elfman

my three and a half year old daughter likes to correct my pronunciation of certain words: "no daddy, they're called vytamins", and take the piss out of others: "hahahaha daddy says wawter hahahaha"

ChocolateBabz

Our son was 9 when we moved and picked up the accent quite quickly at school but I think mostly so the kids would understand him. When grandma & grandad visited in March he lapsed straght back into broad Aberderdonian

SpoogleDrummer

My wife is already telling me my little 9 months old son will soon be talking in a country accent. He was born here and half his family is from the south but it doesn't stop me hoping that some how he'll pick up the English accent from me if only to impress the ladies when he's older

CitySimon

Hey Dougster... Don't be so sure about your own accent.

I've been here six years and thought my accent was the same as when I got here, but I went out for a few drinks with JamesAndAli a few weeks back and was shocked to hear them ask about my accent... I think "mid-atlantic" was how they described it.

If an adult accent can change in six years, I think you can expect to hear changes very quickly for the kids emersed totally in the US school system at an age that they are still learning the language.

clarissageo

We've been here since December, and my boys are getting a bit of a 'twang' that I can detect......... Although when my mum talks to them on Skype she says that they sound really american.

The enunciations they have really picked up on is the hard 'R' in words.... like at the end of water, better etc, and they seem to have lost the ability to use a T in the middle of words, prefering the good old 'D' instead, so we have Wader, bedder etc...... They also use the american words for things - chips, pants etc... .athough I do insist that they call me MUM not MOM!!

According to both my mum and my hubby, even after the short 5 months we've been here so far, I also have a twang developing...... in fact hubby nearly pee'd his pants laughing the other day when he heard me at work saying room 428.... apparantly it came out 100% Kentucky.... a real 'fower twenny ayt' ..... my mum says that for the first 5 minutes of talking to her I sound american, then I slip back to being a brit again!

Englishtart

Little bit different for us, we have been there and back a couple of times, spending about 11 years in the UK (between tours) and around 11 here, my 2 boys (21 and 16) both have the US accent, but can 'put on' the Brit one any time they want too! Everyone I talk to in the UK says I have 'lost' my Brit accent, yet all my friends here say I am definitely still an 'Englishtart'

Marty J

My fiancée has warned me that I better not lose my accent; is doing so grounds for divorce?

CitySimon

A couple of years and you're in for some deep shit... Tally Ho!

emailrob

My 6 year old had a large twang until he spent a week with his Rochdale, UK cousins...that brought him back to earth with a bump

made of kent

one day at pre school! that said they are useful translaters for me and hubby! and at home Uk English the minute in the outer world of the US, they use US English, I saw the making of me with John Barrowman brought up in the States but at home Scotish! my boy don't have a unified accent at home I am SE Kent Dad is Scot from 20 miles outside Glasgow...but the English genes are shining through!

SarahG

When I was in the US on a J1 visa when I was 18 I developed a mid Atlantic twang within a few months and even now, some 14 years later I still say the odd word with a slight American accent. My 2 kids, daughter 4yrs and son almost 6yrs, have a mainly English accent seeing as they were born and brought up here but they both say the odd word with a Scottish accent inherited from me. I think when we move to US later in year, they will both pick up the American accent quite quickly. As will I. Husband will end up being the odd one out!

cathy22w

My son was 9 when we came here - now 15. He flip flops his accent depending on who he is talking to. When my my friends and family have visited, they have commented on the 'twang' in my own accent - I guess if you are completely submerged in a culture, some of it is going to rub off. Got all the 'chips', 'pants', 'gas' and such on autopilot right now. Find myself having to really work hard not to sound too American when people visit!

Macca67

For me It depended on the age of the kids and their feelings about moving to the US. When I arrived in 2004 my daughter, then 7, had an accent halfway across the Atlantic as we were flying out. My son, who was two years older still has a south of England twang, which is more or less pronounced depending on how pretty the girl is he is talking to!!

D

penguinsix

I've seen the word choice slip after only a few weeks, flashlight, sidewalks, diapers, etc. The accent thing may change after awhile, but even amongst friends who are English but raised in the US, there are occasional hints of a 'British accent' still in their voice. As others said they'll sound American to a Brit, but to an American who listens closely you'll see traces of their original accent stay on for years.

ukintexas

As well as all of the things above: pronouncing a "d" instead of "t" in words such as battery/baddery and butter/budder, the use of certain words such as "trash", "trunk", "pants" etc, the other thing I've noticed particularly in my son (nearly 14, been here since he was 10) is that all words seem to merge into one. So a sentence becomesonewheretherearenospacesorspecificpronuncia tionofeachword
Drives me insane! I have to ask him to repeat himself when he does it. For those of you who live in Houston my hubby and I call it the "Mattress Mack" syndrome