AS & Accents

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Sometimes, in random conversation, I'll suddenly slip into a weird accent. Sometimes it seems like a combination of British and Indian, sometimes more Asian. My point is: it's strange and unidentifiable. I don't have know people who have those accents in real life, nor do I hear them on a daily basis. The only language I know is English.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

I know an NT guy like that. He's from Tx but all accents "rub off" on him. You should have heard him when they got back from the vacation in Scotland!

I do it for fun sometimes. Irish, Scottish, Westcountry, Scouse, Geordie, Cockney, Upper Class Twit, Redneck, and my favourite - Broad Yorkshire, though that's cheating because it's my native dialect.

That is very interesting. I do not experience that.

However, I will sound more "Northern" than usual sometimes. Not sure what triggers it. I live in the south (US) and people will mock me and call me a Yankee - even though it is just my voice.

I used to try out fake accents at the grocery store when I was a cashier there. I'd sound completely different for every customer. Sometimes the same one twice in a nice but I had a different accent. I sucked at it, and most times they would get a kick out of it and laugh and I'd laugh too. It didn't hurt my feelings at all, it was just a fun way to pass the time.

My husband cant do accents at all. Well, he can do one. It's a generic Asian one. My daughter works for a German lady who doesn't speak English too well and he was trying to tell my daughter about a conversation they had had while he was waiting for her to get off work. It was about some of the tourist sites from WWII because he's a big fan and the boss lady is going to bring some photos for my daughter to show her dad, but every time he would tell my daughter what the boss lady said, he said it in that generic Asian accent.

YouTube has a lot of accent tutorials. I'd love it if there was a way to put voice on a post and I had that way available to me and so did everybody else because then we could do an "accent tag" thread. I'd love to hear how a lot of ya'll sound. I have ideas in my mind, but I doubt I'm right. I've talked to AuntBlabby, Kraftiekotie (I know, wrong spelling), MindSigh, LeagueGirl, I think Grisha, or it might be someone else from his thread, MajorMjrMjr, and AspieOtaku. If I've left anybody else out, it wasn't on purpose. Oh, and BlueMax when he was still here. OH! And Meems. We used to talk a lot. I think that's all. I enjoy talking on the phone. Or talking in general. Lets find a way to do accent tag.

My accent occasionally slips more northern but that is because I did used to have a northern accent when I was younger. When I see my relatives it really rubs off on me and puts me back like that for a bit.

When my husband gets around his family or friends from DC he gets that accent back. He used to really laugh at how we talk down here but he ended up losing his accent after a couple of years and you can't tell he's not a redneck from birth now. He moved down here at 18 when his parents retired, and he went to college here. He had a hell of a time too because he was VERY prejudice against the South before he came here. Of course he fell in love with all the girls the moment they said a word to him. Luckily by the time we met he had pretty much finished sowing his wild oats (although it seems he's NOT YET FINISHED) and he fell for me. We used to do that whole making each other say things and giggling for about three weeks till we got it all out of our systems.

Oh, I meant northern england - north west to be more specific.

Ah ok lol. I can tell that there are many types of accents in England and all of the UK but I can't understand any of them really except the main one that they use on tv. I used to have a pen pal in Manchester 20 years ago when people wrote letters. We would talk on the phone once a month or so and we both had to talk really slow so we could be understood. She said that they call the accent I can understand the "BBC voice".

I had never heard a real Scottish accent until I watched Monarch of the Glen, and I think only Katrina had a real Scottish one. The rest was generic English. I remember Scottish people online laughing at me because I thought the accents in Highlander the tv series were accurate lol.

However, I can understand Southerners (USA) on reality tv shows when their accents are so thick that they have subtitles there for the rest of the country. I don't know what that says about me though lol.

I can also understand southern USA ones and I really like them. There's a program called "lizard lick towing" and I admit I only watch it for their accents. There's quite a lot of american tv shows because I guess quite a lot of people like the accents here. Maybe sick of the "BBC voice" because that's too boring.

I don't have the "BBC voice" either. It's just something that's as plain as possible so people can understand when watching the TV. Very few people in the UK actually have a voice like that. Though (granted you could actually hear me, which nobody can ) you'd probably have an easier time understanding what I was saying than someone from manchester, but my voice did used to be like her's when I was younger.

Most Southern accents you hear on TV are fake as can be. That isn't really how we sound. The tv accents are usually a mix of Georgia society and Appalachian cracker. Those two accents do not mix at all. You'll hear real ones on a reality show from time to time, but you never hear real ones in movies or tv shows. Well, rarely. Some are actually Southern but they are few and far between. It seems that in Hollywood they think that all you do to sound Southern is drop your "r''s and drag the words out and use the word "ya'll" incorrectly.

Different states, areas of the state, areas of the city even, and social class and education all come out in your Southern accent. You can tell a lot about a person from their accent. Mine has gotten worse since I've moved to the country.

Yeah, I know it's all fake. The whole program is. But still. It's been on for a while so I guess people like it. It's like how "british accents" on TV are usually so fake. But to people who haven't heard very much of the real thing it's liked. I dunno. Guess it works the same.

Oh, it's fine. We are used to it. I'm sure every region picks up on fake accents in movies and tv. I wouldn't know a fake Brooklyn or French or Canadian accent from a real one, but people from those places sure do. Up until about ten years ago I couldn't tell an Australian accent from an English one.

I do that too: I'll start imitating the accents and even the mannerisms of the people around me. I was born in Arkansas (which has a broad twang with lots of flattened vowels) and was a teenager in Virginia (with more of a soft, slight drawl). I got teased for the Arkansas accent so i started doing this unintentional mimicry. I've picked up English accents, Northeast US accents, and will start doing English or Scottish accents if I watch BBC America or PBS UK too long (I'll also start using British slang, too). If I visit my mom in Texas, I pick that up within two hours and it takes days to shake. I had a friend as a kid with a really bad stammer, and it took a lot of concentration not to start stuttering too, because i didn't want her to think i was mocking her. I even start picking up gestures of people I know. I think it's some kind of protective behavior, but it can be pretty embarrassing. One time I was working in a cafeteria in college, and some very cute English guy came in and asked for something to eat. I got so nervous I responded in the exact same accent and was so embarrassed when I realized what I'd done!

Same here. It rubs off. Two days in another part of the country,and I more or less speak like a "native". I can even pick up a foreign language with a certain distinct accent- like once, after having watched a german movie, I could speak exactly like one of the characters for a few days.

The funny thing about me is that I grew up in Rapid City, SD, but I was raised by southern people, so I had a thick Southern accent when I was a little girl. When I started school, my accent started to sound more like other people in my area, but some people said I had a bit of a southern accent anyways. Now I'm living in the south again, and I don't sound that weird at all. No one calls me a Yankee or makes fun of the way I speak. I sometimes slip into more of a Southern accent when I'm around my family, but that's it.