How can I stop picking up accents from TV?

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After a session of watching either TV, youtube or listening to audiobooks I'll sound either British, American or something else.

How can I prevent this from happening? It's getting to the point where I can barely even remember what my own accent is supposed to sound like.

What a wonderful problem to have. You ought to capitalize on it by taking the stage on "open mic night" at your local comedy club, and do dialects, and impersonations.

I notice that you're Australian.

There is a certain Australian aspie guy on UTube who I WISH had your talent.

His broad Aussie dialect takes a lot of work for an American to follow. He doesnt have to speak American. If he just spoke in British BBC English, or even spoke like the TV talking heads of his own country (your newscasters on Utube all sound Australian, but speak in a watered-down dialect that Americans can easily follow) he would have a much better show. If only he could spontaneously pick up broadcast talk the way you do.


Maybe you could coach this guy.

When I was REALLY young I would sometimes spontaneously speak in the same dialect as the person I was talking to. As late as 14 that would happen, and I would sometimes have to force myself to not do that out of fear that the person I was talking to would think I was making fun of them.

Yeah.....I've been married to a West Indian woman for over 27 years; I can't, for the life of me, imitate a West Indian accent.

Just stop watching media for a bit and if you can, listen to yourself speaking. It will fade - at least until you pick up another. I don't think you can stop it from happening. No one else I know deliberately chooses to pick up an accent, so I doubt you can stop it from happening without simply stopping watching media or talking with people.

Huh?

Didnt you say the opposite of what you meant?

The OP picks up dialects by accident. Against his will.

So didnt you mean "no one else I know accidentally picks up an accent against their will the way the OP does."?

Lots of folks try (and try and try) to change their dialect on purpose, and often can't despite their will and intention.

No, I meant exactly what I said (no one I know who picks up unwanted accents like the OP does so voluntarily etc.)

Thats not what you said.
Read your own post please.

What you said was: "nobody i know deliberately chooses to pick up an accent".

I had that problem when I went to my fathers home town of Natchez Mississippi. I know of nothing more pervasive than a southern accent. I guess you can only acquire one real accent at a time. Not sure that there is a solution. You must have a finely tuned ear for accents.

Just immerse yourself into listening to ...Utube vids of folks speaking in whatever your own local dialect is ...to cleanse your pallet so to speak after seeing a movie...before you go back into society again.

Don't watch TV.

I shoulda said "listen to folks who talk regular". What you would think of as 'having no accent, or no dialect' would be "speaking in your own dialect". LOL!

If you hang with neighbors (apparently) you're embarrassed that you will talk in a alien accent/dialect. So listen to the radio or to UTubers who speak your neighbors for a while.

Alternatively, don't speak.

Watch TV in foreign languages.

We've just watched a 5 part BBC documentary on Russia.
Now I want to wear Russian peasant garb and grow some cabbages.

We watched the 2017 BBC adaptation of Little Women.

Now I want to be Josephine March, but maybe I already am.

* passes the Borscht *

I dont watch one movie...like Gone With The Wind...and then start speaking in a southern US accent at work and embarrass myself.

But I have experienced mild version of it. Like for years I was into listening to British rocknroll, and watching imported British comedy TV (Monty Python, Faulty Towers, Dr. Who) and apparently it gradually rubbed off. I would have to bite my tongue and NOT refer to pack of cigarettes as 'fags' (get your fags off of the coffee table!). And strangers would even ask if I was "Canadian", or even "British". So I guess the lilt of my speech got a little Britishized.

For highschool I did a book report on "Manchild in the Promised Land" a classic autobiography a guy who grew up on the mean streets of Harlem in the early Sixties. The book is written entirely in Harlem jive talk of the era. When you read it you start thinking in jive talk of that era regardless of your race. One time I was in the stockroom of the store I worked at and the phrase "jive ass n****r s**t" popped out of my mouth. My only company were two other young White guys my own age, and they both laughed and thought it was cool. But in polite adult society it wouldnt have been cool for a host of reasons. So again I had to vow to bite my tongue so as to not sound racist (even though my speech was infected by a Black author ironically).

Last edited by naturalplastic on 22 Dec 2022, 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.