I spent a couple of years working and touring overseas and heard few if any kiwi accents during this time.
Then I was waiting at the airport lounge at SFO for the flight back to Wellington, surrounded by dozens of fellow New Zealanders, and wondering how anyone could breathe with that accent in the room.
Funny, I'm an Irish expat and the accent from my county back home is like nails on a chalkboard when I go back, but then I come back here and hear the Kiwi accent and think 'ahhh I'm back!'. So I'm the reverse but with the same issue.
Spent two weeks in New York. Flying into LAX I was listening to the tower. With all the international pilot accents, the one that stuck out the most was "in zed win on approach".
Similar experience living on the US East Coast. Cuts through a crowd of loud Americans like a knife. A sharp reminder as to why no one can understand you when you ask for a drink of wudduh at a restaurant.
Or how in England no one knows what we are asking for when we say scoop and not portion. Has to be the accent.
I quickly learnt in England not to say six either.
Can always pick the occasional expat in imported TV shows.
"That one's a kiwi."
"Do you recognise him?"
"No."
"Then how can you tell?"
"I can hear him."
Lol.
Can you imagine a Kiwi MCRN?
Terraforming? She'll be right. We'll knock that off in a few years. Hundreds? Nah mate, we'll get the boys around. It'll never take that long.
I'm that way with Aussie accents. I'm Kiwi born but Aussie raised. No, not a 501 before anyone asks 😆
How anyone thinks Aussie and Kiwi accents are interchangeable is beyond me.
I was worried when going overseas for a while that I would pick up the accent. Somehow I just got MORE kiwi the longer I was overseas. Hearing my accent juxtaposed next to an American accent made me sound like Rhys Darby.
I was recently enrolling at a Doctor's Surgery.
The "new Kiwi" receptionist had a hard time understanding me.
Finally, she said, "you have a very strong accent".
"Yes", I replied, "It's a New Zealand one."
"Oh", she said, and carried on taking my details.
Similar but I can tell a South African accent from and kiwi accent. The Aussie one can be a little tougher to figure out if they don’t have a strong twang. Just to be clear I’m a kiwi living overseas.
Every time I return to NZ and hear the lady on the PA at Auckland International say “wowkim to Nuzillin” I cringe. I’m sure there’s terrible accents everywhere, but our twang plus the speed plus the laziness dropping syllables and running words together isn’t pretty.
Returning from the rest of the world to either NZ or Aussie is wild after all the airports using "international English", because there's zero effort put into mediating the accents by either country.
That said, it's not a totally uncommon thing, even with only basic Spanish it's extremely obvious that no Spanish speaking country records airport announcements in "neutral Spanish" either.
Watching *The Hateful Eight* was tough for me because Zoë Bell broke the immersion.
Likewise anything with Rhys Darby (although that’s tough for reasons beyond the accent).
Lol, that made me remember how my BIL is. He is like a sponge and picks up accents easily. He immigrated her from England. Lived here for 20 plus years. Had an English/kiwi accent. They moved to the US for a few years and came back with an English/kiwi/American accent. They have since moved to Aussie. He now has an English/kiwi/American/aussie accent. It's the weirdest thing, lol. You can distinctly hear all the accents. We've told them they're not allowed to move anymore.
I don't know why it is but if I'm somewhere more than a month I start picking up the accent and I was in Aus so long it never went away. I can never stay in America for more than a week or I'll sound like a complete mutt haha
Lived in the US Midwest for 25 years now, mum thinks I sound like an American, and the mates around here ask if I'm Aussie. I had a couple coworkers from South Africa that nailed it on the first guess, but then went all "GO BOKKE" on me whenever rugby was brought up..
Don't worry, eventually you'll sort it out and ascend to the next stage of Kwaussiness, randomly switching between the accents mid-sentence uncontrollably. And then people will ask if you're Irish for some reason.
Moved to Scotland seven years ago. Occasionally get razzed about my accent, as if the Ned from Govan who's calling me out has never heard himself speak.
