Australian Accent
The Australian accent is non-rhotic — the R in "car" is silent — with a distinctive vowel set that shifts sounds forward and raises the long vowels, which is why "day" can sound like "dye" to other ears. Linguists divide it into three varieties: broad (the strongest, most associated with rural and working-class speech), general (the mainstream), and cultivated (closer to RP). Australian English is also famous for its high rising terminal, the upward pitch at the end of a statement.
Hear it from real speakers
Every recording below is an unscripted native speaker, not an actor performing the accent — the reference that actually matters when you're learning it.
What actually separates them
The differences that matter when you're learning it — not the version you'd get from a vocabulary list.
- Non-rhotic, but not English
- Australian English shares non-rhoticity with RP — no R in "hard" — which tempts actors to build Australian from an English base and shift the vowels. It does not work. The Australian vowel system moved in a different direction from RP, and the resulting accent reads as English-with-drifted-vowels rather than Australian.
- Broad, general and cultivated
- These three varieties are a continuum, not three separate accents, and most Australians move between them depending on context. Broad is the most stereotyped and the most imitated; cultivating a performance in broad Australian without the vowel shifts that go with it is the usual reason an attempt sounds cartoonish.
- The high rising terminal
- Australian English commonly ends statements with a rising pitch, a feature sometimes called the Australian questioning intonation. It is one of the most recognisable features of the accent and one of the least imitated by actors focusing on vowels. Getting it wrong is desynchronising: the vowels sound Australian while the melody sounds English.
- Australian vs. New Zealand
- The two are related but distinct, and New Zealand English shifted further — the short "i" in "fish" moves toward a neutral vowel, and "d" and "t" sounds are more noticeably tapped. Australians and New Zealanders reliably tell each other apart, and so do casting directors for either market.
Common questions
How many Australian accents are there?
Linguists generally describe three broad varieties — broad, general and cultivated Australian — as points on a continuum rather than separate accents. Region plays a much smaller role in Australia than in Britain or America.
Does the Australian accent pronounce R?
No. Australian English is non-rhotic, so the R in "car" and "hard" is silent unless a vowel follows. This is one of the features it shares with RP, although the vowel systems are quite different.
Is the New Zealand accent the same as the Australian accent?
No, they are distinct, though related. New Zealand English has shifted further, notably with the short "i" moving toward a neutral vowel. Australians and New Zealanders distinguish each other easily.
Working on Australian accent for a role?
The recordings on this page are the reference. If you need correction, direction and someone to tell you when it's right, Sarah teaches this one-to-one — and there's a self-paced course if you'd rather work alone.