The Australian accent is famous for its vowel sounds, absence of a strong “r” pronunciation and the use of an inflection – or intonation – at the end of sentences, which can make statements sound like questions. According to Felicity, the way vowels are pronounced is the most peculiar feature of Australian English.
Some key features of the Australian accent are the schwa, /ə/, the non-rhotic /r/ sound (listen to an Australian say a word with the /r/ sound, and then listen to an American say the same word and you can here the distinct difference in the way that the /r/ phoneme is pronounced and stressed), heavily nasalised vowel ...
The Australian accent is for the most part non-rhotic. This means that the pronunciation of the /r/ sound will never occur at the end of words. Where an American will say three separate sounds for the word car /kar/, an Australian native speaker will only say 2 /ka:/.
TIP #15: Find some “trigger” words to help you get into Aussie character. Try saying the words: Australian (Strayan), like, might, right, fight, dire, mate, date, no, hat, water bottle, catching, running, and together. If you can master the sounds of words that you are comfortable with, you can move on to new words!
Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
The most widely accepted theory to why Australians have the accent they do is that the first Australian born children (of the colonizers, not the natives obviously) simply created the first trace of the recognizable accent amongst themselves naturally.
There's two types of english speaking accents, rhotic and non-rhotic. One reason the Australian accent is so hard to imitate is because it's a combination of these. An example are the words “can” and “can't”. We say can the rhotic way “caan” and can't the non-rhotic way “cahnt”.
Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/, describes a broad accent of Australian English.
"The most challenging Australian word I've ever seen for Americans to pronounce is 'Cairns. ' It's like it uses a vowel they just don't have. They really want to pronounce the 'r' in it, whereas Aussies rarely pronounce 'r' unless it's at the start of the syllable."
The accent is far broader than typically thought to be the case. What makes the Australian accent unique? There are a whole bunch of things. The accent uses a lot of vowel sounds, probably the largest number of vowel sounds in any version of English around the world.
According to linguists, there are three main kinds of Aussie accent: broad (think former Prime Minister Bob Hawke), general (closer to Kevin Rudd) and cultivated (like Malcolm Fraser).
According to a recent survey conducted by the popular dating website MissTravel.com, over 2000 American men and women regard Australian accents as one of the sexiest in the world.
Australian English arose from a dialectal melting pot created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of dialectal regions of Great Britain and Ireland, though its most significant influences were the dialects of Southeast England.
"Australian English is a bit different from normal English. Here they speak so fast and at the same time, the words get jumbled up. So sometimes, it's a bit hard for me to understand. 'G'day mate'... is a common term they use here.
If someone is angry, you could say they've 'gone crook'. Crook can also be used to describe a criminal. Cuppa: if someone asks for a cuppa, they want a cup of tea. Cut snake (Mad as a): this is an extremely Australian way to say that someone is very angry.
While some Australian speakers would pronounce “no” as a diphthong, starting on “oh” as in dog and ending on “oo” as in put, others begin with an unstressed “a” (the sound at the end of the word “sofa”), then move to the “oh” and then “oo”.
In Australian English, diminutives are usually formed by taking the first part of a word, and adding an ending such as a, o, ie, or y.
(Noun) An uncouth or uncultured person, usually. See also: feral, ratbag, reptile, bevan etc. “I can't understand that bogan's broad Australian accent.”
The English accent is the one that is victorious, with the latest survey showing that 17 per cent of people have it at the top of their list. French came in next at 13 per cent, which is unsurprising considering that this is the language spoken in the city of love.
There are still some differences in the Aussie accent between states and between city and country, but the broader Australian accents seem to be disappearing and becoming more homogenized. An Australian accent is still quite distinctive and discernible when heard overseas away from Australia.
What does it mean? Another word for friend. Common in Britain as well, but used even more enthusiastically by Aussies, who pepper the ends of their sentences with a longer, stretched out “maaaaate” that conveys friendliness and establishes a relaxed bond between the speakers.