Do your children have a different accent from you?

[UnquietDad]

I get the feeling this has been discussed before - apologies if it is old ground for anyone.

Have you moved to an area which is not your "home", or settled with a partner who is from a different part of the country, and found that you've, almost to your astonishment, raised children who speak totally differently from you? (i.e. from your personally, or from both of you?)

I suppose it's inevitable that children will pick things up from school. In our house I still find it odd and slightly jarring that my children have the "short Northern A" - DD will say "classe" and "grasse", and talking about going "oop" to school. And all three of them (DW, DD, DS) will take the piss out me for my Southern RP. (That is a "slightly irritated" face, not really "angry". Another new MN icon needed.)

I do know some fellow "southerners" at the school and some of their kids speak more like their parents than like their peers. I often mean to ask them how they do it!

I think it's mostly to do with your ear for languages. I have RP (sounds like a disease of some sort!) because my parents speak very properly (although not quite as properly as their parents, who were of the "orf" variety, esp my father's family). My brothers and sisters speak in a very similar way most of the time. We are from South East London and went to a Irish Catholic primary school, where except for one sister we were all teased and excluded for being different. My sister who wasn't teased is the one of us who is good at languages, and she is a chameleon that way (once she spent a week in hospital in Herefordshire, and came out with a strong accent, that she then lost about as fast). I have met people who have kept their accents for 20-30 years after emigrating, and others who sound like natives in months, and I do think it's about how you hear accents in the first place.

On the OP, my children slip very easily into Estury English, and yes I do correct them. Does it annoy them. Yes. Will I go on doing it, well yes, I hate lazy pronunciation. On the other hand if we moved somewhere else I would expect (and not object) them to pick up some local accent - however I'd still want them to encounciate properly (what's wrong with "t"s anyway!).

we moved from north to south. Obviously proud and convinced our northern accent is superior to all the barth ( no @r@ in BATH!) shit, we correct them and will not tolerate SOUTHERN SPEAK from our children.

NORTHERN AND PROUD.

i suppose UQD you could try it the other way round, but quite frankly .... its not very believable

By Jove! Is the queen of the Norks present, we'd expect you to speak with nothing other than RP your highness.

If I say "arse", I use a totally different sound from the one I use when I say "class" or "pass". Trust me. It's not an R.

Jury's out on "baaa-stard" vs "basse-tard"!

i prefer besstard rather than barstard.

fuck has a better ring when northern.

I think Geordie is best for swearing in many ways. "fook'n" sounds great.

I was asking dd's about my accent today. In my mind it's very mild with only the short 'a's to distinguish it. when I said "do I really talk that different from you?" they mimicked me, burst out laughing and said "of course you do". when I hear them mimick me, in a sentence that doesn;t contain bath or class I realise that yes, I do talk differently to them. I think northerners emphasize their consonants more. bit like the difference between a decent bit of craggy moorland and soft undulating hills. give me the moorland any day.

We are from Lancashire but for some reason my dd (5) has adopted quite a posh home counties accent from somewhere!! It's really quite funny, I feel like her country bumpkin nursemaid sometimes!

dd has a different accent but I don't know how to pinpoint it. It's because we live in a non-English speaking environment though and she attends a German school. She doesn't have a German accent though

DH thinks I don't have an accent but I do. I am very northern but because I grew up on the border of Lancs and Yorks it is neither really.

We live in germany but my 2 dc have got my cumbrian accent. They also speak fluent German and when I read to them in German they laugh if I pronounce a word with an english accent.(I can usually do the German accent quite well)

SSandy
My ex H had a German mother and an American father and grew up in Europe, but also spoke English as a native language in addition to German.

He has a very neutral accent in both English and German.

ahh so all is not lost then. That's good

Expat, When you describe people's ideas as snobish you are implying a class issue. I was particulary surprised to hear this from you - being an expat and all.
You have been the only one here, however, who has raised "snobishness" as an issue. Can't people like/dislike an accent without it being "condecending"? Can't people find it amusing that thier dcs sound so different to themselves without upsetting you?
And if you are simply not interested or "have better things to do" then why did you get involved in the first place?
Cheer up luv!

That's your interpretation of it, 'Sweety'.

It's not mine.

Therefore, I can't say I care.

I have a stong Welsh cccent. Both my kids sound English, which isn't surprising, since we live in England and dh has an english accent.

SSandy, yes, it's difficult for even Germans to tell where ex H is from, although his mother was Bavarian.

He spoke both English and German in the home and with friends, but also went to school in Belgium, Italy and France.

He is now living back in Munich, but doesn't think his accent in German will change.

Mine will have soon enough as we are moving from Scotland to Merseyside!

Into what sounds like a very lovely house, schneeb

I still don't get your point, Pointydog. (Oops, sorry about the pun!) Neither my dc (afaik) or I have ever mocked anyone's Scots accent. Why would we - we lived in Scotland so expected to be surrounded by Scots accents? Not picking up the accent ourselves is not a sign of disrespect, it's just how we are. And the only time I correct my dc's pronounciation is when they speak lazily and it's hard to understand them.

I'm from t' Lek District, dh Edinburgh, now live darn sarf and ds sounds like a proper little home counties toff sometimes, but he catches himself, so he'll say baaaath then look at me and say, sorry, bath.

"There's no R in the RP vowel though. It bugs ME when people try to write it as if there is!! If people actually listen to me they can hear I don't say "clarse"."

UD, you might debate whether it's a 'r' or not but there is definitely another letter in there. What would you prefer, 'clahss'?

Do a test. Ask people with southern english accents to say 'class' then 'clarse'. You won't hear any difference with lots of them.

"Only trouble is when I'm helping him with his spellings I have to say them how I think his teacher will say them to give him a hope of getting them right in his test."

I recognise that problem, speccy!

sue, I think that point I made was in response to op. I enjoy different accents and the pointydogs have certainly been known to find different pronunciations funny.

But to dislike your local area's accent and to correct your children when they use it, is giving a message that the accent (and by implication people who have it) is not good enough.

But I've had a crap day and don't know if I'm up to making any more points. I'm pointed out.