The "Are You (insert nationality here)" Question

That's because you practically have 'I'm American' stamped on your forehead.   

That and I tell them I am before they have a chance to ask!

I have been told that my accent sounds Italian. I'm not Italian and I don't speak Italian 

Well, it's nice to know I'm not alone.   It really amuses me now, it does.

I have been asked if I was Irish...Canadian...but mostly American...............

But everyone in America says I sound English.....I correct them and say manx actually.

Shell

.....I correct them and say manx actually.

Quite right an all! 

Irish and Canadian, mostly.

My auntie thought you were Scottish...had no idea you were American until I told her!

No one has ever thought I was American, not once. I'm usually asked if I'm Canadian, Irish (!!?!?!), or Dutch.

I've gotten Australian a few times, which was really strange to me at first.  Now, though, when I hear Australians speak, it does sound like they have a somewhat similar accent to my southern US one!

My auntie thought you were Scottish...had no idea you were American until I told her!

 

Spanish. I get asked if I'm Spanish all the time or addressed in Spanish by Spaniards seeking directions. I answer them . . . in Mexican Spanish.

I get this in the US.  I can't be in Miami Int'l Airport for 5 seconds without some sweet little old Spanish lady walking up to me with a smile and chattering away in Spanish!    Poor things look heartbroken when I explain I'm not fluent...

Here I get Canadian all the time.  That's only after I've opened my mouth.  I've had 2 fellow ex-pats walk right past me at first meetings because I looked "too English" to be an American. 

Usually, 'where are you from, your accent is really different?'

People have always said the same thing, even when I lived in the States - Sweden or NL.  I don't know why I sound the way I do. :shrug  Never States or Canada, always Scandinavia.

 I often get asked if I am Irish.  I have been here 6 years so I must have some hybrid American/Yorkshire accent thing going on.

I get Canadian and S. African all the time

This might be the wrong thread, but how do people respond to Hispanic Americans?  My hubby is so dark, we're wondering what they will make of him once we get to London...  Maybe Indian?  Either way, he doesn't speak Spanish(the slacker) so it shouldn't be a problem....

This might be the wrong thread, but how do people respond to Hispanic Americans?  My hubby is so dark, we're wondering what they will make of him once we get to London...  Maybe Indian?  Either way, he doesn't speak Spanish(the slacker) so it shouldn't be a problem....

Well, this is really a thread about how citizens of the UK perceive the American accent and what they think we are before finding out what we are, that sort of thing...but, anyway...  In London there are already so many Americans there (of all types) that I feel it's a bit different than other places in the UK.  London - like New York - is a "world city".  Whenever I have been in London I have heard just as many American accents as British ones.  In fact, when I went there for a concert on my birthday last year, I remarked to my husband that I was getting tired of hearing the American accent so much there - it was grating on me because I had become so accustomed to being surrounded soley (except for on the telly) by our local Leicestershire accent.