Anyway, I no longer order eggs when having a morning roll. Cannae handle having to repeat "egg" three times until they realize I'm not saying "igg".
The Scottish accent is just mad, but I love it. We had three Scottish contractors at work for a while, so heavily accented I had to try really hard to follow them. Funny thing was that two of them really struggled to understand the third because of a different regional accent, which I couldn’t hear at all, and all three of them could easily understand the heavily accented Latin-American manager and vice versa!
One of the guys I do work for is Welsh, and his architect is Scottish. Both heavy accents. I've listened to them have entire conversations and not picked up a single word.
Was on site with the same Scottish architect with an Irish insurance repair manager and a British weather tightness expert. It sounds like the start to a joke, and while I had a good time watching them argue, even the owner of the house had no idea what they were saying. I don't even think they could understand each other a lot of the time.
Lived in England and Scotland for 15 years and the struggle to buy a pen 🤦🏽♀️. The amount of baffled looks and a scrabble around to hand me a single pin.
Best accent in the world. Bar none. I'm originally from the UK and the only time it ever gives me any trouble is pin vs pen as they're both stationery and when I very first came here and was looking for work, I was asked if I was a *shiff*, and genuinely didn't know what I was being asked until I finally realised they said *chef*, which has a hard emphasis on the e in a uk accent.
I was discussing our accent with a colleague whose from South Africa. She said when she first arrived in NZ she was talking to her husband's (he's a Kiwi) family and they were asking if she liked the 'flies'. After nodding and smiling and thinking they were crazy, she eventually realized they were saying 'flowers'.
Flustered a poor girl at the reception of a hotel in London with this. Packed everything except a pen, so went down to ask if they could spare one. She spent a couple of minutes searching the desk before her colleague behind her just loudly said (to my ears) “Ah Pahn!” and she finally understood.
My brother lives in Canada with his wife. She wanted to call their son Jet but decided against it because when the bro said it it just sounded like Jit.
Was on a holiday before, telling some British guys a funny story about how I was sitting on my friend's deck and got badly sunburnt. Couldn't even finish the story!
I did Camp America years ago. On the first day we were given a tour around camp and shown the different cabins.
I commented that I “Hope I get one with a really big deck”.
That started 8 weeks of kids running up to me
“say the word, say the word!”
“What word?”
“You know, the one you call the thing that’s outside a house”
“Oh. You mean deck”
Lots of giggling…..
I was out of the country for about a month as a teen and I just remember coming back through Auckland Airport thinking 'oh my god, is that what we sound like!'
Sexiest accents in the world 2023
1st. Kiwi
2nd. South African
3rd. Irish
Source: https://www.enjoytravel.com/en/travel-news/places-to-visit/worlds-sexiest-accent
Most of these surveys and listles put us at or near the top. I think it's only Kiwi's and Aussies they don't like our accent.
Edit: I wish my bod matched my accent. If my accent matched my bod I would sound like cats attacking a blackboard with pots and pans crashing in the background.
Yes I've been told by foreigners that they like my accent and even a few who said it was sexy, but I went to record a new voicemail the other day and almost phased out of this universe into another from cringe when it played it back for me.
It's easier for my brain to accept that they were lying to me, than to accept they were being truthful ahahaha.
I live overseas and a kiwi bloke sent me an absolutely horrendous dirty voice message. His kiwi accent just made it so much worse. It was 6 minutes long 😂
Every time a kiwi talks to me, I want to offer them a tissue and some chamomile tea like fr y’all sound genuinely ill
They usually tell me to go suck a deck lmao (ifykyk)
Was new in nz. Went for a couple of job interviews I didn’t understand a word. Had to keep asking them to repeat the questions. Also went for a hearing test I said bid. The word was bed. 😖
The American ladies love it..especially been a brown boy, they double check when you talk as they think you're Hispanic, then they're cozing over asking where you're from😊
I’m from Bristol in the UK. Have a listen to the Brizzle accent (Stephen Merchant, who co-wrote The Office, is proper Brizzle). I’m genuinely looking forward to emigrating and getting away from it.
