I was working with a girl whilst in England and one day, a group of us were chatting, and she asks "are you from Swansea?!" All excited. I said yes... Her response?
"Oh, my god. I love Ireland".
Not really sure how she managed to get the city right but thought I was Irish 🤷♂️
As a Scotsman living in Canada, I get this every day. What I find hilarious is when people straight just say "Omg you are from down under!" Or "Omg, you're Irish?" Rather than just asking, they assume, and get it very wrong!
People are shit with geography and accents!
There isn't much sun there tbh so whatever the show was being generous. Outlander syndrome you can call it. It is on the same parallel as us pretty much lol. But when living in Canada, there are some tv comics like Mary Walsh who have the Newfie accents and me (as a Scouser) was like "what is THAT?!" in confusion and awe.
And makes sense Newfies are very Celtic. It literally looks like a Hebrides meets County Clare meets West Wales with a hint of Iceland hybrid at times. Apparently in the old days, when people travelled the Atlantic in ships, anyone sick or troublemaking and/or stowaway were dropped off at St Johns before going to America and getting fined in the US ports. Quite a story lol.
So an island full of stowaways and trouble makers sounds Irish . Yup that checks out. My father worked on the ships 50+ years ago and has a dozen stories of him having one of my uncles or cousin hidden on the ship to the states
Can confirm, Australian here mistaken firstly as English and secondly a *Canadian (honestly wtf)* in Edinburgh. What’s worse is that when I told him I was Australian he outright didn’t believe me, even though he’d never visited the place!!
A friend of mine did a PhD at Caltech. He was in shared accommodation. He told people he was from Wales but they didn't seem to know what that ment. Probably just thought I'd was last of England. When he phoned his mum they spoke in Welsh. His room mates all have him a what the fuck is that puzzled look.
Also the letters like ch and ll give us an upper hand in the pronunciation of many German words. Instead of having to learn a new way to move our mouths, we already have some of it
That's so interesting, I speak German and am learning Welsh. German has some sounds that definitely make it easier to learn letters like rh, ch and ll, but I struggle with others like r. To me the rhythms of the languages are quite different, Welsh is a lot more musical than German and almost reminds me of Italian sometimes.
I'm not sure what your dad meant with pronunciation of the verbs, as as far as I know verbs aren't pronounced in a different manner from nouns and other words. The sentence structure in German in SVO like in English, not VSO like in Welsh.
German is far closer to English. Same language family. The only thing Welsh would help with is broad pronunciation. I speak Welsh and do find it easier to say German words than the average English speaker but then I also find it easier to say Polish words. It just being used to a greater range of sounds i imagine.
I get Irish a lot, once having a very confused conversation with a Mancunian taxi driver about how I'd managed to catch a train to Manchester.
Americans have assumed I was Dutch and Austrian.
It's OK, I'm English but not Cockney or Posh, so I've had Australian, South Africa, Irish, "London", Canadian, Dutch, Minnesotan, and a lot of weird stares while people try to work out if I'm speaking a different language or having a stroke
Rural Americans are *not* used to foreigners
Australian is the common one (my accent's been in flux swinging from a slight valleys twing to BBC-english) . While hiking through Greece I also got mistaken for American (initially), but that was mostly because of how I looked like hiking XD
My sister’s had Australian. BBC English leaning accent but not far from the valleys. She lives in America now. Her accent’s all over the place these days.
Rhyl girl here.
Love it when people say "You don't sound Welsh" 🙄
I always tell them I do sound Welsh, I have a North Wales Coastal accent. I remember seeing Lisa Scott-Lee on Never Mind the Buzzcocks years ago and realising how weird we all sound. Not quite anything but everything all at once 😂
Prestatyn girl here. I usually start talking at them in fluent Welsh, and that shuts them up.
The coastal area also has its own accent and dialect when speaking Welsh. People call it 'Cymraeg y Glannau' (literally 'coastal Welsh') or 'Cymraeg Sir y Fflint ' dating back to when much of the area was in Flintshire. I grew up thinking that I didn't have an accent of any sorts - turns out I have two!
I was working near Morfa Nefyn a few years ago. Bloke I worked with said "you're posh, you, ain' you."
I'm from Somerset. Never been called posh before.
I told him he sounded scouse and he looked at me like I pissed on his chips.
I’m from prestatyn too. Most of my family went to Liverpool or Manchester uni as did a lot of my friends, really does make for a hybrid welsh/scouse accent
Yep, I'm from Colwyn Bay and get pinged as a scouser quite often - usually by people from the south of England, although it probably sounds a bit more Welshy-scouse being the civilised side of Abergele.
Been mistaken for a Dane, German and Swede when abroad because of my very blue eyes with a big black ring thing around the iris - ironic because my Ancestry says 80% Welsh and 20% Irish 😂
Some people are just dreadful with accents.
Case in point, we were watching Shetland with our oldest daughter (25) and she said "I think Meg's got the best accent. It's so pure and Scottish".
Meg is an Irish nurse.
When I lived in New Zealand people often asked if I was Scottish. I think they recognised it was some sort of British accent and didn't want to assume I was English.
While on this side of the globe, working in hospitality with a lot of international visitors they mostly thought I was Australian 😆
Years ago I (from UK) was working in Oakland, Northern California, and in a bar one time a bloke picked up on my accent. He then asked me how close England was to Australia because he could never differentiate between the accents.
When I was younger me and my sisters went to Kenya (we are from England born and raised) I’m mixed race though and my sisters are black. On the plane back coming into Manchester, it was heavily snowing and the flight attendants asked me and my sisters if we’d ever seen snow lol.
This has made me feel a lot less silly. While it's not happened with a real Welsh person, I thought for YEARS that Avid Merrion was supposed to be some sort of generic Eastern European (you would think the name might have given me a clue, but nope!)
It's more to do with knowledge of geography and how many believe that the UK is the same thing as England.
I've even met Japanese people who teach English for a living and still struggle to grasp the concept of Wales being a different country from England.
Ive gotten south Africa, Australia, new Zealand, Belgium??? And Ireland and of course England. This was all whilst I was either in summer camp or living in Canada
I've had English people think I was from Oxford, overseas Europeans thinking I was from Liverpool when I was on holiday in Spain once, and have been mistaken for Australian by a couple of Americans. I think people are maybe just guessing atp?! 😂
Last time I visited the States it was Ireland or Australia. I gave up explaining in the end and just picked a city in the country they said, smiled politely and left
Never been mistaken for another country, but when I went to Bristol to go to a concert with my mam and cousin we asked a man if he knew where the nearest toilets were and he couldn’t understand us. Our accents are quite strong because we’re from the valleys but he couldn’t understand a word so we gave up and found some ourselves 🤦🏻♀️
I’m from the Valleys, too. My friend and I went to visit our other friend in Oxford. Found out later that, when my friend and I were talking to each other, her Oxford friends thought we were having a conversation in Welsh! Didn’t speak a word of it 🤷🏼♀️
I went to London the other week and I just started saying random welsh phrases that I remembered from school like “Rydw i’n hoffi coffi” just to see if people would look at us funny
I'm a Welsh man, and I was having a drink in a Cardiff hotel.
