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Australia
(See also Australian English) The Australian accent varies between social classes and is sometimes claimed to vary from state to state, though this is disputed. Accents tend to be strongest in the more remote areas. (Note that while there are many similarities between Australian accents and New Zealand ones, there are also a number of differences.) The following are some Australian characteristics:

The Australian vowel system is quite different from that of other dialects. Other standard dialects have tense vowels, lax vowels, and diphthongs. Australian English on the other hand has turned most of the tense vowels into diphthongs, and turned some of what are diphthongs in Received Pronunciation into long vowels, thus replacing the tense-lax distinction (one of quality) with a long-short distinction (one of quantity). The table below shows these.
Vowels are changed in pronunciation as follows:

Australian Vowel Pronunciation in SAMPA
Australian Received Pronunciation Examples
@i/Ii i: see
{I eI day
AI aI my
VU @U no
{U aU now
1** u: soon,through
e: e@ there
a V but
a: A: fast, car

Additionally, the vowels are generally pronounced higher up in the mouth than their English counterparts; [I@] (beard) is often pronounced as [I:] when followed by a consonant; /3:/ (bird) takes on a fronter, more rounded quality; /{/ (bat) has split into two distinct phonemes, so that whereas dad, can (I can do it), bat have a short vowel, bad, can (tin can), pal have a long one.
'gone' takes on a peculiar quality: whereas all other /O:/ (born, saw) became [o:], and all /Q/ (hot) became [O], gone stayed as [O:].
In Victoria, a short e before l is pronounced as a short a, so that celery and salary are homonyms.
The /l/ sound in "Australia" may be elided; it becomes "Austray-yah".

Reference: Listen to various Australian actors, singers and native speakers. Internationally known actors Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman and Sarah Wynter speak in their natural Australian accents when not acting.


Canada
(
See also Canadian English; North American English) Canadian accents vary widely across the country, and the accent of a particular region is often closer to neighbouring parts of the United States. Nevertheless, there are some characteristics that exist across the country, in varying degrees, such as Canadian raising. Canadian actors and announcers used to speak with a Mid-Atlantic accent, similar to that formerly used by actors and announcers in the United States. An exemplar of this is the actor Christopher Plummer.

Regional variations include:

British Columbia
/aI/ diphthong pronounced /^I/
Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island has a distinct dialect due to settlement by speakers of Acadian French and Scottish Gaelic
Maritimes
loss of non-prevocalic r
faster speech tempo
use of "Eh?" interrogative
Newfoundland
Newfoundland English is a distinct dialect of the language with its own pronunciation and vocabulary. Please reference that article for more information.
Ontario and Quebec
subtle Canadian raising, although in Ontario it is often quite strong
in southwestern Ontario (especially rural areas), some speakers also have aspects of the Midwestern US accent, e.g., "not" sounds like "naht" (/nOt/ --> [nat]), combined with Canadian raising (see USA below).
accent is slightly modified to signify sarcasm: "not" becomes a heavily stressed "nat", for example.
in Ontario, widespread use of Eh? interrogative.
more frequent voicing of intervocalic s – in resource, for example
short a in words like drama; in common with most Canadians, Ontarians and Quebeckers pronounce words of foreign origin (Datsun, Mazda, etc.) as if the vowels are French.
in Central Ontario (that is, the region around Toronto) in particular, voiced th and d are often not distinguished, the two pronunciations frequently appearing together (Do you want this one or dis one?, for example)
Prairies
strong Canadian raising, "about" becomes "a boat", but not always, as about sounds like "a bout" to most ears.
"sing-songy" intonation
use of "Eh?" interrogative is found more often in the east of Canada.

England
(
See also British English) English accents and dialects vary more widely within the U.K. itself than they do in other parts of the world owing to the longer history of the language within the countries of the U.K. Here are some of the distinctions to be found:

