Could an American such as myself pick up a British accent simply by living in England?
There just isn’t a BRITISH accent. The accent we here the most from actors is a kind of generic middle class accent, There are working class accents and then there is a faux working class accent that rich kids put on to try to fit in. There are different accents in differeni parts of the country as well as accents affected by graduates of different schools. As far as Madonna goes, I cringe when I hear her talk these days because her acquired Noo Yawk accent keeps peeking through the Hyacinth Bucket speech. What would you think about a British woman trying to speak like Laura Bush? You’d think she was a phony. Of course there are speech lessons available. That’s how the actors get that generic accent but you wouldn’t be able to fool many people in conversation. It;s not just pronunciation, it’s also vocabulary and content that tells how authentic you are. Just like we find an English accent charming, people in the UK probably like an American accent.
Especially if you’re interested in accents, and especially if you’re trying to. I have a very heavy low-class “Noo Yawk” accent that I’ve never lost, and probably never will. Although I live in So. Cal., my husband’s is worse than mine and I think we bounce off of each other, and help each other to maintain it. And when we go back home to visit the relatives, we steep in it and come back worse than we left. Although I can speak properly, it slows me down and although I try to lose it at work, at times, especially when I’m tired or excited it becomes more obvious. At work, I became good friends with a woman from a very small town in Texas. We became friends because we cracked each other up–neither could understand the other. I mean, I’ve heard of thick southern accents, but this was about the thickest I’d ever heard. (And I was just as incomprehensible to her as she was to me!) Anyway, once we started hanging around together a lot outside work, I noticed that she’d say something and in
All people naturally mimic the accents of the people around them. There’s a pretty deep desire in our brains to fit in, and that includes our accents. It happens to different people in different degrees. Some people have their own accents so deeply rooted that they never learn them, even with study. Others slip naturally and quickly into different accents. You do need to realize that there isn’t any single British accent. It’s a small country but it has many different regional accents. You can hear it in many Brits trying to learn an “American” accent, which ends up sounding like a bizarre mixture of Texas twang and California slacker. You should probably shoot for the “received pronunciation”, which is what BBC newscasters use. TV news readers are often the gold standard for accents, since they are heard by everybody in the country, using a fairly conversational tone. You can also use an accent tape or even a coach. There are plenty of them all over the country, primarily used by Midd
How long you actually live there is a significant part of the answer. If you’re there for a week, you’re not likely to end up with a flawless accent. It also bears mentioning that there is more than one British accent (just as there are many varieties of American accents). But if you actually live there and are in constant contact with the people whose accent you want to acquire, it is very much possible (especially since for the most part you won’t have to learn a new language, just a few phrases, grammar differences, intonation, and pronunciation). “Accent Lessons” would indeed help. A trained professional should be able to distinguish exactly the problem areas for any speaker and work on those specifically. By the way, when I’m in Europe, people who hear my American accent often ask me what part of Ireland I’m from. So if your variety of American English is from the Midwest, maybe you should consider blending in with the Irish as it’s possible the job is already halfway done. Then a
Related Questions
- Why did they give Lara that British accent, it sounds terrible and nothing like how the real English speak (sent in by Suzanne Kitchen)?
- Why are some of the graffiti paintings in Europe written in English? Is it an American invasion?
- Could an American such as myself pick up a British accent simply by living in England?