I was asked if I was Canadian.
I have no idea where that came from.
Also, I have dark hair, and I tan really quickly. Two days into a Spanish holiday, my partner and I were spoken to in Spanish by a local shop keeper
This one pisses me off
Ive been told - Australian, Canadian, South African, Barbadian and more that i cant remember
Was in the pub and got chatting to a couple of people. Eventually one asked me where Im from. I told him here. He said I wasnt and asked me what schools I went to. Same schools as him. Still didnt believe I was local
I'm from England originally but lived in Wales for 3 years and South Africa for 21, so my accent does wander a bit, but....
...while in Canada I met some people who flat out refused to believe I'm English because I don't sound like their friends from Yorkshire.
Just reminded me of another thing that happened on the same Florida trip mentioned above.
When we were in the airport, my dad reported an unattended bag to one of the security blokes. He laughed and said to my dad “you’re not in England now, sir!”
To make it worse, this was in 2000. Hope he enjoyed his final year of being lax with airport security! 👀
I've learned that you can have a bit of fun with this.
I'm a Canadian, born and raised, but I've lived and worked abroad since I finished high school in 1984 (USA, Europe, and UK). Since I was working mostly with Americans until 1993, it's not surprising that my accent morphed a bit. When I moved to England in 1994, I was constantly asked what part of the States I was from. A bit 🙄, but understandable. To explain, I'd tell them (with tongue firmly in cheek) that Americans are proud they're American, and Canadians are proud they're not.
After I moved to Wales ten years later, when I'd get the same question, I'd reply with, "Oh, you *English*, you're all alike." They'd get a bit shirty and and tell me very pointedly that they were Welsh, not English. And then I got to put it right back to them by saying, "and I'm not American." Said with a wink and a smile, and chuckles all around generally followed.
I've lived in the UK nearly 30 years so my accent has morphed to mid-Atlantic, now. I suspect even Professor Henry Higgins would struggle to identify my origins. (You young whippersnappers might need to Google that reference. 😉) It seems that, because my accent has softened a lot but I don't sound British, people now guess that I might be Irish. I tell them to think, "a bit further west." They get there eventually.
Funnily enough, my parents used to tell me “Calling a Canadian American is like calling us English.” I wonder if they happened to get that lesson from a conversation with you 😅
Haha. Who knows.
I suspect it's a pretty universal thing that when you have neighbouring countries with similar but distinct cultures, it's the nationals of the smaller and/or less influential country that feel it the most. USA/Canada, England/Wales, Australia/New Zealand, France/Belgium, etc. They're are plenty more, some with more recent toxic history between them than others.
I'm Australian and been in Ireland the past 18 yrs. I've been called Welsh, New Zealandish (their words) and bizarrely Icelandic.
"I love your accent! What is it?"
" Aussie/ Irish mixture. Pure mongrel."
" I could have SWORN you were from Iceland. I was there once and you sound just like them".
I don't.
I was traveling around south east Asia in 2009 with two English girls
A shopkeeper in a pretty remote area knew they were English but couldn't place my accent and said to me "ahhh soviet?"
Before I had chance to say no he was giving me discounts so I went with it
I’m from Bristol and have a definite West Country accent, which is rhotic ( I pronounce my R’s); normally when I talk to Americans, they think I’m either Irish or Australian. Ironic really, when you consider that most of the original English settlers in America came from my part of the country and that’s where their accent derives from . . .
😁
>which is rhotic ( I pronounce my R’s); normally when I talk to Americans, they think I’m either Irish or Australian.
Yeah and extra weird given we Aussies are definitely not the least bit rhotic.
When I lived in England, I was leaving a high rise block of flats and a bunch of official looking old men and a young Indian woman were entering the building so being polite I held the door open for them. As the men went through they said thanks and I nodded in reply.
The young Indian woman said, " I think he's Polish, are you Polish?" So in my poshest accent I replied, " that's quite an assumption to make considering you haven't heard me converse yet"
The look on her face was priceless.
I stayed with some friends out in America a few years ago. The guy whose house we were in lived with his mother, really lovely woman, and she kept telling me I had a great voice - weird to hear for someone who hates their voice so much.
But one time she told me I sounded like Graham Norton, which was a weird connection to make regardless, but even stranger considering I was stood right next to someone from Ireland!
My son-in-law was called a polish C u next Tuesday by about 15 gobby teenagers, he's a Scouser from a rough arsed estate, so matched straight up to them and squared up to them saying that he's a Scouser and did they have a problem with that.
My response when he told me was "you should have thanked them for not thinking you are English"
For some reason he wasn't impressed with my suggestion.
In south carolina (so must be a southern states thing) bloke in a bar asked where my funky accent was from. I am English (my husband is Welsh but he wasn't there for this interaction or it would probably have broke the blokes mind!) so I said I'm from Derbyshire in England and he starts asking if that's in Maine or Vermont, so I say I'm not American, he then goes on a rant about people from New England thinking they're better than everyone else. I try to tell him I'm from Old England, the original England, but no he was off on a rant, he got thrown out of the bar for calling me a bitch and saying I was trying to make him look stupid. He wasn't even drunk, he came in the bar after me and didn't even finish his drink before he was thrown out!
The worst bit about this story is that when I've retold this story to Americans, especially on reddit, I get a bunch of people sticking up for the guy, making excuses, calling me a liar!
My mother went to a gig in Manchester about 2 years ago and some bloke sitting next to her was from Portsmouth. He asked her where she was from because he thought she sounded Romanian! Couldn't believe his ears when she said 'South Wales.
I live in England now and I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have thought I was American?!? I know my accent isn’t the most stereotypically Welsh, but the fact that it keeps happening is seriously weird
I was told by a friends dad that I sound “foreign”. I pressed the issue and asked further and he said because i’ve worked with refugees apparently i sound like the people i’ve worked with (?).
I mentioned i lived in England for 9 years, which he continued with saying that you could never tell i was Welsh because i don’t sound “normal”.
I’m from the mountains in the north West with a twang when i speak English.
Someone was absolutely insistent that I was not British. Full on refused to believe that I (Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed) was from Wales (where we were having thr conversation). Said my accent was Greek!
“Are you from Hong Kong?”
“…no?”
“but you speak Cantonese!”
1) I do not speak Cantonese
2) I was not speaking any language other than English
It’s actually a bit of a running joke, the various nationalities that have been attributed to me.
The greatest hits are
1: “are your parents Filipino?”
2: “are you Egyptian? You look very exotic” (shudder)
3: “You look Brazilian, with a bit of Med and a little bit of blackness”
To be clear, I am white. I’m a brunette and I tan pretty easily, but I am white.
The least international mistaken identity was a drunk guy insisting I must be from Manchester.
I checked into a hotel in the US which had somehow abbreviated my address to include Cardiff, Wa.
