Accent and Culture Expectations or Hopes

Just out of curiosity... did anyone have any hopes or expectations for the changes in your kids' and your accent?  Did you want/expect your kids who were born in or spent some years in America (or other countries) to develop a British accent, adopt all of the Brit words/slang, and adopt the British culture?  What about your kids who were born in UK/Europe?  For yourself, did you want to lose your accent and speak British and adopt the Brit culture? For those who wanted to, did you expect to?  If you didn't want to, did you end up changing anyway?  Did you expect it after awhile?    I'd appreciate any thoughts and opinions on this.   

Well, you are going to have to use British words/slang , otherwise people aren't going to be able to understand you and you are going to have difficulty getting along with people. As for the accent, it would depend on the person, how much they tend to pick up new accents. I have only been here 6 months, so I still have an American accent, but I use British words because I want to be able to communicate with people. I don't understand what you mean by adapting British culture. I have to work for a British company, shop in British shops, eat British food, live with British neighbours because I have to wear clothes, eat and sleep.


I don't have kids yet, but I don't have any expectations one way or the other. I would assume that going to British schools, being surrounded by British speaking people ,a British father and British relatives, they would have strong British accents, but they would have an American mother so who knows?  To be honest, I couldn't care less what accent my kids have. There are so many more important things involved in child rearing than your child's accent.

I've been here three years, and use the british slang, and wording, but don't have an accent. In fact, my husband, who is Asian, has a british accent most of the time, but has also picked up my american accent,  and people are always asking him if he's ever lived in the states! (He hasn't)
My son will probably have a british accent, especially when he starts to go to school, but I'd like to hear from other parents here whether their kids who were born here have the british accent or not.

My kids are age 5 and 3.  They were born in the UK and they have full on Yorkshire accents.  Obviously my Americaness isn't influencing them much.  I think it's cute.   Like most people on here, I still have my American accent peppered with British slang/phrases. 

My daughter was born here and so will be her sibling next month. 

DD has a full on Scottish accent.  It seems natural - I'm the only foreign accent she hears, after all.
Plenty of people born in America have foreign parents and have American accents. 

Don't know about kids who weren't born here as mine are natives.

My eldest came here when he was 10 years old (he's almost 18 now) and his accent has pretty much turned out the way I expected.  He sounds very British; however, there's no mistaking that he's American.  Certain words or phrases still retain their American quality, but they are few and far between.

My second son was born here and is nearly 3.  He has no accent whatsoever; listening to him, you'd be hard pressed to guess where he was born.  I'm sure that will change in time.

I was born in London and had an English accent when moving to the States with my parents when I was young.  Going to school in the States with my English accent was terrifying as no one understood me.  However, over time the American culture overcame me and now I speak with an American accent.  There are times when I can turn "English", but I would have to be pretty drunk.    

It all depends on the surroundings of the individual.  One will pick up the accent of their surroundings especially at a young age....it is only natural.

Hi, I've been following this site for over a month now but only registered in the last week and decided to post as this topic caught my interest.  I am an Air Force brat, born to a British-West Indian mum and West Indian-American dad.  My mum was born in the Caribbean but grew up in Derby, England then moved to London to pursue Nursing.  There she met my dad who was also Carib-born but mostly grew up in New York (altho you'd never know cos he never had a NY accent) - he ended up in England (Ipswich) on assignment and she and my dad got married.  They began their long military journey together, all over Europe, UK, and America.  My eldest brother (30 in Dec) and my middle brother (25) were born in US; I (23) was born in Italy.  My brothers spent a bit of time in America as young kids before being moved to Europe, but their accents were never anything but Brit.  After I was born, my family lived exclusively in Europe and UK and only made one visit to my dad's family in NY when I was 5. 

We moved to the US when I was almost 7, so my dad could retire from the military, and ended up staying because my eldest brother had settled in and was tired of moving around - he wanted to finish H.S.  The original plan was to move back to UK as soon as he finished, but it became less likely as time went by.  We went to American schools, hung out with American kids, and are now adults working with other Americans, but we are not very American.  We were raised by my Brit mum and partially (now) Brit dad with many of the cultural things that we lived with in UK.  We use mostly British pronounciations, terms, phrases, and slang, we were brought up watching BBC and all the British shows that come on American telly (even more now that we've got digital cable!), we read UK news websites and keep up with the music, culture, events and politics, and much of the food. We keep in close contact with my mum's family in UK, and my middle brother and I went back to England with our mum just before I started H.S. for 6 weeks and just melted back into the culture, travelling to the cities where mum's friends and family are and living in the community as the citizens we are (both my brothers have dual citizenship - American and British, and I have triple - American, British, and Italian) rather than as tourists, although we did do a few touristy things-- we had no problems with the language, the physical differences (cars on opposite side of the road, money, etc) and even came back with even stronger British accents, according to our friends.

