Native speakers: Can you tell where fighters are from by accent?

[Busgosu]

Do you have one of those ridiculous pijo accents? Lol, I bet you do.

I'm an Asturian, so no

 

[TerrorTimmy]

Native English speaker from the US but I'm conversational in Spanish. I can hear most accents from other Anglo countries and place them pretty easily. Even Canadian accents vary a lot from coast to coast(Quebec doesn't really count since they've obviously got their own thing going on). The further north an accent is from in the UK, usually the harder they are to understand for me. Kiwis and Aussies tend to pronounce certain vowels a lot differently, but with a ton of similarities overall. ......probably as similar as your average middle American and Canadian accent. Sometimes white South African accents can be really similar to generic English accents since they had so much influence in that country over the years. If Afrikaans was their first language then it's a little more apparent that they're from South Africa, at least to me.

Spanish from the Caribbean like Domican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican speakers speak a lot differently than what you hear in Mexico or Central America. They tend to drop their the S sound in words a lot. Spanish from Colombia and Venezuela sounds a lot clearer/cleaner since they enunciate their words properly. If someone is from Spain they're easy to pick out since they lisp and mumble a lot due to the Castilian accent.

100% this

Spanish from Spain always sounds horrible to me. The lisp drives me crazy and the use of vosotros that nobody else uses is dumb.

Mexican Spanish has the unique feature of using "tú" with just about everyone. Anyone using "usted" in Mexico is guaranteed to be an arrogant prick.

Argentinian Spanish is very different than Colombian or Venezuelan Spanish and sounds more similar to Spain, but with lots of unique slang. Chilean Spanish isn't actually intelligible by anyone not from Chile.

 

[Robbocop]

A lot of fighters have extremely mixed backgrounds where they were born in one country, moved to another country young, and then maybe moved to another country again. Or alternatively, they were born in one country but spoke a different first language growing up. As a result you can get accents all over the place.

e.g. Adesanya born Nigeria, lives NZ, has a kind of American accent.

Volkanovski, born Australia but both parents Greek/Macedonian, has a distinctive ethnic accent which is not specific to any particular part of Australia, but rather that you have certain ancestry.

Tai Tuivasa has a kind of specific accent spoken by petty criminals known as lads or eshays, mixed with Pacific Islander slang. And he is of Samoan, and Aboriginal ancestry. You could kind of guess where he's from but it's more of a class/ethnicity thing than regional accent. Maybe you could make an argument it's a Western Sydney accent, but it's a stretch because Islanders would speak the same way up in Queensland.

In short a lot of accents are all over the place now because people move around to different countries so often, often UFC fighters are of very mixed or complicated backgrounds.

 

[Buff]

And if I'm ever in your neck of the woods I will . Got you in the Philippines, and @Buff in Singapore lol. Will be set for a globe trotting adventure if I'm lucky enough

I wouldn't last 30 seconds in Singapore before they started whipping me.

 

[El Fernas]

thank you thats the answer i was looking for. I was wanting to know how these guys sound according to their native brethren. So is the chihuahua accent seen as more 'proper' or 'educated' sounding in mexican culture? or is it more of a southern US drawl / hillbilly accent ?

The latter lol, the more central the region is the more "neutral" the accent and thats what most people consider as the "best" accent to have, or technically, no accent.

 

[El Fernas]

Tony and Cain have gringo accents

Yeah, Cain barely speaks any spanish and Ferguson isnt that much better at it, from the Mexican American fighters probably Gastelum or Cejudo have the best spanish imo.

 

[GolovKing]

These white south Africans sound the same as Australians to me. Also can't tell the difference between an Irishman and a scottsman.

 

[GolovKing]

Yeah, Cain barely speaks any spanish and Ferguson isnt that much better at it, from the Mexican American fighters probably Gastelum or Cejudo have the best spanish imo.

And the funny things is, them two are probably the least prideful of being Mexicans. You never really see either of them trying to rep Mexico and they both actually speak some Portuguese. A lot of people calling cejudo a traitor actually because of how he's raising his family and him repping being an American 100% instead of trying to rep Mexico over America like a lot of Mexican Americans do

 

[Prologue]

I worked with a bunch of UK expats. Six months of that and you can tell who is from what city/town based on accent.

