Is it normal in your country to be able to tell where someone is from based on their accent?
There's a famous scene in the Quentin Tarantino World War Two film, "Inglourious Basterds", where a German officer becomes suspicious of a British spy when he's unable to place the spy's German accent (the spy, already under scrutiny, then gives himself away with a gesture).
What I've always found odd about this scene is that it's presented as if the German officer has a special skill -- he describes himself as having "an acute ear for accents".
However, in my country, the UK, it is quite normal to be able to tell where someone is from just by hearing their accent. Even if you can't tell precisely where someone is from, you can usually hear the basic area -- for example, you might not know where exactly someone is from in London, but you can still hear that they're from London.
Some people in the UK have what's called a "received pronunciation" accent (more commonly known as having "no accent" -- that is, no accent associated with any particular place. This is the UK accent most other countries are familiar with), which makes it much harder to tell where someone is from. But for anyone with a normal local UK accent, it's often relatively easy to hear where that person is from, at least down to the approximate region.
What is it like in your country? Can you tell where your fellow countrymen and countrywomen are from just by hearing their accents?
Thank you.