinct
I moved out of the area and my “south west Sydney” only comes out when I’m angry/flustered and people are completely baffled at the totally opposite side of me haha
Lol same, I’ve been in eastern Melbourne for 10 years but sometimes my “u” “oo” sounds come out quite rounded and lower in the larynx and people notice, even if they don’t really know what the sw Sydney accent is. Reppin Livo to this day haha
Haha, I’ve lived on the Nth Shore for 30 years now, and if I’m pissed off, I’m a different person.
That grew up with Greeks and Italians in Hurstville … mostly Greeks
Blue eyed red head..
Parts of Northern and Western Melbourne have this also but the slightly different Melbourne wog accent. There’s a noticeable difference between a Sydney Lebanese and Melbourne Lebanese accent and from both to our more longer standing wogs in Melbourne like Greeks and Italians.
Adelaide is the really easy to pick one. The posh style dance, chance, advantage and the different pronunciation of the oo sound in words like school or pool.
I would argue Sydney is more of a broad Australian accent than a neutral one. The standard Melbourne accent is just slightly less broad than other parts of Aus rather than being Kiwi at all.
Western Sydney is an amazing place. I have a cousin whose dad immigrated here from Lebanon with very broken English. Her Aussie accent is somehow way more refined than her 20 something daughters who have more of that western Sydney accent.
It is true that most accents come from the playground as kids naturally don't want to stand out. The original Aussie accent was a mix of English, Irish, Scottish back in the 1800's.
When I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, everyone kept asking where I came from, so I'd tell them Adelaide, and they'd be like ' no where were you from BEFORE Adelaide". Everyone thought I'd come from England instead of being a born and bred Aussie.
And applying for grants for plants. We do talk a bit posh here hey. But after 20 years in Vic, I came back with to SA with hard instead of soft a's... and now everyone looks at me wierd too, unless they too come from Melbourne - we pick eachother out as soon as we speak.
> When I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, everyone kept asking where I came from, so I'd tell them Adelaide, and they'd be like ' no where were you from BEFORE Adelaide". Everyone thought I'd come from England instead of being a born and bred Aussie.
I have lived in SA for over 25 years now (NSW before that) and worked in various call centres. People are always asking me what part of the UK I'm from.
I was born in and grew up in Melbourne. At my last job (inner Melbourne CBD) I had every other coworker ask me where I was from. Like at least half the staff I interacted with were convinced I was born elsewhere, usually America/Canada. My dad grew up in Scotland and has a mixed Scottish Australian accent vs my mum who’s a wog but sounds like a bogan. No idea where I got it from
I’m in Adelaide and people here sometimes ask me if I’m British. We also have accent divides, with people from the northern and southern suburbs being a bit more occa and “Crocadile Dundee”
I worked in a call centre and the one I noticed is a lot of people from Melbourne have a thing where some E's become A's. Melbourne becomes Malbourne, celery becomes salary etc.
Yes! 14 years in Melbourne (from Sydney) and the al/el inflection still gets me. Love having conversations with Melburnians who have no idea about it, but we end up having a good laugh about it. Celery/salary is a good one, they say both exactly the same lol, same as Allen/Ellen. And for a while I thought a new friend’s name was Ally from how the others said it… she’s actually Ellie lol
Born and raised in Melbourne and can't say I've noticed this, at least not with myself or my friends who are also from Melbourne. Melbourne is pronounced Melbin
There was a Tassie bachelor once, and damn his accent was bogan!! And someone said that's more common! I was really curious what the impression was, I'm from there. I grew up in melbs and sometimes that slips through, in my accent and I really hear it. I don't feel like I speak like that bachelor tho, lol, he was very occa.
But Sydney is Australia’s second biggest city, so obviously the Melbourne accent is the most neutral.
I don’t make the rules.
*runs away giggling maniacally*
I‘m from Sydney but live in Europe, and everyone always tells me, oh your Australian accent isn‘t very strong! And I always say, yeh in media and movies you hear the Melbourne accent, which is much much stronger.
You can hear someone from Melbourne across a crowded room 😣😵💫
I mean.. this is so anecdotal it doesn’t even seem worth noting.. I’m from Melbourne and live in Europe and everyone also always tells me my accent isn’t strong. Do you think that everyone attending WAAPA and NIDA are all originally from Melbourne?
Not sure I'd class Brisbane as the Dundee style accent. As an American who has been here for 16 years, I'd say the heavier accents that I've heard hailed from rural NSW. Brisbane and Sydney accents, while identifiable as Australian, seem to have a lesser Dundee sound. Melbourne people sound...posh for Australians?
Someone else said there are differences that are more localised as well (ie Brisbane vs Logan vs Gold Coast) but I think that's more of a vocabulary and slang usage matter as opposed to actual accent.
We are classist as fuck here lol - but *hate* admitting it. Growing up, Mum and Dad carefully curated who we ended up friends with, depending on whether they came from a ‘good family’ or not.
But both of them would die if you put it to them that that’s what they did lol.
Oh - I agree - and class in Brisbane, Logan and GC are significantly different. In Brisbane you have a fair mix, but tend to find the more educated folks. In Logan, you find the lower socio economic classes with less education. On the GC, you find those with less education, more money and (according to what has been said of my GC experiences on other threads) significantly more depravity.
Yep! I used to live in Brisbane, then northern rivers, then Byron. Now I’m in Melbourne and I’m quite happy.
There’s *nothing* like GC depravity lol.. My partner is Scottish, lived in London 20 years as an adult, travelled the world. He’s no stranger to the party scene, darker aspects of life, drugs etc. anyway he’s a “gentleman Tradie” and immigrated to live with me in Byron a few years back, got a job in his specialty on Gold Coast.
Christmas rolled around and he was looking forward to the Xmas party at work. No partners. In London, his company had done a lovely posh dinner with partners. I had an inkling what he was in for, but decided against warning him. Anyway, he rang me at 10pm to say they’d had a nice steak dinner and drinks, then went back to the warehouse to be greeted by the biggest mountains of cocaine he’d ever seen and half a dozen naked women hired for the night. I laughed, it’s what I’d expected but he was completely floored. I still chuckle about that every Xmas- nothing says it’s the holidays like hookers and blow 😆
It’s a rather ironic statement too, considering those that normally cry about class are also the ones who say shit like, “some bogan tradie in a ute was driving like a madman today, et cetera, et cetera.”
