Your accent

[Pamellla]

This has been so interesting hearing about different accents it’s something I’m so interested in !
I watch eat sleep dream English on YouTube if you are equally interested he does some videos on celebrities accents aswell x

 

[hellisotherpeople]

I was born in South Africa, but moved to England in my late teens. And have been hopping between the two ever since.

However I still carry a rather heavy Afrikaans accent mixed with a mild sprinkling of East Anglian English. So whenever I'm in Johannesburg or here in England I have to repeat myself because people find it hard to understand me first time round

My Grandmother is from South Africa. Lived in London for many many years but still has quite an accent. We always thought it funny to get her to say “Ice cream”

 

[AnonymousMoustache]

I'm in Yorkshire and I get asked if i'm Australian fairly often. Mine is a mixture of Leeds and North Yorkshire. It's a bit of a common to slightly posh vibe. I do still have the infamous Leeds 'Neeeerrhhh' though - Which I am mocked for, frequently.

 

[TheScarletgirl]

I make myself sound broader at work. I work in a really deprived area and I find people trust me more. I find accents fascinating

I do to . I live in the midlands and there are so many accents . I hear such a bizarre range from to thick black country to Derby and I can hear a lot of northern influence the closer you get to Cheshire .

 

[coconochanel]

I love the Australian accent. 'chuck another prawn on the barbie'

 

[Shestheman22]

I have a very broad Barnsley accent. I wouldn’t change it for anything. Brummie, Barnsley and Scottish accents are my favourites.
I would hate to have the typical yummy mummy accent - ie MOD. Worst accent going.

Snap! I do like my accent but I find that people automatically assume I’m thick. I went to uni in a different part of Yorkshire and I currently work in another part of Yorkshire, and I find myself really making the effort to pronounce words properly and tone it down a bit. Because people struggle to understand me, I do mumble though so that may be why they used to take the piss out of me at uni because I pronounce ‘couldn’t’ as the C word! I’ve noticed my Barnsley accent has really got thicker since we’ve been in lockdown as I’ve been working from home and most communication with my workmates has been via messages so I haven’t had to dial it down.

In my job I have to call stores all over the country and I really have to tone my accent down - on the other side I do struggle to understand some accents on the phone, mainly scouse/Scottish/welsh!

I find it fascinating how accents change within such a small distance. Personally I can’t stand the Sheffield accent and how they pronounce certain words.

 

[bunnyboo]

I haaaate my accent. South Dublin, enough said.

 

[Comehereiwantya]

I’ve got a cork accent. Boyfriend says it’s identical to the lads from young offenders. To be fair up until I was a teen we lived an estate up from where it’s filmed

 

[Candytuft]

I am from a tiny village in West Yorkshire. One pub, one shop and 2 miles from a bus stop. We went to town twice a year. To buy new clothes for Whitsuntide and then to buy Christmas presents and see the lights. When I went to college 12 miles away my dialect rendered me as good as incomprehensible! Hard to believe now. Even lot of words for the same things were different.
Like
Money = guilder
Purse = pocket
Christmas = fest
Cellar = drum
Toys = fancies
Perfume = french.
A boyfriend/girlfriend was a walker. Because you walked out when you were courting. When it got regular you were called hopeful.
So. Are your Joe and Connie still walking ?
No. They’re hopeful now
I still have my way of talking. It’s not so prevalent now, people move about more, hear different voices. The world really is smaller now.

 

[Kim Mild]

Hi Kim, I have a Berwick accent, is that what your referring to? Xx

Mine is more Ashington way.

 

[Mookiegoose]

I'm from Cumbria and definitely have an accent. My husband who is from Eastbourne is a proper southerner and he thinks my accent is hilarious (he's public school and posh - I am secondary modern and common!). When he moved up here, he worked as a researcher and spoke to so many folk over the phone and he found that he couldn't ever tell if a voice was a man or a woman or how old they were.

I love my accent. It's mixed with so much other slang from Geordie, Glasgow, Scouse and Manc. It also gets mixed up with the Redcar area too as they do sound weirdly similar.

