To ask if your accent is the same as your parents ?

[Zinfandelfoot]

I was born in London as were both of my parents. I moved to Spain from when I was 2 until 15 and picked up a Spanish accent. Although I can’t speak it 😬 ( lived in a very touristy area). Both of my parents accents didn’t change. I still have a slightly Spanish accent. People always find this so strange.

Is your accent the same as your parents if you moved abroad when you was young?

Sorry, I was going to post a scintillating reply, but I'm just not getting past your not speaking Spanish but having a Spanish accent.

You don't speak Spanish at all?

Not really. I’m from Yorkshire and both my parents have Yorkshire accents. I went to University in a different part of the country at 18 and have lived elsewhere ever since, now more than two decades. Over time my Yorkshire accent has softened and I’m more “well spoken” (for want of a better word). However, I do think I still have an identifiably Northern accent.

Same as @NoNoHellaNoNoHellaNoNo

We lived abroad - my Dad is English and my accent in English is similar to his. My Mum wasn’t English and spoke with an accent (when speaking English).

No. I can understand it and speak it a bit but definitely not fluent. My dad can speak it but I was never taught and we only spoke English at home. Same as school, it was very important to learn English at school so never learnt it there either. Disgraceful I know 🫣

Same here…and my DC don’t have an accent at all.

No, not now. When I was a child, yes, though my father had a strong WC city accent and my mother a rural one from a particular part of the county, so I was probably a hybrid. I studied overseas and then lived out of my home country for 27 years, plus I speak a fair few languages, so I’m far less placeable these days. DS, born in the UK, didn’t grow up with either of his parents’ accents OR the local Midlands accent — he sounded very crisp and cut-glass from birth, though he now sounds like a middle-class version of where we’re from.

I'd love a romantic accent 😜
But no.
My mum was American, she moved here and gradually became more queens English sounding with a quirk still pronouncing certain things the American way. My dad was always posh English sounding his accent never changed.

I grew up speaking queens English but moved to London as a teen, lived there till 40yo and picked up a "cockney" accent so I now sound a bit more London/Essex (eg Katie Price/Beckhams??) than my parental upbringing accent. I can sound "posh" if I really want to though.

Pretty similar. I'm a fraction posher, but not much.

My dad is British and has an English accent
My mum is North African and has a North African accent
I was raised in North Africa in a French community and French school and have a French accent

My dad is English and my mum Scottish, but from a different area to where I was born. My home town has a distinctive local accent, which I speak with, but I also speak like my dad when visiting English relatives.

My mum was Irish and my dad was from Wolverhampton. I've lived in London all my life and I sound like a Londoner. I do use some vocabulary and idioms learnt from them.

My dad has an unplaceable accent, due to being an army brat. Most would assume he is English, I think. He was born and grew up abroad, didn’t move to the UK until his 20’s.

My mum is more obviously from where I’m from, accent wise.

Most people assume I am English, unless I clarify.

My mums is traditional cockney, mine is the same as Adele’s. It’s very subtle but a Londoner would know. Same as I can pick up a west London accent or a south london one.

My kids don’t have any accent to my ears but (they are small) sometimes write words phonetically like a Londoner would say them.

Nobody in my immediate family sounds the same. My DF was born in Ayrshire but the 200 plus years before his generation all the family came from Glasgow so he and his siblings speak with a posh Glasgow accent. My mother was born in Hertfordshire but one of her parents came from Buckinghamshire and she speaks with a mostly Buckinghamshire accent.

My sister and I were born In Hounslow but moved to Hook, Hampshire before I was 2 and DS was around 6 months old. When my DS was 4 and I was 5 we moved to Edinburgh. DS speaks with an Edinburgh accent and I speak with a half West London, half Edinburgh accent. My DB was born in Edinburgh but went to Yorkshire for university and then moved home to Edinburgh again. DB still speaks with a light Yorkshire accent.

I grew up speaking with the same accent as my parents ; proper ‘ay up mi duck’ Derbyshire. I went away to university & started mixing with people from a far more diverse range of backgrounds, then I started work in a professional environment and then I met DP who is quite posh. Inevitably, these influences rubbed off, and while I certainly didn’t deliberately change my accent, the way I speak evolved. I now sound very neutral, like I could come from anywhere.

Different to parents because lived in several different places in UK lol

I have a London accent but changes depending on who I speak to. Mum has a strong foreign accent, very strange considering she's lived in the uk for over 35 years.

No. My parents were from a different country so spoke English with an accent.

Very like @NoNoHellaNoNoHellaNoNo

I was brought up in North Lincolnshire, bordering Yorkshire, and probably had a strong accent as a child.

I never made any conscious effort to lose my accent but I think it just happened gradually and naturally from when I went to University at 18. I remember a friend who I shared a house with at Uni saying that my accent changed when my Dad and BIL came to take me home for the holidays. I really hadn't noticed.

These days I would probably describe my accent as generic Northern but I think it is very different to how my parents spoke.

I moved to the UK in my early twenties and I'm now in my late thirties. When I speak my first language I still have my old regional accent and sound pretty much the same as my parents.

When I speak English I sound quite RP/posh but with a hint of my local regional accent.

I find accents fascinating, so I'm glad to have found this thread!

I'm Glaswegian and DH is from the SE.

DS1 was 6 when we moved from Glasgow to Yorkshire to set up home together. He developed a strong Yorkshire accent very quickly, as his classmates were bewildered by his Glasgow accent.
DS2 arrived five years later.

When DS1 was 12, and DS2 was 1, we moved to London. DD arrived a year later.

We spent 7 years in London. Both DS's had a London accent, as did DD when she began to talk.

When DS1 was 18, he went to Newcastle University where he's stayed ever since (he's now 25). He now has a strong Geordie accent.

When DS2 was 7 and DD was 6, we moved back up to Yorkshire.
DS1 is now 16 - he still has a Southern accent (was born in Yorkshire)
DD is 15 - she has a strong Yorkshire accent (was born in London).

I still have a strong Scottish accent.

I'm not sure why DS1 and DD have been influenced by the local accents, but DS2 hasn't?

We went on a family holiday in the summer, and DD got friendly with a girl from the Midlands. Within days, she was talking with a Black Country accent.

DS1 is now 16 should be DS2 is now 16 🤦‍♀️

I've confused myself with my own post!

I'm an immigrant. I've lived in SE England since I was 3, and English has been my main language since I was 7. My parents speak excellent English, but with accents. In primary school my accent was very similar to my DM's, but in secondary I was teased for it and I made a conscious effort to copy my classmates' accents. Until 5-10y ago people sometimes asked where I was from, as they could detect a slight something. They never guessed right.

As my accent in English has become more English, my accent in my mother tongue has also become more English. I don't really like that.

I had a Scottish accent (both parents Scottish, we moved to London when I was less than a year old) until I went to school, thereafter English.

That said there are still a few words I pronounce as my parents would (iron with an R not 'iern', fête as fett not fayte, apricot as ahpricot not aypricot) and I retain the Scottish pronunciation of 'which' (hwhich) and so on. I don't have the wine/whine merger which is more common in England, I pronounce most of those words with a "hw" sound rather than "w" so I pronounce 'which' and 'witch' quite differently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_%E2%9F%A8wh%E2%9F%A9

"The distribution of the wh- sound in words does not always exactly match the standard spelling; for example, Scots pronounce whelk with plain /w/" - I just said 'whelk' aloud and I say hwhelk so clearly I am quite confused :) Absolutely no idea how I pronounce 'wharf' though, goodness knows what's going to come out of my mouth ;)

Jo