I've always felt more at home surrounded by other foreigners, esp people from UK/Europe, as I was never accepted by Americans.  As a kid, I was shy, having only a few friends until middle school, and then all my friends were fellow foreigners as they shared my values and cultural beliefs.  Due to this, I spent much more time at home with my mum, and I kept my British-ness much more than my brothers.  My eldest brother assimilated quite a bit but neither he nor I to the extent of my middle brother who was always quite popular at school and is now mostly American, except at home.  To this day, the three of us get muddled up in grocery stores, shops, at work, and at school when we are trying to express ourselves.  We get confused between terms such as "lorry" vs "truck", "bin" vs "trash can", "mobile" vs "cell phone", and (possibly the worst) "push chair/pram" vs "stroller" and still are learning new American words every day.  We got marks off at school for spelling and grammar, while we slowly learned the American way, but my eldest brother and I chose to keep afew spellings (colour, centre) at school, and decided that if writing something personal (letters, email, poetry) we would use ALL British spellings and phrasings. Some times, when we hear a word on the telly and then see the physical representation of the word, we are shocked that "THAT'S what Americans are talking about when they say _____" because we only ever knew the British term for it. 

I can't count the number of times I've called my friends "cheeky", asked for a "rubber" at school or pointed out to a friend that they needed a "full stop" at the end of the sentence, then  a) tore my hair out trying to explain what I meant, b) got in trouble!  or c) said "oops I meant ____".  I also cannot count how many friends/coworkers have asked me why I eat so properly with knife and fork and why I cross my knife/fork in the middle of the plate when done eating.  Being out in the work force has allowed us to learn more American terms and cultural things but we will still always be Brits living in America, as people we interact with remind us when they use a term that we don't know and all we can do is stare blankly and ask "a what?" OR when they ask "Where are you from?" over and over, to which we reply "I grew up in England" and the look on their face is like Ohhhh and they tell us that our accents are still there and we should be proud that we can speak proper English.

As for me, I have longed to be home in the UK since I arrived on this side of the pond.  I will never be American and realised that long ago.  Although I accept that I have missed out on bits of the culture in UK, having lived here for so long, I also know that I do not and will not ever fit here.  I am homesick every time I turn on the telly to watch Eastenders or As Time Goes By, or my new favs Cash in the Attic and Bodies. I am planning to start going back to UK and Europe every few months during my Uni breaks, and I am making plans to move back home in the next two years, as soon as I finish my BA degree.  People ask me "Why?" but they don't completely understand that England has always been where I consider home.  They say that I am American now because I've lived in the US since I was a child, but it's not that simple.  Ask any of my friends and they will tell you that I will either marry a Brit/European or a latin guy (my second language is spanish, which I learned from my dad at the same time as I learned English).  They have been right so far, as most of the guys I've loved have been Brits who I met online or in Real Life, and still the people I have the closest friendships with have mostly been non-American.  I can't exactly explain why it feels so right to call England home, other than to say, that is just where my heart is!

thanx everyone for your responses   this is an interesting topic

We get confused between terms such as "lorry" vs "truck", "bin" vs "trash can", "mobile" vs "cell phone", and (possibly the worst) "push chair/pram" vs "stroller"

interesting that you still get confused between the words... I assume it's cos your mum still uses all those words.. does your dad use them?  I do know many people from the Caribbean use British terms.

thanx everyone for your responses this is an interesting topic

interesting that you still get confused between the words... I assume it's cos your mum still uses all those words.. does your dad use them? I do know many people from the Caribbean use British terms.

Yes, my mum still uses almost all British terms and slang and my dad uses them as well.  Some he learned at school in Trinidad, some from being married to my mum and from his time in Europe, particularly England as he spent about 6/7yrs living there total.  You're right about many Caribbeans using the terms; it dates back to British colonisation.  It's more common in older West Indians than ones my age - they learn the words at school but the younger generations make up their own words for things or use American terms.  My bros and I were given loads of help by our parents with homework, more so when we were younger, and given help with projects, so even though we learned American words at school, we still had the Brit terms being drilled into our heads at home and since it was already more natural for us to use the Brit terms than the American ones, it stuck.  Also, many words for things you don't learn out in public, such as household items, because those convs almost never come up outside of the home, so there will always be many terms that you use that the ppl around you don't (ex: we say "flannel" instead of "washcloth" -how many times have you had to ask someone for one outside of your home? For us, almost never, therefore we didn't learn that Americans call a flannel a washcloth prolly till our teens -  to me a washcloth is what you use to clean the sink/counter with)