When traveling, doing business, socializing, or in any interaction with the public, have you or do you attempt to “hide” your natural accent in your own language? That is, to avoid sounding “rural” or “metro” or “southern” for example.

40 comments

  1. On purpose? No. But my accent shifts when I’m with different people. If I’m visiting my home area, I quickly get a more pronounced dialect and accent than my parents, on level with my grandparents, while if I spend some time in Copenhagen, I almost completely lose my accent. But it isn’t done on purpose. And it isn’t really a problem for me anyway, since my “native” accent is fairly close to standard Danish. So while I might be talking in the thickest accent, most people don’t mind, whereas someone from areas with more pronounced accents often have pointed out to them their own accents, even if it is comparably mild. And then I don’t really care if people think I sound “rural” or whatever, I’m from Eastern Jutland, my vocabulary and accent is going to reflect this in one way or another, who cares?

    I think, particularly people from southern and western Jutland moreoften do code switching, since their dialects are historically associated with a certain boorish image of people from those areas. Not to mention, a lot of people from outside those areas, have a hard time understanding the dialects from southern and western Jutland, so it’s also a question of being understood. At a certain level, it is necessary to speak in a way that is intelligeble for those around you, and not have the national broadcasting corporation add subtitles to your appearance, even if you speak the same language as the rest of us.

    Islanders from Bornholm are another example of an accent that is disappearing, not because it isn’t understandable, but because it is… well… funny. They talk funny on Bornholm, there is no denying it, and as such, Bornholmers have, understandably, particularly the young, started to distance themselves from their accent. Which I support 100 percent. I wouldn’t want to have an accent that the rest of the country found “funny.”

  2. Not at all. I speak in my dialect with everyone except foreigners who are still learning German. I find it sad that all the dialects are getting lost more and more so I wanna do my best to counteract that.

  3. In formal conversation I try (and often fail) to talk a bit more, well, formally. This includes not using certain words from my regional accent. An example would be to use ‘jij’ instead of ‘gij’ (you).

  4. No. I have a thick eastern accent and I don’t care what other people think of that. I may speak a bit slower when I’m talking to people from other parts of the country

  5. No, I’ve got the boring old “BBC”/London accent that is sort of universally recognised around the UK. If people want to conceal their accent, then it would probably be to have my accent.

  6. Yes. But that’s also how I was brought up. My parents did their best to speak standard Dutch at home, but whenever they would be with family you could hear strong influences of the local working class accent. I usually speak standard Dutch but when I’m with friends who have similar roots the accent comes out (especially after a few beers).

    In university I studied with a lot of people who spoke with a posh r, which I automatically started to copy somewhat when around them. I would never use my local accent in a professional context though, it doesn’t sound serious at all.

  7. In general, when speaking in a formal regoster I tend to neutralize some regional pronounciations and local idioms

  8. No, I wish I could. I sound like the Queen, I hate it, it sticks out a mile where I live. But I can’t put on a false “regional accent”, it would be like doing a funny voice, taking the Mickey out of people who really have those accents. I’ve taken to talking as quietly as possible, I’d hate to be one of those braying posh people you can hear from the other end of a field.

  9. Yeah it happens to me in both English and Dutch. When I’m with Flemish friends I first jokingly adopt their accent and then before long it bleeds over into actually doing it. When I’m in Amsterdam, same thing happens. I have family from Amsterdam too so I’m already more familiar with the way that accent works (I’m talking the conventional old Amsterdam accent, not the modern day street one).

    In English I find it hard to shake my fairly pronounced Dutch accent (even though it’s definitely not as pronounced as it is with most people) when I’m talking to Americans. But when I’m talking to British people, that’s a really natural way of speaking for me to slip into. Specifically more midlands-type accents. I spent a week in Berlin with two buddies from Staffordshire a couple years back, and ended up finding it really difficult to shake off the way they spoke.

  10. Yes, all the time.

    Just a few examples:

    When I moved from the town I grew up in to where I live now, my accent/dialect slowly changed. To the folks “back home” I sound completely different now.

