Do you still have your REAL accent?

Serious question.

In the last year, I’ve actually been making a concerted effort to stop my accent become a generic easy-to-understand-American-type thing.

It all began almost 18 years ago, when I left home and went to university in Scotland. Not even the Scottish could understand my N.Irish accent, so you can imagine how strong/fast it must have been. So I started slowing it down and changing how I pronounced certain words and vowel sounds.

Went to Spain in 1996 for 5 years and flattened the accent even more, so that my students could understand it, and found myself working with or socialising with quite a few Americans and Canadians, so the accent tended to go that way.

Now I’ve been in Taiwan for almost 2.5 years, and it’s just getting embarrassing.

Luckily, when my family phones me, the N.Irish accent comes back in a flash, but I find it very hard to use this accent with anyone outside of the British Isles.

Am I the only one???

…yep.

You’re not the only one, Stu.

This happens often to people who are either one or more of these:

  • more considerate to others (ie care if the person they talk to is straining themselves to understand)

  • ‘have the ear’ for languages and/or music

  • come from a country whose language is not dominant in the region/world, not spoken by others

  • more adaptive to others

  • like taking on roles or even impersonating people or accents

I think I will always have a bit of a French accent. My spoken English is OK but I still mess up a word here and there. Taiwanese can not tell I’m French for the most part but Native English speakers pick up on it rather quickly. It’s getting better slowly. 3 years ago, people would ask: “Are you French?” Now they usually ask: “Where are you from?”

I still have difficulties with others accents when it comes to comprehension though. I get about 75% of what Irish and Scottish say. 95% for Kiwis and Ozzies(Spent a year in Australia) and about 90% for Brits depending how fast they speak. I often mix up Brits, Ozzies, South Africans and Kiwis.

When I met Ironman and Truant, I asked them: “So you guys are both from England?”. Comes to show. :slight_smile:

bobepine

Mine has gone from an upstate NY accent to a NYC accent, because those are the accents I see most in film I guess and I identify with them more.

One guy though did ask if I was Texas once. :astonished:

Having been brought up in many different parts of the UK plus a few places overseas I would say that’s given me a (mostly subconscious) tendency to imitate the accents of those people around me. Perhaps it’s some psychological need to fit in, but when I speak to my Dad’s side of the family, I get more northern, when I speak to my school-friends I get more Devonshire. I also repeatedly get told by Taiwanese people that I “don’t have an English accent”, because I think some Taiwanese associate a British accent with unintelligibility. I definitely try to use as neutral an accent as possible when talking to people who are not native-English speakers. By this I don’t mean kindergarten-speak, I’m just conscious of terms I might normally use that are regionalisms and not likely to be understood.

I see where Tash is coming from, but personally I mostly associate this phenomenon with a fear of not being understood or standing out and I sometimes feel regret that I don’t persevere with my own accent (whatever that is).

My American accent used to vary pretty markedly from NSP (network standard pronunciation, kinda the American equivalent of RP in England). I never used to say the “augh” sound many people hear in “daughter” - mine was more like a nasal Kennedy-esque “hotter.” So yes, I guess I did modify my accent (not to mention speaking much s-l-o-w-e-r). I remember a guy from Brooklyn who lost his teaching job due to his accent (“Dis is da pencil, dat is my bruddah.”), and a girl from Alabama who just plain gave up. I think environment has a lot to do with it. Fuck, sometimes I catch myself saying “in uni” or “in hospital” - not an accent thing, I know, but last time I went back home, a few people asked where I was from. :s

Thanks for the feedback so far. A few interesting points raised.

Regarding the need to fit in, I don’t know if that’s really the reason.

As for being considerate of others, I’d say honestly that there is an element of this.

As for having an ear for languages, well, if I was tring to pretend I was N.American, then maybe. Actually I want to NOT sound N.American.

One other thing from the early days of all this; I remember when my friends and I first went away to university, it seemed cool at the time to come home with a different accent, but later it sounded stupid or even pretentious.

So far, I think the main reason is just trying to be understood.

[quote=“irishstu”]Thanks for the feedback so far. A few interesting points raised.

Regarding the need to fit in, I don’t know if that’s really the reason.

As for being considerate of others, I’d say honestly that there is an element of this.

As for having an ear for languages, well, if I was tring to pretend I was N.American, then maybe. Actually I want to NOT sound N.American.

One other thing from the early days of all this; I remember when my friends and I first went away to university, it seemed cool at the time to come home with a different accent, but later it sounded stupid or even pretentious.

So far, I think the main reason is just trying to be understood.[/quote]

Sorry, come again?

Myself, my accent hasn’t changed, but I know plenty whose have. One friend from Green Bay shocked me one day by showing my how people fom Wisconsin usually speak. Wow. And I’ve seen plenty of saffies whose accents have changed due to their contact with NA friends. Met one Assie once who wished he knew more Assies here because he misses being able to speak in dialect as opposed to standard English all the time.

I’m more and more often accused of being English, even by fellow Australians. I can’t work it out, but then I never really felt I had a particularly strong accent to begin with. I think it may have been a childhood formula when attempting to speak clearly to aim for the BBC. which is why it may have gotten worse living outside Australia.

It’s a bastard, I mean, how can you be taken seriously when you’re railing against the poms if you sound like one?

By the bye, it does seem to me that when an Irish accent is keyed down it inevitably begins to sound American.

HG

I came here 6 yrs ago with a South-African (there are many accents though!) and the first time I showed up the flashcard for ‘bathroom’ and pronounced it ‘baaaaaathroom’ nobody had a clue what I was talking about!!!

I can’t shake my ‘American’ accent now…I mean it’s what I am doing for a living…when I go back home for visits I feel like such a wannabe!

Yeah. Hit the nail on the head. I sound like a poof when I talk these days. Or even worse, English. It’s just out of necessity. Gets boring really fast when you have to repeat yourself constantly and explain what perfectly normal words mean.

same as HGC… most other Australians guess I am British. This can be read as good or bad I suppose. At least they arent guessing American :slight_smile:

has gotten a bit weird for sure and i keep wanting to say “i reckon…” very strange

“Gotten!” :laughing: God, it’s good to see some people have it worse than me! I say “I guess” :astonished: :unamused: :noway: I even write it sometimes. Makes me cringe every time.

I’m an accent Chameleon. It depends who I’m talking to at any given time. I’ve been mistaken as a Brit by Brits, an Aussie by Aussies and even an American by an American.

Best was an Irish chap that asked me, “Are you South African?”

Yes, why?

“You sound like a Jaarpie…”

Dammit!