 

[Veronica]

Our accent is horrendous!!!!!! And I definitely change it for customers!! I mean mines not as bad as some in our city.but it's very unpleasant

 

[Gloria Roscoe]

Do you like your accent? Wish you could change it ?
I am from greater London / Hertfordshire and speak with a pretty platonic English accent I would say ( modern Received Pronunciation) I’ve always thought it was bland but it’s easily understandable and sounds professional.

Started this mainly because I’ve been watching accent videos on YouTube and find it interesting also I have been told I subconsciously switch my voice to a bit more eloquent when speaking to strangers or customers, I’m not sure why could be a nervous thing. Anyone else do that ?

I hate my natural accent (South Yorkshire). I do change my accent when speaking in public or on the phone, especially around people who are not from the area. I also can't help impersonating other people's accents when speaking to them! Does anyone else do this?

I personally find the East Midlands accent very attractive on a man. There is a YouTube star called Tim Shieff and his accent is .

I really can't stand when celebrities exadurate their accent on TV to gain popularity, i.e. Steph Mcgovern, Joe Swash, Linda Robson, Paddy McGuinness.

 

[Spicy_bananas]

I'm French -Canadian and moving soon to France. They loooove my accent over there. They say it sounds like I'm signing

 

[SwipeUpSally]

South Australian... so 'posh' Australian. I say 'vahse' instead of 'vayse' and 'pool' instead of 'pewl'. I do have certain twangs though, that my English SO has always teased me about. I denied it, but now my two year old has started talking a lot more, he's picked up on my accent when saying 'no'... which practically makes it a three syllable word haha.

 

[cholulamare]

Do you like your accent? Wish you could change it ?
I am from greater London / Hertfordshire and speak with a pretty platonic English accent I would say ( modern Received Pronunciation) I’ve always thought it was bland but it’s easily understandable and sounds professional.

Started this mainly because I’ve been watching accent videos on YouTube and find it interesting also I have been told I subconsciously switch my voice to a bit more eloquent when speaking to strangers or customers, I’m not sure why could be a nervous thing. Anyone else do that ?

Not sure what a "platonic" English accent is but as far as I'm aware (I studied Linguistics) there's no such thing as "modern" Received Pronunciation - RP has a defined set of rules and doesn't deviate from these, so if your accent *does* differ from them in any way, it's something different; probably a Southern English accent like Estuary English that sounds 'posher' and is less broad than something like Cockney (and has more in common with RP).

Subconsciously altering your speech to sound more/less eloquent depending on the audience is something most people do, and has a name that completely escapes me now - it's similar to code-switching, which is switching between two dialects or languages (including in black communities, where people often switch between AAVE and Standard English).

 

[Bitofthebubbly]

Accents are so fascinating, like how can people from the north sound so different m to people from the south. It’s mad! I remember as a child my cousins moved up north, and when I went to visit them a month or so later their accents had completely changed I was bamboozled and slightly upset for some reason. Then I wanted to have the same accent as I felt mine was boring.

Im from Birmingham but live just outside now so my accent has softened a bit. It’s still very ‘west midlands’ though if that makes sense, maybe to others I still sound very brummie idk. I do find I ham up my brummie accent more when I’m around certain family members with particularly strong accents. Dunno why it just feels natural for some reason.

 

[chellyyx]

St Helens accent here, but as my dad was born and bred Liverpool I have a bit of that too. I say coke and coat properly

 

[Platypusfattypus]

I don't think I have an accent. I used to have quite a posh accent when I was a child but that's relaxed a lot. I'm surrounded by areas with very strong accents so that might be why I think I've got a generic British accent

I do love accents

 

[Definitelyme]

Accents are so confusing my husband is from England and his parents have a very broad accent for their region. Yet he and his sister (who both grew up there) have nowhere near the same. They are both just generic southern England/slightly posh English if anything.

I’m from NI but don’t have a super strong NI accent. My husband says my accent is very soft compared to a lot of people, and my family also differs from much of NI as we say “shower” instead of “shar”. Same with power/towel/owl/flower etc. It comes from my mum, who got it from my granny who is originally a french speaker, so learned to speak “English English” rather than “NI English”.

anyway, for that reason I’ve had people here tell me my accent is posh. its not at all though, and do say “arrr” in stead of “ow-er” for hour, and “flar” for baking type flour!