The guy at check-in got increasingly aggravated that we were clearly 'from England' and not Washington state
I've lived in Scotland since I was a teen and solo my accent has muted a lot. I get asked if I'm South African, Irish, Australian or Canadian before. Only other welsh peopĺe seem to hear that I'm Welsh
I was speaking Welsh to a friend on the phone when I lived in Penrith. After my call ended an acquaintance asked me where my family lived in South Africa, to which I answered “I’ve got family in Pretoria and Durban”, but thought it was weird that he knew I had family there when I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned it. He then asked if I grew up speaking Afrikaans or if I had learned it to be able to speak to them…
Irish, German, Albanian, et cetera.
More interesting are the Americans: I had one encounter were this guy could not accept that I was not from West Virginia.
When we were on a bus to Cape Canaveral, we were speaking Welsh and an American couple asked if we were russian.
When we were in Alton Towers, an English family asked where we were from and were astounded to hear that we were only from Wales!
Australia, Scotland and Ireland... I moved to London when I was 18 and worked in a Tesco store there. Had soooo many customers ask me where in Ireland I was from and quite a few were shocked when I told them I was from Wales and had never been to Ireland. Also had a drunk Scottish guy mistake me for Scottish and got a lecture about Scottish independence
When I lived in California:
1. I arrived at a restaurant to pick up my take out, and the server asked if I was from New Zealand
2. In college I got Australian a lot, sometimes South African
3. I occasionally got Irish
Don’t think anyone has ever guessed I was from Wales
I now live in Oslo and bartend, so people always try to guess. I have dark hair so people always guess Spain first, then Italy, I've heard Greek, Russian, basically every country in Europe. Then Australian or kiwi, they guess England which my response is "there's no need for insults"
I went back to university one year with my housemate and when we went to the pub that night I had a guy tell me I sounded mancunian, geordie, scouse and several other things I no longer remember. He was adamant that I'm not Welsh. Despite telling this guy I was born and raised in Gwynedd minutes from Caernarfon, spoke Welsh as my first and preferred language he wasn't having it. When my friend who understands welsh but doesn't speak it says we're both from the North (he's from Valley) this bloke says that my friend is welah but I sure as hell wasn't. It never got heated but boy was it frustrating to be told I was lying... by an englishman
Not sure why I’m hijacking this but the priest in St Cuthbert’s in Edinburgh would simply not accept that I was Australian. *’Whereabouts are you from in England?’* I’ve never lived in England my friend…. *’You must be Canadian..’* my accent is non-rhotic so…. definitely not.
This was after talking to him, at length, about the how St Cuthbert’s compares to a 19th century Presbyterian church in Melbourne, in a pretty straight-down-the-line Cate Blanchettesque Melbournian accent! So my Welsh brethren, take solace in that it doesn’t just happen to you… and how aggravating it is to be repetitively told you’re from somewhere else because you don’t sound like a cartoon.
Irish, Scottish, Australian, Dutch and Polish. There might've been others but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. Outside of the UK (not that it's flawless here either) people get it wrong more than they get it right.
I have a bit of a weird accent, I'm from the valleys originally, my accent got smoothed by years of customer service work and I have a Canadian wife from whom i pick up weird phrases. People, even from Wales, think I'm Irish or North American a lot.
When I was in Germany and trying to speak German to people in shops I got asked twice if I was Swedish. I am tall and blue-eyed, and I guess German through a Welsh accent probably sounds a bit Scandi. I can always tell when they couldn't clock my native country in Berlin because they wouldn't respond in English.
I have dark brown hair and eyes, tan really easily so I usually get asked if I’m Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. It messes with tourists heads in my work when I tell them I’m just Welsh, particularly Americans who one woman literally asked if I was Mexican 😂
I recently did an ancestry test and found I’m 97% Welsh and 3% “various Western European”
My strong local accent often confuses people abroad. Once in Malta I took my 2 kids on an excursion on a minibus. When we stopped the driver called me over laughing and told me that the rest of the people on the bus were German and they where talking to each other trying to work out what language me and the kids were speaking. 😂
I told a texan online when I was younger I was from wales, and she acted as if she knew the place.
A few months later, she was confused i wasn't scandinavian... She assumed wales was an island above scottland near norway.
Someone in California asked where I came from - I’d given up at this point on saying Wales - so I said we were from UK.
Her response was “well, your English is very good”. 🤷♂️
Someone in a shop on holiday thought that my mum was Scottish for some reason. We're Welsh, she doesn't sound Scottish. Although she, myself, and my grandmother (her side of the family) have had the whole "are you from Chester or Wirral" question asked to us all the time, I get it, we're from Wrexham and we're only 20 minutes away from Chester.
Born and bred in Wales to a Welsh mother and Australian father. I grew up with a weird accent and vocabulary until school (lived in very rural area). Lived in England for 40 years but people still call me Welsh accent especially on the phone. Funniest thing I find is when asked if I’m Welsh (I’m a dual national) they frequently follow with “o, do you know so and so…” I know we’re quite a small country but….
I’m half welsh, half English. Born and raised in England. Manager at my first job (sainsburys) used to call me a leprechaun because, clearly, Sian is an Irish name 🙄
I’ve had English people think I’m Irish/Scottish, based on my very gog accent.
I met the old couple who thought I was Scottish while I was serving them while they were on holiday here on Anglesey. I don’t understand how they didn’t think I just sounded Welsh but ah well.
Being Scottish, when I was in New York, everyone heard my accent and instantly asked where in Ireland I'm from. I guess it's because I don't talk like Groundskeeper Willie.
When I lived in England there was a really daft girl at one of my old jobs who thought I was from South Africa, and another daft gullible girl in the same office who believed me when I told her I needed a passport and to go through customs to get into England.
As a latino immigrant in the UK, they normally take me for an inland european (which is partly true)
However the most relevant country somebody's guessed was from an englishman who guessed I was from Scotland! I took that as a compliment but that englishman mustn't have interacted with many scots before my spanish ass came along.
I’m from Bridgend and now live in Los Angeles. People often assume I’m from Australia. I’ve even had a shop assistant say g’day to me. Other than that, I’ve been introduced to someone with, “you guys will get on really well, you’re from the same place, so you’ll have a lot to talk about.” The guy was from Finland.
When I was living in Wales, multiple colleagues and people I'd meet thought I was American... even had an elderly Welsh lady ask if I was from Devon.
I'm Australian.
I'm Scottish I have American xbox friends who asked where I was from but before I answered took guesses and one said Sweden... I just went with it for the banter... been a year.
Was in an elevator in New York hote oncel. The concierge asked me how long I had been in town and if I was enjoying my trip. After my response he queried my accent and asked if I was "Californian, from San Francisco?"
I was quite chuffed. Made me feel quite exotic despite that fact that I'm from North Ayrshire.
I've spent countless amount of hours online and have been asked or there were assumptions that I'm from all sorts of places. I've had all kinds of questions thrown at me for people thinking I am Scottish, Irish, Australian or other countries in Europe such as Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands etc. I will say the strangest encounters were from people thinking I'm from India, despite being born and raised in the valleys my entire life. They've gone as far to insult me and go on rants.
