Australia 48
Listen to Australia 48, a 50-year-old man from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.
Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
AGE: 50
DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/02/1975
PLACE OF BIRTH: Liverpool, England, UK
GENDER: male
ETHNICITY: Australian-English and Caucasian
OCCUPATION: audiobook narrator
EDUCATION: college degree
AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:
Except for time spent as a baby in Liverpool, England, the subject has never lived outside Melbourne, Australia.
OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:
He always lived in southeast Melbourne, which has many British-born migrants. He was exposed to them frequently. In addition, his British parents exposed him to more British television than most Australians would watch. Also, his job as an audiobook narrator has likely influenced his speech.
The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.
RECORDED BY: subject
DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/06/2025
PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A
TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A
DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A
ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:
Mmm, I got to say I enjoyed reading that one out. Ah, hello! I have lived most of my life in southeast Melbourne in Australia, and originally I came from Liverpool in the UK. I didn’t stay there at all long. I certainly hadn’t started speaking much. So almost all my life has been here in this part of Melbourne, which is statistically on the Australian census one of the highest levels of people who are British-born like myself in Australia.
This year now is a bit busy: the end of financial year, where everybody is zipping about trying to buy things and look at taxes and get financial advice. That’s stressful, though I guess we learn to cope with things.
I found this area quite salubrious, even though I’m not much of a beach person, I must admit. I tend to be a bit more indoors. I tend — sometimes I take out a telescope and look at the stars and planets. It’s not a huge telescope, but it’s good enough for doing that. Thank you!
TRANSCRIBED BY: subject
DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/06/2025
PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A
TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A
DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A
SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A
COMMENTARY BY: N/A
DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A
The archive provides:
- Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
- Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
- Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
- In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech. In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list). The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).
For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.