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?

I mean, I don't think they are. They're just confused by your comments.

I don't think anyone from NE England has that accent, or at least I've never met one.

Also, people are rightly correcting people who say they don't have an accent. Everyone has an accent.

Yes, it’s often used as an insult. You see it on here all the time. It was also used as an insult against me at school. Lords knows why, I was a free school meals with a broad Yorkshire accent. I cannot stand reverse snobbery.

Well a lot of people are confused full stop. They think that if you don’t have a Yorkshire accent, you can’t be from Yorkshire (replace that with any other region if you like) and that if your accent is plain that you are Southern. My MIL has a Southern accent (she is from North London and you can here the London in her voice), my DH has a Southern accent (he grew up on the Herts Essex borders and has a bit of an Estuary twang). My children do not speak the same as either of them. My friend from law school who group in Yorkshire and went to school in the Midlands has the same accent. He is definitely not Southern!

I think it's difficult to judge the accents of your family. I'm Scottish. I know I sound virtually identical to my sister and Mum but my DC tell me they don't hear my accent but can tell my accent gets stronger when I talk to Mum. My kids sound very English to my family but I can hear that my eldest goes very sing song when we visit my family. And all 3DC say words they only hear in Scotland in a Scottish accent.

DH grew up in a multicultural home with one British parent and one foreign parent. He lived in several countries as a child and English was his second language (he lost his first as a child) but he lived in Scotland for most of his childhood. He went to an International School when they lived abroad and he picked up an American accent which he got bullied for at his school in Scotland. His accent is now quite mid atlantic (definitely not English, a mix of American and Scottish) but he tends to pick up people's accents when talking to them. So he's difficult to place because his accent is so mixed up.

Well my friend from law school who grew up in Middlesborough did! Education and where someone goes to University has a big impact.

No, my parents have different accents to each other, and I grew up somewhere with a different accent again (and also spent a few years living in Africa from about 3-5 years old). I speak with the accent of where we lived from when I was about 5.

Oh God don't water down the Kiwi accent.

The most enviable accent is usually a RP accent (Lucy from "English with Lucy" on Youtube), but there is no better sounding accent in the world than a Kiwi one.

Someone changed the NZ rugby team article on wikipedia to Kiwi English (made the news in NZ);

"The New Zealand netional rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blecks by Kiwis but uncorrictly spilled All Blacks on uts logo, riprisints New Zealand in min's unternetional rugby union, whuch us consudered the country's netional sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, 2011 and 2015."

Similar. Both had fairly neutral East Coast Scottish accents.

I do too. Despite living in London for almost 20yrs.

Don't have parents accents.
I tend to mirror the accent of the person I'm talking to. Not on purpose. I can hear it happening and try to stop and for some reason I can't figure out what my actual voice is supposed to sound like at this point. (I was doing a course last weekend and there was only one other lady doing it - Australia - a really light Sydney accent - and I had to try really hard not to copy it)

My natural accent I guess is generalised North-East - so if I'm talking to family from there - then mine gets stronger, but I live in Cambridgeshire now so my general accent is sort of middle of the road with a few northern pronunciations thrown in. (short 'a's etc)
If I've had a few drinks, it becomes far more obvious where I grew up!

My dad had a North-East accent I think, but he also had his 'announcement' voice (he was an RAF navigator, then an air traffic controller) and that was what I'd call jolly British.

No, I lost my south london accent and now it's generic Home Counties. Not lived in London f25 years

My DM has a estuary London accent and grew up in SE London to Glaswegian parents. DF has an RP accent, went to private school in London born to Middle Eastern parents. I have an RP accent, but I notice it is blending a little with my DH's accent which is London East End. Accents are fascinating and I love how many different ones there are!

My parents were both southern - they moved to Yorkshire so we DC have Yorkshire/southern mash up accents. DH's parents have strong Welsh accents but he went to international school when they lived abroad so he's just posh.

No, I have the accent of my peers because I was desperate to fit in.

It's really common in America for children of South American parents to not speak Spanish but have an accent/more than a twang. I just think it's less common in the UK but you're by no means out of the ordinary (unless you want to be 😉)

My parents had broad Yorkshire accents but moved to Essex just before having me. I have always spoken RP and they mellowed their Yorkshire accents to almost RP too. No one ever spoke with an Essex accent.

No! Both parents from different large northern cities, they moved to a third, and had me, we all sound v different!

No, I've never lived where my parents were from

Interesting to see that a lot of people think their accent has diluted, for want of a better word.

DD and I live in the same place as DParents, always have done, I didn't go away to uni or anything and I think I actually have a broader accent than my parents. We're in North Yorkshire. Also feel that as DD gets older (age 10 currently) hers is also getting more pronounced. Although she did go through a phase of talking like Janet St Porter for a couple of years.

Well that makes sense, though, if you’ve always lived there. My accent has only muted a bit because I’ve lived mostly away from my home country for 27 years.

My accent all over the place. My mum is English - raf kid so lived all over plus Germany, Singapore, various places in england St Andrews then near Inverness I was born Inverness but brought up in Nairn - dad from Nairn but with a Geordie mum. I then have lived in Edinburgh West Lothian now in Stirling area so accent is nothing like my sisters I think I’ve picked bits up from places I’ve lived and worked in lanarkshire so places I’ve worked too. Some people can still pick out the northern twang but it’s very mixed.

Just had a flashback to my poor Kiwi friend trying to say her name to an eastern European person as we were checking in for our table at a restaurant. Her name is Ella but the lady was hearing 'Illa'. I had to step in after a minute 😅

I have what I call a clipped south London accent (slightly posh, north London is slurred slightly) ds has the same accent mixed with a multicultural south London accent that is such a mixture

my mum had a RP accent my dad his accent is still very strong he is from south Asian country (my family all still have strong accents)

I find accents fascinating