In your language how easy is it to know where a person is from based on how they speak?

[Kraut]

Another one of these tests, from the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

[El Forastero]

For a native spanish speaker, It's rather easy to differenciate the main accents and sometimes that can be enough to identify the country people come from. Accents: Porteño, Peninsular, Andino, Colombiano, Caribeño, Mexicano.

Inside every country, local people can identify what state / province / department they come from, but that's not possible for other countries. As a Colombian, I can Identify the main 10 colombian accents, but not the accents from Spain. All of them are equally "peninsular".


Inside my region (Andean Colombia) I can Identify some nuances that allow me guess more precisely the place, but I'm not capable to do the same with other regions. For instance, I can Identify that someone is from the Caribbean region, but not what city exactly and sometimes not even if this caribbean person is from another caribbean country. But Caribbean People can stablish if Someone is from Cartagena or Guajira.

I live in a big city (Bogotá, 8 Million) and I can identify the zone bogotanian people come from and even the social status (sort of).

[jmar257]

Another one of these tests, from the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

This was interesting. I accidentally skipped the last question (about trucks--my answer would be semis, big rigs, or tractor trailers) by double-clicking but my results were spot on. I grew up in the South in two states, result 1 was the town I lived in from middle school until college, 3 was a city of similar size 45 minutes away, and 2 was in a state neighboring where I was born and originally lived.

[tungemål]

...
Inside every country, local people can identify what state / province / department they come from, but that's not possible for other countries. As a Colombian, I can Identify the main 10 colombian accents, but not the accents from Spain. All of them are equally "peninsular"
...

I am sure you could distinguish the accents from Spain if you encountered them. Especially the southern Spanish (Andalucian) accent. Andalucian and the various Latin American Spanish varieties have similarities, because the latter originated in the former. That is obvious even to me with my intermediate Spanish.
Wikipedia:

Due to massive emigration from Andalusia to the Spanish colonies in the Americas and elsewhere, most Latin American Spanish dialects share some fundamental characteristics with Western Andalusian Spanish, such as the use of ustedes instead of vosotros for the second person plural, and seseo.

[tangleweeds]

Another one of these tests, from the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

Interesting, puts me right on target from Detroit. But "Devil's Night" is a big giveaway there. A friend from high school did his PhD thesis on it (outside Michigan).

[El Forastero]

I am sure you could distinguish the accents from Spain if you encountered them. Especially the southern Spanish (Andalucian) accent. Andalucian and the various Latin American Spanish varieties have similarities, because the latter originated in the former. That is obvious even to me with my intermediate Spanish.

Maybe If I were exposed to spaniards from different regions, but it hasn't been my case. This situation happens to me with hte other countries. I work with four colleagues from different Venezuela States, they allege to be very different dialectwise, but for me all of them sounds equally "venezuelean".

[golyplot]

Interesting, puts me right on target from Detroit. But "Devil's Night" is a big giveaway there. A friend from high school did his PhD thesis on it (outside Michigan).

Looks like it won't let me take the quiz any more without creating an account, but I recall taking it years ago when the quiz first came out and it suggested two points on opposite sides of the country, neither anywhere near where I grew up.

[CarlyD]

Another one of these tests, from the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

It said I sounded like I was either from Sacramento or Stockton (California). I was born and raised in Sacramento.

I can pin down a good number of US accents--but decades of television have blurred things, like hearing someone from Chicago using California slang. My good friend has been here since her early teens, but 40 years later that New York accent is still there.

I can tell roughly which country a Spanish speaker comes from, but not any more precise than that. I can easily recognize either Cuban or Peruvian, mostly because I have a terrible time understanding either. Here in California we mostly hear western Mexican or Central American Spanish, so anything outside of that sounds "different."

[lingua]

In the US I can tell if someone is from the south or east coast but I've no idea which specific state they are from. I don't think I could pick up anything mid-western though. It's just as likely though that they aren't from that area but just lived there for a long time since it's pretty easy to pick up a local accent if you live there. Presumably, the east coast or southerners can tell if someone is from the western states.

When I listen to Italian podcasts I can get hints about whether they have a northern vs southern accent with a few key words but not what specific region they're from.

I haven't a clue about any other language.

Edit: I just took that NYT test and it hit two of the suburbs in my area. The third city was in the northwest. It said I'm most similar to the west/northern midwest which is about right. I talk like a typical native English speaking Californian.

[eido]

Another one of these tests, from the US: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

I was born and raised in the West of the US, but this test placed me in Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois, probably because my mom is from around there.

I have an ear for hearing other languages being spoken around me, like radar, but I can't recognize the specific dialects people are using.