I hate my accent, how do I gradually change it?

I have a rough East London 'thug'-ish accent. It's come from being raised in a rough area with a typical asian chavvish family and friends. Now, me, I'm just a typical skinny teen but I honestly hate this kind of speaking. It's not so easy to NATURALLY change either because in natural conversations, the old accent just comes out. If you want a sort of perspective on how I speak, it's the kind of thing where you speak rough and skip T's. Wa'er, bu''er, etc (like War-ah, buh-ah).

Yeah.

Anyway, I want to sound more normal and a lot less like that. What do I do? How do I find an accent that I like and change to it? A normal accent, something British, preferably. What can I do to find it? And then what can I do to copy it and then gradually start making it my natural accent?

Reply 1

karateworm

11

Like it or not, that's part of who you are - it'll change over time I'm sure, but don't try and force it.

Reply 2

username306617

14

All your friends and family will think you're a ****.
At least that's what my family think about my cousin changing her northern irish accent to an english one.

Reply 3

Jackal The

13

Original post by Popppppy

All your friends and family will think you're a ****.
At least that's what my family think about my cousin changing her northern irish accent to an english one.

Your family doesn't sound like the brightest bunch if they're that easily offended.

Reply 4

username549578

13

First of all there isn't a 'normal' accent. Maybe if you become more concious of how you talk and the words you use you will slowly begin to develop a different accent. Or surround yourself with the type of people you want to talk like and you will pick it up?

Reply 5

Doosh

Well the NI accent is the best around, so you can see why :smile:

Reply 6

dunnicare

12

"The rain in spain falls mainly on the plane" in your best Queens English.

Reply 7

username306617

14

Original post by Jackal The

Your family doesn't sound like the brightest bunch if they're that easily offended.

Did I say we were offended?
Maybe you should learn to read before decided who's bright and who's not.

Reply 8

Crowhaven

Compared to most scots my accent if fairly weak, not sure why, i've never tried to change it. :s

Reply 9

kka25

18

Original post by Anonymous

I have a rough East London 'thug'-ish accent. It's come from being raised in a rough area with a typical asian chavvish family and friends. Now, me, I'm just a typical skinny teen but I honestly hate this kind of speaking. It's not so easy to NATURALLY change either because in natural conversations, the old accent just comes out. If you want a sort of perspective on how I speak, it's the kind of thing where you speak rough and skip T's. Wa'er, bu''er, etc (like War-ah, buh-ah).

Yeah.

Anyway, I want to sound more normal and a lot less like that. What do I do? How do I find an accent that I like and change to it? A normal accent, something British, preferably. What can I do to find it? And then what can I do to copy it and then gradually start making it my natural accent?

I love this accent! A lot of my mates speak like that as well and it's kinda fun really. Post a video for a more visual description : p

Anyway, it's doable but it's going to be hard really. In order to blend with my mates I kinda copy certain words like go', wo', bu'er but my own accent comes back naturally.

Last year every time before I sleep, I tried certain sentence like: "you go' wha' I mean?" or "Pu' the bo'le of wa'er and tom'ao next to the tos'er" haha. It works! But unfortunately there are a lot of words I can't do fast enough and a lot of my friends rejected the idea that I'm trying to learn something that I shouldn't. lol

So try it : )

Reply 10

Crowhaven

Get elocution lessons :3

Reply 11

geeksandtherest

14

Original post by Anonymous

I have a rough East London 'thug'-ish accent. It's come from being raised in a rough area with a typical asian chavvish family and friends. Now, me, I'm just a typical skinny teen but I honestly hate this kind of speaking. It's not so easy to NATURALLY change either because in natural conversations, the old accent just comes out. If you want a sort of perspective on how I speak, it's the kind of thing where you speak rough and skip T's. Wa'er, bu''er, etc (like War-ah, buh-ah).

Yeah.

Anyway, I want to sound more normal and a lot less like that. What do I do? How do I find an accent that I like and change to it? A normal accent, something British, preferably. What can I do to find it? And then what can I do to copy it and then gradually start making it my natural accent?

http://www.speakmoreclearly.com/britishaccent

Reply 12

member520746

**** that, don't get co-opted into talking the way other people talk because you think there's something embarrassing about the way you talk, it just encourages cultural elitism. First-year-at-uni accents are the worst, people come back from uni and they go from the way they used to talk to being all 'yahh, I'm having, like, sach a lavely time, yahh'

Reply 13

Hipster

9

The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. :pierre:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 14

Jackal The

13

Original post by Popppppy

Did I say we were offended?
Maybe you should learn to read before decided who's bright and who's not.

Yeah, you pretty much did.

Reply 15

notastampcollector

13

Original post by Anonymous

I have a rough East London 'thug'-ish accent. It's come from being raised in a rough area with a typical asian chavvish family and friends. Now, me, I'm just a typical skinny teen but I honestly hate this kind of speaking. It's not so easy to NATURALLY change either because in natural conversations, the old accent just comes out. If you want a sort of perspective on how I speak, it's the kind of thing where you speak rough and skip T's. Wa'er, bu''er, etc (like War-ah, buh-ah).

Yeah.

Anyway, I want to sound more normal and a lot less like that. What do I do? How do I find an accent that I like and change to it? A normal accent, something British, preferably. What can I do to find it? And then what can I do to copy it and then gradually start making it my natural accent?

What is this nonsense about wanting to sound normal? Be proud of who you are and where you come from. If anyone judges you because of how you speak, that's their problem and they're not the kind of people you want to associate with anyhow.

Reply 16

bloomblaze

17

Original post by Popppppy

All your friends and family will think you're a ****.
At least that's what my family think about my cousin changing her northern irish accent to an english one.

Why is your cousin changing her accent from Northern Irish to English?

Reply 17

niall c

Original post by Anonymous

I have a rough East London 'thug'-ish accent. It's come from being raised in a rough area with a typical asian chavvish family and friends. Now, me, I'm just a typical skinny teen but I honestly hate this kind of speaking. It's not so easy to NATURALLY change either because in natural conversations, the old accent just comes out. If you want a sort of perspective on how I speak, it's the kind of thing where you speak rough and skip T's. Wa'er, bu''er, etc (like War-ah, buh-ah).

Yeah.

Anyway, I want to sound more normal and a lot less like that. What do I do? How do I find an accent that I like and change to it? A normal accent, something British, preferably. What can I do to find it? And then what can I do to copy it and then gradually start making it my natural accent?

Just thank the heavens you weren't afflicted with a Northern accent.

Reply 18

omgpaulthompson

8

Don't change your accent,
I don't think it is entirely possible, be proud of it.

Being in many productions i've had to change "accents" for my theatrical peformances, I went to a vocal and accent coach who taught me how to pronounce vowels firstly then into words in a accent. It's hard... like .... super hard

Reply 19

PaddyT

2

Learn french.

I hate my accent, how do I gradually change it?

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