J'entends un petit accent

Living in a non-english speaking country means that I hear the sentence 'j'entends un petit accent' several times a month. Literally translated as 'I hear a little accent' this is the polite way of the French asking 'Where the hell do you come from? You are clearly not French!', or in some circumstances it's an attempt at a marvelous pick-up line. Apparently my accent is mignon (cute), charmant (charming) - whatever! I'd prefer not to have an accent and prove to myself that I can speak this language properly. All in good time perhaps. However, if this should never happen, which I'm almost certain it won't, I am quite happy to accept my imperfect French given the fact that I'm NOT French. The thing which is more difficult to accept is the problem people seem to have with my accent in ENGLISH!

So, when I'm speaking English, I'm not one to kick up a fuss if a French person doesn't know where I come from - the fact that they can distinguish the language as English is a big enough step, they don't need to be able to hear the subtle (or glaringly obvious) difference between accents from various english-speaking countries. I was slightly offended when some students guessed that I was from Sweden before suggesting Australia, given that I don't look at all Swedish (unfortunately!) and that the first language of Swedes is of course Swedish and not English. Apparently it doesn't even sound like I'm speaking my mother tongue to some of my students. Moving on though to the other culprits. I am incredibly used to people thinking I'm British, which I guess I can understand - although it's slightly strange when it's coming from a British person - can't they hear that my accent is different to their own? But, what the hell is the world coming to when even Australians can't tell where you're from? That's right, I asked my fellow Australian at work where she came from, to which she replied Australia (no shit sherlock), so then I asked her where exactly, to which she replied Adelaide. Continuing with the niceities, she asked me where I came from, to which I replied Sydney. She then said 'But you're not Australian! You're American!' I couldn't believe it! The nerve of her! And as if that wasn't enough, she proceeded to make things worse by then listening to me speak and highlighting the very words that sounded American to her - talk about digging yourself into a deeper hole. After this lovely incident, the newsreader comes over to me and says that she overheard me speaking to my colleague and that she had never spoken to me as she had assumed I was American (seems some people have strange standards when deciding who to strike up a conversation with), but now that she knew I was Australian she wanted to talk about her 6 year stint in Oz. Incredible!

These are just some of the hundreds of comments I have received about my accent. Others tell me I sound European - one of those mixed up accents that's all in all a bit neutral, some say I sound like I'm from anywhere BUT Australia and then there are those who say I speak English with no accent whatsoever - whatever that sounds like!

And that's only the accent, don't get me started on people telling me my sentence structure, phrasing and word order is all a bit strange!

However, having said that, being surrounded by Australians for the past month has brought back my aussie accent considerably and I don't think there were any complaints from my friends this month about being incomprehensible.