picking up accents at school

[Sallyssss]

Ok, now I am know this thread wont make me the most popular person, but I need some advice/reassurance (or a kick up the back side ;-) .

My 5 yr started a new local school in a new area (where we have moved to)and has already started picking up the accent, which to put it mildly I do not like!

Hmmm - do I accept this? Will she grow out of it? Any words of wisdom?

Move

She needs to pick up the accent; she needs to 'fit in' at primary school (says someone who didn't pick up the accent....)

If you don't like the local accent, you really shouldn't have her in a local school, sorry.

Agree with desertgirl.

If it helps, at uni, I picked up 'posh'. (I was almost the only state school girl in our group.) I have subsequently lost it again.

Keep reinforcing how you would like her to talk, I went to school with a girl who used completely different accents when speaking to her friends (Scottish)and her family (Manchester) I was quite shocked when I heard her on the phone one day! I think everyone does it to a degree, I know I do. It helps you fit as previous poster says.

..by which I mean even as an adult you can gain and lose accents and not that speaking posh is a crime.

Why would you live somewhere where you didn't like the accent?

What was her previous accent? Why is your accent any better? (genuine question)

Do you really mean accent or do you mean she is picking up bad grammar?

Bad grammar = not so good
Regional accent = perfectly normal and natural and does not reflect upon a person in any way.

She'll pick up far worse in the years to come so an accent is the least of your worries, there's nits/swearing.....

Kids do pick up accents really quickly. We moved here a year or so ago, and 4 yo sounds (apparently, to me he just sounds like him!) like a fully born Brit kid. And so does 3yo and he has never even been to nursery!! (4 yo I understand as he is at school, but still I thought it would take longer than that!)

Posted too soon.. i meant to add it is totally normal and bound to happen in whatever region you move to. Agree with the 'fitting in' thing.

I'm a southener living in a northern city and I figure I've got dd for a couple of years, til she goes to nursery/school, but then I'm resigned to her picking up the local accent. Would be weird if she didn't I think.

I do not speak with a posh accent, very normal. But, I guess it's the bad grammar and loosing "t's" at the end of words. Its definitely a south London accent.

I guess it's just getting used to it, and I do want her to fit and make friends (who all seem lovely)

I understand what the op means.

I am in Dublin and my dd says green leaf as greeyun leeyuf. Blue is given the same treatment, bluwah. I am just hoping that it will iron itself out. i have a neutral accent and so I am hoping that her primary school accent will 'settle down a bit' when she has a bit more self-awareness. This is just an optimistic theory though.........

I don't get it.

I'm American. My husband and children are Scottish.

They sound like it, too.

If I had wanted the children to sound like me, we wouldn't live here.

Hoping it will iron itself out?

Honestly, there are bigger things to worry about than a regional accent.

DD1 had a lovely Edinburgh accent when we moved her, she'd just gone 4.

Now, she sounds like a Western Highlander.

Because, well, she is now.

Well that's easy to type x-pat, but the reality is it will be better for them to have more neutral accents.

It's hardly outrageously snobby of me to expect that my children have the same accent I have. And I know there are more important things to worry about. I'm not dragging them to elocution lessons.

I have the bad grammar problem. I don't mind if they sound Norfolk but I hate them saying "I done" and other similar crimes. I find myself hissing under my breath when the teaching assistants say things that are obviously wrong and I'm not a picky pedant type.

Oh do they do that in the UK too? I done. I have told my dc that there is no such word as done, it's havedone. I think that's helped her. Every other child in the class says I done. But when they started 4 years ago they all said 'I have done'.

Bronze - I think it's more that than anything. It is really irritating!!! I also worry it will not help her spell correctly.

Always love hearing about the people who have "neutral" accents - to your own ears, perhaps.

Would you consider moving to avoid it? It will be hard to stop I think.

'Well that's easy to type x-pat, but the reality is it will be better for them to have more neutral accents.'

YOU think it's better. They and the rest of the world may feel differently.

Honestly, I just don't get all this ridiculous snobbery about accents.

It's beyond stoopid.

Poor kids. It's hard enough just trying to grow up and fit it and figure out who you are without your parents staring down their noses at you about your own voice.

That's just ridiculous.

What on Earth is a more neutral accent?

A Home Counties accent is not a more neatral accent. It is simply a different regional accent.

Neutral to you perhaps?

X posts, Mrsfeatherwords.

Sorry, Mrsfeathersword

Exactly, arch.

I get, 'Oh, they sound so Scottish.'

No shit!