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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To change may accent so my kids speak 'properly'

130 replies

madchocolatemum48 · 22/12/2013 12:44

My childhood accent isn't awful, just very colloquial really.
I have lived away from 'home' off and on for years so my accent has mellowed.
I have deliberately started 'speaking properly' so my children will have a nicer speaking voice.
If we move back 'home' how will my kids be perceived ??

OP posts:

Wolfiefan · 22/12/2013 13:29

Children (and adults) need to speak clearly. What's wrong with having an accent? I love hearing different sounding voices.

SkoggyCat · 22/12/2013 13:30

DP has a really, really strong inner London accent (with the words/slang to go with it). I have a standard English accent with a hint of a) Scottish (I learnt English from a Glaswegian, but because it is a hint, it is very hard to tell, according to my Scottish friends, where it is from) and b) general Northern European foreign (it can be quite hard to tell, some people think I'm Swedish, Danish etc;, when I'm Norwegian).

Don't bother about how you speak. They will speak with ther peers- my DC speak a softer mix of Northern Irish + the Northern European vague foreign sound, both from where they live/d.

nf1morethanjustlumpsandbumps · 22/12/2013 13:34

DS and I have a very broad Ulster Scots dialect. Friends of ours from England love hearing DS speak. Dialect is part of pur heritage where we live and I'm not embarrassed where and from whom I come from.

PacificDingbat · 22/12/2013 13:34

Your children's accent is far more influence by where you live and their peers than your accent (none of my DCs sound like me).

I like accents and dialects - 'tis interesting.
I do think that they need to be able to speak in such a way that anybody can understand them and that they know that less formal language is suitable in some situations and not in others.

"Kids" is fine of course.

themaltesefalcon · 22/12/2013 13:35

The only 'accent' I will not put up with is that fake, made up, hideous one that is used all over the telly. There is a lot of it about and I think its ok to deride it because it is not real and the sooner we wipe it out the better

I don't think I've ever read anything on here I've agreed with more wholeheartedly.

MadhbhTheRave · 22/12/2013 13:37

You won't be able to pull it off. I am Irish and I can tell when somebody is faking it. I don't change my accent because it may sound just Irish in the UK but on my home turf it's a lovely accent, so I am not changing for anybody. I do correct my children though. If they said 'we was' or 'lore and order'.

astyinmyeye · 22/12/2013 13:39

My accent is French, very strong French after 16 years spent in England...my children (their dad is english) do not speak at all like me...oh wait they do, only to take the mick out of me : where is ze breade ??

MadhbhTheRave · 22/12/2013 13:42

I agree with gallicgirl, except for the mother is from NI. I know a few cases where the children are at school in Dublin or in London with ferocious nordy accents. That accents comes at you like a fleet of tanks.

Biscuitsareme · 22/12/2013 13:43

Don't fake it! It will just sound false. I love the fact that the uk has so many regional accents still and am a bit :-/ when people feel the need to go all superior about them.

Now, lazy, bad grammar and spelling, THAT gets my goat ;-) .

BlingBang · 22/12/2013 13:45

I have a very strong regional accent (often looked down on) and grew up with lots of very fast slang pronunciation. Now live elsewhere and had to change the way I spoke to be understood. I always try and talk slower and pronounce my words more correctly round the kids. My kids do sound out of place when they visit our home town, thank God.

BrianTheMole · 22/12/2013 13:46

My accent is the same as my parents, and they were brought up in a different part of the country. The accent where I live is very strong and my accent sounds nothing like that. People assume I come from where my parents were brought up, even though I have never lived there. So schools and peers don't always influence how you sound.

natwebb79 · 22/12/2013 13:49

Bloody hell, has society really not moved on from judging IQ by the accent somebody has?! It really saddens me that anyone even needs to consider this, let alone listen to people talk about 'speaking properly'. I did a study on this for my English language A-level project in 1997 and really hoped that by now it wouldn't be an issue.

