Whenever I speak, people hear my accent, and of course they know right away that I'm not a native New Zealander.
Where are you from, they ask politely.
There are a few ways that I can answer this question. Sometimes I say, San Francisco, which is the last city that I lived in. But usually I just say, Ohio, which is where I grew up.
My accent is all over the place. Surprisingly, a few people have guessed that I'm English. But not because I have a posh accent.
At least I don't mumble.
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A couple days ago, I wrote this post. And then, coincidentally, today in the Dom Post's Saturday magazine, there was a nice story on the New Zealand accent. I would link to it, but I can't seem to find it online.
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Edited to add. The brilliant article in the Dominion Post was by David Killick.
1 comment:
I still get that question - after 12 year's of living here. Sometimes it's nice to be treated like a tourist from retailers in town. Now we have Kiwi born children everyone is always listening to their accents and trying to place them. They have quite a mix - what with my southern English tones, my husband's northern English ones, and then the 'Kiwi' vowel sounds they hear every day!
I couldn't find the article you mentioned (tried searching on stuff.co.nz) - but did find this one from Feb. 2008 - Studying the sound of Kiwi
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