2meirl4meirl

I'm Canadian and the weirdest encounter of English speaking accents I ever heard was in the south of Germany. We were in a rental car and just exploring the country and getting hopelessly lost. We were in the south near Nuremberg and we stopped at a gas station. A young man came up to us to operate the pump. He spoke German at first but then realized we were English speaking so he changed languages.
It was the weirdest form of English accent ... it was English with a strong German accent mixed with a heavy southern American country twang. He even asked "How y'all doin?" in that weird accent of his.
We asked him about the accent and he said he had learned his English from an American military base nearby that had a lot of people from the American south, especially Texas.
- Reminds me of the first time I tried speaking Spanish with some Mexicans. I learned it with a Dominican accent and boy did they look at me weird. I think I accidentally said something about tits. "What the fuck did this white boy just say to us??"
- Don't think too much of it. If you are a German from the north, visiting the south you'll get a similar experience if they speak whatever they see as German.
- A young men came out to operate the pump? Really? In Germany, within the last 30 years? This seems highly unlikely. Those places are almost never manned with more than one person and they don't leave the counter.
  
  This was about 20 years ago and we drove off the main highway to try to find the smallest road stop we could find. Driving in Germany is a nightmare by the way ... but the people were fantastic. This was just before the period of easy to use GPS, we had to keep stopping to ask for directions. People were always generous, especially when we told them we were Canadian. They gave us detailed directions, suggestions and even led us to friends restaurants and bed and breakfasts where we could stay. At one point, one guy showed us directions on a massive national highway map book. When he was done giving us directions, he said keep the book and that we needed it more than him.
  I don't know if the young man had the job of pumping gas at the time .... I remember we talked to him about lots of things, including how to operate the pump, how to pay and what it all cost. We so confused with everything that he ended up pumping the gas for us. We felt like children that didn't know how to find the toilet.
  I've travelled lots over the years and in many places in the world, we always saw the ugly German international traveller - the loud, ignorant idiot that gives everyone a hard time. We were afraid of driving in Germany because of this but the opposite was complete true. Average German people were some of the most generous, kind and helpful people we ever met. Danke!

my ass cycling through all known English accents every damn sentence.

Me being slavic and just unable to speak nicely so I have a slavic accent.
- maybe I'm weird but that's the best accent imo
  
  But why? I struggle with the th sound and the soft r. After sleaking english for more than 20 minutes my tongue just starts making knots when trying to speak.

On the flip side, I was born and raised in London yet everyone thinks I'm Australian since I spent many years as an admin to an Australian community online and heard Aussies for 10 hours per day. I still can't shake a bit of an Aussie accent, yet I've never been to the place!
- I am an Aussie raised on a considerable about of BBC shows so I have the opposite problem. An Aussie everyone thinks is English.
  
  Haha that's brilliant. I apparently have an Adelaide accent.
- If I don't stop listening to The Chats soon I might be on the same path
  
  You need to take precautions very quick. Put yourself in the mind of someone who needs to keep himself away from recommendations. Needs privacy. Like, say you're buying drugs on the Internet, feeling invincible with your VPN... Wait, shit.

Howdy my old chap.

*YouChube

I write color as color, and aluminium as aluminium.

I have an Indian accent from watching Indian YouTubers.

Always felt I had an American accent, that's what most people say I have. Multiple American friends (Californians mostly) have said I sound British. When I tell non Americans this they laugh.
Personal conclusion: most Americans aren't great at identifying accents.
- Realistically you probably have a mix of both and each person can hear the opposite parts of your accent.
  
  Interesting to think of American and British accents as opposites. I actually learned English (my first and only fully fluent language) living in New Zealand until kindergarten age but no one ever says I have a Kiwi or Aussie accent. I like to tell people I have an "international schooled kid" accent.

I can't say the word "robot" not sounding like Zoidberg.
- last year I had a robotics course, and on the first lecture it took me a while to realize what the hell is a rowboat

My wife has an American accent, but she says things like "torch", "zed", and "aluminium" because she grew up with that.

Don't forget the australian accent.

That's called a trans-atlantic accent.

Millie Bobby Brown actually has (or had) this going on due to her filming Stranger Things during formative years. It's really fascinating to listen to this weird halfway point between the two. You can hear it well here: https://youtu.be/xhjooxtYf9Q?t=50
A particularly interesting point is around ~1:10 where she's been largely using her American accent, but she uses the word after, but instead of starting the word with the TRAP vowel we would expect, she uses the BATH vowel instead owing to her original British accent. But I think what's even more interesting is that when she does this, it doesn't sound like she swapped back to her British accent for a single word - it sounds much more like someone with a general American accent doing an impression of a British person saying the word after!

Scrumptious