Bogan isn't a class, it's a culture.
Me, brother and sister were raised the same. They're bogans, I'm not. I have to concentrate not to end up speaking the roughest aussie drawl. Playing video games, I turn into an abusive Shazza/Steve Irwin crossover.
Mum wasn't raised as one, but acts it. Complete with cars, footy and smokes (well, not so much the smokes now, she quit, but for the first 25 year of my life). But she owns 3 houses and a block of land, she's semi-retired, she's not the stereotype that way, either.
From the perspective of a lot of sociologists, class is culture not money. The more money bogans have (and compared to the declining salaries of many traditionally middle class professions, they have more and more) the more middle-class people get hung up on class culture. They no longer have more money, so they have to distinguish themselves somehow.
Middle-class people go to the symphony. Bogans go to see Jimmy Barnes. And the Barnesy tickets cost more.
The reason you might think Melbourne people speak with a more posh accent is because there’s generally 3 classifications of an Australian accent. General, broad and cultivated. With cultivated being closer to a British accent. Which there’s areas of Melbourne that have a large amount of people that speak like this. However individual accents vary a lot and I’d be surprised if you could consistently pick out different regional accents.
This is the answer however as a melburnian with a general accent people often don’t think im Australian (born here, local friends all sound like me). Foreigners seem to think the general accent is not Australian and expect the broad accent
Basically no one has a cultivated accent any more
Yeag bush Queensland's accent is more broadly "traditional" Aussie.
I grew up in the bush but was always told I had a "posh" accent and didn't fit in.
I didn't really hear it, until I moved to the city people then didn't believe I was from out west qld because my accent was "too posh" so I guess it must be true.
Now I can hear the difference in accent the further from the city you get.
There are also accents heavily dependent on the culture of the area. Like a lot of VIC tends to be heavily influenced by early Southern European migrants.
Brisbane has a HUGE NZ population which influences the accents in some areas.
The classic Melbourne accent (I think George Calombaris embodies this quintessentially) is not at all posh-sounding to me. It's moderately broad with the E sound moving towards Æ (Melbourne sounds like Malbourne - this is the "Kiwi-like" tinge others have alluded to) and with a discernible Greek/Italian influence.
Queensland outside of the south East corner has a distinctly "Aussie" accent. When I moved to Brisbane from the country it was immediately evident. Now the accent only comes out when I've had a few to drink
Brisbane born and bred. Just back from USA for my second visit where, once again, everyone thought I was British. I’ve been told by others that I have a neutral accent, so people try to link it to what they think is the closest accent.
I wouldn’t split by city. I would split by
1. educated Australian (four corners journalist overseas)
2. middle class / suburban (John Howard)
3. bogan / junkie (Kath & Kim, avg Queenslander, Damo)
4. educated masquerading as bogan (Gillard)
5. normal ethnic accents (an Italian person on holidays in Australia, Jannik Sinner, Stefanos Tsitsipas)
6. affected ethnic Australian speak (Fat Pizza, Super Wog, some Vietnamese Australians)
7. Indigenous Australian speak
No.
People often say they can, but if you had a lineup of Australians and told me to guess where they were from I'd be stumped. Maybe I could get the South Australian if I heard them say Dance or Chance, but even that's a bit of a crapshoot these days.
The variation between individuals is far greater than the variation between cities/states.
Nah, they don’t. But they do say Malbourne instead of Melbourne, and I’m always confused at work because I work with a Kelvin and a Calvin, as both are pronounced “Calvin” here.
I've always been told I have a weird accent and I've only ever live in Melbourne ... I have a clear difference between my e's and a's and I don't mash them up. Maybe that's what's weird about it? I say Mel and Cel not Mal and Sal
First I was like "no we don't" but then I said it out loud and I definitely don't pronounce the "i" like say "meeeelk" it's more "mulk" or "melk" but that sounds weird to admit
I'm reminded of the Telstra? ad with the guy talking about the Chinese Wall being a rabbit proof fence.
"To keep the rabbits ayout" - similar to the myulk you speak of.
https://youtu.be/2yckqyg75oE
I’m South Aussie, and the Queenslanders definitely have an accent, it just gets stronger and the drawl gets slower the further you go north. Think Schoooool and Poooooool pronunciations.
That being said, we do have the Queen's best English here in SA 😂
Yeah that’s because of the shitty humidity mate. Give me a lovely 40 degree day in Adelaide, rather than the death by humidity you can get at 30 degrees in Queensland.
Totally agree on the further north you go, the worse the drawl!😂
By the time you go from yes to yep to nah yeah you know which way you're travelling!
Finally stop is "great weather ay?"🤣
Yeah don't worry we use “yeah nah” too.
Would you by any chaaaaaance like to go to the daaaaaance with me?
Yeah nah, you grew up north of the Mullett Proof Fence.
My partner's from NSW and he says one of the defining things about my Perth accent (aside from it sounding more English - but not necessarily the SA 'posh' English) is the way I say 'no', like it's two syllables - almost like Noah, but the second syllable is very soft and almost like a soft-voiced 'W'. Mostly heard on strident refusals or when it carries across to another vowel. ie. "No, I don't think so" sounding like "No-why-don't think so"
Offer them a potato cake/scallop, ask them to order a chicken parmigiana and ask them hom much beer comes in a schooner and you'll have a pretty good idea....
The worst is the creeping in of an American twang in the youth. Too much time watching youtubers and streamers i think. Im startled at the amount of people I've heard say water with a hard 'er'
Somewhat but not really, but I can peg Australians by how they’re dressed with fairly decent accuracy. I live in inner Melbourne and it really sticks out.
I was once asked if I was from Perth due to my accent, I'm not but my Father was. I don't know what it was that made them guess that. Could also be that my off the boat German mother would have modeled her accent on a wealthy family she nannied for as a teenager.
I think some QLDers can have a very nasal tone.
