I have something with languages. When a foreigner is speaking English, I can tell right away where he or she’s from. I have no idea if that’s so special, but I know it can lead to weird conversations and funny run-ins.
The easiest to tell appart are Germans and Austrians (their English accent is the worst. This is a message to German teachers in English: DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT). It’s bad. I can’t get over the fact that, for example mr. Schwarzenegger, who is an American citizen for over 30 years, after all this time, still has that terrible accent. Sure, I do have an accent too but not as bad as Arnie’s. Earlier I wondered if this had to do because I was literally thrown in a ‘common-English-Canadian speaking’ community, eh. (This is not good either. I’ve been longing to update both my English written/spoken language. I have no idea where I would get those courses. Where’s the CIC when you need them?).
My mother-in-law was patient with me. I owe her.
The second one that are easy to tell apart are the Dutch. You recognize them because they pretend they speak so perfectly English (actually, they do), because their English language teaching system is so fricking complete and thorough. All hail my teacher. Until they discover real English speaking people don’t even talk the way the schoolbooks do. It’s fun to speak Dutch when Dutch people expect it the least. I mean, who would expect Dutch people to live around Truro? (sidenote: there are several of generations of Dutch immigrants living here around Truro).
Swedes, piece of cake. Italians, natch. And naturaly, I love British English. And Scottish English. And so here and there I start to recognize provincial Canadian dialects. ‘You’re not from around here’, is my first question.
As if I am.