Accent: Has yours changed over the years?

[Derek H]

[QUOTE=The PNP;6729961]I would agree we're often not aware of our own accent.....Until travelling elsewhere, when the different accent of those around us makes realise we stand out.
QUOTE]

I tend to agree, but if you read again what you wrote, you will note that you are in fact saying that you can hear other's accents. Accents that are different from the one you hear from your close family, friends and those around you on a regular basis. I'm talking about hearingy our own accent. Go into a room for yourself, open a book and read the first chapter aloud. Then consider my question. Then tell me, honestly, do you hear your own accent? Somehow I doubt it very much.

[The PNP]

Go into a room for yourself, open a book and read the first chapter aloud. Then consider my question. Then tell me, honestly, do you hear your own accent? Somehow I doubt it very much.

If I did that in my 'regular English voice', I wouldn't be aware of an accent per se. However, reading aloud Dutch text (my 2nd language) then I do monitor my accent, in an attempt to make it sound authetic......I certainly LOL'd when experimenting speaking Dutch with a put-on scouse accent!

[Derek H]

If I did that in my 'regular English voice', I wouldn't be aware of an accent per se. However, reading aloud Dutch text (my 2nd language) then I do monitor my accent, in an attempt to make it sound authetic......I certainly LOL'd when experimenting speaking Dutch with a put-on scouse accent!

I think you have got my point. I don't think any of us hear our own accents when we speak. We only hear the accents of others, especially if they're different from our own. So the original question; Has your accent changed?, calls for an answer based on what others tell us. Of course, you can admit that you have lived abroad a long time and that your day-to-day accent has changed. I'm sure Seivad now has a North American accent when she speaks to Canadians. Maybe not so much at home when talking to her husband. I don't speak English on a day-to-day basis so my accent may not have changed so much. But I repeat: i think it calls for others to tell us if our accent has changed. Someone who knew us back then. And knows us now.
And "monitoring" your accent when reading Dutch actually means trying to the pronounce the words correctly, in a manner a Dutch person would speak. Nothing more and nothing less.

[The PNP]

And "monitoring" your accent when reading Dutch actually means trying to the pronounce the words correctly, in a manner a Dutch person would speak. Nothing more and nothing less.

Having begun to learn and speak it way back in my teens, thankfully I'm able to pronounce the words correctly.....For me though, as 'buitenlander' (foreigner), getting the accent right is another matter.

I learnt to speak the 'correct' way, as spoken in Den Haag. But also then lived a couple of years in Friesland, so began to acquire a little more of a Friesian sound. What comes out now accent-wise, as best I can estimate, is 75% Haagse and 25% Friese - but still with telltale slips of tongue that give away fact I was born outside NL.