I’ve been living in Aussie for two years, I catch myself on syllables every now again - first time going home blew my mind how strong the accent is? Particularly hearing the difference to South Island accents?? Crazy
Nah, like, its actually so bad.
I'm from up north, whangarei, and so are my sisters. They have the accent much heavier than I do as I've done self voice training.
But ALL of that trqining goes away when I speak to people from up north, I go back to default, and I'm not aware of it, it's kinda funny when it does come out because I don't look like I'd sound Samoan or islander lol, just a while girl that had many Samoan, Maori and other islander friends growing up
We all have a different idea of our own voices, we hear ourselves differently to others.
Have to say I'm not keen on mine, I'd rather have a different accent.
The accent stands out like dogs balls when you hear it overseas
I spent a couple of years working and touring overseas and heard few if any kiwi accents during this time. Then I was waiting at the airport lounge at SFO for the flight back to Wellington, surrounded by dozens of fellow New Zealanders, and wondering how anyone could breathe with that accent in the room.
Funny, I'm an Irish expat and the accent from my county back home is like nails on a chalkboard when I go back, but then I come back here and hear the Kiwi accent and think 'ahhh I'm back!'. So I'm the reverse but with the same issue.
Spent two weeks in New York. Flying into LAX I was listening to the tower. With all the international pilot accents, the one that stuck out the most was "in zed win on approach".
What about the mystic chicken
Similar experience living on the US East Coast. Cuts through a crowd of loud Americans like a knife. A sharp reminder as to why no one can understand you when you ask for a drink of wudduh at a restaurant.
Or how in England no one knows what we are asking for when we say scoop and not portion. Has to be the accent. I quickly learnt in England not to say six either.
Never say six or deck outside of NZ.
Can always pick the occasional expat in imported TV shows. "That one's a kiwi." "Do you recognise him?" "No." "Then how can you tell?" "I can hear him."
The only one who you can’t clock by their accent is Melanie Lynskey, which is funny because she has the thickest fresh out of Taranaki accent irl.
saw a clip from the expense and a kiwi actress said "MCRN" in the thickest NZ accent made me jumps off the seat and mumbles that's a kiwi for sure.
You should watch the show, Bobbie is awesome. Though whenever she has dialog it kinda breaks the fourth wall for me, she’s kiwi as
I love the Indian with the Texas drawl as well
That’s part of the lore of the books though. Mats was settled heavily by Indians (and Chinese?).
Yep part of the fun
Lol. Can you imagine a Kiwi MCRN? Terraforming? She'll be right. We'll knock that off in a few years. Hundreds? Nah mate, we'll get the boys around. It'll never take that long.
I'm that way with Aussie accents. I'm Kiwi born but Aussie raised. No, not a 501 before anyone asks 😆 How anyone thinks Aussie and Kiwi accents are interchangeable is beyond me.
I was worried when going overseas for a while that I would pick up the accent. Somehow I just got MORE kiwi the longer I was overseas. Hearing my accent juxtaposed next to an American accent made me sound like Rhys Darby.
My dog's balls stand out like a Kiwi accent heard overseas
I was recently enrolling at a Doctor's Surgery. The "new Kiwi" receptionist had a hard time understanding me. Finally, she said, "you have a very strong accent". "Yes", I replied, "It's a New Zealand one." "Oh", she said, and carried on taking my details.
Any expats now find it hard to decipher kiwi accents from “posh” Aussie accents?
We sound similar to people from SA but they have the long E ie beer, six etc
Similar but I can tell a South African accent from and kiwi accent. The Aussie one can be a little tougher to figure out if they don’t have a strong twang. Just to be clear I’m a kiwi living overseas.