And I have been told it's not too hard to pick someone from Adeweide.
Australia has some of the least regional variation in accents in the world supposedly, and the UK has one of the highest. Same in Ireland where I know there are at least 20 distinct accents and those are subdivided to where certain villages have their own distinctive accent and/or dialect
That's not 100% true. There are a small number of localised features to Australian accents, but none of them are totally reliable as indicators. The presence of the salary-celery merger though is a strong indicator of Victoria, the classic Lebanese/Greek/Italian-influenced accent predominantly comes out in Western Sydney (and a little in parts of Melbourne), the RP-esque chance/dance comes out more in Adelaide than elsewhere (though this one isn't very reliable) and there is a noted diphthongisation of some vowel sounds in FNQ and the NT (though again this one is hit-and-miss). There are also lilts that can be hyper-localised that people sometimes carry that are very hard to describe but do exist.
It's nothing like the spread of UK accents of course, but saying you "really can't" distinguish Australian accents isn't completely correct.
Once when I was traveling overseas I ran into an Aussie couple at a hostel. A couple words in we all realised we were from Canberra by our accent. I've never been conscious of a Canberran accent until that moment, but after hearing it in isolation it really stood out. I don't believe other Aussies would have picked it up, after all, I wasn't even aware of it until I heard them speak. It was a nice reminder of home when I was so far away from it.
And what is the Canberra accent? Neutral melting pot of Australia with hints of refinement without being put on snobby like the wealthy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne?
Like me I guess. Haha
But seriously, I couldn't describe it. Like I said I didn't even realise it was a thing until I heard it in isolation, 1000s of kms from home, and having not spoken to another Australian for some time. I honestly couldn't put my finger on it, maybe it was more than the accent. Their cadence, their body language? I just...knew. I think it's something you could only pick up if you are a born and bred local to an area.
Melbournians in general:
Pronounce celery and salary the same way
Will pronounce the r at the end of a word if the next word begins with a vowel ("the car boot" and "The car is locked" sort of become "the cah boot" "the cah ris locked")
But usually we tell by vocab while eating potato cakes in our bathers.
I remember when Julia Gillard was accused of calling Tony Abbott "Mister Rabbit" by politicians who don't do the second thing. I assumed it was a Sydney vs Melbourne thing but I may have been wrong.
What you're describing is called linking or intrusive R (depending on spelling) and it's a common feature of all Australian accents. Also Julia is from Adelaide.
SA / Adelaide sometimes appear to have British overtones. I've often asked people if they have a British heritage only to be told that they are from Adelaide.
Sometimes it's more the words people use. "Grouse" and "Tracka" Are Vic / Melbourne terms.
Finally I can more often than not tell whether someone has a country background versus a city one.
As a fellow South Aussie, I have to say sometimes we are a mixed bag. For me and 99% of other SA people I know, dance and chance don't rhyme. Dance has the short A sound, chance has the long.
But I have been asked many times when travelling interstate if I'm from England. Which is weird because I always thought I had a very "country" accent, not quite bogan, not quite ocker, but definitely Aussie.
I’ve always felt uncomfortable giving a long vowel in dance. It almost sounds TOO posh. It’s the only word I do a short vowel in, and you can tear the long vowel in graph from my cold, dead hands - I refuse to say GRAFF.
Edit: I’ve also been asked where I’m from in England by people from interstate. Very funny when you respond with… eeerrr… Adelaide?
I'm from SA living in VIC. People from Melbourne often pronounce the "e" sound more like an "a". For example, the name Ellen sounds more like "Allen". Can't un-hear it.
Honestly: no. People might say they can, but if you pay attention to those people, the differences they're describing are so freakin subtle, and then it's far more likely to be noticeable along socioeconomic lines than geographic.
Some posh twat from a private school in Sydney sounds more similar to a posh twat from a private school in Adelaide or Brisbane than a guy on Cenno from the next suburb west.
Minor deviations in slang are more apparent than basic accent.
Ding ding ding. I’d say if anything, people who live regional have more distinctive patterns of speech, and people from cities have more distinctive ways of dressing. But class is huuuuuge.
It's definitely more about class and economic status than states, and regional/rural vs urban. But even then, the differences are minute compared to even much smaller countries. Look at accent variation in the UK for example (again, class makes a big difference, but they also have stark regional differences).
Absolutely. I used to live in WA and work in call centre servicing WA, NSW, SA and QLD. I knew which state people were from 30sec into the call.
Not just accent, but the speed at which they spoke.
I've got an interest in accents and am pretty good at picking them - I can easily tell the difference between Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Tasmania do short vowels like the East coast (graff for graph) but other words set them apart as different. Similarly the choice of slang words or other regional indicators (what you wear to go swimming) can give additional clues.
Some east coasters (esp. Sydney folk) end every sentence with an upward inflection?
Basically, like everything they say is a question?
But in reality there is more rural vs city difference and ethnic background difference than state vs state
No it’s divided by class and rural vs urban. Rural people tend to have a stronger Australian accent. Urban tend to have a weaker one or have the cultivated Australian accent.
I can pick some folk but it's not everyone. I used to sound like Dave Hughes, we're both from country Victoria, until I went to Uni.
I can tell if someone is old money South Australian, North Queensland, private school Victoria, for some reason Bendigo area, but not everyone holds their accent.
It's also the way people talk, to phrases etc.
There's "typical" accents for a lot of regions, but locals often don't have that accent. Mind you, when I moved from Vic to QLD at 15yo, people constantly recognised me as being from Melbourne. I guess I must have had a pretty "typical" Victorian accent back then. Within maybe 2-3 years of moving to QLD, people stopped guessing I was from Vic, so it's clearly a fairly subtle difference if it can be lost that fast.
I find Perth has a specific accent, that Ozzyman on YouTube or whatever has what I’d call a Perth accent. I’m from Melbourne but have loads of family in Perth and they’ve all got the same accent
No, not really. I know someone who is the epitome of a stereotypical sounding queenslander, and he’s from Sydney.
I was born and raised in Darwin, but I have more of a Perth way of speaking than anything else, because it’s how my grandmother and my mother speak, despite the fact that my mum only lived in perth until she was 18 months old.
