For me it's Italian and Spanish - I love the lilt! Being a new widow with little family, I decided to occupy myself in the lockdown by learning Spanish online. So far so good!
My partner has a soft Geordie accent which I like very much indeed. I myself am quite plummy which is rather a drag, particularly as it seems to incentive tradesmen to inflate their quotes .
I love the Irish. I have my TomTom set to 'Sean' and get all instructions in the wonderful Irish brogue. I find it quite calming in difficult traffic situations.
I like all regional accents. I find it interesting country = soft and rolling city= guttural=quicker in speed? Might have been historically time related?
Also Herts/Beds /Kent/Essex etc will have attracted people from all over the country who need to commute in to London who may not be able to afford to live in the city or burbs there and that will affect the county accents.
I have regional accent from elsewhere but my children don't really speak with an accent at all though I wouldn't necessarily say it was RP
grandMattie, as someone who meets foreign nationals quite often I usually say, ‘I can’t place your accent’, rather than ask people where they’re from. Locally there’s a British guy whose parents were South African, but had spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland, so my observation opened up a very interesting conversation.
I love the northern Irish accent. My mother came from Northern Ireland and the accent reminds me of wonderful holidays with the Irish side of my family. If I need a fix I ring my cousins and have a natter.
Speaking as one who has a French accent*, I absolutely love the Irish accent. And the Irish. In another life, I’d like to marry an Irishman! * I get so tired of being asked where I’m from. What do I reply? Where I’m living now or where I was born and brought up? I always give the wrong answer ?
I love a really soft Irish accent. I also used to have two elderly uncles, and an aunt who had really lovely soft Scouse accents - nowadays it just seems a very harsh accent.
Yes, I suppose it is that influence, Nannarose, although I don’t remember Londoners speaking with the kind of accent you hear in Kent nowadays, either! I guess these things just morph into new ways of speaking.