to expect DH to help me correct the way kids speak?

[hwjm1945]

We live in London but are not Londoners, 2 DSs are at school and come home saying "fink" for think and "fought" for thought and and "featre" for theatre etc. Now I don't mind a regional accent and in fact we both have ones of our own, but I can't stand sloppy pronunciation and I think this is what this is ( or fink). I correct the children, in a jokey way, DH refuses to do so, saying that they will grow out of it. I don't think they will and actually think he just wants to avoid having to pull them up, as we have this a lot, with things like table manners etc, will they grow out of it or will it becom more ingrained? AIBU to think DH shuold support this?

How old are they?

If young, they may grow out of it - lots of DCs say f instead of th because it's easier.

I am from Essex, live in London and have a London accent. The vast majority of children round here (mixed area) don't say f. It's not a London pronunciation.

Maisie - that is just not true. Not true at all. Glottal stops are there precisely because consonants are left out. They are a standard and well-established feature of some regional accents.

If you have a personal dislike of the way an accent sounds, or you're worried about its social associations, fair enough, but I think you should admit it. It's rude to people with that accent to say that it's not a real accent just 'sloppy'. That really is not true.

If they are learning to read and write, correcting them will help them to be able to sound out words correctly

We dont put up with it in our house.
No Jafakin, no street talk and I do gently correct at the appropriate age.

I dislike the correction of very young children and leave them to it. I cant stand to hear a 4 year old being constantly told 'no its not xxxx it is xxxxx'

Irony is that we are both working class Londoners and my DCs are mixed race. Some of their posher friends talk, like little street rats!

Nooooo way. They can do what they like among their friends but not in the house, thats the rule.

I have been sitting here for the last 5 minutes trying to say what ella has just posted beautifully :)

I always find it funny that it is said to be a Southern thing to say barth rather than bath. You don't get any more Southerly in this country than Cornwall but I don't know anyone that would say barth. We have to travel North to find people that do

valium - thank you! I'm just glad someone agrees ... I understand why people react against certain accents (we all make associations, it's natural), but I do really find it sad when regional accents disappear. They're lovely! And a big part of our heritage. I love how they change as well - like the Brummie one where apparently you can tell that there's a big Asian influence on it. We're a melting-pot of a country and the accents tell you that.

here - you have it from a proppa Eastender. f's are not inevitable

Also, I do phonics teaching with children and lots of them cannot distinguish ("hear" an f from a th. You have to get them to look very carefully at your face when you say a word so they can spell it correctly. As I mentioned before, lots of young children find a th harder to say than a f as well.

ds came aged 9 declaring he was going on a school trip to see............."HMS Belfarst"

so i locked him in the cellar

needless to say, my kids speak with a proper accent

not southern
not yorkshirian
not brum or liverpuddlian

GODS OWN COUNTY...Lancashire

jamie - not saying 'f's are inevitable, just annoyed with the idea that it's ok to knock someone's accent as 'sloppy' and not a real accent. I think with most accents it's a case of win some, lose some - eg., my granddad could literally 'hear' more vowels than me because his accent was richer in them. Lots of people can't help the accent they speak with, it's what they learned as children and part of their heritage. It's rude to say it's not even a real accent when it's one that's so well-documented and well known. IMO.

Ella - I was more responding to Fabby earlier on when she said about Cockneys all speaking like this. IME lots of Londoners (I'm in East London) don't say f instead of th, and part of the reason for the f's is the DCs age.

I do agree with you about accents. I had a fair amount of flak for my accent when I went to University. Somehow Essex/London isn't deemed an acceptable accent

I think you're right to correct their pronunciation.

I absolutely detest the fink and fought. Worse is the 'he aint, he don't, that is just sloppy, lazy grammar.

The way I look at it, I learned how to speak English properly whilst it is not my first language so why can't an English person? It sounds uneducated and incredibly rough.

I would not consider hiring people who do speak like that and you can be assured that many other employers would not.

Oh good - just thought I would clarify in case it came across wrong!

I find the 'th' thing interesting. DH is Russian and struggled massively with 'th' because he, like most non-English-speakers, just doesn't use that sound in his language. My mum has had a similar experience as you, but with people with Afro-Carribean roots who hear 'th' as more like 'd'. It is complicated for phonics, but I suspect only because we make it so.