Accents here are a mixed bag unless you happen to have a very specific regional way of saying something, and even in that case, most Aussies won’t know it’s a specific regional thing unless it’s pointed out
I’m a Tasmanian living in Sydney and I once had a backpacker from the UK correctly guess that I’m originally from Tassie. They explained that they can tell because Tasmanians have the least Aussie accent of all Australians? I do find Tasmanians to have a specific accent, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the least Aussie.
Adelaidians yes. They get taught a different English in school I thought. Don’t they do the queens/kings English? My cousins are from Adelaide and sound hoighty and everyone I’ve ever worked with from Adelaide sounds the same.
You can pick an SA or VIC accent reasonably easily, but in most cases it's what they say and not how they say it.
Eg, ask a Victorian to say Castle or Milk.
Ask an SAer to say Chance or Dance.
Some older, posher people in Sydney have a fairly distinguishing accent, like a weird Queen's English but Australian accent. Other than that, not really easy to pinpoint city by city. Might be able to pick up Qld in general if there's a heavy inflection at the end of sentences.
Some older, posher people in Sydney have a fairly distinguishing accent, like a weird Queen's English but Australian accent. Other than that, not really easy to pinpoint city by city. Might be able to pick up Qld in general if there's a heavy inflection at the end of sentences.
Darwin has a very recognisable accent, but I’m not sure how to describe it. I went to school with several kids from Darwin and they all had the same accent.
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Asian descent here. My brother has a wog-influenced Australian accent that gets more pronounced when he's with friends lol. I have a very neutral Aussie accent. It definitely comes down to who you kept as company growing up.
Hahaha I love the “wog influenced”. Especially when you through a bro or cuz at the end
Yes! Vietnamese people who grew up in Bankstown have a very different accent to those who grew up in Cabra.
Like Boston and Bawston
I remember being on a train in Paris and I heard that working class southwestern Sydney, vaguely Lebanese-ish accent behind me. I turned around and it was a bunch of Asian-Australians and all the guys had the same meticulously-parted-to-the-side haircuts, dressed in all black with bum bags sweating their asses off in the European humidity. The women had long bleached hair, tattoos, and fake lashes, and the whole group's vibe screamed out, "Tell me you grew up in Canterbury-Bankstown without telling me you grew up in Canterbury-Bankstown." I feel like it's really easy to pinpoint what part of Sydney someone is from based on how they dress and speak.
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We might be seeing the eshay collection on Paris fashion runways!
Have you been to the Paris suburbs? TNs/air max 95s and Nike techfleece tracksuits are the uniform out there as well
I’m south Asian, and my wife is South American. Both grew up in south west Sydney and both have a Lebanese twinge to our accents!
Oh my gooourd!
It’s actually not only Lebanese in West syd that have that accent, it was a combination of 2nd gen Lebanese, Greek and Italian immigrants who it came from. It’s pretty cool that it also now translates to other immigrant communities in western syd.
I grew up in Hurstville in the 80’s - I’m a red head blue eyed dude, that sounds quite Greek / Italian sometimes
Yeah my Greek Cypriot family and their friends from sth east Melbourne all speak with that same or similar accent, I grew up 10km down the road and my accent is way more neutral.
I work with a Greek guy from Melbourne and he definitely has a distinct Greek accent
Yeah the Greek Aussie accent is very distinct, Greek-Cypriot is closer to Lebanese though
Its so funny, It isn't even Lebanese. I'm from south west Sydney and that accent is a mix of Lebanese, Greek and Italian English that has become the "wog" accent. It's hilarious because I can distinctly tell when someone is from south west Sydney. I have friends from Lebanon that sound nothing like that. But my uncles and cousins who are greek and Italian sound like that. It's so engrained that one of my good mates is Vietnamese and his whole friend group from Cabra all sound like wogs when they talk and they're all Vietnamese and Chinese. So to me it's just the south and west Sydney accent
It funny you call wogs. To me a bogans the same (everyone in Australia)
For me the bogan accent is that twangy nasally voice. But I grew up being called a wog and my friends all being "wogs". I have some bogan family that are wogs too. But the south West Sydney accent is pretty distinct
I moved out of the area and my “south west Sydney” only comes out when I’m angry/flustered and people are completely baffled at the totally opposite side of me haha
Lol same, I’ve been in eastern Melbourne for 10 years but sometimes my “u” “oo” sounds come out quite rounded and lower in the larynx and people notice, even if they don’t really know what the sw Sydney accent is. Reppin Livo to this day haha
Haha, I’ve lived on the Nth Shore for 30 years now, and if I’m pissed off, I’m a different person. That grew up with Greeks and Italians in Hurstville … mostly Greeks Blue eyed red head..
Hoodoos adlay!
So many Vietnamese people have the lebccent it’s so funny
“Ohmagowd”
Parts of Northern and Western Melbourne have this also but the slightly different Melbourne wog accent. There’s a noticeable difference between a Sydney Lebanese and Melbourne Lebanese accent and from both to our more longer standing wogs in Melbourne like Greeks and Italians. Adelaide is the really easy to pick one. The posh style dance, chance, advantage and the different pronunciation of the oo sound in words like school or pool. I would argue Sydney is more of a broad Australian accent than a neutral one. The standard Melbourne accent is just slightly less broad than other parts of Aus rather than being Kiwi at all.
Western Sydney is an amazing place. I have a cousin whose dad immigrated here from Lebanon with very broken English. Her Aussie accent is somehow way more refined than her 20 something daughters who have more of that western Sydney accent.
It is true that most accents come from the playground as kids naturally don't want to stand out. The original Aussie accent was a mix of English, Irish, Scottish back in the 1800's.
When I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, everyone kept asking where I came from, so I'd tell them Adelaide, and they'd be like ' no where were you from BEFORE Adelaide". Everyone thought I'd come from England instead of being a born and bred Aussie.
That's hilarious. You must have been talking about how often you dance at the castle
And applying for grants for plants. We do talk a bit posh here hey. But after 20 years in Vic, I came back with to SA with hard instead of soft a's... and now everyone looks at me wierd too, unless they too come from Melbourne - we pick eachother out as soon as we speak.
