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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think you don't change your accent...

119 replies

guiltynetter · 09/03/2015 10:29

in 8 months?

partners sister. went to live in Scotland from the north of England 8-9 months ago. saw her this weekend for the second time since she moved. started chatting to discover she now has a full on, strong, Scottish accent. we're not talking a hint of it, we're talking lived-there-all-your-life scot. I couldn't take her seriously! last time we spoke she was full northern.

am I being unreasonable? there's nothing wrong with the accent I just don't get how you can change so quickly! I'll prepare for a flaming...

OP posts:

VivaLeBeaver · 09/03/2015 11:06

Some people do this really quickly without realising. Dd came back from a week in devon sounding like Tom Jones after she made friends with a Welsh girl on the campsite.

TheWordFactory · 09/03/2015 11:08

I catch accents really quickly.

If I'm with mates for an hour, I end up using some of their phrases.

vienna1981 · 09/03/2015 11:10

Fascinating subject. I once met a Danish pilot who spoke flawless English with a very convincing American accent. Apparently he took flying lessons in the US.

My brother and his family lived in Ireland for about five years. Within a few weeks his daughter was 'as Irish as the pigs in Dublin' but her older brother retained his Essex accent. Now they're all back in England and all traces of Irishness have gone.

I have lived in Leeds all my life but more than once I have been told I speak with a Manchester twang. I suspect it's because I have spent twenty-odd years working with people from the far west of West Yorkshire, which isn't a million miles from Lancashire.

Pisghetti · 09/03/2015 11:11

Different people lose/gain accents at different rates. I lived in the East of England for two months and had a full on local accent by the end of it whereas my friend has lived in that area for 8 years and still has her welsh accent. My brother has been in Edinburgh for 12 years and spoke like he'd lived there all his life within a month or two. Whenever he's home (or we visit) he starts picking up a welsh twang to his voice again.

Flambola · 09/03/2015 11:12

I can believe it. I mimic accents subconsciously. It's a social thing, isn't it? To fit in and empathise with the people you're with.

MrsGrimes · 09/03/2015 11:16

I'm always really confused by John Barrowman, who seems to be either full-on Scottish or American depending on what he fancies doing at the time. I'm sure I read he moved to America when he was a toddler (or maybe it's the other way round) but I find it so strange how someone can intentionally switch between two completely different accents! Surely only one of them is his real everyday accent!

murmuration · 09/03/2015 11:16

I'm another unintentional mimic. The thing is, I cannot mimic an accent on purpose to save my life. I can barely even hear accents, either. They have to be massively exaggerated for me to even realise one's there.

The only way I know I've picked up one is by people's comments. I have no way of telling from listening to myself.

TheoriginalLEM · 09/03/2015 11:20

i think its called echolallia or something.

i change my accent depending on who i talk to. my counsellor has a really strong irish accent. i have to catch myself before im bejaysusing all over the shop. i don't do it on purpose

squoosh · 09/03/2015 11:21

I find that weird about John Barrowman too MrsGrimes. To go from full on Weegie to full on Mid West America. Makes him seem shifty in my opinion.

youmakemydreams · 09/03/2015 11:22

I bet she still spy ds very English to the scots though.
My sister was like this she lived in England for years. (From Scotland) and to us sounded very English but to her English friends and boss she still sounded very scottish.
It is quite common to pick up accents in that way as well and I do it unintentionally. Not helped by the fact that my own scottish accent is very mixed from moving about a few times so it is very easy to slip into an entirely different accent b

MetallicBeige · 09/03/2015 11:24

John Barrowman is cringe.

He reckons he is bi-accented (?), which according to him is like being bi-lingual. When he starts speaking in a Scottish accent it's so self conscious it makes me want to curl up with embarrassment.

Some people do pick up on accents easily, I don't love where I was born but have never really lost my accent, one of my colleagues started picking my accent up when we were together, she was really embarrassed I found it funny. Musical ear is a nice way of putting it.

GatoradeMeBitch · 09/03/2015 11:24

DS has Asperger's and only has to be around a new accent for an hour to pick it up! Some people are more susceptible than others.

Thisvehicleisreversing · 09/03/2015 11:25

I remember as a child (probably about 11) staying a few weeks with my cousins. Their neighbour's cousin was also staying for the holidays and as she was my age we spent a lot of time together. She was from London and had a strong accent.

When I went home my mum couldn't understand why I'd started speaking like a cockney after a few weeks in the Shropshire countryside.

