Accents

I wasn’t born or brought up in this country. People find it unplaceable. Because of my height and colouring, they think I’m German or Dutch. In fact, I was born and brought up in Mauritius and have more of an (French) intonation than an accent.
There is nothing I can do about it, I’m not a mimic and don’t do accents. I have to say I’m heartily sick of endlessly being asked where I’m from “originally”…

Mine is Home Counties. Although we live in
Wales now and hopefully we have a little of that. Fablus

I have a Southern accent apparently, when we moved to Oxfordshire I was asked where I came from as I didn’t have an Oxfordshire accent ( although I couldn’t tell the difference at the time) but that was over 40 yrs ago.
I can usually spot a Southampton accent though.

I have a strong Glasgow accent, but can switch to a posh Scottish one when necessary.
I was on a course at Lyons University, along with a colleague and teachers from all over Europe on a Commenius programne and we had to speak in French the whole time, even at mealtimes. ( It was not easy!)
One of my fellow students commented that she loved eavesdropping on our sneaky, Glaswegian conversations, but couldn't understand a single word we said, despite being fluent in English.

Devonshire born and bred, so my accent reflects that . I'm not keen on it.

I was born and brought up in the far north west of Scotland, at a time when Gaelic was still very much in common usage there. Because I don't speak with most people's perception of a Scots accent (as in Billy Connolly/Harry Lauder), I am often taken as being Irish or Canadian.

Sara Thick is what the Brummie accent comes across as too. Shame really.

Siope

Grandma70s no, I mean I have a southern accent, which is a different accent to the one I grew up using.

Oh, I see.

Mine is West Country, I don’t think it’s very strong, but people recognise it on the phone, and instantly think I’m completely thick, or spend all my waking hours drinking cider.

My accent is my native London although I've not lived there for many years.

Grandma70s no, I mean I have a southern accent, which is a different accent to the one I grew up using.

I'm a Brummie born and bred. I love my accent but lots of people hate it. My parents were from Southern Ireland so I have a smattering of their expressions. Birmingham has made me what I am and I love my accent. I understand why others don't like it but to me it's what it means not how it sounds.

Siope

Mine is southern English. Any regional accent I ever had was lost at university and through living abroad. I recall meeting someone in London once who exclaimed ‘but you’re posh. I didn’t think they had posh accents in Yorkshire…’

Southern English is a regional accent! Think of the accents of Kent, Essex or Hampshire, Perhaps you mean RP.

My parents spoke without any accent, RP but not posh, I suppose. I am sometimes the same but I am a chameleon in that I change how I speak according to circumstances. I lived more years of my life in Yorkshire than anywhere else so it is easy to slip into to some extent.
I don’t imitate accents. I could not do Scottish or Newcastle or Birmingham, for example.

I'v lived much longer in England than in my birth country, Scotland but I am still recognisably Scots, except to my two English-born sons who claim that they can't hear my accent. My English Granny, on the other hand, spent all her married life in Scotland but never lost her Leicestershire accent - she always had trouble with lots of Scottish place names we would test her with Auchtermuchty and Ecclefechan.

Mine is so-called Received Pronunciation, standard English. This is the same all over the country. I suppose I sound rather like a BBC newsreader. I quite like it because it’s neutral, but I’m not proud of it. It isn’t an achievement, but just the way I’ve always spoken.

So I also lived abroad but never lost my accent. I believe that mimicry of accents is a thing and absolutely normal, but not something that I ever did.
So my local accent celebrity is the lovely Grace Dent

A colleague once said to me that he was talking on the phone to a girl who had an accent exactly like mine. He said she was stunned into silence when he guessed where she hailed from!! Surrey borders!! But I shuffled north to Lancashire many years ago.

I like my accent, think James Nesbitt.

Mine is southern English. Any regional accent I ever had was lost at university and through living abroad. I recall meeting someone in London once who exclaimed ‘but you’re posh. I didn’t think they had posh accents in Yorkshire…’

My accent is somewhat mixed up as au result of living in different places. I don’t think about it really and I don’t know of any sound alikes.

I love hearing different accents and regional sayings.