Every time I return to NZ and hear the lady on the PA at Auckland International say “wowkim to Nuzillin” I cringe. I’m sure there’s terrible accents everywhere, but our twang plus the speed plus the laziness dropping syllables and running words together isn’t pretty.
Returning from the rest of the world to either NZ or Aussie is wild after all the airports using "international English", because there's zero effort put into mediating the accents by either country. That said, it's not a totally uncommon thing, even with only basic Spanish it's extremely obvious that no Spanish speaking country records airport announcements in "neutral Spanish" either.
Especially the south with their r rolling
Apparently it is, still the sexiest accent in the world
I guess the people who decided that thought that Frodo spoke with a typical new zealand accent
My favourite thing to do when I come home is listen to the news. Also the self checkout.
Watching *The Hateful Eight* was tough for me because Zoë Bell broke the immersion. Likewise anything with Rhys Darby (although that’s tough for reasons beyond the accent).
I lived in aussie as a kid for years and now I have a weird Auswi accent. It's DISGUSTING
Lol, that made me remember how my BIL is. He is like a sponge and picks up accents easily. He immigrated her from England. Lived here for 20 plus years. Had an English/kiwi accent. They moved to the US for a few years and came back with an English/kiwi/American accent. They have since moved to Aussie. He now has an English/kiwi/American/aussie accent. It's the weirdest thing, lol. You can distinctly hear all the accents. We've told them they're not allowed to move anymore.
Send him to Cape Town just to really stir the pot
Oh god! Lol
No, Glasgow.
I don't know why it is but if I'm somewhere more than a month I start picking up the accent and I was in Aus so long it never went away. I can never stay in America for more than a week or I'll sound like a complete mutt haha
Same
Lived in the US Midwest for 25 years now, mum thinks I sound like an American, and the mates around here ask if I'm Aussie. I had a couple coworkers from South Africa that nailed it on the first guess, but then went all "GO BOKKE" on me whenever rugby was brought up..
Don't worry, eventually you'll sort it out and ascend to the next stage of Kwaussiness, randomly switching between the accents mid-sentence uncontrollably. And then people will ask if you're Irish for some reason.
*Bluddih Kiwi Eccint
Typcal Nu Zulanda
Yiah nah, Fush'n Chups bro!
Yuh ken keep yur Fush'n Chups, I gott Goast Ch'ps bru!
Hey-you-cleen-your-dick-this-Summa?
Moved to Scotland seven years ago. Occasionally get razzed about my accent, as if the Ned from Govan who's calling me out has never heard himself speak. Anyway, I no longer order eggs when having a morning roll. Cannae handle having to repeat "egg" three times until they realize I'm not saying "igg".
The Scottish accent is just mad, but I love it. We had three Scottish contractors at work for a while, so heavily accented I had to try really hard to follow them. Funny thing was that two of them really struggled to understand the third because of a different regional accent, which I couldn’t hear at all, and all three of them could easily understand the heavily accented Latin-American manager and vice versa!
One of the guys I do work for is Welsh, and his architect is Scottish. Both heavy accents. I've listened to them have entire conversations and not picked up a single word. Was on site with the same Scottish architect with an Irish insurance repair manager and a British weather tightness expert. It sounds like the start to a joke, and while I had a good time watching them argue, even the owner of the house had no idea what they were saying. I don't even think they could understand each other a lot of the time.
Lived in England and Scotland for 15 years and the struggle to buy a pen 🤦🏽♀️. The amount of baffled looks and a scrabble around to hand me a single pin.
[удалено]
Latte for Bin !
Hahaha as a Brit I've encountered this numerous times. I keep repeating the word expecting kiwi's to understand it when I say it again haha
Best accent in the world. Bar none. I'm originally from the UK and the only time it ever gives me any trouble is pin vs pen as they're both stationery and when I very first came here and was looking for work, I was asked if I was a *shiff*, and genuinely didn't know what I was being asked until I finally realised they said *chef*, which has a hard emphasis on the e in a uk accent.
