If you have a different accent to your children

[doadeer]

My son is a toddler so just starting to build words. I'm from NE but live in an area of London with a "neutral accent" - DH has more of a London accent (not neutral)

I say BOOK rather than BUCK, GRASS rather than GRARSE etc.

His nursery when he goes back has lots of different accents including nationalities and regional accents.

Just curious how your children's accents developed if you live somewhere different to where you grew up.

We all have different accents in this house... two adult dds one very plummy - one with an American accent. Mum and dad with very strong opposing regional accents!!
It’s pretty funny

I'm from NE too, live in rural SE. My kids are dead posh!

Mine is and always has been of the area I lived in rather than the same as my parents.

I'm from South London, DH is from Northumberland and DD was born and grew up in South Yorkshire. When DD was learning her letters she always got confused when I said U for umbrella instead of oo for oombrella

Anntipodean living in Europe. My kids accents are local. Their words/ language are mine. It's funny to hear slang from my country in their accent.

I like the way you’re saying your accent says the word properly whereas his says the word improperly
For starters you need to knock that thinking on the head!

I (apparently) have a 'posh' accent, I personally don't think I have, I moved around a lot as a child so think in reality I just don't have a definite one!
I was a single parent when dc were small and they originally very much spoke like me, dh has a reasonably strong version of our local, slightly northern accent and once they'd started school they picked it up even more.
Dd apparently made a concerted effort to not talk like me when she started secondary school because she didn't want to sound 'different'
I'm now completely the odd one out, funny really because they are my children, not dhs

I've got a neutral accent and am originally from the Cotswolds. I've lived in Yorkshire since the dds were born and they are both mostly neutral but with the odd Yorkshire twang. My mum thinks they are very broad yorkshire though and will frequently comment on it Nobody else has, ever.

My DH and I are born and bred Londoners. We speak like cockneys, just like our extended families.

We now live in the SE and moved away from London many years ago.

Our children were born here and speak beautifully. Very clearly and with lovely pronunciation of words. They speak nothing like us.

My DDs have a different accent to me. Mine is closer to a soft Essex accent (no idea why as in from the home countries) and DH is neutral. DD1 is more or less Received Pronunciation now. I think schools and friends had a greater effect. DD2 is neutral and no hint of an accent. So I do think friends at school and where you live have the greatest effect. (Other then for me who seemed to acquire an accent completely different from anyone I lived with or went to school with). My sisters are neutral.

Us parents have three accents as one of us is bidialectic ie has two distinct accents, one for family, one for everyone else. Kids wobbled around a bit when younger but now are neutral although with flat northern vowels. They sound quite posh really.

So fascinating!! Love hearing these stories thanks everyone

I've picked up the DCs and DH Northern accents, I was always a bit mixed up coming from the Midlands.
Oddly DD has a much less pronounced Northern accent than DS, I think her friends are more international. So DH and DS say (almost) "we're going to catch the boos" and DD "baas". DCs are only 8 and 5 so lots could change!

My daughter speaks like me. Unsurprising, given that she's an expat child and hence not exposed to many other language role models. She has a strong local accent/dialect in Swiss German, though. I don't even speak Swiss German (though I do understand it).

Me, on the other hand, I sound nothing like my originally northern parents. More like the product of a school hell bent on making children speak "proper" English. Which I am. So, I know where I get it from.

I’m fascinated by this and would love it if someone whose got expertise in this swung by the thread to explain!

If babies learn all/most of their language from their parents, how on earth do they end up with the neighbours’ accents?

English is my first language but I was raised in another country so have an accent. My kids are being raised in London and speak London. But all DD’s turns of phrase etc are mine! So the language is coming from me but not the accent. Fascinating.

@Sodamncold When did she make any judgement about which way was 'proper'?

You might find he develops different accents for home and school/nursery. I know a family (Australian parents) where the daughter has a strong Australian accent at home and an equally strong Edinburgh accent at school.

Our house is a total mix of accents. DS1 and I have much the same accent. He’s retained it despite moving away from that area 15 years ago. DS2’s accent is totally different, and nothing like either mine or my ex’s (we’re from very different parts of the uk). It is a bit like many of his friends’ accent, which isn’t the same as the standard local accent here (it’s a more ‘generic northern english’ version of it that seems to be common among the large number of kids round here whose parents are also not local).

The DSC have matching (standard local) accents (which their mother also has). DH has a different accent again, which isn’t the same as anyone he’s related to. He gets annoyed at how his children pronounce things like ‘book’ (but I don’t agree that his preferred pronunciation of it sounds any better 😆).

Phonics at primary school is a bit of a nightmare though. DS1 learned to read in a different part of Scotland to where I’m from, but that was ok phonics-wise. DS2, however, learned to read in England and I was just perplexed at some if the phonics. He’d laugh and ask me to pronounce all the sounds that were supposedly identical in his reading book but sound completely different in my accent.

I'm from the west country, DH is broad Yorkshire, which is where we're living. Both DS's have a mild Yorkshire accent, much less than DH, but definitely there. Like PP though, they've picked up a lot of my west country turns of phrase. It sounds distinctly odd hearing "where's that to then?", "gert big" or "totally lush" in a Yorkshire accent!

DH and I have quite neutral southern accents - I don't think a casual observer would be able to identify which parts of the south we are from, though probably an expert could.
DC have even more neutral southern accents, having spent their early years in a non-English speaking country.
We now live in the north of England. DC1 has retained the non-specific southern accent, but DC2 has a broad local accent in use at school, and a southern accent at home, and switches between them seemingly without really noticing.

I'm Scottish and DH is Italian. DS was born in Scotland but we moved to Wales when he was 2 and DD was born here.

There's a very neutral accent where we live as it's quite posh so both DC have very neutral accents which makes me a bit sad actually.

DS can put on a very convincing Glaswegian accent when he wants and a local Welsh accent . But then he's bilingual in Italian so reckon he's just got an ear for it!

I speak with an RP accent but my children have a neutral accent. Some of my dds friends think she speaks very posh. We moved from the south east to the far north and they didn't pick up the regional accent.

I'm from the NE, DH is Scottish, but lived abroad as a child so no Scottish accent. Has a very neutral accent. DC are being raised in Scotland and have Scottish accents so don't sound like either of us. Although my local friend says my DC are posh Scottish. They don't have the local accent to where we live but pronounce words in a Scottish way. Quite strange really. One of my DC is great at my Geordie accent though.

I'm from London but living in the NE. My dc have a northern accent but occasionally switch into my accent when talking to me (not consciously, I think).

I agree that ok isn't being fair to infer her pronunciation is the correct one!

I find all this so interesting
I'm Welsh but have travelled a lot and then lived in the SE for a lot of my adult life. My accent has changed depending on where I'm living - not intentionally or overly affected but it is influenced by what I'm hearing; this happens I think, especially if you have a musical ear.

Now, my accent is fairly neutral with a hint of west/welsh but I teach in Yorkshire so adapt my phonemes - the 'a' in grass, path, bath, etc. are short here and it doesn't help them to spell if I start stretching my vowels- it's just confusing for the children.

We also lived in the USA where we had DD, DH is northern but she had my accent with an American twange until she was 4.
She's a teen now and speaks with a neutral accent at home and broad Yorkie (to my ear!) with her friends. It's quite comical hearing her flip between the two so naturally.
I find it all fascinating and love the variation in accents. It's amazing that it's sometimes possible to work out where someone is from within 3 miles, just from their accent. I would love to study this stuff!

My daughter speaks like me. Unsurprising, given that she's an expat child and hence not exposed to many other language role models.

Exactly the same. It’s very odd to basically hear myself talking back to me sometimes