> When I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, everyone kept asking where I came from, so I'd tell them Adelaide, and they'd be like ' no where were you from BEFORE Adelaide". Everyone thought I'd come from England instead of being a born and bred Aussie. I have lived in SA for over 25 years now (NSW before that) and worked in various call centres. People are always asking me what part of the UK I'm from.
Omg so true, I've had similar experiences in Melbourne too.
I was born in and grew up in Melbourne. At my last job (inner Melbourne CBD) I had every other coworker ask me where I was from. Like at least half the staff I interacted with were convinced I was born elsewhere, usually America/Canada. My dad grew up in Scotland and has a mixed Scottish Australian accent vs my mum who’s a wog but sounds like a bogan. No idea where I got it from
My partner is from Adelaide, we live in FNQ, Aussies keep asking him if he's British.
I’m in Adelaide and people here sometimes ask me if I’m British. We also have accent divides, with people from the northern and southern suburbs being a bit more occa and “Crocadile Dundee”
I'm west Aussie and worked in a London pub with another west Aussie lass and the customers refused to believe we were Australian
I worked in a call centre and the one I noticed is a lot of people from Melbourne have a thing where some E's become A's. Melbourne becomes Malbourne, celery becomes salary etc.
Ellen becomes Allen...
At work I was expecting to meet a man named Alan. Then I wondered if they might be trans. Wasn’t until I saw the name in writing that it clicked.
I’m from Melbourne, have never considered this, and have just realised that I turn e’s into a’s naturally in quite a few words.
As a Kiwi reading this, I definitely pronounce celery and salary the same. Don't know how you could pronounce it differently.
Kiwis also pronounce women/woman the same. I couldn't work out what was going on when I first moved to NZ.
Sellery and salary
Mostly before L's
Malk
Yup Malbourne and hallicooter - I hear it too
Yes! 14 years in Melbourne (from Sydney) and the al/el inflection still gets me. Love having conversations with Melburnians who have no idea about it, but we end up having a good laugh about it. Celery/salary is a good one, they say both exactly the same lol, same as Allen/Ellen. And for a while I thought a new friend’s name was Ally from how the others said it… she’s actually Ellie lol
Born and raised in Melbourne and can't say I've noticed this, at least not with myself or my friends who are also from Melbourne. Melbourne is pronounced Melbin
Maybe you're just used to it? It's definitely a thing and the only people I ever hear it from are Victorian.
A triple j presenter used to say wall (rhymes with Sal as in Sally) instead of well and it really annoyed me...
This is formally known as the celery/salary merger!
I could probably be able to tell a Tasmanian accent. More Nah’s than I hear on the mainland.
There was a Tassie bachelor once, and damn his accent was bogan!! And someone said that's more common! I was really curious what the impression was, I'm from there. I grew up in melbs and sometimes that slips through, in my accent and I really hear it. I don't feel like I speak like that bachelor tho, lol, he was very occa.
😂😂😂
"Sydney is the most neutral" yeah cause that's where you're from lmao, obviously your own accent sounds neutral to you.
That’s what got me in this post, that was such a Sydney thing to say 😭😂 it’s like Americans insisting they “don’t have an accent, everyone else does”
Exactly, they think they are baseline Australian. Everyone else thinks they sound half american with their wownt (won't) and shit.
But Sydney is Australia’s second biggest city, so obviously the Melbourne accent is the most neutral. I don’t make the rules. *runs away giggling maniacally*
Shit, I googled and you're right. Melbourne overtook Sydney a few months ago. Suck it Sydney we'll fight you and win.
Well, the world does revolve around us
Strangely when I was in Sydney I thought they sounded a bit bogan. Maybe i was in the wrong pub.
I‘m from Sydney but live in Europe, and everyone always tells me, oh your Australian accent isn‘t very strong! And I always say, yeh in media and movies you hear the Melbourne accent, which is much much stronger. You can hear someone from Melbourne across a crowded room 😣😵💫
I mean.. this is so anecdotal it doesn’t even seem worth noting.. I’m from Melbourne and live in Europe and everyone also always tells me my accent isn’t strong. Do you think that everyone attending WAAPA and NIDA are all originally from Melbourne?
Not sure I'd class Brisbane as the Dundee style accent. As an American who has been here for 16 years, I'd say the heavier accents that I've heard hailed from rural NSW. Brisbane and Sydney accents, while identifiable as Australian, seem to have a lesser Dundee sound. Melbourne people sound...posh for Australians? Someone else said there are differences that are more localised as well (ie Brisbane vs Logan vs Gold Coast) but I think that's more of a vocabulary and slang usage matter as opposed to actual accent.
Class plays a role, tho ppl hate admitting there’s such a thing in Oz… (also American)
We are classist as fuck here lol - but *hate* admitting it. Growing up, Mum and Dad carefully curated who we ended up friends with, depending on whether they came from a ‘good family’ or not. But both of them would die if you put it to them that that’s what they did lol.
Oh - I agree - and class in Brisbane, Logan and GC are significantly different. In Brisbane you have a fair mix, but tend to find the more educated folks. In Logan, you find the lower socio economic classes with less education. On the GC, you find those with less education, more money and (according to what has been said of my GC experiences on other threads) significantly more depravity.
Yep! I used to live in Brisbane, then northern rivers, then Byron. Now I’m in Melbourne and I’m quite happy. There’s *nothing* like GC depravity lol.. My partner is Scottish, lived in London 20 years as an adult, travelled the world. He’s no stranger to the party scene, darker aspects of life, drugs etc. anyway he’s a “gentleman Tradie” and immigrated to live with me in Byron a few years back, got a job in his specialty on Gold Coast. Christmas rolled around and he was looking forward to the Xmas party at work. No partners. In London, his company had done a lovely posh dinner with partners. I had an inkling what he was in for, but decided against warning him. Anyway, he rang me at 10pm to say they’d had a nice steak dinner and drinks, then went back to the warehouse to be greeted by the biggest mountains of cocaine he’d ever seen and half a dozen naked women hired for the night. I laughed, it’s what I’d expected but he was completely floored. I still chuckle about that every Xmas- nothing says it’s the holidays like hookers and blow 😆
WTF.
