What Nationalities have you been mistaken for?

[Kejan]

On 4/15/2019 at 16:36, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Was listening to a podcast the other week when the regular Irish contributor mentioned the awful "top o' the marnin', begorrah, where's me Lucky Charms?" accents that a lot of Irish characters end up with in films/TV/video games, so the other (non-Irish) contributors all started doing their own terrible imitations. He waited for them to finish and pointed out that they were all doing dreadful Scottish accents.

Between that and the number of folk on here who've been mistaken for Irish...is it possible that Irish and Scots accents are pretty indistinguishable to outsiders? I never would have thought it, but maybe when you're too close to something...

I don't think our accents are that similar, but I can see why some people who might speak English as a second or third language might think why they do.

I think doing a north/Northern Irish accent - whilst probably sounds awful to the locals - is one of the easiest ones a Scottish person could do - basically just turn up your accent x0.5, and  I honestly think if most Scottish people were in Belfast and only said four or five words a go and very quickly,  you could pass for a local.  e.g say out loud now "How are you doing, alright?" quite quickly and it'll sound a bit Norn Irish to an untrained ear.

I'm havering a fair amount of shite in here, but my funniest experience was meeting a guy from somewhere like Battle or Hampshire in England, and even after telling him I was Scottish, every now and again he would reference something to me being Irish or from Ireland.

[Hampden Diehard]

I've been asked if I'm a W****r a few times. I have no idea where W**k is.

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

On 4/24/2019 at 00:37, Kejan said:

...I honestly think if most Scottish people were in Belfast and only said four or five words a go and very quickly,  you could pass for a local...

Skeptical on it working in Belfast given there is a NW of England thing going on there in accent terms as well as the Scottish and Gaelic influences.  Most of NI as you move north and west doesn't have that and is more like an Ayrshire sort of accent. Seriously doubt a furry boots Aberdonian could ever be mistaken for a local in NI though any more than they could in the central belt. I think it's as much looks as accent that gets Scots mistaken for being Irish. We share certain traits like being prone to having ginger hair and freckles etc.

[Enigma]

I've been asked if I'm a W****r a few times. I have no idea where W**k is.
 
 

You’ve been asked? I’ve been told!

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Foreign people kept asking me for directions in Dublin assuming I was a local. 

I reckon to non English speakers most Scottish and Irish accents are hard to separate.

[Connor1874]

My dad, with his strong Edinburgh accent, was mistaken for a Yorkshire man in Amsterdam.

[Connor1874]

On 08/06/2019 at 17:20, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Foreign people kept asking me for directions in Dublin assuming I was a local. 

I reckon to non English speakers most Scottish and Irish accents are hard to separate.

I seem to get asked for direction everywhere I go. Particularly when in Germany.

[pozbaird]

As someone who travels to the USA two or three times a year, and has done so for over twenty years, this is a dead easy one to answer...

Irish.

Fair do’s, at least most Americans don’t think I’m English.

[Girth]

Belarusian

Polish

Irish

Australian

German

[LinkinFighter]

Irish
Dutch
German

[Enigma]

Swedish

Chinese

Nigerian

[Melanius Mullarkey]

British.