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?

Born in the East Midlands, grew up to mid teens in a mixture of Manchester and Yorkshire. Been in the south since I was 14.

I have a northern twang, most can't put their finger on whereabouts - I'm probably more Lincolnshire, which is odd as I wasn't there for long for long but both of my parents have Lincoln accents and most rellies do.

I can drop the accent pretty much fully (struggle with vowels though!) or sound pretty strong. If I spend time talking to a fellow "northerner" then I usually end up sounding like them!

My brother has lost his accent totally. He went to private school in the south and trained himself to lose it!

My accent floats about depending on who I'm speaking with.

I was born in Yorkshire, went to high school in Lancashire and then I had a few years in Oxford, London and Wolverhampton.

If I put in effort I can still speak in a Yorkshire accent, unless I'm with people from Yorkshire in which case I'm totally Yorkshire.

My family have Thames estuary accents but I seemed to end up sounding a bit more 'posh'. I think this was mainly due to the students I spent time around during my A levels and at university. I then ended up in a career which seems to attract more middle class people with RP accents and I guess that led to me being some sort of halfway house between these two accents.

Born in northern England to Irish parents. Moved to Ireland as a teen and then to America in my 20s.

I sound much more posh than I did as a child because people had a difficult time understanding me so I had to enunciate better.

People always ask me where I’m from, and if they’ve travelled a bit themselves and I chat to them for more than a minute, they’ll conclude northern England.

When I get in a room with my siblings, there’s no doubt!

Not really. My mum has a west coast of Scotland accent, and I have an east coast one as I moved when I was 17 and have lived in this area ever since.

My dad apparently has a Scottish accent but I can't hear it (other people comment on it when meeting him though so I guess he must have), no idea what accent my mum has, lived too many different places.
Mine was strong West Country when I was little, but then we moved to Suffolk and that crept in, but also I think a lot of how I speak is what I picked up from tv (dropping Ts, F instead of TH though that's partly to do with speech issues I had as a toddler) but now I live in Finland I often slip into a Finglish accent.

Dad has a Westmorland (Cumbrian) accent, mum born in Aberdeen. I was raised in home counties and have a 'well spoken' accent, mum ensured no Hs or Ts were dropped when I was growing up. DB's accent on the other hand sounds cockney so mum's 'elocution' lessons didn't work on him 😁

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).

My dad can speak it but I was never taught and we only spoke English at home.

Did you never go to school at any time between the ages of 2 and 15?

Dad from Hampshire, Mum from Edinburgh, I have a forces brat non accent so disnt sound like either. Funnily enough DS brought up in Dorset has my accent.

I can’t hear my own accent, but I’m always told I “speak like Adele”. My own parents are also Londoners but have more of an older cockney twang to it. The “MLE” (multicultural London English) accent came through when I was in my teens, with a heavy Caribbean influence to it, and recently I have noticed the London accent changing slightly again amongst teenagers. My own DCs have a slightly flatter, more slurred London accent than even my own MLE accent.

Migrant trends match the changes in London accents; my parents were amongst the first group of first generation British Caribbeans and assimilated to what was then the standard working class London accent. When I was growing up that Caribbean influence was still there, with more determination to hold on to our “ethnic” accents (history will of course explain why that desire was there!), thus the MLE accent was born. However, I also went to school just outside of London despite living in an inner city estate, so my own accent has a slight Essex twang amidst the MLE. Now my DCs schools are even bigger melting pots - Turkish, Nigerian, Somali, Romanian, Bulgarian, Ghanaian… the list goes on. My DCs accents are all of those meshed together with, a large sprinkling of my MLE and small hints of my parents’ cockney. It’s fascinating!

I speak like my parents, but we’re all Yorkshire. DS went to uni in the NE and came home speaking like he went, most students were from the north, Scotland or NI and from a less privileged background.

DD went to to uni of Leeds where she mixed with a very diverse group of students both geographically and economically. She now has an affected slightly posh “uni accent” when she’s with her friends who all stayed in Leeds as did she, they all seem to have one too, poshing up their scouse or manc.

She loses it after a day at home. I find it a bit irritating but I’ve seen it many times in graduates I’ve worked with too.

My parents were from counties outside of Dublin but had kind of D4 Dublin accents by the time they retired. I always had a South Dublin accent but I live in a different county now and actually speak more in the accent of my adopted county. Irish accents are extremely varied.

I can't get over that you don't speak Spanish and you live in Spain, OP.

Slightly different- but my parents have strong accents but I’m described as having no accent often. No one can place it.
I speak five languages and I’ve moved north/ south round the UK as a child. I used to be able to adapt accents fast, like when I moved from London to Liverpool. I guess you’d probably guess me as southern, but I don’t always use southern vowels. My speech is very very very plain, no long vowels, gottal stops. No one ever identifies with it, but also no one expects me not to be English. Apparently I also speak the family language like this.
I was on a teams call recently with a mix of Middlesbrough staff and London and they were discussing my voice as they couldn’t place me. I must sound broadly southern British, but nowhere in particular.
Whats funny is my two eldest have the same strong accent as my parents and husband. They don’t sound British, which really confuses people

My family is from Liverpool but from what would be considered the 'posh' part nearer Southport. My mum had elocution lessons as a child so has a much more RP sounding accent than my dad who's family were working class Scouse. My nanna had a lovely old-Scouse accent like Cilla Black but only my uncle speaks like she did. Auntie ended up more Lancashire and my dad is inbetween the two 😂

I ended up talking like mum and my brother has more obvious Scouse inflections like dad. Accents/dialect are fascinating! 😂

my DC don’t have an accent at all.

Everyone has an accent.

Yep RP like my mum.

My Dad had what I suppose was a slight Essex accent, what would be described as estuary now I think, but it was fairly slight.

My Dad has a Warwickshire accent. My mum also grew up in Warwickshire but her voice is neutral. I have some inflections in my accent from being brought up in the East Midlands, plus a mockney accent that creeps in with my London-born friends and colleagues. I've lived in London for 26 years. My daughter's accent is neutral!

They mean RP / non regional

@Circumferences
Im similar to you (but both parents from U.K.) they both have RP / well spoken accents but I moved to London as a teen and have a cockneyish accent

I grew up in Wicklow and live in the UK now, my parents are from Tipperary and Mayo. We have slightly different accents. While we all sound clearly Irish, it's not obvious what part of Ireland any of us are originally from.

Yes, we all have RP. My parents has elocution lessons when young and I guess I just grew up sounding like them.
my brother however has quite a westcountry twang.

ie we all say grass, castle etc with a hard a but she says them all with a long soft a.

My children have grown up on 3 different continents and have gone to international schools. Their accents are all slightly different but they have that vaguely international accent where people can’t really tell where they’re from. So their accents are very different to mine!

Never lived abroad but my Mum was Scottish, my Dad Geordie and I grew up in the East Midlands.

My accent is that of a midlander. But I have odd dialect words that have crept in from both parents. Eg scran (for food) blether (to babble on) etc.

Yes they do, everyone does.