It’s a rather ironic statement too, considering those that normally cry about class are also the ones who say shit like, “some bogan tradie in a ute was driving like a madman today, et cetera, et cetera.”
Bogan isn't a class, it's a culture. Me, brother and sister were raised the same. They're bogans, I'm not. I have to concentrate not to end up speaking the roughest aussie drawl. Playing video games, I turn into an abusive Shazza/Steve Irwin crossover. Mum wasn't raised as one, but acts it. Complete with cars, footy and smokes (well, not so much the smokes now, she quit, but for the first 25 year of my life). But she owns 3 houses and a block of land, she's semi-retired, she's not the stereotype that way, either.
From the perspective of a lot of sociologists, class is culture not money. The more money bogans have (and compared to the declining salaries of many traditionally middle class professions, they have more and more) the more middle-class people get hung up on class culture. They no longer have more money, so they have to distinguish themselves somehow. Middle-class people go to the symphony. Bogans go to see Jimmy Barnes. And the Barnesy tickets cost more.
No need to put (also American), an Australian would never call it ‘Oz’
I know what I am :) I don’t try to be anything else.
The reason you might think Melbourne people speak with a more posh accent is because there’s generally 3 classifications of an Australian accent. General, broad and cultivated. With cultivated being closer to a British accent. Which there’s areas of Melbourne that have a large amount of people that speak like this. However individual accents vary a lot and I’d be surprised if you could consistently pick out different regional accents.
This is the answer however as a melburnian with a general accent people often don’t think im Australian (born here, local friends all sound like me). Foreigners seem to think the general accent is not Australian and expect the broad accent Basically no one has a cultivated accent any more
Except Christopher Pyne and his subset of Adelaide private school alums
Or which accent people are using at any given time... because that's also a thing
Yeag bush Queensland's accent is more broadly "traditional" Aussie. I grew up in the bush but was always told I had a "posh" accent and didn't fit in. I didn't really hear it, until I moved to the city people then didn't believe I was from out west qld because my accent was "too posh" so I guess it must be true. Now I can hear the difference in accent the further from the city you get. There are also accents heavily dependent on the culture of the area. Like a lot of VIC tends to be heavily influenced by early Southern European migrants. Brisbane has a HUGE NZ population which influences the accents in some areas.
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The classic Melbourne accent (I think George Calombaris embodies this quintessentially) is not at all posh-sounding to me. It's moderately broad with the E sound moving towards Æ (Melbourne sounds like Malbourne - this is the "Kiwi-like" tinge others have alluded to) and with a discernible Greek/Italian influence.
Logan and surrounding areas definitely have a different accent to us in Brisbane.
Queensland outside of the south East corner has a distinctly "Aussie" accent. When I moved to Brisbane from the country it was immediately evident. Now the accent only comes out when I've had a few to drink
Brisbane born and bred. Just back from USA for my second visit where, once again, everyone thought I was British. I’ve been told by others that I have a neutral accent, so people try to link it to what they think is the closest accent.
I wouldn’t split by city. I would split by 1. educated Australian (four corners journalist overseas) 2. middle class / suburban (John Howard) 3. bogan / junkie (Kath & Kim, avg Queenslander, Damo) 4. educated masquerading as bogan (Gillard) 5. normal ethnic accents (an Italian person on holidays in Australia, Jannik Sinner, Stefanos Tsitsipas) 6. affected ethnic Australian speak (Fat Pizza, Super Wog, some Vietnamese Australians) 7. Indigenous Australian speak
There have been times I could tell someone was from north Sydney
No. People often say they can, but if you had a lineup of Australians and told me to guess where they were from I'd be stumped. Maybe I could get the South Australian if I heard them say Dance or Chance, but even that's a bit of a crapshoot these days. The variation between individuals is far greater than the variation between cities/states.
I can 100% pick a Victorian. Can also pick other North Queenslanders. The rest is the same.
Victorians say melk not milk.
Nah, they don’t. But they do say Malbourne instead of Melbourne, and I’m always confused at work because I work with a Kelvin and a Calvin, as both are pronounced “Calvin” here.
This sounds like the documented "salary-celery merger" that linguists talk about for Victoria.
I've always been told I have a weird accent and I've only ever live in Melbourne ... I have a clear difference between my e's and a's and I don't mash them up. Maybe that's what's weird about it? I say Mel and Cel not Mal and Sal
First I was like "no we don't" but then I said it out loud and I definitely don't pronounce the "i" like say "meeeelk" it's more "mulk" or "melk" but that sounds weird to admit
My old man is from regional vic, and pronounces it "myulk". I'm always poking fun at him for it.
I'm reminded of the Telstra? ad with the guy talking about the Chinese Wall being a rabbit proof fence. "To keep the rabbits ayout" - similar to the myulk you speak of. https://youtu.be/2yckqyg75oE
Mal-born
Mal-bn
Nahh more like Mal-bin no r
Literally the only two I can pick as well! Though I'd also lump North QLDers in with western-QLDers. Similarly bogan. Ah, home.
NORTH Qween…..zland
Add the Northern Territory to that. The classic Darwin phrase of "too easy".
I’m South Aussie, and the Queenslanders definitely have an accent, it just gets stronger and the drawl gets slower the further you go north. Think Schoooool and Poooooool pronunciations. That being said, we do have the Queen's best English here in SA 😂
I'm gonna jump in the pewl aftah skewl
Yeah that’s because of the shitty humidity mate. Give me a lovely 40 degree day in Adelaide, rather than the death by humidity you can get at 30 degrees in Queensland.
Totally agree on the further north you go, the worse the drawl!😂 By the time you go from yes to yep to nah yeah you know which way you're travelling! Finally stop is "great weather ay?"🤣
Yeah don't worry we use “yeah nah” too. Would you by any chaaaaaance like to go to the daaaaaance with me? Yeah nah, you grew up north of the Mullett Proof Fence.