Oh yes - d v th and f all get mixed up

Yes - it's really interesting what people can hear. I understand Welsh speakers can hear all sorts of different variations we can't of th and dd and v and f and so on (my mum's welsh but I don't speak it).

Anyway, I suspect it's more fun to learn to defend your accent and express yourself clearly, than to work towards a version of RP, personally.

I think it is vital that parents correct their dcs speech
as being unable to speak correctly can hinder them.
I constantly correct my dcs and now they have come to a stage whereby they correct themselves.
When i was a child, we knew how to change the way we spoke in order to adapt to different situations. However, i do not find that this is the case now.Children do not know how to adapt their speech and therefore speak the same way to their friends as their teachers and employers.
OP, PLEASE correct them while they are still able to change.

Lancashire accent - do yours say 'tong' for tongue and 'cowed' for cold? I love that! I'm not Lancs btw but did have a very lovely bf from there back in the good old days.

I've no time for accent snobbery overall, I have a bit of an accent, I'm discernibly northern but not broad and I really think people who worry about the odd haitch or whatever are excessively stuck-up and rather silly.

Kids need some correction on genuine errors etc but excessive accent correction is just tedious. Plus you're giving them a stick to beat you with IME.

ella I was brought up abroad and then in the West Country then spent 16 years in Sarf London so my accent is a bit of a mish mash. Then I married a West Yorkshireman which was a real eye opener.

"I am working 8 while 2" never fails to make me chuckle

"Fink" and "Fought" are harmless enough but I find them irritating. That's just me being a dinosaur. I must say though that adults who use "fink" sound less well educated than people who use correct pronunciation and good grammar.
Children need guidelines in this, just as in everything else. They will not grow out of it, by the way. I know plenty of thirty and forty year-old people who still say "fink" Sorry if this offends anyone. FWIW I love regional accents and would love to spend time studying dialects in UK.

Mine's a mish-mash too - mostly RPish from mum and dad but with a bit of Southampton, a fair bit of Midlands (mardy, ta, etc.), and some funny bits I suspect must be via Welsh.

I find it funny though - my mum has what you'd think of these days as a 'posh' accent but her mum and teachers ticked her off for not 'speaking properly'. If you listen to old recordings, what's considered a 'correct' way of saying things has changed even in the last 50/100 years. So we probably think 18-year-olds sound bad and don't adapt their accents to what we'd like to hear - and yet I bet a couple of generations ago the most RP-speaking of us would have been considered just as 'sloppy'.

Practically, too, I think increasingly people like to hear regional accents and some are very popular, aren't they?

God I pity your poor children.

"Mummy I fink..."

"it's THINK THINK".

Doesn't matter that they want to speak to you, just belittle them with constant correction.

Why not have a word with them in general terms as opposed to correcting them at the time. I hate it when people correct me - it gives the impression that they're not listening to what I say, only how I say it. It doesn't happen often by the way - just certain people do it.

FWIW I spoke like your kids when at school. By sixth form my accent smoothed out and now you wouldn't know I was from south London (well I do let the odd word slip through). I didn't have a problem getting a job as an accountant!

Southern people don't say bath with an r, we just use a long a.

Like the (fictional) doctor asking you to say "ah"

Bahth, maybe, but not barth.

Bahth, maybe, but not barth

YY

pick your battles- DD had a regional twang (before she went to uni and started living with boarding school girls!) and part of that was doing the whole th/f thing. DH was hell bent on her pronouncing it correctly and was so petulant that it resulted in a lot of tears from DD who didn't understand what she was doing wrong.

to your sons, th/f sounds the same- they don't know why you are correcting them. when they are older and see the difference themselves, then they will change.

YANBU

They don't grow out of it.

I live on the East London/Essex border and my kids have local accents (as do I) but they all know how to talk properly and actually it really helps with their spelling too. If you don't know how to pronounce a word, how do you even stand a chance of spelling it?

My eldest DS is almost 20 and his mate still says "Are you coming round my arse" ....well at least that's what it sounds like when he says "house"