We use a lot of the same words, spelling and grammar as the Brits (biccie for biscuit, cuppa for cup of tea, etc) but we also have heaps more slang of our own - and there’s plenty of British phrases which make no sense whatsoever to us.

Australians speak English?

It's closer to British English than American in terms of spelling and in some aspects of grammar. Australian slang is very much its own thing though, and is pretty distant from any other dialects apart from New Zealand.

I'm not at all sure what you mean by formality levels though. Every dialect of English has different registers, and people often switch between them.

American English is the way it is because they fucked it over for stupid commercial and europhobic reasons. Australia didn't do that and so remain closer to the original British English.

Aussie English is it's own thing.

Officially, in terms of spelling and grammar, the standard is closer to the British.

People will insist on the "correct" spelling of "programme" or "favour" but a lot of spelling variations are accepted in general use like "jail" instead of "gaol".

We absolutely will not say "aluminum", "gasoline" or "trash-can".

Dialect wise, Aussie English is non-rhotic (doesn't roll the R unless followed by a vowel) and has a few more pronunciation similarities in common with UK dialects than US dialects.

We talk very fast, don't enunciate, and use a lot of uniquely Aussie slang.

Eu particularmente tenho mais facilidade em entender o inglês dos Australianos do que dos Ingleses,+ não sei explicar o pq.

é bem parecido mesmo, pra quem não estuda fonética vai ter dificuldade de entender, mas tem alguns sons como o “ou” que os australianos pronunciam diferentemente, também tem o “i” que ao invés de ser tipo “ai” soa mais como “oi”. o R também as vezes é pronunciado igual americano tipo “party”. As palavras também são bem diferentes, muito vocabulário e expressão específicas da austrália

Se vc estiver ouvindo uma pessoa que fala a cultivated version, vai ser muito parecido com a received pronunciation

pra identificar com mais força tem que ser o broad australian

até os americanos não consegue identificar tão bem. Geralmente eu identifico se alguém ta falando ingles australiano se me lembra o Steve Irwin kkkkkk

Enfia duas batata na boca.

Tá. Mas os australianos falam com umas vogais a mais mesmo.

British person now living in Australia. We absolutely do not use the American spelling of yoghurt. Have never seen it spelled that way in the uk.

There’s the three recognised accents as mentioned in other comments, however I believe there’s more. For example, I can often (not always) tell over the phone when someone is Australian with an Asian background, or Australian with an Mediterranean European or middle eastern background, or Australian with an indigenous background. It’s a noticeably different accent.

Australia uses British spelling. In school if you used American spelling it would be considered a spelling mistake and you'd lose marks; teachers hated seeing American spelling more than any other kind of spelling mistake.

No one uses American spelling in Australia. Try submitting a paper or document with that stuff in it and you’d be ridiculed or even yelled at as an idiot.

As for accents, not really. It’s very slight.

I also hate the increasing Americanisation of pronunciation. I’ve taught a few kids who spent their entire lives in working class Aussie suburbs who have started adding an r sound at the end of words like colour and putting a sounded L in calm. And we had constantly to tell numbers of kids. “In Australia we do NOT put our hands over our hearts for the anthem”

Also Reddit!

I admit I'll often use the American spelling rather than defy the wavy red line. The big exception is in Australia-centric subs.

Wait what? Isle and Aisle are different things, ones an island and the other is like a set of shelves in a store? Do Americans use "isle" for both?

Colourised would be the correct way to spell it. (Jokes)

We use British English for the most part. Extra vowels aren't confusing to us.

With regards to accents there's about 4 types:

• Broad
• General
• Refined
• Steve Irwin

There's some regional differences.

It may just be the volume of speech that you hear. I am American, but I listen to hours of broadcasts of pro cycling in which the vast majority of commenters are British, Irish, Scotch, or Australian. Like during the past Giro d’Italia and associated podcasts, I would say that for the past 3 weeks at least 70% of my listening has been from people with those accents. I have gotten to the point where I can recognize the differences pretty easily.

But there are a number of dialects of British english, and those I can hardly differentiate at all. I can detect differences, but I can’t tell what dialect or area they belong to.

It just may be that you don’t hear it enough?

They are both non-rhotic accents. This differs a lot from North American dialects, most off which are rhotic.

Rhoticity refers tho the pronunciation of the letter “r”. In a rhotic dialect, the words “spa” and “spar” have different pronunciations. In a non-rhotic dialect, they are pronounced identically.

It’s not unusual for native English speakers who speak a rhotic dialect to have problems discerning between non-rhotic accents.

I don't know the answer to your question. But, let me illustrate my own idiocy so you feel better:

I - an American - cannot tell the difference between British and South African speakers. In fact, South Africans are always shocked that I'd think they are British.

They have really similar accents. I only speak English and have confused the two a few times.

I’m a native English speaker in the US, and the difference between Australian and British accents is pretty subtle to me. It’s almost as subtle as the difference between Canadian and US accents.

"O" sounds often get twisted into "oi" or "or" sounds.