Southern English
Generally use a broad (rounded) A, so "cast" is pronounced kAst rather than the k{st pronunciation of most northern accents. There are other peculiarities in specific Southern Regions.
=Home Counties
=
Estuary English (see below) is extremely prevalent in the Home Counties, but where an individual does not adopt this accent:
Southern and Western Home Counties (i.e. Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Buckinghamshire) tend to adopt a slightly "posh" (RP) accent.
Essex in general uses Estuary English, this is in fact where it originated.
Northern Home Counties (e.g. Herts) is more akin to the West Country rural accent, but with dropped 'h's being common.
=Cockney
=
Initial h sounds are dropped; i.e. "house" becomes "ouse"; "help" becomes "elp"
T sounds in the middle of words are replaced with a glottal stop; i.e. "water" becomes "wa> Diphthongs shift tongue positioning distinctively, similarly to Australian English
=Estuary English
=
A broadly spread extension of Cockney, with less emphasis on the dropping of initial 'h's and a more profound presence of the glottal stop. Also compounded by an extremely imprecise understanding of grammar and a propensity to mangle tenses e.g. "Goin' up the mo'-urrway Sat-dee cos it's more be'-ur" (trans. "[I'm] going up the motorway [on] Saturday [be]cause it's more better").
Complete loss of the subjunctive tense: "I woou'nt do that if I was you"
Dropping of ly suffix on adverbs. "You havn't done it propper".
=Southeastern English
=
Terminal "r" is smashed; i.e. "doorway" becomes "doe-way", "forever" becomes "forevuh"
Unstressed vowels are also smashed
=London
=
The tongue is more forward in the mouth
Words can be overpronounced
th becomes f or v, depending on whether or not it is voiced. "Fo'i fouzand fevvers on a frush's froat."
h replaced by glottal catch, as in the last example
=West Country (southwestern) English
=
Among other things, inital "s" is pronounced as "z"; "r"s are pronounced.
In the Bristol area a terminal "a" is often followed by an intrusive "l". Hence the old joke about the three Bristolian sisters Evil, Idle and Normal.
=East Anglian English
=
"beautiful" pronounced as "bootiful", "huge" as "hooj", and so on
"eye" and "I" are pronounced "oy", "right" is "royt", and so on
high intonation throughout most of a sentence
Northern and Midlands English
Generally use a flat a, so "cast" is pronounced k{st rather than the kAst pronunciation of most southern accents. This applies everywhere north of (though not including) Birmingham. There are other peculiarities in specific northern Regions.
=Midlands English
=
Among other things, "bus" pronounced as "buzz", and flat "a" is used, as in the northern accents (below). In a Birmingham accent, a broad (rounded) A,is used so "cast" is pronounced kAst. A Black Country accent uses the more northern approach.
Dialect verbs are used, e.g. am for are, ay for is not (related to ain't), bay for are not, bin for am or, emphatically, for are. Hence the following joke dialogue about bay windows: "What sort of windas am them?" "They'm bay windas." "Well if they bay windas wot bin them?". There is also humour to be derived from the shop-owner's sign of Mr. "E. A. Wright" (i.e. "He ay [isn't] right", a phrase implying somone is saft [soft] in the jed [head]).
=Northern English/Liverpool
=
The tongue is swallowed, cutting off nasal passages and making speech sound as if the speaker has a cold.
"th" is often pronounced as "d", for example "there" becomes "dere" usage "oarite dere la!" ("all right there, lad!")
distinctive rolling "ck" sound from the Welsh influence, sounds like the speaker is clearing their throat! usage:"gerr off me backk will yer!"
"arr, ey!" distinctive sound of a disappointed Scouser,
=Northern English/Yorkshire
=
The "u" sound is pronounced like the standard English "oo", so "luck" is pronounced (in SAMPA) lUk. The difference between the Yorkshire Pronunciation of "look" and "luck" is difficult to hear, the "look" vowel being slightly longer in duration and tending towards the SAMPA lyk pronunciation.
Shortening of "the" to "t", as in "I'm going down 't pub".
Many dialect words, for example "owt" and "nowt" for "anything" or "nothing", "bevvy" for drink etc.
Sing-song intonation, as in Swedish, Welsh, and the US accent from the film Fargo.
Use of the singular second-person pronoun "thou" and "thee".
In all cases of the past tense of "to be" is "were": "I were wearing t'red coat, but he were wearing t'green one".
In the South-East of Yorkshire vowel shifts so "i" becomes "ee", and "ee" becomes "i", so "Where have you been last night" becomes "wherst tha bin last neet".
Someone from the US commented that a broad Yorkshire accent does not even sound like English!
=Northern English/Lancashire
=
The "u" sound is pronounced like the standard English "oo", so "luck" is pronounced (in SAMPA) lUk. The "oo" in look is pronounced like the "oo" in "boom", so look is look is the SAMPA luk.
"o" pronounced "oi", so "hole" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "hOIl".
Many dialect words.
=Northern English/Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the northeast
=
The Newcastle dialect is known as Geordie and the accent is described in the article of that name. The accent of the neighbouring areas is broadly similar.

Reference: For London accents, listen to old recordings by Petula Clark, Julie Andrews, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. Ozzy Osbourne has a Midlands accent. For Liverpool accents, recordings by The Beatles (George Harrison's accent was the thickest of the four of them), Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits, Echo and the Bunnymen. A Yorkshire (Leeds) accent can be detected in interviews with Melanie Brown of The Spice Girls.


Ireland
(
See also Irish English)

Pronounces "r" whenever it occurs in a word.
"l" is clear wherever it occurs in a word, as in French
'Pure' vowels: "boat" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "bo:t", and cane is pronunced "ke:n"
(in Republic of Ireland) The "th" sound is replaced with a dental stop (Irish "three" and Spanish "tres" start with same consonant cluster)
(in Ulster) The "oo" sound is brought forward, so "boot" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "b**t"


Scotland
There are several Scots dialects and many Scots accents. For more information see the article, Scots language. The information below describes how a Scots speaker will pronounce standard English when trying to make it easy for other English speakers to understand what is being said rather than when speaking to other Scots.
pronounces "wh" differently from "w" (watt and what, weather and whether, wales and whales do not sound the same).
Does not pronounce technology as if it were spelled teknology.
Pronounces "r" whenever it occurs in a word.
'Pure' vowels: "boat" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "bo:t", and cane is pronunced "ke:n"
The "oo" sound is brought forward, so "boot" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "b**t"

The Edinburgh accent is exemplified by Sean Connery or the film Trainspotting; the Glasgow accent by Billy Connolly.