How's your local accent?

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Do you have a strong regional accent? Or have you done the best you can to strip any local accent and speak 'properly'?

Me, I'm from Derbyshire, England where we have a way of massacring the English language. I have a very strong accent. Here's a quick run-down of a few changes.

Right is pronounced 'reight' or 'rate'.
Alright then becomes 'orate' or 'oarate'.
'You' is most often replaced with either 'tha' or 'thee' depending on the situation.
'Going' becomes 'guin' or 'gooin'.
Was is completely replaced by 'were', pronounced more 'wer'.
Mate is used in almost every sentence regardless of whether or not you know the person. Although, this word is often replaced by something else, like 'charge' or 'boss' or some comical word like 'eyeball' or 'cabbage'.
The last letter is usually missed off words, for example 'depending' becomes 'dependin' etc.
Hello is not used at all and is completely replaced by 'ayup' or 'a-up'
Goodbye is not used either and the word 'sithee' is used instead.
'To the' is replaced by the sound 'tut'. Example 'I'm guin tut shops'
Some words, or phrases are abbreviated ridiculously short. For example, 'later on' is simply 'ron'. If someone from around my parts said to you 'orate, sithee ron' he's saying 'OK, I'll see you later'

So, if I ever met any of you and announced 'orate eyeball how tha guin on, orate?' you'll now know I really mean 'Hello there friend! And how are you today? OK, I hope?"

There are many, MANY other ways in which we change the English language and that's just my county. For such a small country, our accents are so diverse. I can guarantee you'd understand nobody from Newcastle and probably nobody from Liverpool, Manchester or Yorkshire either.

Are accents so different where you guys are from and do you speak with a strong regional accent?

 

Interesting topic Barmy!

I'm (half) French (and I have middle-eastern origins) Igrew up near the Swiss border, my French is rather mainstream but when I'm really tired (it happens when I go to Ikea which is always very tiring) I tend to talk with a Swiss accent (which is always funny to the French).

I learned English at school and university, I had teachers from different English speaking countries, I've visited many places in England but I lived in Scotland (in Fife). And my accent when I speak English reflects that.

Since I teach English I had to tone down my Scottish accent so that students can understand me... But when I go to the pub (especially after a few pints) my accent comes back and it feels so much better to talk that way.

 

Midwestern US accent is pretty light, so there's really no way to tell. The only thing I've heard is that there's a tiny bit of nasalness that helps when speaking French.

 

Typical southern CA accent for me. But when I need to be understood quickly, I can switch over to the typical Utah red-neck accent + lingo if need be.

 

I think the Netherlands has a pretty big variety of accents for such a small country. People move pretty easily to a different region, so the accents kinda diffuse, but if you take somebody who was born and raised in The Hague and somebody from Amsterdam, you can clearly tell where they both are from. And those cities are perhaps 80 km apart.

I think I have a pretty neutral accent, but that might because I hear myself talking everyday and I'm used to it

 

Accent? My voice is deep and quiet, others can hardly understand a word I 'm saying.

Atleast my french accent is portuguese type, since most of my neighbours are from that country.
My english has the american tv accent.
Basic finnish.

We have an odd 'english' language in school, since there's so many different nationalities, we also add some of our own country's words in it, nice mixture.
Some notes:
'Man' is pronounced the german 'mann' or jamaican 'mon' way.
'Hi','hello' or 'hey' = 'yo'.
Use 'merci' or 'danke' instead of 'thanks'
etc....

 

I don't often talk to people I don't know, but when I do they say my accent is very British. This may seem normal until you consider I'm from Australia, have never been to England in my life and I am decendent from Scotish and Irish. Odd yes?

 

Depends completely of the company. My roommate's columbian and I have to put some effort not to sound too much like I'd be imitating his accent lest he'd be offended.

I was in an irish bar once and there was an irish band all the way from Ireland and all, and they started making good humoured jibes at me and after a while I talked with them they started asking me where I was from. I don't know if they thought that I was Irish or anything, but my accent certainly wasn't finnish. Otherwise it would've been plain as anything that I'm born and bred here.

Meh, fooled an student of english and some other people in the same bar one night that I was from Manchester, but that's hardly an achievement around here. I'm rather ashamed of it really, since making up stories and faking an accent deliberately to fool other people isn't nice. I was a bit bored and wanted to see if I could get away with it but that's hardly an excuse. I did get away with it though, but I'm still ashamed of it, sorry.

 

Yes, I try to speak as properly as I can, since I dislike my local accent.

 

I speak regionless RP, but I'm a foreign speaker. In my own language, I also speak regionless, but I've never had much opportunity to pick up a regional dialect.

 

Nearly perfect by-the-book Finnish... with a strong hint of Tampereen murre.

And even my English has that hint of Tampereen murre.

Not the specific words - just the speaking style. And being online so often has also changed the way I speak. I suppose my accent is all my own at this point.

 

I speak English (American) without an accent, although most people around here use 'gonna' instead of 'going to', and we say 'wicked awesome' alot...

 

I don't have an accent. Everyone else talks funny, except me.

 

I noticed I spoke 'slow' when I first moved to Canada. When I go back to Iowa, I talk very fast.

 

I'm Indian mate...what do you think my accent's like?

As Russell Peters would say...Wototototot!!

 

My accent is strange as I have lived in so many places. People can tell that I am from N.Ireland, but cannot pinpoint an exact town/region.

 

I'm trying very hard to keep my Kwik-E-Mart jokes at bay.

My cousin's Australian born and raised husband has a pretty cool South-West Australian accent that he can turn on and off when he needs to. His version of an American accent sounds more Canadian that anything else. He can also do a *very* convincing Scottish accent.

In my mind, the Scots have the best accent.

 

My finnish accent changes as well according to the company I'm with.

I'm originally from a place in which there was said that there would be a regional dialect, except no-one ever spoke it. We kids imitated the ways of the people in the radio talked, but the older people didn't have any discernable accents.

There is still something there, since once this brilliant finnish teacher of mine asked me if I was from around this village she had visited once and of course she was right. It's maybe more of a rhythm or something, since the differences of pronunciation are very subtle to common finnish.

 

@ Kitrax - God no mate, you'd soon change your mind about the Scottish accent if you lived anywhere near Briton. It's horrible on women too! Even good looking women turn mingers if they open their mouth and a jock accent comes out

@ Sarevok - I don't blame you mate, Brummie is one of the worst. The Brummie accent is slow, almost gormless sounding and they drag some words out and the tone of voice fluctuates so much over the course of one sentence... Ah well, I'm sure Sarevok knows what I mean

 

Welsh? Seriously they do sound exactly the same. And here is an interesting report on it.