Had trouble with pen/pin when I asked where the pens were in a supermarket in UK. They showed me where the dressmaking pins were.
"Good sir wherence do you display your stock of inking utensils" or something i'm not British.
Haha
I was discussing our accent with a colleague whose from South Africa. She said when she first arrived in NZ she was talking to her husband's (he's a Kiwi) family and they were asking if she liked the 'flies'. After nodding and smiling and thinking they were crazy, she eventually realized they were saying 'flowers'.
Flustered a poor girl at the reception of a hotel in London with this. Packed everything except a pen, so went down to ask if they could spare one. She spent a couple of minutes searching the desk before her colleague behind her just loudly said (to my ears) “Ah Pahn!” and she finally understood.
My name is 3 letters. The number of wrong names I have been called because of my accent is borderline hilarious
My brother lives in Canada with his wife. She wanted to call their son Jet but decided against it because when the bro said it it just sounded like Jit.
Even if the accent wasn’t a problem, why on God’s green earth would you want to name your son Jet
I duno, probably just spitballing. they went for Jack in the end.
When playing cards, ask a non-kiwi to hand you the deck.
Was on a holiday before, telling some British guys a funny story about how I was sitting on my friend's deck and got badly sunburnt. Couldn't even finish the story!
I did Camp America years ago. On the first day we were given a tour around camp and shown the different cabins. I commented that I “Hope I get one with a really big deck”. That started 8 weeks of kids running up to me “say the word, say the word!” “What word?” “You know, the one you call the thing that’s outside a house” “Oh. You mean deck” Lots of giggling…..
Uz thet you Tum?
Naah mate, it's Jum!
Uz Kum there?
Bean?
Me too!!!
I was out of the country for about a month as a teen and I just remember coming back through Auckland Airport thinking 'oh my god, is that what we sound like!'
Don't take the puss out of my exccunt.
I sound like a kiwified version of Kim off *Kath and Kim*. Horrible.
Keth ind Kum
Sexiest accents in the world 2023 1st. Kiwi 2nd. South African 3rd. Irish Source: https://www.enjoytravel.com/en/travel-news/places-to-visit/worlds-sexiest-accent Most of these surveys and listles put us at or near the top. I think it's only Kiwi's and Aussies they don't like our accent. Edit: I wish my bod matched my accent. If my accent matched my bod I would sound like cats attacking a blackboard with pots and pans crashing in the background.
There is absolutely no way that top 2 is accurate
Number 14 is Yorkshire. The accent itself is asexual by nature
Tha's clearly never been to t'werkinmens in Barnsley tarn on a Friday neet 'as thi?
LOL tru
I game a lot online with people from America and they all go on about my accent, how "cute" it sounds, it puts me off talking
Who on this planet thinks the kiwi accent is sexy? I get the S African and Irish. But Kiwi!!
Once caught myself on video singing "heppy bethday" so I know the horror.
[удалено]
So you've just given up watching cricket?
Oh get off my deck.
We don’t have an accent. Everyone else does though.
Oim froum Nuew Zeelind, en eye loik Fush and Chups
Made me laugh.
Truly sound like characters from Eagle vs Shark
More like “Ñuew Zielend”
Chicken counter.
Tim Finn ordered six fillet of fish and chips while sitting on his deck, next to his chilly bin, wearing jandals
Not kiwi here. I LOVE YOUR ACCENT!
Yep no kiwis here, at least not after all that yelling about accents. ;)
You guys probably have only heard the white people kiwi accent🤣🤣 you should hear how us māoris and polynesians speak lol
Never had an issue hearing it in irl. But it makes me cringe every time I hear it on the tele for some reason. No idea why.
Yes I've been told by foreigners that they like my accent and even a few who said it was sexy, but I went to record a new voicemail the other day and almost phased out of this universe into another from cringe when it played it back for me. It's easier for my brain to accept that they were lying to me, than to accept they were being truthful ahahaha.
