Badge

Who has an accent since they came back/spent a fair amount of time in Australia?!!!

This one has been bothering me all week.

Since I got back form Australia- I have been back 5 months - I was there for a year - people tell me I have an Australian accent. I assume now I have lost it - but every so often friends and coeworkers mention it as if they have got used to it - yet I am unaware. One bloke at work said he still thinks I could have got straight off the plane.

And its not just the "going up at the end of sentences " which is too obvious it's the structuring your sentences in an aussie way as well...

It's bizarre - occasionally I *can* hear it -and there's absolutely nothing I can "do" about it - a mate of mine says the Aussie accent is one of the easiest to pick up - if you come from the south of England and London and am fairly laid back I guess it is easy to pick up. In years gone by I was mistaken for a South African anyway so I've got used to "accent accusing".

The funny thing is, I am not losing it. It's as if it is more dominant than my born accent. Not many on this group have heard me but a few of you thought I had an accent...

Today at work I was giving a presentation and for the fist time I became aware of lapsing in to "australianese" yet there was NOTHING I could do about it..it's like in certain situations my Australian accent is stronger than my English one. If I have to "enunciate" then my Aussie seems to come out. Then if I am pissed my aussie acennt comes out as well.

I was out in the pub last week with some South Africans and one turned to me in conversation and said "and its the same in Australia" looking at me - she's never met me or been introduced..etc

i dont know whether this is positive but I am willing to concede its not necessarily a bad thing as often I find a lot of English people sound plain stressed and have an "effected" lilt. Only in England, eh? When I bumped in to English people after months with aussies I was shocked as to how stilted they sounded and they all commented on my aussie accent. It was like *they* had the "alien" accent - it did my head in. I also dated an aussie for 6 months before I even arrived so maybe this is a factor. It's as if my voice box has learnt to speak Australian and can't go back....

Suggestions, explanations? Rosy, dotty, PB - how do you sound - how do you find pommy accents now? Do you find them strange?

PS

I dont sound completely Aussie - aussies can tell I am a Pom of course, and indeed my aussie friends laughed when I said that people had been asking me about it..I think real aussy blokes have a particularly nasal quality that would take years to pick up...

amused and confused

badgers

Pollyana

Yep, you've certainly got the accent, badgers! I guess we notice it more here cos an Aussie accent is more unusual, but it is still very noticeable - especially when you are talking about Australia!
If you turn up at the wedding in January, it'll be interesting to see who reckons you're one of my Pommie mates, and who thinks I met you over there!
some people never pick it up though - I have a friend in Hobart who emigrated in 1960, yet he still sounds like he would feel at home in "Coronation Street". Very confusing if I ring him at work - Aussie on switchboard, broad Mancunian in the office!

denhim

ive a slight geordie twang and found that the ozzies thought i was irish....it seemed to me that ozzies aswell as the americans think all british people talk with cockney accents. have you seen those hollywood films where americans try to do british accents? they rather talk like a cockney or put on a daft posh voice like how the queen talks.
the b&b where i stopped at in Perth was ran by a couple from newcastle who migrated over there in 1973. there accent was still broad geordie but just talked the lingo, i.e `no worries mate` and `fair dincome`....

earlswood

I think that ladies pick up accents quicker,

While visiting Brissie this year and staying with friends who had been in Oz for 20yrs, I noticed that Bob still had a North Yorkshire accent and not a twang of Australian but his wife Pat sounded like a true Ozzy!

Another thing I have noticed is that if you are in sales or in a communication based environment you tend to emulate accents. Does anyone else find this?
(I know Iv'e been told I do it)

Earlswood

mr mover

some people absorbe accents quickly , moved a woman in yerterday, i thought she was a pom, turns out they only lived in London for four years,after leaving sth oz, my old mans a geordie,you would,nt know it, i hav,nt lived in wiltshire for 40yrs, but some ozzies still pick certain words, house is one that comes to mind. my wife left stevenage when she was 5 but you still hear certain words says "bruum" instead of broom, i spent time in sth africa, in my youth, kept getting asked what" part of america do you come from", you will know when you have adapted to AUSTRALIA ,when you can pick which state , people come from by their speech variations or certain words they use........... MM

april

In May I went to Liverpool to see my Sister someone asked me what part of Ireland I was from........ I have been in Canada for over 30 years, here they ask "did you know John Lennon"