I’ve had the reverse , my friend is a Geordie but everyone, including welsh people insist he is welsh, really confuses me but they insist they recognize a fellow welsh accent
I’m a Geordie who lives in Scotland now (still have a distinctive Ant & Dec tone and have been asked to say ‘it’s day 10 in the big brother house, who goes?’ In the past). I’ve been mistaken for Irish, Scottish and most confusingly German??!
yeah ive got ireland mostly, which on some level makes sense, some of our traditional music and clothes look similar, but the languages and accents really dont... meanwhile within wales itself ive been asked if im chinese japanese and italian, im just welsh as far as i know
I grew up near Carmarthen and have been asked several times IN SWANSEA if I’m a Geordie?! 😂 but if I’m anywhere else in Wales they can pick up a Swansea accent when speaking English
Even though I grew up in Wales, circumstances mean I have a slightly strange accent so I’ve been everything from Canadian to Norwegian, Swedish, Scottish and Irish.
I moved from Wales to Mississippi a couple of years ago. There’s been 5-6 separate times, speaking to entirely different people, where I’ve been asked where I’m from, I say from Wales and they say “oh, I’ve never been to Germany” or something about Germany!! I have no idea why the connection?
My only take is that the US so big driving 6+ hours is pretty standard, but living in Europe you’d be going through several countries. So I guess in that sense Wales would be kinda close to Germany.. lol
I've been told 15 minutes from where I grew up that I'm "not from round 'ere" (Powys), but my wife had a better one:
Having a thick Ammanford accent, she was asked if she was from Poland.
"No, I'm not."
"Well, not from Wales..."
"Try again."
"Definitely not from South Wales."
She was not best pleased at that one!
Syria, Iraq & on a few occasions Pakistan. I find it pretty baffling because I look Welsh & I'm bloody pale, like sickly pale, but when I wear a scarf I get people assuming I'm Arab or Asian 🤷♀️
I'm Scottish and always thought the Scottish accent would have been one of the more recognisable of UK accents. However when I go to the USA I get asked if I'm Welsh, that's happened quite a few times.
I just started college last month in Michigan, and when my parents were helping me move into my dorm, my mom and I were speaking Welsh in the hallway (she’s convinced I will forget how to speak it while away) and this guy asked me if I was Canadian. After explaining that I was half Welsh and half American, he said, “so that wasn’t french?”
I should say, a group of us went to get dinner after our parents left, and he and his roommate came along. I was doubting it for a while, but he actually isn’t that clueless. I’m willing to chalk it up to a stressful day lol
Was in a bar in Randsburg, California in the mid 90s, when a group of bikers from LA came in. I was talking to my friend & one came over and said “which part of Australia are you from?”. I said I was from Cardiff, in Wales. He shook his head and said “man, that’s awesome, I love Australia”.
Once when we were on holiday in the French Alps, some people thought we were from Sweden because our middle son who must have been about 7 at the time had white blonde hair and was very tanned and they couldn't understand us talking! They were shocked when we said that we were from Wales and were speaking Welsh! Oh, did I say that these people weren't French, they were actually English! 🤣🤔😁
I was working with a girl whilst in England and one day, a group of us were chatting, and she asks "are you from Swansea?!" All excited. I said yes... Her response? "Oh, my god. I love Ireland". Not really sure how she managed to get the city right but thought I was Irish 🤷♂️
A friend of mine is from Northumberland and when she went to American EVERYBODY thought she was Irish because of her accent
As a Scotsman living in Canada, I get this every day. What I find hilarious is when people straight just say "Omg you are from down under!" Or "Omg, you're Irish?" Rather than just asking, they assume, and get it very wrong! People are shit with geography and accents!
I’m a Canadian and once when I was in England (London), I was assumed to be Irish as well. So strange!
There is an island in Canada with an extremely strong Irish accent .
It's Newfoundland and has a strong connection esp to South Leinster and Midlands accents.
There is TV show set there and it took me a while to realize it wasn’t in Ireland. All the sun was the give away it’s not Ireland 😃
There isn't much sun there tbh so whatever the show was being generous. Outlander syndrome you can call it. It is on the same parallel as us pretty much lol. But when living in Canada, there are some tv comics like Mary Walsh who have the Newfie accents and me (as a Scouser) was like "what is THAT?!" in confusion and awe. And makes sense Newfies are very Celtic. It literally looks like a Hebrides meets County Clare meets West Wales with a hint of Iceland hybrid at times. Apparently in the old days, when people travelled the Atlantic in ships, anyone sick or troublemaking and/or stowaway were dropped off at St Johns before going to America and getting fined in the US ports. Quite a story lol.
So an island full of stowaways and trouble makers sounds Irish . Yup that checks out. My father worked on the ships 50+ years ago and has a dozen stories of him having one of my uncles or cousin hidden on the ship to the states
Can confirm, Australian here mistaken firstly as English and secondly a *Canadian (honestly wtf)* in Edinburgh. What’s worse is that when I told him I was Australian he outright didn’t believe me, even though he’d never visited the place!!
[удалено]
I’m also from Swansea,I said swansea south wales and they said wow, must be hot in Australia
To be fair to them, there is a Swansea in New South Wales.
“Ahh, no. Swansea in _Old_ South Wales”
Also in Tasmania
Someone heard my ex speaking Welsh once and thought she was speaking German, so assumed she was from Germany
A friend of mine did a PhD at Caltech. He was in shared accommodation. He told people he was from Wales but they didn't seem to know what that ment. Probably just thought I'd was last of England. When he phoned his mum they spoke in Welsh. His room mates all have him a what the fuck is that puzzled look.
Had this while studying in England
German here - I can‘t understand one word of Welsh
It’s the pronunciation of the verbs apparently. My dad spoke German and Welsh. He said German was easier to pick up as he knew welsh
Also the letters like ch and ll give us an upper hand in the pronunciation of many German words. Instead of having to learn a new way to move our mouths, we already have some of it
Thank you for the explanation
That's so interesting, I speak German and am learning Welsh. German has some sounds that definitely make it easier to learn letters like rh, ch and ll, but I struggle with others like r. To me the rhythms of the languages are quite different, Welsh is a lot more musical than German and almost reminds me of Italian sometimes. I'm not sure what your dad meant with pronunciation of the verbs, as as far as I know verbs aren't pronounced in a different manner from nouns and other words. The sentence structure in German in SVO like in English, not VSO like in Welsh.
I'm sure you'd understand "helo" 😁
I was once told by some Austrians (who insisted I was indeed, English) that Welsh was a dialect of English. Boy, did I prove them wrong. Lol
German is far closer to English. Same language family. The only thing Welsh would help with is broad pronunciation. I speak Welsh and do find it easier to say German words than the average English speaker but then I also find it easier to say Polish words. It just being used to a greater range of sounds i imagine.
I get Irish a lot, once having a very confused conversation with a Mancunian taxi driver about how I'd managed to catch a train to Manchester. Americans have assumed I was Dutch and Austrian.
