What do you sound like ?

Compared to my friend who comes from London I have a Yorkshire or a Sheffield (flat) accent. But as we live in Germany and speak German there is always a problem because most don't know where we come from and I don't have an English accent but a slight Bavarian accent because I spoke my first real German there.
Most people tend to think I'm from Holland. Unfortunately after 30 years speaking school room English I no longer sound really English until I have been in the Uk for some days.
Many in my English classes thought I should have spoken Oxford English or BBC English but thankfully those days are gone.
I get upset when I hear a recording of my voice as 30 years teaching and even more years choral singing have worn out my vocal chords, or too much shouting at my children
when they were young.
I regret not having my voice trained when I was younger but there was no money for that then.

I've honestly never heard it "in real life"
Only written as a pathetic Micky take to desribe those of us with whippets and flat caps who still send our children up the chimney.

Well I'm a Yorkshire lass living in Geordie land who was married to a Southerner, so my accent is mixed to say the least. That said I wasn't allowed a local accent when I was growing up, so was never broad Yorkshire-"What's the matter? Pigs in t'watter ."was how not to speak! I still do buses and butter though, with a northern 'u' but say barth and graass. And even the occasional Geordie word slips in. It's fun when people try to guess where I come from.

Ah yes, I went for a job in Birmingham and the interviewer told me he didn't like Southerners. I had to point out my birthplace was north of Birmingham, albeit on the east coast!

Tricia - you are wrong. Many southerners/Londoners think the north starts at Watford - there is a saying "civilisation ends at Watford"!!
I was born in Scotland but mostly lived in London so have a mild London accent. Londoners think I am vaguely north but everyone else thinks I am London.

Many Southerners think "oop North" starts at the Wash

Gillybob how do you pronounce master?

I'm perpetually frustrated that actors cannot tell one "country" accent from another. If a programme is set in the countryside it's almost always a kind of general West Country accent, even if it's set in Norfolk or Kent. Or a "North Country" mix, so that on first hearing you have no idea whether it's on the east or west of the country!
When I first started to teach in London the children asked if I was a foreigner!

I'm with you gillybob; Northerners say "up North", Southerners say "op Nawth"
I was born in Lancashire and pronounced book and cook as boo-k and coo-k, not buck and cuck, bus not bos, bath not barth (or barf). At 5 I moved to Cornwall and was mocked for my pronunciation of these words, and soon dropped the boo-k and coo-k, but not the short vowels. I picked up the more received pronunciation of my teachers, rather than that of my Cornish school mates. I moved back to the North at 14, but by this time I think that television had broadened people's acceptance of differing accents, and I was assumed to have arrived from somewhere slightly posh; Cheshire, maybe.

I really carn't see wot's wrong with Barth and carstle.

Slightly posh [Bar..th, grar..ss] with an unmistakable colonial French accent.
My children were appalled when, at primary school, they were asked if their mother was "foreign". They were equally surprised when I said I was! But explained that since I was bilingual from birth, in the colonies, both my French and my English are heavily accented. Oddly enough my siblings and I all have different accents though we were brought up together.
I am learning Spanish and have been told that I have an excellent Castilian accent. Understand that!

I am in a U3A play reading group and I make a point of using my flat midland vowels unless I am supposed to be someone posh.
I feel uncomfortable with saying "parth" and "barth" etc.
We should be proud of local accents.
My Dgs' are in Yorkshire and they were certainly saying "stuck" with an "u" sound as in "put". ( which is near impossible to describe in writing. )

I spent my first 8 yrs in the East Midlands. I then lived for 10 yrs in Bristol from when I was eight, but did not pick up much of a Bristolian accent, however I was thought of as sounding posh!
As long as a regional accent is generally intelligible does it matter? (I do find some accents grate on my ears.)

Born and bred in the West Riding but at age 8 we went to live in the Wirral so to fit in, I absorbed some of that accent and then on return to Yorkshire at age 16 some more of that.

Have lived in South Beds. and now Hampshire for the last 15 years so I think I have a mixed accent. Northern friends and relations think I sound posh, southern friends think I sound northern. I do find myself adjusting my accent depending who I am talking to.

DH has remained a resolute Yorkshireman and I sometimes have to translate for friends and neighbours in the south who can't always understand him. He is quite broad Yorkshire!

No such thing as 'accentless'! I was interested to hear that even in sign language there is regional variation. We all give away something of our origins and personality when we speak.

I have a northern accent, mostly Cumbrian with a bit of Geordie thrown in for good measure. Once, on holiday in Blackpool as children, my sisters and I were asked if we were Welsh or Scottish, as the lady who was asking couldn't make us out.

Where I come from there is absolutely no R in bath or castle Pittcity the word is not "Bar...th" or "car...stle"

I beg to differ gillybob, the "r" is clearly heard in Bath and castle! It's "h" and "t" that are missing......and "th" is pronounced f...

Where on earth does this "oop" North thing come from? I am a born and bred Geordie (and proud of it) with a genuine Geordie accent (think Sarah Milllican without the swearing) I have never ever heard anyone saying "oop North" it's simply " up North"


There's no "r" in bath, or laugh or castle etc. I hate to hear plummy accents saying "N..you..car....sell" horrible.

Essex (or Essix as we say it!), but in an old fashioned Cockney type way not the modern TOWIE.

A bit Northern and rather nasal. We have lived in Cornwall since the 1970s and I'm thought posh when we go back north.

Posh southerner, unless I'm getting out of the car then similar to a wounded animal

Rather northern and more so if I catch a phone message I have made.
I think my voice sounds strong as people say I don't sound my age on the phone, unlike the H of a friend of mine who sounds really old and doddery and in fact is 6ft 2ins and built like a brick wall.

Still slightly Geordie, thouh I haven't lived there for ages. I've still got the Geordie vowels, and the intonation, which helps when speaking french. My friend here comes from Devon, and when she speaks french to the locals they can't understand her.

West Country (Zummerzet) accent. I always remember, back in the 60's, how we all laughed when we realised how our accents sounded when we made tapes to send to family in Australia.

Still very Essex although I haven't lived there for 47 years.