Badge

yeah the ladies pick it up quicker - the "female" Aussie accent seems more extreme there's more of the going upwards, smiley intonation etc....almost American in extreme cases.

blokes have more of a lazy drawl.

its easy to absorb an accent - but then I would have lost my aussie accent by now. it almost as if my voicebox finds it easier and refuses to go back.

badgers

Snitzy

Badge
When I spoke to you on the phone I thought your accent was pure " Salf London " and a bit stressed.....Probably something to do with putting Twichenham as your Location but living in Morden !


Snitz

Badge

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Snitzy
Badge
When I spoke to you on the phone I thought your accent was pure " Salf London " and a bit stressed.....Probably something to do with putting Twichenham as your Location but living in Morden !


hate talking on mobiles has to be said. I was probably talking louder that day which would have had an effect.

thanks - a believer!! well - it seems to me that south london is the closest English accent to Australia / New Zealand - I mean compared to say a standard South England accent - so if its not quite "right" then people will suspect it as having to come from somewhere else.

lived in twickers all my life but my flat is in Morden. spent 1 year in london the last 5. rest was in Europe.

Therefore I've been acused of being a South African, public school boy, having a "twang", "military", aussie, londoner - list is long and distinquished!

tinaj

Hi Badge,

You defo had a bit of an Aussie accent when we had our meet up in Brighton. I actually thought you were an Aussie who was going back over there at first! I think you even look like an Aussie. Of course you need to grow your hair a bit longer at the back!!



Tina

Badge

bloody hell! not sure whether to be worried or not

Pollyana

Tinaj is right badgers, you could easily have passed for an Aussie that night! Wonder what my in-laws would say though if you grew your hair at the back and turned up in January as a Pom with a mullet! Might even baffle ma-in-law into silence....

kaleb777

I've lived in Australia all my life and I agree that the women have a different accent to the men. Local comedy shows take the piss out of our own accents. I find while most men will say "noineeen" for nineteen, the Victorian men say "noinoyn". The women will say "call hoim with moi phoine....oi oi noi!" for "call home with my phone .. oh I know!"

There's the ubiquitous emphasis on the A sound. I've heard people say "bayg" for "bag". A lot of English sound like they say "bug".

There's a western Sydney accent where the eee sound is over-emphasised like "Peek up some cheeks" for "pick up some chicks". It's generally thought of as a povo (poverty stricken) accent. Some Melbourne Greeks speek in a similar way.

It seems the first word non-English speakers learn is 'mate'. You will hear men start and end a sentence with "mate".

There are a lot of Americanisms too - like garbage, trash (for wrecking something) freeway and sometimes elevator.

The T sound is dulled to a D in many words. Many numbers have D sounds like "fordy", "thirdeen". Some have N instead of T like "nineen", "seveneen". Some like fifty and sixty keep the T sound because it's easier. I think that's what determines the accent - what is easiest.

Some women have an annoying habit of replacing the T sound with a SH sound. They will say "insighsh" and "roush" instead of "insight" and "route". Men don't say this. Women also over-emphasise the S sound in most words.

There are also variations in words for things between states but there aren't a lot.

kaleb777

About words ending in T. While many women replace the T with a SH sound, the men will sort of cut the T off all together at the back of their throats so "insight" will be "insighsh" in women but sort of "insi-" with half the I sound and all of the T cut off, sort of like how real cockneys will say "what" like "wha-".

unrefined_mind

Don't worry Badgers, I also recently spent a year in Oz and came back talking like Crocodile Dundee.

Even more frustrating is when talking to friends living in Oz by telephone, by the end of the conversation my accent has come back and I’m talking like an extra from ‘Home and Away’ again!

Not the only one though, I was sat in bar talking to Robin Smith (Hampshire/ex Eng. Cricketer), his mobile went off, and he had a 10 minute conversation - by the end he was talking like an Aussie too - not till he hung up, did I find out he was talking to Shane Warne!

No worries mate!

UM