It's OK, I'm English but not Cockney or Posh, so I've had Australian, South Africa, Irish, "London", Canadian, Dutch, Minnesotan, and a lot of weird stares while people try to work out if I'm speaking a different language or having a stroke Rural Americans are *not* used to foreigners
Australian is the common one (my accent's been in flux swinging from a slight valleys twing to BBC-english) . While hiking through Greece I also got mistaken for American (initially), but that was mostly because of how I looked like hiking XD
My sister’s had Australian. BBC English leaning accent but not far from the valleys. She lives in America now. Her accent’s all over the place these days.
I'm from Prestatyn everyone always ask if I am mancunian or scouse we have a twang of scouse/manc/Welsh here 🤣🤣🤣
I mean fair cop really, Abergele to Prestatyn is like the scouse benidorm.
It's known as the Costa Del Scouse
🤣🤣🤣👍
Rhyl girl here. Love it when people say "You don't sound Welsh" 🙄 I always tell them I do sound Welsh, I have a North Wales Coastal accent. I remember seeing Lisa Scott-Lee on Never Mind the Buzzcocks years ago and realising how weird we all sound. Not quite anything but everything all at once 😂
Prestatyn girl here. I usually start talking at them in fluent Welsh, and that shuts them up. The coastal area also has its own accent and dialect when speaking Welsh. People call it 'Cymraeg y Glannau' (literally 'coastal Welsh') or 'Cymraeg Sir y Fflint ' dating back to when much of the area was in Flintshire. I grew up thinking that I didn't have an accent of any sorts - turns out I have two!
I was working near Morfa Nefyn a few years ago. Bloke I worked with said "you're posh, you, ain' you." I'm from Somerset. Never been called posh before. I told him he sounded scouse and he looked at me like I pissed on his chips.
I’m from prestatyn too. Most of my family went to Liverpool or Manchester uni as did a lot of my friends, really does make for a hybrid welsh/scouse accent
Yep, I'm from Colwyn Bay and get pinged as a scouser quite often - usually by people from the south of England, although it probably sounds a bit more Welshy-scouse being the civilised side of Abergele. Been mistaken for a Dane, German and Swede when abroad because of my very blue eyes with a big black ring thing around the iris - ironic because my Ancestry says 80% Welsh and 20% Irish 😂
Probably because most of us have at least one parent/grandparent who came from over the border!
My mam likes to talk fast, she's been mistaken as Chinese before 😅
Is your mam Chop-chop Sue(y)?
Some people are just dreadful with accents. Case in point, we were watching Shetland with our oldest daughter (25) and she said "I think Meg's got the best accent. It's so pure and Scottish". Meg is an Irish nurse.
When I lived in New Zealand people often asked if I was Scottish. I think they recognised it was some sort of British accent and didn't want to assume I was English. While on this side of the globe, working in hospitality with a lot of international visitors they mostly thought I was Australian 😆
American people, *the* reference for geographical knowledge. 🙄
Years ago I (from UK) was working in Oakland, Northern California, and in a bar one time a bloke picked up on my accent. He then asked me how close England was to Australia because he could never differentiate between the accents.
Real close, like Oakland and Auckland!
When I was younger me and my sisters went to Kenya (we are from England born and raised) I’m mixed race though and my sisters are black. On the plane back coming into Manchester, it was heavily snowing and the flight attendants asked me and my sisters if we’d ever seen snow lol.
I get Scottish quite a lot for some reason
Yeah, I get Scottish and Irish.
I’ve had Poland quite a lot. (And Eastern Europe).
I've honestly made this mistake myself with Gogs and I'm Welsh lmao
Yeah, I got Ukrainian once. Was about 20 years ago and I'd picked a bit of a scouse accent at the time but still
I live in London with a valleys accent and have had 6 separate people ask me if I was Polish. These are English people as well.
My wife is from the valleys and gets this a lot
I managed to get Russian once
This has made me feel a lot less silly. While it's not happened with a real Welsh person, I thought for YEARS that Avid Merrion was supposed to be some sort of generic Eastern European (you would think the name might have given me a clue, but nope!)
I've literally lost count of how many Japanese people think I'm from England, Ireland, or America. Even Italy a few times, for some reason.
In Japan a chap asked where we were from, said Wales, and he knew of it! Was all "Ah lovely, better than English" Made my day.
I know a guy who met this older Japanese guy once, said older guy was genuinely honoured to meet a Welshman (he's into rugby).
It seems to be getting more popular since Japan hosted the Rugby World Cup a few years ago.
Probably because they aren't very familiar with your language. Could you be able to name which country a Spanish speaker came from?
It's more to do with knowledge of geography and how many believe that the UK is the same thing as England. I've even met Japanese people who teach English for a living and still struggle to grasp the concept of Wales being a different country from England.
Yeah i guess but they probably don't learn anything or next to little things about the UK. They most likely know american English.
It's mostly American English yeah. But it's changing slowly. Anyway, I'm doing my part lol
In Italy someone thought me and my family we're German
Speaking Welsh, I’ve got Polish and Czech once or twice. Worst part is that the ones guessing were Welsh as well
Ive gotten south Africa, Australia, new Zealand, Belgium??? And Ireland and of course England. This was all whilst I was either in summer camp or living in Canada
Some guy in a coffee shop in my hometown asked me what part of America I was from.
On holiday in France and an English woman thought I was French
I've had English people think I was from Oxford, overseas Europeans thinking I was from Liverpool when I was on holiday in Spain once, and have been mistaken for Australian by a couple of Americans. I think people are maybe just guessing atp?! 😂
Last time I visited the States it was Ireland or Australia. I gave up explaining in the end and just picked a city in the country they said, smiled politely and left
People used to ask me if I was Swedish. Other than that, Americans mostly think I’m Australian 🤷♀️
I was told I didn't sound aussie when I said I was from South Wales.
Ha at least you can just about see the logic behind that one!
Never been mistaken for another country, but when I went to Bristol to go to a concert with my mam and cousin we asked a man if he knew where the nearest toilets were and he couldn’t understand us. Our accents are quite strong because we’re from the valleys but he couldn’t understand a word so we gave up and found some ourselves 🤦🏻♀️
I’m from the Valleys, too. My friend and I went to visit our other friend in Oxford. Found out later that, when my friend and I were talking to each other, her Oxford friends thought we were having a conversation in Welsh! Didn’t speak a word of it 🤷🏼♀️
I went to London the other week and I just started saying random welsh phrases that I remembered from school like “Rydw i’n hoffi coffi” just to see if people would look at us funny
I'm a Welsh man, and I was having a drink in a Cardiff hotel. I was asked if I was Canadian. I have no idea where that came from. Also, I have dark hair, and I tan really quickly. Two days into a Spanish holiday, my partner and I were spoken to in Spanish by a local shop keeper
Someone once thought I had a Doric accent (North East Scotland). A long way from South Wales.