CommanderShepard · 22/12/2013 13:57

I sound Cumbria-meets-Geordie-meets-Manchester. Even more so when I'm drunk. DH is hilariously RP. DD is only 19 months but is going increasingly Oxfordshire which is lovely moy larve

TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy · 22/12/2013 13:58

Clear enunciation isn't the same as changing an accent though, one can enunciate with any accent even if others with the same accent don't. The is a very big difference between wanting to encourage speaking clearly and trying to put on a fake accent.

I don't have the attachment to mine that others here clearly have to theirs, I just have a mellowed American midwestern that gets reactions from people gushing over their American holidays and feeling that they 'just have to ask' questions what are actually quite personal because I sound different to people mimicking it sarcastically in shops and blaming my child's speech delay on it - I have multiple reports by medical professionals - including a pediatrician - that blames practically everything to do with speech/listening/his levels in English on my accent, regardless that speech problems runs in their father's family, that they sounded just like him at that time because he was their main carer, and part of their speech problem is th-fronting (replacing th with other frictaves) which is not part of my accent at all but is very common across multiple British accents like the one their father has). They've yet to pick up the local accent.

MadhbhTheRave · 22/12/2013 13:59

People in the UK can really mock people lower down the food-chain. There's a thirst to mock. Gosh she said mantel piece, she said serviette, shudder shudder.
So, while that bullshit goes on, the aspiration to speak in a neutral way will continue.

BlingBang · 22/12/2013 14:07

I still have my accent - I just try to speak slower, cut out some of the slang and try to pronounce my words more clearly. I Like to be ale to communicate with people and have them actually understand me.

NoComet · 22/12/2013 14:08

You can't control your DCs accents.
I moved to Wales when I was 2.5, but still have a accent that Londoners say sounds Northern (I was born in Sheffield). DSIS moved when she was six weeks old, she can sound like her parents or quite Welsh dependent on company and what's she's saying. She can pronounce place names etc. completely correctly while some still flummox me.

DD1 sounds just like me, DD2 has a soft very pretty version of the local accent of the rural area we now live in.

Also DSIS and DD2 talk like the company they keep, without noticing. DSIS sounded like London cousins for a day after visiting and DD2 lapses in to American after too much Utube.

somewherewest · 22/12/2013 14:09

As a foreigner living in the UK I love all the different accents and dialect words and will be sad if they ever die out. I'm proud of my Irish accent and quite like the fact that toddler DS has picked up a bit of Hiberno-English from me. Today we were informed that the Christmas lights are "banjaxed"

JinglingRexManningDay · 22/12/2013 14:13

I have a thick Dublin accent which I try to enunciate my words without losing it. So instead of saying Geh yizzer feeh off da taayble I say Get your feet off the table still with my accent but slower and clearer.

WhereYouLeftIt · 22/12/2013 14:25

I have a strong Scottish accent, which like yours has mellowed over the years spent living in England. My son has the accent local to where I live. I really wouldn't worry about it!

minifingers · 22/12/2013 14:27

I sound like a BBC anchor woman. DD (14) sounds like Vickie Pollard. Go figure!

waitandsee · 22/12/2013 14:33

BohemianGirl- it's "it's" not its. Perhaps check your grammar before correcting others...

Lavenderhoney · 22/12/2013 14:36

I have a surrey accent, dh is foreign and ds stayed with me until he was 4 until reception. So he had a surrey accent with a french touch.

His teachers for the last two years have been from northern ireland, so he was a lovely belfast accent. I love the way he says four:)

We are moving soon, and i have no idea what his accent will be like. I expect he will copy his teacher and classmates.

CailinDana · 22/12/2013 14:44

I don't want to lose my Irish accent because English people seem to find it friendly and amusing. DH and DS both have English accents but pronounce the odd word in an Irishy way which sounds quite odd. DH was born in England but spent his teen years in Ireland. Any time he goes to Ireland he starts speaking with the sing-song intonation of my home town but in an English accent. It sounds properly weird.

squoosh · 22/12/2013 14:56

'If you are using words like 'kids' rather than 'children' then they aren't ever going to speak correctly.'

'Michael - its Michael not Micheal.'

How embarrassing, surely you mean 'it's'?

I always think I've bumped into one of the Mitford sisters when I hear someone protesting about the use of 'kids' instead of 'children'. Absolutely ridiculous.

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