Thursday, August 19, 2010

Do We Look English Guv'nor?

"Bist du Englisch?" (Are you English?) We get this one a lot-- about once a month on average: a lot of Germans are of the distinct impression that B and I are British. My guess is that we don't dress like Americans (whatever that means, but generally speaking no baggy clothes, no baseball caps, no sports jerseys or white leather sneakers), Americans are, by comparison, few and far between here, and finally, a lot of Germans can't distinguish accents too well. In fact, I know a German person who speaks fluent English and actually lived in the USA for over 15 years who can not tell Irish, British English, Scottish, Aussie, South African or American accents from one another-- it all sounds exactly the same. I am only just starting to figure out the different German dialects after 2 years of constant immersion, so I'm hardly any better myself. At any rate, I've never been mistaken as anything other than an East Coast guy, so it is sort of cool to get pegged as someone from Old Blighty for a change.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Scottish for sure. Heck, you could tell people your one of The Proclaimers and get away with it.