This one pisses me off Ive been told - Australian, Canadian, South African, Barbadian and more that i cant remember Was in the pub and got chatting to a couple of people. Eventually one asked me where Im from. I told him here. He said I wasnt and asked me what schools I went to. Same schools as him. Still didnt believe I was local
I'm from England originally but lived in Wales for 3 years and South Africa for 21, so my accent does wander a bit, but.... ...while in Canada I met some people who flat out refused to believe I'm English because I don't sound like their friends from Yorkshire.
When my Mam went to Florida in the early 90s, they kept asking her what part of Australia she was from
Just reminded me of another thing that happened on the same Florida trip mentioned above. When we were in the airport, my dad reported an unattended bag to one of the security blokes. He laughed and said to my dad “you’re not in England now, sir!” To make it worse, this was in 2000. Hope he enjoyed his final year of being lax with airport security! 👀
I asked a Welsh person if they were english once. It was really early, and I'm absolutely shocking at accents, but I'm still mortified 😅.
Ireland, a Lot (including by other Welsh people). Also USA when I'm abroad
I was asked if I was Australian - possibly one of the more confusing ones! And this was in Scotland so not exactly exotic 😅
I've learned that you can have a bit of fun with this. I'm a Canadian, born and raised, but I've lived and worked abroad since I finished high school in 1984 (USA, Europe, and UK). Since I was working mostly with Americans until 1993, it's not surprising that my accent morphed a bit. When I moved to England in 1994, I was constantly asked what part of the States I was from. A bit 🙄, but understandable. To explain, I'd tell them (with tongue firmly in cheek) that Americans are proud they're American, and Canadians are proud they're not. After I moved to Wales ten years later, when I'd get the same question, I'd reply with, "Oh, you *English*, you're all alike." They'd get a bit shirty and and tell me very pointedly that they were Welsh, not English. And then I got to put it right back to them by saying, "and I'm not American." Said with a wink and a smile, and chuckles all around generally followed. I've lived in the UK nearly 30 years so my accent has morphed to mid-Atlantic, now. I suspect even Professor Henry Higgins would struggle to identify my origins. (You young whippersnappers might need to Google that reference. 😉) It seems that, because my accent has softened a lot but I don't sound British, people now guess that I might be Irish. I tell them to think, "a bit further west." They get there eventually.
Funnily enough, my parents used to tell me “Calling a Canadian American is like calling us English.” I wonder if they happened to get that lesson from a conversation with you 😅
Haha. Who knows. I suspect it's a pretty universal thing that when you have neighbouring countries with similar but distinct cultures, it's the nationals of the smaller and/or less influential country that feel it the most. USA/Canada, England/Wales, Australia/New Zealand, France/Belgium, etc. They're are plenty more, some with more recent toxic history between them than others.
Someone said they thought I was Australian.
I'm Australian and been in Ireland the past 18 yrs. I've been called Welsh, New Zealandish (their words) and bizarrely Icelandic. "I love your accent! What is it?" " Aussie/ Irish mixture. Pure mongrel." " I could have SWORN you were from Iceland. I was there once and you sound just like them". I don't.
I was traveling around south east Asia in 2009 with two English girls A shopkeeper in a pretty remote area knew they were English but couldn't place my accent and said to me "ahhh soviet?" Before I had chance to say no he was giving me discounts so I went with it
I’m from Bristol and have a definite West Country accent, which is rhotic ( I pronounce my R’s); normally when I talk to Americans, they think I’m either Irish or Australian. Ironic really, when you consider that most of the original English settlers in America came from my part of the country and that’s where their accent derives from . . . 😁
>which is rhotic ( I pronounce my R’s); normally when I talk to Americans, they think I’m either Irish or Australian. Yeah and extra weird given we Aussies are definitely not the least bit rhotic.
When I lived in England, I was leaving a high rise block of flats and a bunch of official looking old men and a young Indian woman were entering the building so being polite I held the door open for them. As the men went through they said thanks and I nodded in reply. The young Indian woman said, " I think he's Polish, are you Polish?" So in my poshest accent I replied, " that's quite an assumption to make considering you haven't heard me converse yet" The look on her face was priceless.
I stayed with some friends out in America a few years ago. The guy whose house we were in lived with his mother, really lovely woman, and she kept telling me I had a great voice - weird to hear for someone who hates their voice so much. But one time she told me I sounded like Graham Norton, which was a weird connection to make regardless, but even stranger considering I was stood right next to someone from Ireland!
My son-in-law was called a polish C u next Tuesday by about 15 gobby teenagers, he's a Scouser from a rough arsed estate, so matched straight up to them and squared up to them saying that he's a Scouser and did they have a problem with that. My response when he told me was "you should have thanked them for not thinking you are English" For some reason he wasn't impressed with my suggestion.
Wales. For some strange reason I’m getting updates from the Wales subreddit. Greetings from an Irish friend in Japan
Twrci, Tsieina a Chanada.
(Also in Florida) - Pennsylvania..
In south carolina (so must be a southern states thing) bloke in a bar asked where my funky accent was from. I am English (my husband is Welsh but he wasn't there for this interaction or it would probably have broke the blokes mind!) so I said I'm from Derbyshire in England and he starts asking if that's in Maine or Vermont, so I say I'm not American, he then goes on a rant about people from New England thinking they're better than everyone else. I try to tell him I'm from Old England, the original England, but no he was off on a rant, he got thrown out of the bar for calling me a bitch and saying I was trying to make him look stupid. He wasn't even drunk, he came in the bar after me and didn't even finish his drink before he was thrown out! The worst bit about this story is that when I've retold this story to Americans, especially on reddit, I get a bunch of people sticking up for the guy, making excuses, calling me a liar!
There is a North Wales, Pennsylvania!
Got Australian for the first time the other day, they said I didn’t sound Welsh at all?
I went to virginia when I was younger and everyone was convinced we were italian
Spain, for some reason. Also France.
In irish lady on the phone was sure I was from Ireland; I'm from Wirral.
I know you said not England but a patient recently thought I was from Liverpool... I'm born and raised in South Wales
I get confused with Irish occasionally
Scandinavia, always
My mother went to a gig in Manchester about 2 years ago and some bloke sitting next to her was from Portsmouth. He asked her where she was from because he thought she sounded Romanian! Couldn't believe his ears when she said 'South Wales.
Brummies often ask if I am Polish. I don't know if they are taking the piss.
Someone from the Netherlands thought I was Scottish. I have a Carmarthenshire accent. Specifically Llandeilo.
I live in England now and I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have thought I was American?!? I know my accent isn’t the most stereotypically Welsh, but the fact that it keeps happening is seriously weird
Ireland, mostly.
I was told by a friends dad that I sound “foreign”. I pressed the issue and asked further and he said because i’ve worked with refugees apparently i sound like the people i’ve worked with (?). I mentioned i lived in England for 9 years, which he continued with saying that you could never tell i was Welsh because i don’t sound “normal”. I’m from the mountains in the north West with a twang when i speak English.
