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?

No, my accent is sort of similar to my Dad but a lot stronger. My mum is from Scotland so she has a Scottish accent.

Oh sorry, should have said they don’t have a regional accent. Lord knows why people are getting their knickers in a twist over this.

Because, arguably, all accents are regional accents. I speak with a SE England / Home Counties / RP-ish accent which many people might think of as a standard English accent. But it's not standard- there's no such thing. It's regional because it places me in an area (albeit quite a large, spread-out one).

OP - I'm fascinated by the idea that you speak with a Spanish accent but don't speak Spanish! I teach languages and I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who does that!

No, but I’m a southerner (as is ex-Dh) but dc were born in Yorkshire and they both have Yorkshire accents. They mock my southern voice 😂

My mum comes from a town in Greater Manchester, which is where I was born and brought up and still live now. My Dad is from Kent and has a strong Kentish accent, even now, after living in the North for around 50 years!

Mine sits somewhere between the two - you can tell I am Northern but my accent is nowhere near as strong as some in my town.

Interestingly, although my Dad and one of his sisters still have their Kent accent, two other sisters now have very Northern accents 🤷‍♀️

Yabu

I'm often told my accent is posh, though I just think they haven't met my parents who are even more 'well spoken' than I am. Though we do essentially have similar accents, in answer to the OP.

My dad is Scottish, my mum is from where I live now. I’ve have a weird mix of the two. Generally English with a few random Scottish words thrown in

My DD's dad is from Hertfordshire and I am from Liverpool, but his parents and grandparents are very Bulgarian and babysit all the time, so my DD has come out with a weird hybrid accent that sounds nothing like any of us. 🤣

Most often people have the accent of the place/s that they lived as a child/young person so it's not surprising that you have a Spanish accent!

I do sound quite like my parents but spent my early childhood in the South East and my parents speak RP and so do I.

My mum was Welsh and her accent was not very obvious after living in SE for over 50 years . My Dad was a correspondent for the BBC and had very English well spoken accent.
I am very articulate and my sister is as well ,but without the clipped voice our father had .
My children are articulate and one son has a very public school accent whereas the other two are just well spoken .

So, let me get this right. You went to an English medium school in Spain where all teaching took place in English, but many of your teachers and classmates were Spanish, therefore you now speak with the accent of a Spanish person speaking English? Like, literally the sounds they make as native Spanish speakers trying to get their tongues round English. So you say stuff like “I go to esschool to learn about esspanish heestory”?

I’m sorry but that is kind of hilarious.

Same(ish) accent as my parents - all a variation of Glaswegian. Have lived down south for almost a decade now and despite repeated attempts at softening it, my accent hasn't shifted

Born and raised in north west London, mum was born in london but east ender! Dad was an over sea student from Hong Kong! So totally different accents to my parents!

@KingsleyBorder You would be shocked but it’s very common in international schools across the world! My niece is Chinese, lives in Hong Kong, born and raised there and goes to British international, and only speaks English… with an American accent!

Its not totally unusual to live in a place and not pick up the language, but to pick the accent up.

Language learning requires a certain level of immersion. If you come from a family where you only speak English at home, then go to an English speaking International school and then live in an English speaking part of the country, it cam be really, really challenging to learn the language (even if you really want to). You can however, pick up the way the locals pronounce words in English.

It absolutely is a thing.

Dh and I are Irish. but (to Irish people) we have very different accents as we grew up in different parts of the country. I don't think anyone in the US where we now live spots the difference.

We have three american children who have american accents. I used to notice it when I travelled for work and would call home and talk to my tiny child with an american accent and think what the hell! :) I didn't notice it in real life but on the phone it was omg.

I got over that and then we did a couple of (fabulous) holidays in England and Scotland and I thought how odd it must be for waiters/people to hear us speaking with an irish accent and our children are pure american.

I actually lived in Hong Kong myself for years and knew many an international school child so that doesn’t surprise me at all, but you’re missing one vital difference between this and OP’s situation - Americans speak English so having an American accent is a perfectly normal thing for an English speaker to have. On the other hand, speaking English with a non- anglophone accent when your family are all native speakers is quite bonkers.

Mine is - I'm from the NEwhich is quite a strong accent. However , we left the UK when DD was 4 and DS was 2 and both of them have no trace of my accent or DH's (NW) DD has a slight twang with certain words but DS has no accent and has a very "international school" accent. His first nursery teacher was American , so does say some words with an American accent like water hair and mirror.
My kids laugh at me as my accent changes a lot when I speak to my family on video chat - I'm a naturally fast talker so I had to speak a lot slower where we were before , and same where we are now. It was also hard for me when we moved from the Middle East to SE Asia to get used to the cadence in the way English is spoken here as opposed to the Middle East.

It's fascinating watching my children speak to their friends from both places that we've lived as they change the way they speak to match their friends inflections, and use local words and terms.

I have a strong South Devon accent, and so do most of my family. The exception would be my sister, who moved to London at 20, picked up a Cockley twang before moving back to Devon late 20's, and never lost it.

People from up the line always presume that I am Cornish (my home is on the Devon/Cornwall border).

What a silly thing to say. Everyone has an accent.

What is your problem?! Picking on people on Mumsnet. Seriously, get a life!

Picking on people? What a silly thing to say.

Only when I’m around my parents. Otherwise my accent is markedly different.

No I have moved around a fair bit. My parents are Welsh. I have no trace

Yes, picking on people! Describing my comments as silly. What do you get out of that? I also don’t think there is a way to describe my children’s accent. Some might say RP, but I don’t believe that accurately describes it.