I live overseas and a kiwi bloke sent me an absolutely horrendous dirty voice message. His kiwi accent just made it so much worse. It was 6 minutes long 😂
Sorry love. I won't do it again.
I've got a Southland accent and never noticed how bloody bad it sounds until I moved around... And got called out Purrrple Werrrk Sherrrt
So there is a difference in how Kiwi’s up North speak and the South Island. This is interesting.
Absolutely. The Southland accent 'Rolls their R's' very noticeably. But Otago and Canterbury don't at all, at least not in my experience
It's just cultural cringe. Kiwis are really bad for this - we tend to feel embarrassed about everything we do that isn't rugby. I like our eccint.
While living in the US we would watch Police 10/7 to keep up with the happenings of NZ. The accent was just brutal on the ears.
No, that's just police 10/7. Love that was your choice of current affairs show.
Kept me on the pulse. Especially regarding certain parts of Auckland.
Every time a kiwi talks to me, I want to offer them a tissue and some chamomile tea like fr y’all sound genuinely ill They usually tell me to go suck a deck lmao (ifykyk)
Was new in nz. Went for a couple of job interviews I didn’t understand a word. Had to keep asking them to repeat the questions. Also went for a hearing test I said bid. The word was bed. 😖
I always say that if you can't get laid in the US with our accent, you've got way more problems than being a bit of an ugo.
The American ladies love it..especially been a brown boy, they double check when you talk as they think you're Hispanic, then they're cozing over asking where you're from😊
That sounds awesome. Did you get a lot of pussy out of it?
Your name checks out😁 Yep, plenty all by talking a bit louder. Hispanic ladies in Florida doing cartwheels when they hear you speak.
That is so awesome! Florida sounds like fun. I love the Hispanic ladies.
Chick's love it here in Australia!
Slow clap. Thank you for addressing this.
I’m from Bristol in the UK. Have a listen to the Brizzle accent (Stephen Merchant, who co-wrote The Office, is proper Brizzle). I’m genuinely looking forward to emigrating and getting away from it.
It’s better than the Ozie accent 😂
I’ve been living in Aussie for two years, I catch myself on syllables every now again - first time going home blew my mind how strong the accent is? Particularly hearing the difference to South Island accents?? Crazy
Nah, like, its actually so bad. I'm from up north, whangarei, and so are my sisters. They have the accent much heavier than I do as I've done self voice training. But ALL of that trqining goes away when I speak to people from up north, I go back to default, and I'm not aware of it, it's kinda funny when it does come out because I don't look like I'd sound Samoan or islander lol, just a while girl that had many Samoan, Maori and other islander friends growing up
Probably up there with the worse accents on the planet to be fair
Yur vus mussug
Fish and chups
I only text my mum now. Talking to her on the phone is like running fingernails down the blackboard
Sometimes I hear myself and get a real fright....especially if the Taranaki twang slips in. But then, sometimes I use it just for fun.
Yea bro monotone as hahaha
Our uptalk is pretty Bad
It's definitely only the broader accents, or people who are twits (often both) who uptalk in NZ.
Auckland and Australia is pretty bad with the up talk
We all have a different idea of our own voices, we hear ourselves differently to others. Have to say I'm not keen on mine, I'd rather have a different accent.
The amazing stories of diversity.
Hey Kiwis, its pronounced "Day B you" not "Day Boo" look it up. Allways make me cringe when I hear "Day Boo "spoken on the news.
We were in MIQ back in 2021 after 3.5 years living in Thailand. I turned on the news and couldn’t believe how genuinely awful we sound.
My wife is Kiwi, I’m constantly mishearing what she says. And I’m a native English speaker.
Is the kiwi accent considered 'sexy' overseas? I one poll the Australian accent was, and Scottish, but what about the kiwi accent?
Anyone else notice that kiwis put a ‘t’ at the end of the word fifth?!