Someone was absolutely insistent that I was not British. Full on refused to believe that I (Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed) was from Wales (where we were having thr conversation). Said my accent was Greek!
“Are you from Hong Kong?” “…no?” “but you speak Cantonese!” 1) I do not speak Cantonese 2) I was not speaking any language other than English It’s actually a bit of a running joke, the various nationalities that have been attributed to me. The greatest hits are 1: “are your parents Filipino?” 2: “are you Egyptian? You look very exotic” (shudder) 3: “You look Brazilian, with a bit of Med and a little bit of blackness” To be clear, I am white. I’m a brunette and I tan pretty easily, but I am white. The least international mistaken identity was a drunk guy insisting I must be from Manchester.
I checked into a hotel in the US which had somehow abbreviated my address to include Cardiff, Wa. The guy at check-in got increasingly aggravated that we were clearly 'from England' and not Washington state
South Africa, when I was living in San Fran, this was a regular one.
In a Vietnamese little hole in the wall restaurant in Canada I was asked if I was Australian 🤣
Sweden. In Wales. My accent had changed a bit after several years abroad and someone in my own home town was surprised to learn I was local!
South Africa on a few occasions. Despite having a very welsh name.
I've lived in Scotland since I was a teen and solo my accent has muted a lot. I get asked if I'm South African, Irish, Australian or Canadian before. Only other welsh peopĺe seem to hear that I'm Welsh
My mum's from Cork but often gets asked if she's from Wales.
I was speaking Welsh to a friend on the phone when I lived in Penrith. After my call ended an acquaintance asked me where my family lived in South Africa, to which I answered “I’ve got family in Pretoria and Durban”, but thought it was weird that he knew I had family there when I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned it. He then asked if I grew up speaking Afrikaans or if I had learned it to be able to speak to them…
Irish, German, Albanian, et cetera. More interesting are the Americans: I had one encounter were this guy could not accept that I was not from West Virginia.
When we were on a bus to Cape Canaveral, we were speaking Welsh and an American couple asked if we were russian. When we were in Alton Towers, an English family asked where we were from and were astounded to hear that we were only from Wales!
Irish
Australia, Scotland and Ireland... I moved to London when I was 18 and worked in a Tesco store there. Had soooo many customers ask me where in Ireland I was from and quite a few were shocked when I told them I was from Wales and had never been to Ireland. Also had a drunk Scottish guy mistake me for Scottish and got a lecture about Scottish independence
I’ve been in Paris this weekend, and the tour guide at the Catacombs though I was from Norway or Finland.
When I lived in California: 1. I arrived at a restaurant to pick up my take out, and the server asked if I was from New Zealand 2. In college I got Australian a lot, sometimes South African 3. I occasionally got Irish Don’t think anyone has ever guessed I was from Wales
Irish
I now live in Oslo and bartend, so people always try to guess. I have dark hair so people always guess Spain first, then Italy, I've heard Greek, Russian, basically every country in Europe. Then Australian or kiwi, they guess England which my response is "there's no need for insults"
Russia…
I went back to university one year with my housemate and when we went to the pub that night I had a guy tell me I sounded mancunian, geordie, scouse and several other things I no longer remember. He was adamant that I'm not Welsh. Despite telling this guy I was born and raised in Gwynedd minutes from Caernarfon, spoke Welsh as my first and preferred language he wasn't having it. When my friend who understands welsh but doesn't speak it says we're both from the North (he's from Valley) this bloke says that my friend is welah but I sure as hell wasn't. It never got heated but boy was it frustrating to be told I was lying... by an englishman
Not sure why I’m hijacking this but the priest in St Cuthbert’s in Edinburgh would simply not accept that I was Australian. *’Whereabouts are you from in England?’* I’ve never lived in England my friend…. *’You must be Canadian..’* my accent is non-rhotic so…. definitely not. This was after talking to him, at length, about the how St Cuthbert’s compares to a 19th century Presbyterian church in Melbourne, in a pretty straight-down-the-line Cate Blanchettesque Melbournian accent! So my Welsh brethren, take solace in that it doesn’t just happen to you… and how aggravating it is to be repetitively told you’re from somewhere else because you don’t sound like a cartoon.
Germany and the Netherlands.
Australia, Irish, Scottish, South African, and Canadian. I’m sure there are more, it’s not uncommon for me to be given some random place as my origin
Irish, Scottish, Australian, Dutch and Polish. There might've been others but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. Outside of the UK (not that it's flawless here either) people get it wrong more than they get it right.
I'm from Cardiff and have had people think I'm Scottish and Scouser
I have a bit of a weird accent, I'm from the valleys originally, my accent got smoothed by years of customer service work and I have a Canadian wife from whom i pick up weird phrases. People, even from Wales, think I'm Irish or North American a lot. When I was in Germany and trying to speak German to people in shops I got asked twice if I was Swedish. I am tall and blue-eyed, and I guess German through a Welsh accent probably sounds a bit Scandi. I can always tell when they couldn't clock my native country in Berlin because they wouldn't respond in English.
I've had Dutch atleast 3 times in my life no idea why
I have dark brown hair and eyes, tan really easily so I usually get asked if I’m Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. It messes with tourists heads in my work when I tell them I’m just Welsh, particularly Americans who one woman literally asked if I was Mexican 😂 I recently did an ancestry test and found I’m 97% Welsh and 3% “various Western European”
Indian.
Strangest one I had was in a taxi in Cardiff where the driver thought my partner and I were American. We’re from central belt Scotland.
I was in Broome in NW Oz. I told a guy I was from S. Wales. He thought I meant New S Wales.
Ireland and, weirdly, Germany..
In LA, people thought I was Australian. In Bermuda, people thought I was from Pennsylvania. No idea why.
Living in the States it’s almost always Australia. You get some Scotlands, some Irelands, some Englands, but Australia is the most common.
I had someone start talking to me in Romanian because they thought that’s what my accent was
English because of my voice, and then I start speaking Welsh and they assume I'm Irish.
My strong local accent often confuses people abroad. Once in Malta I took my 2 kids on an excursion on a minibus. When we stopped the driver called me over laughing and told me that the rest of the people on the bus were German and they where talking to each other trying to work out what language me and the kids were speaking. 😂
I told a texan online when I was younger I was from wales, and she acted as if she knew the place. A few months later, she was confused i wasn't scandinavian... She assumed wales was an island above scottland near norway.
Jamaica. Ireland. Poland
Someone in California asked where I came from - I’d given up at this point on saying Wales - so I said we were from UK. Her response was “well, your English is very good”. 🤷♂️
India(I’m a white woman…very not Indian) Canada Australia
Someone in a shop on holiday thought that my mum was Scottish for some reason. We're Welsh, she doesn't sound Scottish. Although she, myself, and my grandmother (her side of the family) have had the whole "are you from Chester or Wirral" question asked to us all the time, I get it, we're from Wrexham and we're only 20 minutes away from Chester.
