To change may accent so my kids speak 'properly'

[madchocolatemum48]

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 ??

Well that's contrary to my my experience. I grew up in the West Midlands and had a number of friends who had Irish/Asian/African-Caribbean/London/Geordie born parents.

We all have Midlands accents.

Sorry Sorry that was addressed to Lynette.

I am from SE London, where we don't have consonants. My kids are growing up in E London. As my mum did with me, I will insist they pronounce words properly when at home. Thus they can speak however they want when they grow up.

It's not the accent I'm bothered by, but dropping aitches and tees, and useless slang.

My DS is 11 and when he changed schools this year people thought he was American rather than Scottish. I'm guessing it comes from me and not his peers.

Children get their accents from their peers, not their parents.

My accent came from my parents, not my peers.

Prince Charles talks about his "Kids". He's probably just trying to Get Down with the Plebs, but still.... I kind of thing if it's good enough word for Royalty then maybe it's half proper after all.

MN really making me wish I named DS3 Micheal now!!!

ComposHat - West Midlands here too!

What I do find funny is the DC whose parents speak English to them at home, even though English isn't the parents first language - the child speaks English with an accent, but cant speak their parents native tongue.

I don't have the accent of where I grew up but sound more like my mum who's from the SE; what local accent I did have I may have lost when I moved away. Perhaps because I disliked the accent there (a variant of Brummie which everyone seems to find it OK to mock!)

I recently met someone at toddler group who I feel is a kindred spirit in the sense that I assumed she was from the Home Counties but in fact grew up in the town where we live (her parents are from the SE). Interesting, her sister has more of a local accent. I also have a friend who grew up in Newcastle but doesn't sound at all Geordie, but instead had a very neutral sounding vaguely northern accent.

I would encourage your children to speak clearly but not necessarily to tone down their accent.

It's not the accent that's important, it's the talking properly, something some people seem unable to do or they just don't care. I'm not being snobby, I'm no snob at all, however it is worth making the effort to ensure children speak properly.

There's accent, there are dialect/regional/local expressions, and there's actual bad grammar - 'not talking properly' only covers the last of those IMO. And sometimes particular non-standard grammatical forms are part of dialects. I would say that there it's important to know the standard form and be able to use it where the situation demands, but not necessarily educate yourself out of it altogether. Dh usually speaks standard German, but goes into Berlin dialect when speaking with his family or others who speak it. We now live in an area where a particular technically incorrect grammatical feature is part of the dialect and we do correct the dc on it, but we explain why - it's not about denigrating the way people speak here per se.

My mother was a northerner who had moved to the Midlands. When I started school I was laughed at for some of my pronunciation. That led me very quickly to develop an RP that wasn't really like the way my classmates spoke either. I like the way I speak but I do sometimes feel it is characterless.

What exactly is 'actual bad grammar' when it is at home?

There's standard grammar and non-standard. You write essays in standard. That's all.

We don't have an academy of pedants (except on MN).

If you tried to distangle 'bad grammar' from dialect you would be there all millenium.

I live up north, but I wouldn't say I have any kind of accent. I got teased at school for being posh, because I enunciate my words. But that's just how I talk, and I don't see why that is cause for teasing. My 4yd old son talks like me too, and my MIL and BIL tease him for being posh. I have ignored it so far, hoping they'll stop, but one day soon I will snap. It brings back unpleasant memories, and I love the way my boy speaks. It breaks my heart to hear him be criticised for it by people who are supposed to love him for who he is.

Re: mantelpiece... er, is there another word for that? What do you call it then? 'Top Bit of the Fireplace'? Tbof? 'Dear, can you hand me that item on the tbof?'

Also - as an Irish person I have had people being very shitty with me about my (lack of) a regional accent. I have a very neutral Irish accent with apparently american or canadian sounding enunciation. So sue me, it's how I talk. But apparently I sound posh or like I'm putting it on.... One of the major nice things about the UK is no-one antagonises me about my accent as I think most just hear 'irish' and leave it at that.

TLDR, Irish people are weird about accents too, but in the opposite direction.

My children have picked up our local accent with no influence from DH and I at all

I grew up in Hertfordshire, as did DH and neither of us really have accents but we moved to the West Country when my eldest was a few months old.

What they said. Children speak like their peers, not their parents.

My DC are resolutely northern. DS1 tries to correct me when I say eg "staaaaff" rather than "staff"

And FWIW the other way round, DB and I converted DM from northern to proper RP by the time we were teenagers. She's a social climber...

I don't think the accent matters, as long as you say the words properly and use the right grammar. As in, "bothered" not "bovvered," and "I did that before" not "I done that before."

Hmm. Bad grammar is almost impossible for a native speaker to produce unless they've had a head injury or stroke or lots of gin.

"I did" is standard, "I done" is dialect" and "I do-ed" is Bad.

"Inappropriate for the situation" is another thing entirely. You can speak whatever dialect you like, so long as you submit your DPhil thesis in Standard.

My dcs were born and brought up in Leeds -I wasn't, I'm northern and sound northern but I tend to do weird things like pronounce 't's in the middle of words and say wan instead of wun when counting
My dds talk more like me than their friends and often get called posh

Dd1 tells people she's not posh, she's articulate

I am from an area of Scotland with a strong (and horrible) local dialect, which I was never allowed to speak. My Scottish accent mellowed in the years I lived abroad.

We lived for 3 years in Geneva, and all our friends were English - the kids have English accents, with a gentle Scottish lilt. DD loves her English accent and is trying hard not to lose it.

I often get asked if I am from the Islands, no idea why.

Anyway, roundabout way of saying that accents change and develop. I would discourage extreme 'oaryness' ie they aren't allowed to say 'ah dinnae ken' instead of 'I don't know', but don't try and change their accents.

I don't think there's any point. I've only spent a minority of my life in the south east but dd1 still says 'barth' and 'grars' because she went to primary with kids who talked like that. She also says 'wiv' because her dad grew up in London and sometimes 'dreich' because she picked that up god only knows where when I've never said it to her. She doesn't seem to have any problems socialising with peers or adults because of any of this.

YY, agree, deck.