Do you speak with an accent?

[Zombie Sodomy]

Depends who's listening. I'm told my American accent is cute when I'm in France.

 

[the clockmaker]

I have a very thick territorian/ bogan accent, which is apparently nigh on incomprehensible to even other Australians.
For example, Darwin=Daarn, Come on=Caarn, Sergeant =Saarn, Now=Nae, Going=Gown, etc I mostly use very few constenents(ecept for R) , bleed words together so the whole sentence is one breath and say yeah? at the end of every sentence.

 

[MPerce]

I briefly moved from Oklahoma to New Jersey. Pretty massive difference, both in accents and culture.

The experience can be summarized in the following conversation I had with a store clerk:

"Hello, I need to pay for my gas. Also, where's your bathroom?"
"Are you retarded or something?"
"What?"
"Why you talkin' so slow, and with that weird twang? Are you retarded?"
"Uh, no...I'm from Oklahoma. This is how we talk."
"Oh. Well, you sound retarded."

Lessons learned:
1. My accent, while extremely mild by Southern standards, is apparently ridiculous sounding in the Northeast.
2. I take Southern hospitality for granted.

 

[excalipoor]

To defend us Finns. You should have an idea how hard our language is phonetically, like really. We have unique language with no roots to any major language - we are far as you can be from anglo-sax languages. And in schools pre 2000 we had no teaching of speaking English - So anyone above the age of ~25 has really bad pronunciation (unless they been in contact with English systematically).
'teeks tost...

Oh, I'm not blaming anybody. Only when people studying the language at a university level sound like Mika Häkkinen do I start throwing hissy fits about it.

And hey, most learners of Finnish are just as awkward!

 

[Zeraki]

Everybody speaks with an accent. It's just that we're so used to it we hardly ever notice. I live in central New Jersey and never knew I had one until I went on a camping trip in Pennsylvania in my late teens. I was told that I pronounce certain words strangely, like the word water. It turns out I replace the "T" sound with a "D"... so when I say the word it sounds like I'm saying "Wadder".

As far as having an accent that is out of place where I live? I've been told I speak with a bit of a southern drawl at times. Which is strange because I've never really been to the south. I blame my Mom, because she listened to a lot of country music and had CMT on all the time when I was growing up.

 

[NightHawk21]

I have a friend that asked me where I was from.
When she said "You don't talk like you're from here," I said "Thank you."

Although I don't think she was referring to my accent, but rather my "sociolect"

You may be referring to "style-shifting" (or "code-switching" if you're bilingual): The tendency to subconsciously adjust your speech patterns to resemble those of your peers. You speak differently when you're with your family than with your friends, or in different situations, etc.

In short, when you're playing ME3, you may tend to talk like other people who play ME3 because that's the sociolect that you associate with the game.

Maybe this is what happens to me a lot. I tend to change my language around, and my pronunciation of words changes slightly based on how I'm with or what I've been doing. I notice it especially when I'm watching some British TV, with their slightly different way of saying words. Probably as a consequence of having learned English from the TV at like age 4 or 5.

 

[Joccaren]

I have always had a ridiculous accent that nobody can really pick what it is. Its finally normalizing, but its been called French, English, Irish, Scottish most prominently, though there were a few other random ones sometimes.
I live in Australia.

 

[Sandjube]

I don't think so, but a workmate yesterday asked "So, how long have you been in Australia?" and I was like, um, my whole life? So make of that what you will, I guess.

 

[TheCommanders]

Probably as a result of living all over the US during various parts of my upbringing, I speak mostly with an "accentless" Midwestern accent (yay, redundancy) but can effortlessly switch between various American accents at will. I'm told that I sometimes slip into my Texan accent (lived there for 5 years) when I'm mad unintentionally though. I can also pass as Irish, because one of my best friends for many years was Irish and I can speak exactly as he did (he was from Dublin, if you're wondering what kind of Irish accent he had). In fact, I could imitate him so well, we often messed with people by pretending we were brothers (we also looked similar).

Also, parentheses are fun(for me (some people find them annoying (I don't really care))).

 

[Daveman]

I'm from the South East of England so I speak BBC news style, i.e. No accent of any description. Although I do do a lot of not pronouncing my t's when I'm talking casually, for instance "letter" becomes "leh-ah". It should be the most understandable accent there is. However there was a fun thing when visiting Korea, that nobody understood what I was saying unless I put on an American accent and then they all understood perfectly.

 

[[REDACTED]]

Indeed I do! As do you, and you, and you and...

There is no such thing as having no accent. Even if there were a standard English which every other kind of English would compared to, that standard form would still have a unique accent.

 

[The Funslinger]

I live in the heart of Yorkshire, but my own Yorkshire accent is very trace. As such, people describe me as 'uncommonly well spoken', 'posh', or 'possibly gay'.

 

[Echopunk]

I live in "the south", but I generally have less of an accent than the people I am around, unless I pick up an acoustic guitar.

I generally try to avoid talking to people immediately after watching an episode of FX's Justified, on account of it driving up the likely hood that my phrasing will change enough such as to "Kentucky" everything up for a while.

 

[AceTrilby]

I'm Scottish, but my accent usually drifts to a soft 'American' accent (which part, I'm not sure).

Was rather amusing when a fellow radio presenter came up to me and asked where I was from because I "sounded Mid-Atlantic".

 

[Da Orky Man]

I apparently have an odd mix of Welsh/Received Pronunciation accent. The problem is that I sound English when in Wales and Welsh hen I'm in England. However, due to a rather good teacher I had at school, I apparently pronounce my extremely limited French in an actual French accent.

 

[Kathinka]

born in france, later went to school in the czech republic for many years, and recently i moved to germany. as you can imagine, my accent is an atrocious crossbreed of the former two. it's thick and very noticable, but doesn't make me less comprehensible.

however, guys seem to dig it, so it's whatever.

 

[Muspelheim]

Imagine a rather horriphic case of a Swedish accent. Then add elements of a northern english accent. It's that, and it's an absolute mess.

It's what you get when you pick up english by playing online with Yorkists.

I can do something that almost pass for a botched attempt at posh Queen's English, but not for very long until it comes crashing down again.

 

[Kotaro]

Myself, I have a normal New-Englander accent, as someone who's grown up here in Connecticut.
My dad on the other hand, grew up in Queens. His New Yorker accent disappeared over the years, but it comes back when he talks to his sister.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Just your standard Western Canadian Accent, if you've watched an LRR video there's a good chance you've heard an accent similar to mine.

 

[Lightknight]

Kind of. While everyone speaks with an accent, I'm told sometimes that I don't have any noticeable accent. What that means in the south (where I live) is that I don't talk with a southern accent. This is because I am deaf in one ear and so had to recieve additional training in speech when I was younger (you'd be surprised how single sided deafness impacts people). As such, I make an effort to clearly annunciate my words and the effect is a sort of textbook pronounciation of American English without regional accent. My wife has pointed out that my I will talk with a slightly different accent according to who I am speaking with to match theirs. I wasn't aware of that until recently.

Either way, it has never been a problem. Interesting topic!