Do you hate the sound of your own voice?

I have only heard myself on an answering machine and I was honestly taken aback. Thought I sounded a bit too like Shula on The Archers, yet as soon as I hear an accent from my home patch in Wales I fall into it like I'd never left. I don't mind that although I haven't actually heard myself. I wonder....
As for all the people who don't like their own accents, please don't lose them, they're music. I love interesting accents so please hang on to them, they are a real joy. I genuinely do appreciate them, honestly.

I hate my voice even though I can do accents. I am Mancunian but I managed to lose that accent and now people don't believe I am from there, and have been trained in acting. I can do Scouse, Geordie and Irish and Welsh, but I still lost out in an audition for for a voiceover job and the woman who succeeded over me has had a lucrative living out of it. It is her second job. She is a teacher. I still mourn the day I failed that audition due to my voice.

I hate my voice too.

Strangely, though, when I speak French or Spanish, I don't just speak with a different accent (if that's the right word in this context), but the pitch and tone of my voice are completely different too, and to my own ear at least, I sound far better in those two languages than I do when speaking English, my mother tongue!

Our church services have been live-streamed so I've listened to myself at home afterwards. Awful! I've been a reader for years and I practise beforehand, recording myself on my mobile but I think I sound monotone and boring.

Hi, Phillip Mould is from the posh side of Wirral , over the water from Liverpool .

DillytheGardener

I hate the sound of my voice. I shout without realising because I’m very slightly hard of hearing. I also have a very South London accent (I’m from a county on the other side of the Greater London border, and drop letters no matter how hard I try. My favourite accent/voice however is Stephen fry and Philip Mould. The latter’s is so soothing. Apparently he is from Liverpool though so he must have been educated at a public school or taken elocution lessons.

Hi ,Phillip Mould is from the posh side of the Wirral ,over the water from Liverpool which also has a posh side xx

I actually like my voice, I'm from Yorkshire & still retain some of the accent despite living in Middlesex (Surrey) for 22 years, since then I have moved to Devon via Somerset.

I do tend to pick up local phrases & even a little of the accent over time but my Yorkshire accent is still in there, even more so when I've back for a visit.

My last job was 17 years in HMRC, it involved my speaking to Accountants & other HMRC Offices. The Surrey accent is well spoken not posh though

Hate it??? I positively cringe!!!!

Hate my voice,Minnie Mouse on helium, can’t stand seeing myself in mirrors or photos. Brothers always said I looked like the back of a bus or a chimpanzee and they aren’t wrong.
Do everything I can to avoid talking to people I don’t know and don’t remember the last time I used a mirror

Happy with my speaking voice, but my singing voice is dreadful. Aged about seven I was also told I was spoiling the choir and to just mime, sadly that's all I've ever done since.

I was told I had a sexy voice by a young man I worked with. Made my day. But I think I sound affected

Buntymart

Welshy

Lauren59

I absolutely cringe when I hear my own voice on a recording. I feel the same about seeing myself in photos too.

Ditto Lauren59 I feel exactly the same, both voice and photo's of myself!

Ditto both of you.... loathe my voice and every photo of myself since I was 21 years of age!!!

Ditto to all three of you.

I have a Lancashire accent and sound like Hayley (RIP) from Coronation Street but with a higher pitch. Really flat vowels that I don't hear inside my own head. Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley) is from the same town as me. I haven't lived in Lancashire for 30 years but I have never lost my accent.

I hate having my photo taken. When I die my family will struggle to remember what a like through lack of photographic evidence!

I used to record a monthly newsletter onto CD for people with learning disabilities. I hated my voice at first, but got used to it over the years.

Re Philip Mould quite a few of my friends from Liverpool have a soft accent not the scouse you may imagine. I hate listening to me. My accent is South Lancashire but I seem to have a bit of Yorkshire and Scouse in there too

Yes. Only because someone said I sounded too posh . What is posh, pronouncing words properly?

Bielby and Wetnosewheatie I did not know that about Liverpool how interesting. I must admit though he is the polar opposite to my type, I have wee crush on Philip Mould. ☺️

I had a 10 second slot on Anglia News TV as a dog owner, I didn’t realise how flat and boring my voice was.

PinkCosmos I love hearing Lancashire accents, they are so warm and friendly and down to earth. I lived in many places when I was young and picked up various accents and phrases. I finally ended up living in Lancashire after I met Mr. B and the accent says ‘home’ to me

I hate my voice. I sound like Janet Ellis who used to be on Blue Peter. I wish it were an octave lower. I need to have voice training as Mrs Thatcher apparently did.

I don’t mind my accent but my voice is an octave too high.
Anyone know where I can go to remedy that?

Yes, I sound like royalty. Working class background but married ‘up’ and not sure if it was intentional, but through mixing out of my own class, plus classical singing and teaching,
the voice changed.
I think my generation did aspire to RP, particularly if you were ambitious. Joan Bakewell from Stockport went to either Oxford or Cambridge and amusingly said that shortly after arriving, she went into the Ladies loo and came out with a new voice. It doesn’t matter now.

It's funny how experiences change your voice, isn't it? I've been around a bit (ooer). Posh London job, the USA, Cambridge, Northumberland. For a while, everyone thought I was a cockney. Must have been a cumulation of all the voices around me. I think the cockney has gone now and I'm just left with a slight Norfolk twang.

I don’t mind my voice, though when I first heard it recorded I was quite surprised by it. I think most people feel like this. Like Philip Mould, I come from ‘the posh side of Wirral’. I’ve never had a Merseyside accent, and most people wouldn’t be able to tell where I come from. This isn’t intentional, but just the way it is.

My voice (as opposed to my accent) has been well developed through a lot of acting, singing, lecturing and talking! It isn’t as good as it was, though - it has definitely aged since I was 80. That’s a bit depressing.

Incidentally, Fiona Bruce also lived in Wirral for a time when she was a young child. She went to Gayton Primary School.

Sad how many of you hate your voices. I don't mind mine but if I hear recordings I sound posher than I actually am. "Like the Queen," I've been told.