 

[Sincere Guy]

Funny thing, I'm Brazilian with an advanced English (not fluent because I have a hard time putting regional expressions in the right situations, I'm too literal) and I can differentiate English from Scottish, Irish, Australian, native English and American. My listening is very good I guess.

 

[Trabaho]

I'm not surprised at telling the difference between Croatians and Serbians from their speech, for example Croatians tend to more nasal pronunciations like saying "mlijeko" (milk) whereas Serbians say "mleko". But the walking bit is a new concept to me, can you explain it?

Walking as in racially how they look lol. Serbia Borders Romania. Croatia is more west. Bosnia is in the middle.

Just white people got their genetic distinct look. Also Germans, most people in Germany can spot a German from how they look.

 

[Bobby Boulders]

Aussies got that "hard" sounds like "hod" thing going on.

 

[PhilMcCavity]

God damnit, Phil McCavity.

Sorry aboot that there chim…. But you know I’m right

 

[bangard]

As someone who lives in Scotland, I cannot understand people who think British (English) accents are like Australian lol, I just cannot comprehend it after hearing these accents so much in my life

Not a native Enlish speaker but thought exactly the same thing. The difference is easy to hear

 

[ChimRichalds]

Sorry aboot that there chim…. But you know I’m right

I do, unfortunately.

 

[Ares Black]

I can sometimes tell where Canadian fighters are from by the way they talk.

 

[HatKick]

All languages have various regional accents/dialects that are easy to distinguish from each other. Even small countries like Denmark. I'm from Copenhagen and there are some rural places that I can barely understand their accents. It's not exactly an English language phenomenon.

English is my 2nd language. I used to only be able to separate British and American. Now I've developped a better ear for various regions. The accents I can clearly tell:

British: Scouse, Manchester, West England, Cockney, Scottish, Irish
American: gangster Brooklyn/Boston accent, "southern" accent, "black" accent... Everything else just sounds like "standard American" to me.
Canadian: hard to distinguish from standard American but there are some give-aways
Australian: very easy to tell but don't know if there's more than one Australian accent
South African: sounds like Dutchmen speaking English as their 2nd language. Seriously it sounds a lot like Overeem and Verhoeven

 

[spinup]

As someone who lives in Scotland, I cannot understand people who think British (English) accents are like Australian lol, I just cannot comprehend it after hearing these accents so much in my life

I am french living in north england and I cannot imagine a native speaker thinking Aussie and Brit accents sound the same.
Plus in england, you travel 50miles and the accent is already completely different. Compare Darren Till and Paddy to Aspinall or Leon Edwards, it's like they don't speak the same language.

 

[GIBLERTBAPTISTA]

A lot of fighters have extremely mixed backgrounds where they were born in one country, moved to another country young, and then maybe moved to another country again. Or alternatively, they were born in one country but spoke a different first language growing up. As a result you can get accents all over the place.

e.g. Adesanya born Nigeria, lives NZ, has a kind of American accent.

Volkanovski, born Australia but both parents Greek/Macedonian, has a distinctive ethnic accent which is not specific to any particular part of Australia, but rather that you have certain ancestry.

Tai Tuivasa has a kind of specific accent spoken by petty criminals known as lads or eshays, mixed with Pacific Islander slang. And he is of Samoan, and Aboriginal ancestry. You could kind of guess where he's from but it's more of a class/ethnicity thing than regional accent. Maybe you could make an argument it's a Western Sydney accent, but it's a stretch because Islanders would speak the same way up in Queensland.

In short a lot of accents are all over the place now because people move around to different countries so often, often UFC fighters are of very mixed or complicated backgrounds.

I can definitely pick the accent of a west syd islander from a brissie islander after living in both places.

West sydney accent is heavily wog influenced, while brisbane islanders have the more typical poly accent.

 

[Brit_Brawler]

I'm going to be honest. Most are obvious. I recognise and perfectly understand even strong irish/ Scottish /Welsh accents.
I know an Australian when I hear one and can mostly distinguish a new Zealand accent from the aussie.
South African can sound a little kiwi to my ears sometimes and unless i here an obvious " aboot" bomb dropped. I struggle the most with picking up if somebody is Canadian. Just sounds like a generic US accent to me