Compare
two accents.
The same word, two voices, back to back. The quickest way to hear what actually changes.
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Second voice
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The comparison matrix
Each page below takes one pair of accents and works through every difference between them: a feature table, the sound changes one at a time with playable examples, a word-by-word list with transcriptions, and the questions people actually ask about that pair.
American vs British
The rhotic r, the flap t, the bath vowel and the words that simply differ.
Australian vs British
Two non-rhotic accents separated almost entirely by their vowels.
Indian vs British
Retroflex stops, dental TH, pure vowels and a syllable-timed rhythm.
American vs Australian
Rhotic against non-rhotic, plus a full set of shifted diphthongs.
American vs Indian
Flap t against retroflex stops, and stress timing against syllable timing.
Canadian vs American
Canadian Raising, the low-back merger, and the truth about “aboot”.
Irish vs British
Rhotic r, dental TH, the slit t, and no TRAP–BATH split.
Australian vs Indian
Shifted diphthongs against pure vowels, and two different r systems.
What actually differs between English accents
English accents do not differ in thousands of unrelated ways. Almost everything that separates one from another comes down to six things, and once you can hear them you can place an accent from a single sentence. Each one below links to the comparison page where it is the headline difference.
Rhoticity — whether r is pronounced after a vowel
The single biggest division in spoken English. American, Canadian, Irish and Scottish English pronounce the r in car and hard. British RP, Australian and New Zealand English do not, sounding the r only when a vowel follows it. Nothing else splits the accent map so cleanly.
What happens to the t between vowels
The /t/ in water and better is a fast voiced tap in American, Canadian and Australian English, a fully released [t] in RP, a glottal stop in London and Estuary speech, a soft slit fricative in Irish English, and a retroflex stop in much Indian English. One consonant, five outcomes.
The bath vowel
Southern British English moved about 150 words — bath, class, dance, laugh — from a short /æ/ to a long /ɑː/. American, Irish and northern English accents never made the move, and Australian English made it for some of those words and not others.
Where the diphthongs start
Every accent has the vowels of day, night and go, but they begin from different places. Australian starts FACE lower, Canadian raises the onset of PRICE before a voiceless consonant, and Indian English commonly holds FACE and GOAT as pure long vowels rather than gliding at all.
Rhythm and vowel reduction
American, British and Australian English are stress-timed: stressed syllables arrive at regular intervals and everything between them is squeezed into schwa. Indian English leans towards syllable timing, giving each syllable more equal weight. This affects perceived speed more than any single sound does.
Words that simply differ
A short list is not predictable from any rule at all: schedule, garage, tomato, herb, vitamin, lieutenant, zebra, privacy. These have to be learned one at a time, and every accent inherits its list from a parent variety — Australian and Indian English mostly follow the British forms.
Two notes on honesty
No accent here is faked. Learn Pronounce supplies natural American, British and Australian voices to every visitor. Indian, Canadian and Irish English are not in that set, so buttons pinned to those accents play only if your own device has a matching voice installed. We would rather leave a button disabled than play an American voice under an Indian label.
No accent is a single thing. Received Pronunciation is used by a small minority of British speakers, Indian English varies with the speaker’s first language, Irish English differs sharply between Dublin, Cork and Ulster, and Australian English runs along its own continuum. Every comparison on this site describes tendencies, not rules.