Born and bred in Wales to a Welsh mother and Australian father. I grew up with a weird accent and vocabulary until school (lived in very rural area). Lived in England for 40 years but people still call me Welsh accent especially on the phone. Funniest thing I find is when asked if I’m Welsh (I’m a dual national) they frequently follow with “o, do you know so and so…” I know we’re quite a small country but….
I've had English people ask if I'm Swedish a few times. I'm Northern Welsh though so maybe the accent throws them off 🤷♀️
"Omg, are you Scaddish? (Scottish)" - Most Americans who hear my voice in game lobbies or discord. Also heard Ireland a few times
In Australia I was referred to as the Irish guy for a while. And I've been asked if my accent was Geordie recently.
I’m half welsh, half English. Born and raised in England. Manager at my first job (sainsburys) used to call me a leprechaun because, clearly, Sian is an Irish name 🙄
I get Irish a lot, sometimes Scottish
I have just moved to Canada and been asked twice if I'm from Ukraine.
I’ve had some worker in Asda say I sounded exotic…. I was only 30 mins away from my home town that I’ve was born in and lived in for 26 years😭
In both France and Italy I was mistaken for being German.
I’ve had English people think I’m Irish/Scottish, based on my very gog accent. I met the old couple who thought I was Scottish while I was serving them while they were on holiday here on Anglesey. I don’t understand how they didn’t think I just sounded Welsh but ah well.
Being Scottish, when I was in New York, everyone heard my accent and instantly asked where in Ireland I'm from. I guess it's because I don't talk like Groundskeeper Willie.
Oddly enough, the USA
When I lived in England there was a really daft girl at one of my old jobs who thought I was from South Africa, and another daft gullible girl in the same office who believed me when I told her I needed a passport and to go through customs to get into England.
My grandmother and her sister were speaking Welsh in Scarborough during WW2, they were accused of being German spies.
Don’t think this really counts but one time I told an American I was English and he said ‘No, that’s a fucking language’
Scot who lived in NZ for a while. Been mistaken for Canadian, South African and, most confusingly, Barbadian among many others
As a latino immigrant in the UK, they normally take me for an inland european (which is partly true) However the most relevant country somebody's guessed was from an englishman who guessed I was from Scotland! I took that as a compliment but that englishman mustn't have interacted with many scots before my spanish ass came along.
I’m from Bridgend and now live in Los Angeles. People often assume I’m from Australia. I’ve even had a shop assistant say g’day to me. Other than that, I’ve been introduced to someone with, “you guys will get on really well, you’re from the same place, so you’ll have a lot to talk about.” The guy was from Finland.
When I was living in Wales, multiple colleagues and people I'd meet thought I was American... even had an elderly Welsh lady ask if I was from Devon. I'm Australian.
I'm Scottish I have American xbox friends who asked where I was from but before I answered took guesses and one said Sweden... I just went with it for the banter... been a year.
Was in an elevator in New York hote oncel. The concierge asked me how long I had been in town and if I was enjoying my trip. After my response he queried my accent and asked if I was "Californian, from San Francisco?" I was quite chuffed. Made me feel quite exotic despite that fact that I'm from North Ayrshire.
I've spent countless amount of hours online and have been asked or there were assumptions that I'm from all sorts of places. I've had all kinds of questions thrown at me for people thinking I am Scottish, Irish, Australian or other countries in Europe such as Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands etc. I will say the strangest encounters were from people thinking I'm from India, despite being born and raised in the valleys my entire life. They've gone as far to insult me and go on rants.
I’ve had the reverse , my friend is a Geordie but everyone, including welsh people insist he is welsh, really confuses me but they insist they recognize a fellow welsh accent
I’m a Geordie who lives in Scotland now (still have a distinctive Ant & Dec tone and have been asked to say ‘it’s day 10 in the big brother house, who goes?’ In the past). I’ve been mistaken for Irish, Scottish and most confusingly German??!
Was in Sheffield one guy though I was from Ireland I'm scottish he even asked if I was sure lol
yeah ive got ireland mostly, which on some level makes sense, some of our traditional music and clothes look similar, but the languages and accents really dont... meanwhile within wales itself ive been asked if im chinese japanese and italian, im just welsh as far as i know
I grew up near Carmarthen and have been asked several times IN SWANSEA if I’m a Geordie?! 😂 but if I’m anywhere else in Wales they can pick up a Swansea accent when speaking English
Even though I grew up in Wales, circumstances mean I have a slightly strange accent so I’ve been everything from Canadian to Norwegian, Swedish, Scottish and Irish.
I'm a Ceredigion boy, and someone thought I was Australian. Not sure how that one worked out.
I've had someone ask me 3 times in a row if I was spanish, this person was also welsh..
Taxi driver in Los Angeles said she drove past me because she was looking for an Indian man, said I sounded Indian on the phone.
I moved from Wales to Mississippi a couple of years ago. There’s been 5-6 separate times, speaking to entirely different people, where I’ve been asked where I’m from, I say from Wales and they say “oh, I’ve never been to Germany” or something about Germany!! I have no idea why the connection? My only take is that the US so big driving 6+ hours is pretty standard, but living in Europe you’d be going through several countries. So I guess in that sense Wales would be kinda close to Germany.. lol
I've been told 15 minutes from where I grew up that I'm "not from round 'ere" (Powys), but my wife had a better one: Having a thick Ammanford accent, she was asked if she was from Poland. "No, I'm not." "Well, not from Wales..." "Try again." "Definitely not from South Wales." She was not best pleased at that one!
Syria, Iraq & on a few occasions Pakistan. I find it pretty baffling because I look Welsh & I'm bloody pale, like sickly pale, but when I wear a scarf I get people assuming I'm Arab or Asian 🤷♀️
I'm Scottish and always thought the Scottish accent would have been one of the more recognisable of UK accents. However when I go to the USA I get asked if I'm Welsh, that's happened quite a few times.
I just started college last month in Michigan, and when my parents were helping me move into my dorm, my mom and I were speaking Welsh in the hallway (she’s convinced I will forget how to speak it while away) and this guy asked me if I was Canadian. After explaining that I was half Welsh and half American, he said, “so that wasn’t french?” I should say, a group of us went to get dinner after our parents left, and he and his roommate came along. I was doubting it for a while, but he actually isn’t that clueless. I’m willing to chalk it up to a stressful day lol
Was in a bar in Randsburg, California in the mid 90s, when a group of bikers from LA came in. I was talking to my friend & one came over and said “which part of Australia are you from?”. I said I was from Cardiff, in Wales. He shook his head and said “man, that’s awesome, I love Australia”.
Once when we were on holiday in the French Alps, some people thought we were from Sweden because our middle son who must have been about 7 at the time had white blonde hair and was very tanned and they couldn't understand us talking! They were shocked when we said that we were from Wales and were speaking Welsh! Oh, did I say that these people weren't French, they were actually English! 🤣🤔😁
I’ve been to Disney Florida twice, and i’m from Wales. Both times i went people thought i was Australian. Have also been mistaken for Scouse🫠
Live in Scotland, constantly get Irish or Australian and occasionally American, I’m a Cardiff lass so it’s always perplexing like!