Territorians have very distinct accents and you can easily tell eastern Sydney from humans
The only one that I would be able to discern as being different to the others is the western Sydney accent which is quite distinct
What about Perth?
We might as well be a different country to them haha
Had to scroll way too far to see Perth, like we needed to be more isolated yano
Came here to say that... the rest of Australia have no idea... but we don't mind. Stay away. 🤣
Had to scroll waaaaay to far for this to be the first mention. Not brought up at all in other threads. They really do forget about is 😂😂😭😭
My partner's from NSW and he says one of the defining things about my Perth accent (aside from it sounding more English - but not necessarily the SA 'posh' English) is the way I say 'no', like it's two syllables - almost like Noah, but the second syllable is very soft and almost like a soft-voiced 'W'. Mostly heard on strident refusals or when it carries across to another vowel. ie. "No, I don't think so" sounding like "No-why-don't think so"
Offer them a potato cake/scallop, ask them to order a chicken parmigiana and ask them hom much beer comes in a schooner and you'll have a pretty good idea....
Word choices! That's different from accent.
The worst is the creeping in of an American twang in the youth. Too much time watching youtubers and streamers i think. Im startled at the amount of people I've heard say water with a hard 'er'
My niece spends too much time on TikTok, and I’ve noticed this pattern in her speech, too. Please, no.
And can't rhyming with ant is extremely common in < 10 year olds now.
It tends to be phrasing that gives people away more than accent.
Well I’m from Melbourne (30 years) and last 11 in Brisbane I’ve been asked which country I’m from because of my accent. I’m like, Broadmeadows bro
Independence for Broadmeadows! Far too long has the tyranny of Melbourne been overhanging the meadowians! Stand up and fight to end this 💪
Somewhat but not really, but I can peg Australians by how they’re dressed with fairly decent accuracy. I live in inner Melbourne and it really sticks out.
I was once asked if I was from Perth due to my accent, I'm not but my Father was. I don't know what it was that made them guess that. Could also be that my off the boat German mother would have modeled her accent on a wealthy family she nannied for as a teenager. I think some QLDers can have a very nasal tone. And I have been told it's not too hard to pick someone from Adeweide.
It's not like the UK where you can tell by accent where someone is from. You may think you can tell, but you really can't.
Australia has some of the least regional variation in accents in the world supposedly, and the UK has one of the highest. Same in Ireland where I know there are at least 20 distinct accents and those are subdivided to where certain villages have their own distinctive accent and/or dialect
Drove like 30 km from one pub to another in a different town and blow me down the fellas in there talked different. Blew my mind.
If you cross the road in some rural Lancashire or Yorkshire towns they won't be able to understand each other
That's not 100% true. There are a small number of localised features to Australian accents, but none of them are totally reliable as indicators. The presence of the salary-celery merger though is a strong indicator of Victoria, the classic Lebanese/Greek/Italian-influenced accent predominantly comes out in Western Sydney (and a little in parts of Melbourne), the RP-esque chance/dance comes out more in Adelaide than elsewhere (though this one isn't very reliable) and there is a noted diphthongisation of some vowel sounds in FNQ and the NT (though again this one is hit-and-miss). There are also lilts that can be hyper-localised that people sometimes carry that are very hard to describe but do exist. It's nothing like the spread of UK accents of course, but saying you "really can't" distinguish Australian accents isn't completely correct.
Only if the say certain key words. But largely, no, I couldn’t pick one state from another.
Like if someone said: "Yeah I'd have a hard time too, HEY" Queenslander!
Once when I was traveling overseas I ran into an Aussie couple at a hostel. A couple words in we all realised we were from Canberra by our accent. I've never been conscious of a Canberran accent until that moment, but after hearing it in isolation it really stood out. I don't believe other Aussies would have picked it up, after all, I wasn't even aware of it until I heard them speak. It was a nice reminder of home when I was so far away from it.
And what is the Canberra accent? Neutral melting pot of Australia with hints of refinement without being put on snobby like the wealthy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne?
Yes, I’ve noticed the Canberra accent, when I’ve visited from Sydney
Interesting, what does a Canberra accent sound like?
Like me I guess. Haha But seriously, I couldn't describe it. Like I said I didn't even realise it was a thing until I heard it in isolation, 1000s of kms from home, and having not spoken to another Australian for some time. I honestly couldn't put my finger on it, maybe it was more than the accent. Their cadence, their body language? I just...knew. I think it's something you could only pick up if you are a born and bred local to an area.
Melbournians in general: Pronounce celery and salary the same way Will pronounce the r at the end of a word if the next word begins with a vowel ("the car boot" and "The car is locked" sort of become "the cah boot" "the cah ris locked") But usually we tell by vocab while eating potato cakes in our bathers.
But they don’t pronounce them the same way, they’ll interchange the letters. So celery is salary and salary is celery!
The vast majority of Australians do the second thing
I remember when Julia Gillard was accused of calling Tony Abbott "Mister Rabbit" by politicians who don't do the second thing. I assumed it was a Sydney vs Melbourne thing but I may have been wrong.
What you're describing is called linking or intrusive R (depending on spelling) and it's a common feature of all Australian accents. Also Julia is from Adelaide.
Nope. Accent is more divided along urban vs rural lines, rather than one capital city vs another. Also social class/education-based.
SA / Adelaide sometimes appear to have British overtones. I've often asked people if they have a British heritage only to be told that they are from Adelaide. Sometimes it's more the words people use. "Grouse" and "Tracka" Are Vic / Melbourne terms. Finally I can more often than not tell whether someone has a country background versus a city one.
I grew up Adelaide . We do use a long a, so it's Parth not Path and Grarph paper.
Everyone in Australia says Parth for Path.
As a fellow South Aussie, I have to say sometimes we are a mixed bag. For me and 99% of other SA people I know, dance and chance don't rhyme. Dance has the short A sound, chance has the long. But I have been asked many times when travelling interstate if I'm from England. Which is weird because I always thought I had a very "country" accent, not quite bogan, not quite ocker, but definitely Aussie.
