To find this a tad annoying. 36 year old American woman moves to the UK and begins developing a British accent overnight.

[Rainbunny]

To be clear, I like MM and and I'm very glad she married Harry but if she's really started with the whole accent thing it's silly. I'm afraid it comes across as a bit "put upon" and fake to me. She should be proud of her own accent, it's perfectly nice.

People "adopting" accents because they think it makes them sound better is just one of those silly things that bug me. I'm very sure I'm being petty about it but it annoyed me when Madonna did it as well. It's one thing to naturally develop an accent over the years but she's barely been here five minutes!

www.thecut.com/2018/07/meghan-markle-british-accent-video.html

Can't really tell, sounds a bit of both.

I did smile at her stopping to chat to everyone and HM cruising past people just nodding her head.

So what is she's trying to adapt to fit in. It would be a massive culture shock for me and I'm British. She must feel like she's Living on a different planet.

If you listen to the Queen speaking in her youth, she sounds vastly different to now. Same with Charles, William and Harry. They've become less RP than before to make them more relatable to the public.

Perhaps The Firm has asked the same of Meghan...and if she's now a British citizen, perhaps they'd like her to fit in a bit more...but I love a conspiracy PR theory, me.

Also, has anyone mentioned Geri Horner yet?! An American sounding more British when they've recently moved over, fine. I get that. Geri bloody Halliwell going from fishwife to RP all of a sudden upon falling in with the F1 guy? Oh, sod off! Social climbing at its worst.

but I couldn’t tell the difference between my friend from Toronto and one from New York when I was studying in Montreal!

Most New Yorkers speak with what's called a mid Atlantic accent.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent

MM has a mid-Atlantic accent.

It's fairly neutral and what you would hear from a TV news presenter. The much less common, really pronounced Nue Yawk accent is directly traceable to the early Dutch settlers in what was then New Amsterdam.

I can do any accent with accuracy and have lived in places with very broad accents and dialects. I never change from a bog standard rp accent. I find it very uncomfortable when DH zips from Kentish to Scouse in seconds when confronted with those accents or any other accents he encounters. He doesn't have a natural ear for mimicking accents so it sounds like he's taking the piss. He can't help it though.

Yer woman from Girls Aloud is a v good example of this phenomenon.

I'm native British but used to live in Japan. I learnt most of my Japanese there and speak it with a pronounced local twang (Hakata-ben if you're interested). It's often remarked upon by native speakers with a bit of a smile.

MissConductUS, I think you mean General American, not Mid-Atlantic. The mid-atlantic accent was popular in the American film industry in the 30s through to the 50s, but has never gained much of a foothold in the population.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American

Good grief the poor woman gets scrutinzed no matter what she does. Never mind the fact that she seemed sweet and very personable, lets all criticize her accent. Im a massive accent mimic. I can't help myself. Its a good job im not famous!

AlphaBravo I work with people from different backgrounds/accents, etc and find myself changing the way I speak in order to integrate but didn't know it was a 'thing'. Lived in US for years though and kept a straight RP accent, sometimes hamming it up where it was most appreciated.

Yes, I thought mid-Atlantic referred to people with both English and American tones (ie their accent is the midway point between Britain and America) I think MM does have a mid Atlantic accent, but New Yorkers don’t.

I worked in Export finance and spoke to foreigners all day every day, within a few minutes I'd be speaking in the same pigeon English, the whole office would be pissing themselves

I also think my annoyance is partly due to my experiences of living in various countries overseas. I live in the USA currently and I have experienced people in conversation with me starting to copy my accent, either consciously or subconsciously. It's just really annoying to be talking to someone who suddenly starts copying your speech, it makes me feel like I'm being made fun of.

My experience is the opposite. I live in the US and most of my English friends here have adopted semi-American accents.

Americans don't seem to be annoyed or think of it as people copying their speech or making fun of them. They're just not insecure about that stuff.

Haha Diana.....you’ve picked the wrong 2 places, my husband is from Lancashire and has family scattered all around the north! I love their accents

I did this when I went to North America for a month. I came home with a new accent! It faded after a bit, but I tend to be a bit of a sponge as far as accents go. I lived in Cornwall for two years and developed a Cornish accent, so much so, no one could hear my "real" accent, which is another strong regional one.

Sorry but she sounds American, maybe more East Coast than West, but not English! (Or even that bit of Scotland where they are supposed to speak the most RP.)

Pretty sure there's research done that's proven women tend to adapt accents/mannerisms etc incredibly quickly.
They thin k it's an evolutionary summut or other in order to help us run communities/intergrate

Marrying into the Royal Family requires you to speak 'PROW PURR LEE' - shes probably been given training on how to speak.
But yeah, I think it's daft not annoying.

It’s funny, I imitated my American SIL’s accent within an hour of meeting her. A bit embarrassing, but completely beyond my control; it just came out unexpectedly.

She’s from the Deep South and I couldn’t do that accent no matter how much I try, except when I’m speaking to her.

It must be an evolutionary thing about fitting in to survive.

I am terrible at accents and I think I could live anywhere in the world but I would still sound Yorkshire.

I think it was really sweet in that video when she said "hi I'm Meghan"

Its cultural appropriation lol
Best fun troll thread ever

My sister moved to Australia and she has the most plum English accent now. It's like she's morphed into Kate Middleton. It's really bizarre. Love the bones of her though.

Yay! I love this thread, I am an unwilling mimic. Despite having quite a strong regional accent I mimic accents, speech patterns, turns of phrase etc etc. It drives me fucking mad but I can't help it.

I thought it was just me! My family always take the piss out of me, I can't believe I never thought to Google it.

It's probably the result of elecution lessons so she doesn't sound as common.

I was just about to say that.

She sounds like a Canadian using British phrases to me.

I’ve lived in Canada for 2 years and I think I sound more English than when I left. 2 of my children are the same. One has gone full Canadian with friends and is still fully English at home. She phoned me from school a few weeks ago and I didn’t know who it was on the phone. Totally different voice. DH has got a mangled accent now. He sounds sort of West Country, but not really at this point.

I certainly don’t think any response to being surrounded by a different accent or language is better than any of the others! What a strange thing to want to put somebody down for!

Ha, my English H had lived outside Uk for 10 years and to my dismay has not lost one tiny bit of his northern accent.

On the other hand a friend from my home country lived in London and developed a posh accent. She said people who were musical tended to change their accent. However when I visited her years later in our home country she still had it! And bemoaned the fact one of her Dc sounded so ‘home country’.. not sure what she expected him to sound like seeing as that’s where he’d lived most of his life!

To be fair, she lived in Toronto for years filming Suits. I still think this is a petty thread.

the most British/English thing about it is she is perfecting the art of talking about the weather