In my experience, when people from the UK are making fun of Americans they imitate a Southern accent. Most Europeans can do a straight up American news reporter accent. A sort of nondescript Midwest accent, but I don’t mean the kind way north with the exaggerated ou sound or exaggerated nasal tone.
So many British and Scottish actors are on American TV shows and do the American accent incredibly well.
@LostInParadise It’s harder for non-native speakers to distinguish between the different accents, or I should say to pinpoint specifically what part of the states the accent is from, but my husband can tell deep South from a northern accent. He can’t even understand the very poor Southerners sometimes. I’m talking about the very extreme, who most people would have some trouble even if their first language was English. I can tell the difference between New England and other states in the Northeast, I’m not sure if my husband can. Too many subtleties, unless it’s a very extreme accent.
My husband knows a Colombian accent from a Venezuelan accent. Sometimes it’s dialect more than accent that is the giveaway. I can tell extremes like Argentina vs other South American countries, but he catches more subtleties than me since Spanish is his first language. Like I kind of group all islands together as being hard to understand. Cuba, PR, Don Rep, it’s all island accent to me, but really each of the three have distinct accents.