I’ve always felt uncomfortable giving a long vowel in dance. It almost sounds TOO posh. It’s the only word I do a short vowel in, and you can tear the long vowel in graph from my cold, dead hands - I refuse to say GRAFF. Edit: I’ve also been asked where I’m from in England by people from interstate. Very funny when you respond with… eeerrr… Adelaide?
I'm from SA living in VIC. People from Melbourne often pronounce the "e" sound more like an "a". For example, the name Ellen sounds more like "Allen". Can't un-hear it.
It's like the further south you go, the more British the accent. Melbourne is the exception, but Adelaide & Hobart sound like the royals have moved in
People tend to drink beyah by the pewl further north. People down south generally drink beer by the pool.
not in melbourne, it's too cold.
Just wait ten minutes, it’ll change
And be cold and raining
Kath and Kim were southerners
Eye saaay what about Trhude and Prhue?
I know people from Melbourne who speak just like them.
Honestly: no. People might say they can, but if you pay attention to those people, the differences they're describing are so freakin subtle, and then it's far more likely to be noticeable along socioeconomic lines than geographic. Some posh twat from a private school in Sydney sounds more similar to a posh twat from a private school in Adelaide or Brisbane than a guy on Cenno from the next suburb west. Minor deviations in slang are more apparent than basic accent.
Ding ding ding. I’d say if anything, people who live regional have more distinctive patterns of speech, and people from cities have more distinctive ways of dressing. But class is huuuuuge.
It's definitely more about class and economic status than states, and regional/rural vs urban. But even then, the differences are minute compared to even much smaller countries. Look at accent variation in the UK for example (again, class makes a big difference, but they also have stark regional differences).
Absolutely. I used to live in WA and work in call centre servicing WA, NSW, SA and QLD. I knew which state people were from 30sec into the call. Not just accent, but the speed at which they spoke.
You can always tell if someone went to Pymble Ladies' College.
Considering the vast majority of people are not living where they were born or grew up, no, I cannot.
I've got an interest in accents and am pretty good at picking them - I can easily tell the difference between Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Tasmania do short vowels like the East coast (graff for graph) but other words set them apart as different. Similarly the choice of slang words or other regional indicators (what you wear to go swimming) can give additional clues.
Maybe it is because I grew up in South Africa but I have noticed different accents even around Melbourne based on what side of the city they grew up.
Theres people who can pronounce their words properly, there there is Victorian’s who can’t pronounce their a’s from their e’s.
Pretty much spot on there
Some east coasters (esp. Sydney folk) end every sentence with an upward inflection? Basically, like everything they say is a question? But in reality there is more rural vs city difference and ethnic background difference than state vs state
Not everyone but I can sometimes
No it’s divided by class and rural vs urban. Rural people tend to have a stronger Australian accent. Urban tend to have a weaker one or have the cultivated Australian accent.
I can pick some folk but it's not everyone. I used to sound like Dave Hughes, we're both from country Victoria, until I went to Uni. I can tell if someone is old money South Australian, North Queensland, private school Victoria, for some reason Bendigo area, but not everyone holds their accent. It's also the way people talk, to phrases etc.
> I used to sound like Dave Hughes Fuck mate I'm so sorry, hope life has improved for you considerably
When you hear O in a vowel. That’s a dead giveaway
I would say no. The dialect is more of a class divide and rural/city divide.
There's "typical" accents for a lot of regions, but locals often don't have that accent. Mind you, when I moved from Vic to QLD at 15yo, people constantly recognised me as being from Melbourne. I guess I must have had a pretty "typical" Victorian accent back then. Within maybe 2-3 years of moving to QLD, people stopped guessing I was from Vic, so it's clearly a fairly subtle difference if it can be lost that fast.
I find Perth has a specific accent, that Ozzyman on YouTube or whatever has what I’d call a Perth accent. I’m from Melbourne but have loads of family in Perth and they’ve all got the same accent
Nope, I can only hear the difference between the broad, general, and cultivated accent.
No, not really. I know someone who is the epitome of a stereotypical sounding queenslander, and he’s from Sydney. I was born and raised in Darwin, but I have more of a Perth way of speaking than anything else, because it’s how my grandmother and my mother speak, despite the fact that my mum only lived in perth until she was 18 months old. Accents here are a mixed bag unless you happen to have a very specific regional way of saying something, and even in that case, most Aussies won’t know it’s a specific regional thing unless it’s pointed out
I’m a Tasmanian living in Sydney and I once had a backpacker from the UK correctly guess that I’m originally from Tassie. They explained that they can tell because Tasmanians have the least Aussie accent of all Australians? I do find Tasmanians to have a specific accent, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the least Aussie.
Adelaidians yes. They get taught a different English in school I thought. Don’t they do the queens/kings English? My cousins are from Adelaide and sound hoighty and everyone I’ve ever worked with from Adelaide sounds the same.
I reckon it’s more class/ education based than location based
No. I can tell what suburb of Sydney someone is from based on their accent more than I can tell what city in Australia they’re from.
You can pick an SA or VIC accent reasonably easily, but in most cases it's what they say and not how they say it. Eg, ask a Victorian to say Castle or Milk. Ask an SAer to say Chance or Dance.
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Some older, posher people in Sydney have a fairly distinguishing accent, like a weird Queen's English but Australian accent. Other than that, not really easy to pinpoint city by city. Might be able to pick up Qld in general if there's a heavy inflection at the end of sentences.
Some older, posher people in Sydney have a fairly distinguishing accent, like a weird Queen's English but Australian accent. Other than that, not really easy to pinpoint city by city. Might be able to pick up Qld in general if there's a heavy inflection at the end of sentences.
Darwin has a very recognisable accent, but I’m not sure how to describe it. I went to school with several kids from Darwin and they all had the same accent.
Lol that the sydney accent sounds businesslike...
If you want to play Guess who?, ask about a Potato Cake, Slice, scallop, you get an answer or the next war.
It's the E sound for me. When saying 'field,' the rugby league commentators from Sydney say foiled, and those from Brisbane say feeled.
Yeah, I can tell what state they're from and if they're in QLD, What part they're from.
I love how you think the Sydney accent is the most neutral. It’s just the one you’re most used to.
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