Here's something interesting for those who think they have a good ear for accents, and who like a challenge: there is a 'guess the accent' game here.
You listen to a number of people reading lines from Rudyard Kipling's 'If', and guess where the speaker hails from.
Give it a try if you want to test your skill. I scored a rather modest 35, though I think I have a fair ear for accents. But here's a warning: the people who devised the test made it tricky by using apparent immigrants to Western countries, whose 'English' accent is hard to identify. I think you would have to be psychic to figure out where some of the 'diverse' accents originate.
Another complicating factor is that black Americans often have similar accents regardless of where in America they were born or grew up. The only exception, to my ear, are those of Northeastern blacks, such as New York City or Boston.
The easiest accents for me, and the ones I got right for the most part, were the English, Australian, New Zealand, and (White) South African. I misidentified the Scotsman as Irish. Shame on me.
