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Has your accent changed after starting uni?

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Original post by najinaji
Are you, like, planning to go to America on your gap yah?


Haha well I'm going to see about going abroad for a year/ semester as part of my course. I plan to work hard for it in the first year, I love the US, it is where the world is at.
My accent has changed a lot of the years from moving around. Until I was about 6 I had a very strong North-East Scottish accent until I moved abroad. From then till I was about 13 I began to sound more and more English. After moving to Saudi Arabia I developed a more American accent. Since I've moved back to Scotland it's a weird mix of American, what my friends call 'posh' english and Scottish. It really does depend who I'm talking to and where though.

Going to uni in October. I wonder if it will change again!
Reply 42
Original post by flutegirl
im northern irish but i really want to pick up an english accent if i go to university in York!! :biggrin:


Same!! I'm from NI and I really want to get a posh English accent :laugh:
I've gone from having a posh Windsor accent to having a little Devon twang to some words. What the hell.
Reply 44
I think it depends. Say if you're english and move to america at the age of 18 it would be almost impossible to change it to an american accent but say you're english but just move to another part of england, it's easy to change your accent because they aren't TOO different. I'm just guessing here though.
Original post by TaraBelle
If so, to what and what from? And how much by?

Just curious :smile:


I have a strong scouse accent. In fact it was described as a chavvy one :frown: Anyway, since being uni, apparently my accent is a bit up market.
Reply 46
my accent hasn't changed, but the words I use are becoming more northern. I've started saying tea where I previously said dinner, and brew where I previously would have said tea. But that's just from being friends with people from different areas of the country at uni.
My accent hasn't changed but I tend to pronounce words better than I did before uni. I came from a very chavy area with a lot of 'common' speech but sometimes it slips back in when I'm overexcited/surprised
Reply 48
Annoying thing about being a local student at Newcastle University is that if my accent were to change, it would be a rah accent.
Reply 49
Original post by najinaji
Remember elocution lessons.


Hi sorry this is nothing to do with the thread but in your picture is that Barry Sloane?
Reply 50
Original post by Hooby
Hi sorry this is nothing to do with the thread but in your picture is that Barry Sloane?

Aha, no it is not.
Yes. I only started in September but both consciously and unconsciously my accent has changed. I have thought for many years that my local accent is grim (that's not being snobby, seriously just listen:

[video="youtube;4KO85Cc1_k8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KO85Cc1_k8&feature=fvwp&NR=1[/video])

so I made an effort to improve it starting when I was about 16. But coming to uni has made it exponentially better. Despite going to a Scottish uni the vast majority of my flatmates are southern with RP accents which is how I'd like to talk. So after listening to them day in and day out I picked up pronunciations and word choices from them both voluntarily and unknowingly.

But when I go home, it's generally "slightly" more local. Not too southern so as that people wish to beat me up for not being local (srsly, thank God I'm not black or I'd have been killed) but southern enough that occasionally people will comment "you don't sound like you're from here".

Although according to everyone that here's me for the first time I sound like some bizarre amalgamation of Irish, Geordie, Scouse, Scottish and Mancunian. Honestly, I've had all those descriptions used to describe my accent since September.

Edit: Although I should point out that the east Cumbrian accent is lovely, the west Cumbrian one sadly sounds horrifically uneducated.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 52
I hope my accent will change :h: I currently have a slight Dutch accent, especially as long as I'm surrounded by Dutch people.. But when I was in England, some people barely noticed. I guess it might change after I start university though, as English is not my first language and I tend to imitate other speakers.

As for my accent in my mother tongue, it's basically been the same for my whole life, despite having moved 4 times. It is very unlike the common accent of my current location, even though I've lived here for the past 7 years, so I can imagine the accent of someone brought up speaking English won't necessarily change.
Original post by TaraBelle
If so, to what and what from? And how much by?

Just curious :smile:



Oh yeah definitely with me. First i used to use words such as "ken"-know, "Aye"-yes and words such as "joint"-cafe.

The words i have quoted were my preferred words at home and with friends but after starting uni, peer pressure played a large roll in reinstating the words i grew up with and used for most of my life.:frown: Hardly use these words also my accent has changed a lot, i guess i've now become more judicious on my word choice.
Reply 54
I find I tend to notice more if I lapse into a bit of a Norfolk accent more so than I would have done previously, as now I'm generally surrounded by very well spoken people so any hint of a regional accent is a lot more obvious (that and the funny looks I get if I say that something's on the huh...).
Reply 55
I always had a pretty generic southern accent (I'm from London but you wouldn't have known from hearing me speak) and when I started uni (Liverpool) I used to moan about how boring it was. I guess I got what I deserved as somehow I ended up with a hideous hybrid of generic southern and flat northern :s-smilie: I would have loved to have picked up a scouse accent... oh well, I still have two more years to keep trying! :biggrin:
Reply 56
I think it depends.

Our family friends moved from New York to Texas, and while the husband doesn't have much of an accent, his wife went from having a very strong New York/whatever-it's-actually-called accent to having a very strong Texan accent.

My mom also developed a bit of a southern drawl during her uni years in Virginia. I personally hope my accent changes a bit when I go study in the UK :tongue:.
Reply 57
Original post by ChelseyElla
My accent hasn't changed but I tend to pronounce words better than I did before uni. I came from a very chavy area with a lot of 'common' speech but sometimes it slips back in when I'm overexcited/surprised


Aha, I know how that is! I come from a rural, hickish area in Western Canada. When I'm around my friends I can speak with a pretty stereotypical rural/canadian "eh!" accent, but normally I am a lot more well-spoken because I don't like to sound completely unintelligent.
Reply 58
I've definitely toned down my West Country accent, people still can't understand me if I say 'tooth' or 'gone' though :emo:
Reply 59
Original post by laughylolly
My accent has changed a lot of the years from moving around. Until I was about 6 I had a very strong North-East Scottish accent until I moved abroad. From then till I was about 13 I began to sound more and more English. After moving to Saudi Arabia I developed a more American accent. Since I've moved back to Scotland it's a weird mix of American, what my friends call 'posh' english and Scottish. It really does depend who I'm talking to and where though.

Going to uni in October. I wonder if it will change again!


I've got a friend who is from Aberdeen but has spent most of her life living in Saudi and the Netherlands, which has inexplicably resulted in a West Country twang. I haven't the heart to tell her as she's convinced she actually sounds Scottish... but she really doesn't!

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