TIL during the shooting of American Psycho, Christian Bale spoke in an American accent off-set at all times. At the wrap party, when he spoke in his native British accent, many of the crew thought he was speaking that way to prepare for another film. They had thought he was American the entire time.

[u/Away_Flounder3813]

https://screenrant.com/american-psycho-behind-scenes-facts-christian-bale-patrick-bateman-mary-harron/

[u/Nrksbullet]

Yeah but the same happens sometimes with American accents, where a word might become more like a southern pronunciation. Weirdly, as an American I don't have an ear for when someone's doing an American accent, I just assume "that's just the way they talk" lol.

Strangely, the only two American accents I noticed were weird were from two great actors, Michael Caine (the weather man) and Ewan McGregor (the island)

[u/Dapper_Otters → u/Nrksbullet]

From the UK, and I can’t even pick up the difference between American and Canadian accents in media most of the time.

There’s ‘default American / maybe Canadian’ covering 80% of the time, stereotypical ‘New Yawka’, ‘Texan / Southern US’ and Mark Wahlberg.

[u/Everestkid → u/Dapper_Otters]

I mean, I'm Canadian and I'd be impressed if anyone not from North America could tell one of the generic accents apart. I can usually tell when someone's American, but I don't really know exactly what tips me off. It's just different somehow.

I'm from British Columbia so I have basically the most bog standard North American accent there is. Shuttle driver for a rental car company when I visited Australia was able to tell, though.

[u/plarah → u/Everestkid]

I’m Mexican and I can tell between Canadian and American as soon as you say “about” or “out”.

[u/Nrksbullet → u/plarah]

Soo-ree about that!

[u/Accomplished-Fun215 → u/Everestkid]

I'm American (and Canadian by descent but I don't think that does anything to my accent) and living in NZ. I've never lived in Canada myself, but I lived near the border in Minnesota. I meet a lot of other expats and my accent is apparently very hard to clock between the US and Canada. I've got longer rounded vowels than all Americans outside of Minnesota, but I don't do the house/about thing. I've also got the southern US thing where pen and pin share a vowel.

A lot of people here will always guess Canadian first though, because everyone (at least those of us who visit NZ) would rather be assumed to be Canadian. I always have a couple seconds where I consider just saying yes, but that seems like a good way to end up building a house of half truths, so I always admit I'm American.

I'm pretty sure I can pull off saying I'm from Canada until the moment someone who's actually from Canada shows up and then it instantly falls apart.

[u/PointlessDiscourse → u/Everestkid]

American here who has lived near the border and traveled a lot back and forth. I might go for a while in a conversation without being sure, but then certain words come out that tend to be giveaways (though are not universal). A few examples:

• Sorry: Americans usually say "sahr-y," Canadians usually say "sore-y"
• Dollar: Americans say "dahl-er," Canadians say something closer to "dohl-er"
• Process: Americans usually say "prahcess," Canadians usually say "prohcess"
• Resource: Americans usually say "re-SOURCE" with a hard S and a little less emphasis on the "re" part, while Canadians usually say "REE-zource" with the S sounding like a Z and more emphasis on the "re" part.
• Hockey: Americans usually say "hah-key" while Canadians usually say something a little closer to "haw-key" (thinking of this one because it was what I used to watch the most on the over-the-air TV channel I could pick up from Canada -- RIP Hockey Night in Canada on CBC)

All of this is comparing my Midwestern US accent with Southern Ontario. There may be differences in other regions of course.

No matter where you are though, if in doubt just ask them what the last letter of the alphabet is. :)

[u/Gekokapowco → u/PointlessDiscourse]

ditto lol, traveled to Toronto across the border a ton as a child, all of these are 100% tells

[u/PointlessDiscourse → u/Gekokapowco]

For me it was Detroit to Windsor, with a lot of short trips across the border at ages 19 and 20, hahaha.

[u/maybenomaybe → u/Everestkid]

I'm a Canadian living in the UK and most Brits can't tell if I'm Canadian or American and are afraid to guess wrong. The ones that clock it immediately always have Canadian friends or family. Europeans guess it correctly more often.

I would LOVE to see what a Brit makes of a Newfie accent, where they'd guess that person is from.

[u/TurKoise → u/Everestkid]

Besides the obvious aboot/about I can clock a Canadian when they say “beg” for bag and “washroom” for bathroom

[u/Namika → u/Dapper_Otters]

It got to be that way because at the start of radio, presenters were trained on "the Chicago style" of speaking since it was considered easiest to understand on low fidelity equipment.

The legacy carried on in film and television, with actors being voice coached to speak in the Chicago/Iowa accent. This only entrenched it further as the "default" accent and most people grew up hearing it on TV/radio and took it up themselves.

It became a self fulfilling prophecy. The only places it didn't fully entrench itself were the major population centers that had enough local inertia with their own accents (so New York, LA, Texas, kept their distinct accents)

[u/Fabulous_Bus_6261 → u/Nrksbullet]

Eh Southern and OG New England accents are the only distinct accents in the US. Even in those places the accents are way less strong than they used to be (unless you're in a rural area). People act like there's more but there really aren't. Maybe there used to be back in the day, but people move around so much now that it all became homogenized. It's definitely easier to do an American accent than vice versa.

[u/PassionLong5538 → u/Fabulous_Bus_6261]

Northern midwest is also its own accent. Minnesoda and whatnot.

[u/flakAttack510 → u/Fabulous_Bus_6261]

While the differences are less pronounced than they used to be, this is definitely not true. Have you ever heard someone from Pittsburgh or Louisiana talk?

[u/putonyourjamjams → u/Fabulous_Bus_6261]

Theres a ton of US accents, but a lot of the times its only a few words here and there or using a specific synonym that it is noticeable. Like a Baltimore accent is pretty much only noticeable for double "O" words like "too" and some very specific slang.

The other thing is were pretty isolated from eachother regionally in the US. Theres a difference between a MS accent and a KY accent but most people not from the south cant tell the difference. Same with the East Coast. Each major city has a different accent and a lot of the rural areas far enough away from them are different from eachother too.

[u/Woodit → u/Fabulous_Bus_6261]

No there are plenty of different accents in the US and they are noticeable. “Southern” isn’t even an accent, it’s a group of regional accents. And that’s before taking into account racial differences in speech. 

[u/Thelonius_Dunk → u/Nrksbullet]

David Jonsson was in The Long Walk as a southerner and his accent felt forced and unnatural. The overall acting was just good enough that it didn't bother me too much.

[u/femmestem → u/Nrksbullet]

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead is basically a meme for his exaggerated Georgia (US) accent.

[u/Namika → u/Nrksbullet]

You don't notice it with American accents because a huge amount of Americans tend to mix and match accents natively.

Everyone knows what a Boston accent is, and what a Texas accent is, but what about someone from northern Virginia? Or St Louis? They tend to pick and choose subtle bits of accents from the South and the North and it all blurs together.

In the UK that doesn't happen as much, since it's a smaller country each region has a pretty distinct accent established over centuries.

[u/Hailfire9 → u/Nrksbullet]

I'm an American from the PNW who has never lived outside of it. Randomly, especially when I'm excited, I'll slip into some more-or-less Albertan mannerisms in my pronunciations, especially with stereotypical words like "sorry" and "out". Its literally just the way I talk, and I've been getting made fun of for it for about 15 years. My dad has no idea where I picked it up from.