ElsbethTascioni · 09/03/2015 11:30

I worked with a girl who sounded English and sort of south east middle class - she was from.Liverpool and assured us that she had.a.strong Liverpool accent but had changed when she came south to .uni and found herself talking like that! When she went home, she said her accent changed, and weirdly when we were out for lunch once, someone.on a table near us had a.Liverpool accent and you could hear her voice change, and change back when the other person left the pub! She said she also went to America to.work.for 3 months and got a strong American accent. She lives.in Spain now and has become fluent in Spanish in about 6 months.

tomandizzymum · 09/03/2015 11:36

It depends how much you mix with the locals I think. I lived and worked in Florida for 3 years, I can do a pretty good southern twang and will twang when I speak to Americans.

I live in South America now. I only speak English at home or with a friend that lived in the USA for 13 years and often get blanks on English words, even dream in my second language which I never thought possible.

Some people believe they have the accent down pat, but if they moved after the age of 7-13 it's highly unlikely. My husband and my friend speak fluent English but natives can tell they are foreign, even if they think they can be spotted.

I have an American friend that moved to the UK at 14, she still sounds American, she now lives in Spain and her children speak English with American accents but they've never been there. When her daughter was little people in the UK would ask her where she came from and she would say "From my mommy's tummy duh!"

SlightlyJadedJack · 09/03/2015 11:36

Another one here that starts talking with the accent of the locals wherever I go. I also change my normal southern accent to anything from posh to 'Lahndan' depending on who I speak to round here.

gincamelbak · 09/03/2015 11:37

My friend went to uni in Manchester with a really strong scottish accent. I visited her a few months later and she was full on manc. She's been there 15+ years now and people don't believe she is Scottish.

AnotherGirlsParadise · 09/03/2015 11:42

Alittleegg and YesIdid - I'm also Finnish and as I said upthread, I've also totally lost my accent. I put it down to us learning English from a very young age - a lot of TV programmes in Finland/Scandinavia are English/American with subtitles. We pick it up quite unconsciously.

EmberElftree · 09/03/2015 11:55

Hmm I've lived all over the UK and in 4 other countries on 3 continents I should have a right mixed up accent by now!

Agree with Another. When I first learned to speak Spanish at school my private teacher for conversation was from Madrid and when I spoke to other Spaniards they said I sounded like a Madrileña as I and picked up how she pronounced certain words.

I also think it's understandable forgetting your native language when you're immersed in the language of the country in which you live.

But that's languages - am not so sure I understand the changing UK accent when you're in different parts of the UK though e.g. a Londoner changing their accent when they are in Manchester. For the accent changers - how do people react when they hear you mimic them?

muminhants · 09/03/2015 12:12

I can't "take off" accents at all, but it naturally goes up and down the motorway depending on who I am talking to.

I am completed mixed up anyway, I was born in Lancashire to a Liverpool mum and a Lancashire dad. I lived in New Zealand and Devon, went to university in Wales, Germany and York, and now live in Hampshire.

I sound relatively southern but with short vowels.

Feminine · 09/03/2015 12:13

yesldid l explained earlier that l can mimic accents. I don't do it in conversation though. I stay in my own. I was illustrating that even after seven years in the US, l sti) came home with my original accent. (l did start to speak more slowly though) . My point is that l think you'd have to trysomewhat to suddenly have a new voice. I have the ability to do it, but don't!

slug · 09/03/2015 12:22

I very deliberately lost my Kiwi accent. Not because I'm ashamed of it, but because I was teaching people for whom English was their second or third language. They had enough trouble understanding Estuary English, but when my Kiwi vowels came out (especially when I'm angry) they simply couldn't understand me and would sit there with puzzled expressions on their faces.

Nowadays I still have the vestige of my own accent. When I'm in the UK I sound Southern Hemisphere, but not quite identifiable Kiwi. When I'm in NZ I sound distinctly British. I confuse people at home by sounding like a Pom while managing to effortlessly pronounce Ngauruhoe and Whakatane.

murmuration · 09/03/2015 12:22

So far only friends have mentioned the accent changing, and they have been amused. As for other people, I hope no one is too offended :( At least, no one has been offended enough to actually say something yet. As I said, I am completely unaware of it, and really can't do anything about it even if pointed out, because I simply can't hear the differences.

crazykat · 09/03/2015 12:24

I had an RP accent when I was a child, we moved to Yorkshire and within a month I had a Yorkshire accent complete with slang. According to dh I have a 'posh' Yorkshire accent when I say some words.

I think of the local accent is very strong compared to your original accent then it's very easy to pick it up quickly.

ShatnersBassoon · 09/03/2015 12:30

I go home and I slip back into the accent I grew up with. DH is the same when he goes home, it's like a different person speaking. I think many people subconsciously pitch their accent differently according to the audience, to make it easier for them to understand you and also to make you stand out less.

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