funny accents

I know I can have a bit of a ‘rural’ accent – I use it when on the phone with my family and it is definitely detectable after spending a bit of time in the country. I didn’t realise I may have a more ‘international’ accent though – until I was recently speaking to someone at Uni in regard to their research proposal to complete the MA Comms. She is interested in looking at whether people from English-speaking countries experience difficulties/dissonances in terms of language when they travel to other English speaking countries to live/study. Someone from the Philippines coming to Australia to study, for example. This represents her personal experience and she’s interested in examining how this plays out in a broader context. “You’d understand”, she said to me, “you’ve definitely got an accent. Where are you from?” Rats. I could only tell her I was from the country originally, not A country, just the country. Not very exotic at all, I’m afraid.