To find this incredibly irritating and rude?

That's exactly it.

My mum is foreign with a strong accent, and it’s not just a recent thing. I remember her being very upset and telling me a bus driver was so rude to her and mocking her. This was years ago, I’m nearly 50, and I was in my early 20’s at the time

I'd have gone with the Mumsnet classic 'did you mean to be so rude'. What an absolutely horrible and ungrateful man.

I am from the valleys in South Wales, it’s annoying when someone is clearly taking the piss but I think it’s fine if it’s not in a mocking way.

This

There are lots of different accents in Wales, all Welsh accents but different depending on which part you are from.

So these are English people living in Wales and mocking the Welsh accent? I find it incredible that a foreign minority would feel comfortable taking the piss out of the indigenous accent. Especially work colleagues. I mean, it wouldn't even enter my head but even if it did I'd feel pretty bloody nervous about doing it.

YANBU. He was rude. I have heard people doing others' accents and I cringe, because they're usually rubbish at it and nowhere near as funny as they think.

Ugh there's always one, isn't there (or three!)

It's such a shame when this is done maliciously because trying out accents (in certain contexts) is incredibly fun and weirdly satisfying when you wrap your mouth around the new sounds correctly.

I think most people have experience of both types and know the difference between pleasant, light-hearted imitation that is trying or new sounds and invites the same back vs nasty, mocking mimicry. I've had both (though not as much as some, I'm sure) and I speak with what I consider to be a very boring modern RP!

My mother moved to London from Glasgow in the mid 1960s and was so irritated by people saying "Och aye the noo" every time she opened her mouth that she deliberately obliterated every vestige of it. Except she always pronounced "iron" with an [r] in the middle.😀

I don't live where I was born and get this all the time plus a shed load of jokes. I also have an ethnic UK name which happens to be from another country and people make jokes about me being from this other country and "do the accent". Even if I go back to where I was born the name gets the widdle taken out of it and because my accent has changed they make fun of that too.

I remember saying loudly in full local dialect that I was born just 3 roads away when the shop keeper decided to call me out on my "fake" accent. Someone else in the shop remembered my family and where we'd moved. People ask me why don't I go home, I tell them it's just up the road aways.

It gets very tiring especially after several decades.

I code switch HORRIBLY between 1940s BBC Received Pronunciation and some kind of demented East End Urchin. My own Surrey/West Sussex accent is somewhere in the middle and all over the place. It’s embarrassing and I can’t actually help it; I have worked in hospitality and customer service my whole life which doesn’t help. I catch my self all the time and cringe.

I’m sure a few people have thought I’m taking the piss but I promise I’m not. My Dad was the same as well but his did extend to other regional accents and he genuinely didn’t hear himself do it.

I love the Welsh accent!

But.... I pick up accents when I'm away from work, and even found myself doing the Indian head nod while talking when i came back from a work trip recently. I wasn't being arsy or making fun

It takes you by surprise and it's only afterwards you think what you could have said back. I'm a northerner and have only had my accent commented on by southerners in the UK. I don't know what people who make these sorts of comments think they come across as or what they are hoping to achieve?

I mean what did the guy you helped expect as a response, "Yes, but only to wind up English people"?

I tend to respond back in mocking recieved pronociation.

I’m so used to it now, I just don’t react to it. I am often the only one that can speak Welsh within a group and I’m more upset by that than any comment they might make to me!

I'm Australian and it happens to me too all the time. I posted about it under an old user name once as it irritates me. People think it's funny to take the piss out of my accent and mimic me.

That and the jokes about all us Australians being convicts and thieves which also happens rather too often for my liking. (Happening once is too often- it has happened to me a handful of times which is a handful of times too often).

Yes people do this to people with accents different t to their own constantly. Always makes me pause too as I have it done to me daily but I realise a lot of people at every socially awkward. Also when I hear aussies speak I do get a bizarre urge to mimic them 😂 no idea why!! And not to make fun!

I meant I totally agree.

I agree with you and think it’s rude. I would have said something.

I’ve got an Essex accent and people always make stupid comments. Usually men

It’s terrible to echo someone’s accent. Absolutely terrible and shouldn’t be allowed. I think the term “posh twat” is immensely offensive too.

I don't see it as shaming. It's a bit of fun, imitating different accents doesn't mean you dislike the accent or think less of people with that accent.