WW1 joke about two soldiers in the trenches:

British soldier: Did you come here to die?

Australian soldier: Nah mate, I came here yesterday.

How they sound.

Prison.

Which British accent because Aussies and Scousers is different to say Aussies and Cockneys

I can't tell the difference between some Australian and British accents. I can tell the difference between a thick Australian accent but not the more posh ones. I have to wait for certain words before the Australian twang comes out, usually an "a" word, but some reason it's not on every "a" word.

However I grew up with BBC and my mom is from India and speaks with an Indian/UK accent and couldn't tell the difference between British and American for a long time because it was normalized to me. I can't impersonate my mom's accent even though I hear it everyday, so I guess I'm terrible with accents in general.

My wife (Canadian) blew my mind when she was able to effortlessly vocalize the difference between Australian and New Zealandish-er. It made instant sense and ever since then I've been able to hear the difference. Aussies (oi oi oi) draw out the vowels like people in the south of America. (my place of origin) Kiwis swallow the vowels.

Aussie: Hellooooough Kiwi: Heelo

Yeah but Americans basically never hear them juxtaposed, so why would we be able to tell the difference? I'd just assume the Kiwi accent is just some other Australian accent. Since there are multiple Australian accents. Compare Cate Blanchett, Hugh Jackman, and Steve Irwin. That's a declining scale of "poshness"

I don't think too many Americans will know the different regional accents of England. Most should he able to tell the difference between English and Australian, but Cockney vs Birmingham? Highly unlikely

I/we can actually hear the difference between the various American accents and are quite familiar with most of them (thank a lifetime of watching American shows/movies etc), I just can't pinpoint which city/state one might come from. I can sometimes even tell a Canadian and American accent apart, although that is a bit hit and miss. But British sounds very different to the Australian accent imo.

They're not distinctive to me, but it's probably because I don't hear either accent very often. I'm guessing I would be able to tell the difference if I lived in Australia or New Zealand for a while.

Maybe it's similar to a typical American vs Canadian accent. To outsiders they probably sound the same, and they mostly do. But as an American I notice the subtle differences Canadians have.

British accents sound more ... fancy and intelligent and slightly pretentious. (Not in a negative type of way).

Australians sound more ... opposite of that (But not in a negative type of way). Let's assume the opposite of pretentiousness is "cool."

Yes definitely.

British people say, "Chip chip cheerio guvnah!" while Australians say, "Oy crikey! Drop bear behind ya, mate!"

I can usually tell the difference between Australian and Kiwi but it's really subtle. I can't really explain the difference.

I don’t think that’s a great example. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between those accents but there’s a huge difference between an Australian and English accent.

Australian to British is like the Southern American accent to the midwest American accent.

Maybe they do and it’s the Brits who changed their accents.

Which British accent? When they landed here, every couple of blocks in London had a distinct accent before you even looked at the rest of the UK.

Can't think of any former colony that maintained the British accent.

America, Canada, Aus, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, ect. All developed their own regional English accent

We have a blended British Scottish Irish accent, with influences of alcohol induced drawl.

Canadian here, and I’m actually not gonna pick on the Americans for once (it’s too easy), I just have a… polite qualm with the Australians. So in North America you have chips (thin crispy potato slices) and fries (deep fried potato sticks). In the UK you have crisps (thin crispy potato slices) and chips (deep fried potato sticks). Could any Australian explain to me why on earth you decided to call both items chips? Do you have some vendetta against ease of communication? I’m really just baffled as to how something like that comes to be.

There are many English speaking countries OP didn't mention. Ireland has about the same number of L1 English speakers as New Zealand, for example.

SA English is derived from British English so I would say that the main difference today would be in terms of accent, and colloquial terms. Think "chips" Vs, "crisps".

American and Canadian English have more different dialects within each country than differences between the TV standard General American/General Canadian accents. 

In written versions, the main distinction is the retention of British spelling in Canadian English. Colour vs color etc.

It's not uncommon for me to meet a Canadian who I can't identify based on dialect as being Canadian, and it's not uncommon for people in many parts of the US to misidentify American accents from border states as being Canadian accents. 

Vancouver and Seattle sound much more like each other than either do to the Deep South or to Newfoundland.

It's hard to call South Africa an "English speaking country" when the vast majority of South Africans don't speak English as their primary language. If we were to open it up to simply any country where English simply is common then a country like Denmark would be more of an "English speaking country" than South Africa.

Same thing here in NZ; my daughter says Zee rather than Zed.

Sesame street thing?

I really dislike the spelling differences, in American English all the dropped “u”s and swapping “s” for “z”, “c”s for “s”s, etc

But the one thing I hate more than anything else, is when Americans say they “could care less”. No. The phrase is “couldn’t care less”. As in: you care so little, it is literally impossible to care less. “Could care less” means you do care, at least a bit, which is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to say.

Zee is creeping in in Australia too.

I'd still say Zed is more popular but in certain contexts Zee is more commonly heard (Like Gen Z)

Googled it for you - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66aG5P0kQpU

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English