What do American accents sound like to foreigners?

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I heard that to most, the American accent sounds like the Midwestern/Southern accent (in the States). However, to me (being an Angeleno), the Midwestern/Southern accent sounds distinctly different from my own.

Strangely enough, I heard people in Southern California say that I have an accent despite growing up here (my mother has a Southern California accent while my dad has a mix of an American and a South African one).

I'm an ESL foreigner living in an English-speaking country (not the US).

Frankly to me all US accents kind of sound the same, even including Canadian accents. I can hear some differences, but I don't know which is which. I have no ideas about the regional differences within the US. But I like US accents in general. They sound rather beautiful and sophisticated. Particularly when I watch some science documentary or something on TV and an educated US scientist speaks beautifully, I find it so pleasing to the ears. I wish I could speak like that.

I could never tell them apart until a decade ago (I'm 45). You hear the rolling 'r' and the sort of flat vowels. (and often the attitude). I had a Canadian friend in 1990-1991, and that's the only reason I can spot the canadian accent as different.
Now I can tell the southern accent because the civil war movies, and if it sounds like Dr Phil, it's probably texan. New York I can equate to Dustin Hoffman saying "I'm walking here!", or similar.
I've never been there, it's all from TV, so if that's wrong, then I'm wrong.
My sister went to the US, I'm not sure where, and she asked for water, and they couldn't understand her (Australian accent). She imitated an american accent, and they got it. I guess they don't have a lot of Australian TV there.

That's odd, most of the people I know love Australian accents.

That's the first time I've ever heard anyone call American accents "beautiful" and "sophisticated". Thank you so much for saying that! You have made me feel a little bit better about being an American (sometimes I get a little gloomy because I feel less sophisticated and cultured than people from the UK or Europe)

1. What accent do you have? I am curious.
2 That's when an educated scientist speaks. What about some crazy religious fanatic?

Well that was a single event. Maybe just the waitress in question wasn't familiar with the aussie accent?

It's funny about the beauty and sophistication of accents.- I don't think it is about the country of origin. I find some Aussies really crude and unsophisticated, and they sound errr, not pleasing to the ear. Some are also very well spoken.
Same with Americans. (started to use capitals - don't want anyone to think I mean anything just because I am too lazy to press that shift button )
Soft spoken, educated, well annunciated speaking probably brings out the best in any language, and any language can also be slaughtered by people too.

Now I sound lie a snob

My dad's side is all educated, upper-middle class city people, and Mum's is all uneducated, crass, but good, hard-workig, down to earth country people. I adapt to the social situation I'm in, without prejudice. (whew!)

I think the southern American accent sounds very similar to outback Australia when I went to broken hill I noticed how different they talked to us in Melbourne.
My guess is the American Accents are different in the cities to the rural areas.

attaching names and faces to the various regional american accents might be illustrative- fran drescher, carl sagan [RIP] and fred flintstone [actor alan reed RIP] both are noo-yawkuhs [new yorkers]. governor of new jersey chris christie [as well as newscaster brian williams] speaks like one from joisee [new jersey]. dolly parton speaks like one from tennessee. president bill clinton speaks like one from arkansas, and shrub [gw bush] speaks like a texan as filtered through yale. speaking of yale, bill buckley spoke yale-ese also. newscaster tom brokaw speaks like a fella from the north-mid-west. senator barry goldwater spoke like a southwesterner. the kennedys are oh so bah-stun [boston]. where i'm from, there is a discernable divergence of accent, between eastern [sounding a bit midwestern/southern] and western washington, and furthermore between south/north puget sound and the rest of western washington [or so it was explained to me even though i can't really hear the difference between the sounders and the rest, but the north-of-puget sounders sound bit like western canadians]. my southern californian relations sound different from me [exaggerated R sounds, elongated vowels on the so-cal people's part].

I have a light southern accent myself....and I can say for sure that canadians think that I have a THICK accent. It just blew my mind when I was told I had a strong accent because as far as I knew I only had a hint of one.

when i visited florida [kissimmee] a few decades back, i noticed an accent like a southern accent but with the sharp edges gone.

Answering 1: I'm a non-native speaker of English living in Australia. So I don't have any of the natural accents such as US, Australian, British etc. I have heavily relied on dictionaries in learning how to pronounce words in English. I don't know how much I have been influenced by the local Australian accent. Not much I guess.

Answering 2: A scientist is just an example. It could really be anyone. I just saw quite a few science documentaries in which some scientists were speaking with very nice US accents. So, if a crazy religious fanatic happens to speak with an accent similar to that of Geoffrey Marcy (a great US astronomer), then I would still be charmed by his/her accent. Even some TV ad people (maybe 'ShamWow' or something) or just some US people who happen to be interviewed on the street can have that nice sophisticated US accent.

And of course there are individual differences, too. As I notice in my everyday life in Australia, even people who come from the same region can have different individual accents.

I think what makes the US accents sound so pleasing is the way 'r' is pronounced (even when not followed by a vowel it is pronounced). Also, unstressed vowels are always pronounced. There might be other factors, but I can't think of any now.

I have a bit more to say, but it's getting way too long.

I find myself thinking much the same as jk1 does, the only difference being that I'm not living in Australia. American accents in general are also easier to follow than British accents.

Sometimes they sound intellectual. Sometimes they sound genuine, friendly, homely and very down to earth. Sometimes they can be sexy. Sometimes they sound vapid. Sometimes they sound primitive and stupid - but that might just be because the people with the accents are primitive and stupid.

U.S. accents all sound different (like the accents of many countries around the globe), so there is no real easy answer to the question.

Um... I'm not entirely sure about the sophisticated part...

Heard quite a few American accents today, but can't for my life place them on a regional level