When my mum used to come over she would revel in the "being English," bit. It used to drive me up the wall!

When my MIL last visited us, she loved to repeatedly say how 'AWESOME' everything is in a put on American accent. She was saying it jokingly, but still, the first half dozen times it was funny, after that it just got old.

In retribution, the next time we go over to visit, I'm going to go on about how everything is so 'bloody brilliant'.

Slightly off topic, but I'm originally from Stoke on trent, but lived in London for 20 years. My stoke accent became pretty mild.

After living in the US for 2 years, I now speak more stokey again. My husband says I'm "going ferrel" - has this happened to any of you?

Keep saying you're 'pissed' with things, as one American woman here does when she goes back with English OH
I think if you're really keen on the place you try to adapt your accent to fit in more, if not, the old accent seems to surface. I sometimes come out with real Essex expressions.

With 'ridiculous' being the key to it!!!

I don't mind people commenting on my accent and doing things like the above example. It's all part of living over here.

I naturally drop a lot of of T's & H's so people often mock how I say something like 'bottle' (Bot-all). 'he wants a bot-all of beer' - of course they can't quite say it properly but they have a go.

I find the key to being understood is just to slow down. Let them take in what you are saying. As you first start to speak they aren't really listening to *what* you are saying - just *how* you are saying it.

I got a job ok over here. During the interview I really did have to make sure to extra slow down and pronounce things as clearly as I could. In places I felt like a bit of a div doing this but they understood me fine - which after all was the main objective.

Good luck to everyone going for interviews - 'how now brown cow'.

Yeah this is happening to me too!
I thought I'd pretty much lost my Bristol accent after not living there for years. But since living in the US it really kicks in sometimes. It feels really weird and kind of catches me by surprise.
I guess there is a genuine reason for it, something going on in my brain to do with being around different accents.

LOL ever asked for oatcakes in CA?

I am a Stoke supporter on account of my dad being a Fenton native.

Well I must have some american intonation now because automated telephone systems don't hang up on me like they did at first

I make sure to do a really strong 'RRR' sound because before I'd be screaming at the phone while the automated voice kept saying, "I'm sorry...I didn't understand that..."

No, it would wind all the Brits up when he ended the call with 'have a nice day'

My American friend sat in mouth-open amazement when I call directory services once and heard exactly what you described for 5 minutes before they hung up.

I find that I tend to talk more like the queen when people have difficulty understanding, when in fact, I should be talking more like the Geiko Geeko.

I find a bit of my soul dies when I ask for Wadder instead of water

Wadder and budder

Sorry, port vale for ever...........

listen

Begorrah