    Talking to my children, I speak “high German”, so that they learn the language properly.

    On a professional level when talking to customers from other German speaking countries or regions I make an effort not to speak with too much of an accent.

    When talking to people from other regions with a very different accent, I sometimes tend to adopt it a little bit. That happens completely subconscious.

  11. I exaggerate my accent when I want to sound funny, friendly, folksy, etc and diminish it if I’m talking about something serious.

  12. Concealing is the wrong term, it’s not that I am ashamed of the region I’m from. But yes, I speak in different registers, depending on the other person. With my grandpa I speak dialect, when I’m in Northern Germany speaking to a client I only have some regionalisms in my speech. After all I want to be understood.

  13. I don’t really change my accent as such. I will use different words with different people of course, but that’s about it. I’ve nothing to hide from (and have one of those Scottish accents that are harder to pin down to a specific region anyway).

  14. Oh, I do it all the time. I have a very thick Porto accent, wih some vague Northeastern influence, which earned me some loving teasing from my friends when I started university. So I learned to tone it down.

    I have since moved around in Europe and sometimes I need to contact my consulate. My accent has unfortunate connotations (working class, uncultured, uneducated, that sort of bullshit) and people working at consulates are usually pretty snobbish. So I lose my accent completely, dress to the nines, casually drop my PhD title, and that usually gets them practically bowing to me and speeding up my requests.

    My hometown has become a tourist trap and not everyone is happy about it. So when I come home and visit, with my very foreign-looking husband, I use my accent to the fullest and use our slang when we’re interacting with people in shops and restaurants.

    My accent these days is only at it’s default state when I’m speaking to my family.

  15. For the accent that is a no, that is just how I talk.
    As for dialect then of course, otherwise people wouldn’t understand what I’m saying.

    Back in school people always switched very quickly from dialect to standard Dutch depending on who they were talking to, it’s really common and happens pretty much without thinking.

  16. I have the “standard” French accent and I am terrible at imitating a regional accent and even sometimes understanding some regional accents.

  17. I don’t. I’m proud of the little place I call home and where I come from and that includes my dialect which can sometimes sound a bit crude to others, but I don’t care.

  18. Sometimes I try to when going to Germany. I don’t succed often though. The reactions of some Germans when speaking with a Swiss accent is irritating. I went to northern Germany and when they asked where I’m from they began to “imitate” Swiss German in a really condensending way.

    The further north you get the more ignorant the Germans get. When Swiss speak Swiss High German, they think that is our normal way of speaking (instead of Swiss German). A friend of mine had someone get mad “beacause he spoke Swiss German all the time and not ‘real’ German”, even though he didn’t, but just had a Swiss accent.

    It comes to a point where I prefer going to France or Italy, which have languages I cannot or only somewhat speak. They have a nicer and less condensending way in treating foreigners than the Germans Swiss German speaking people.

    Please note: Not all Germans are like this and they don’t do it in bad faith, they’re just really ignorant when it comes to Swiss German.

  19. My accent is a big odd and doesn’t sound “typically” Welsh (apart from a few words), but I definitely notice that the longer I spend outside Wales (or the more drunk I am) the more “Welsh” I start to sound lol

  20. I am from Tuscany, which means I have a weird way of pronouncing certain consonants (basically, between vowels, “c” sounds like English “h”, “t” like “th” ecc.), that’s why I try to tone it down when speaking with people from other regions cause they might not take me seriously and they might have problems understanding.
    I exaggerate it though for comedic purposes.

    As for regionalisms, I avoid them cause there would be no point in using words that the persone I’m talking to can’t understand.

  21. No, I speak very, very standard Latvian. Dialects have largely died out during the previous century, and speaking in a way that’s noticeably different from standard tends to be seen negatively (unless you’re in your village speaking in its accent). I don’t think I even can change how I speak. Some older family members used to speak a dialect in family settings, I can understand it but if I actually tried to speak the dialect it would probably sound like I’m mocking people.

  22. I was born in Yorkshire and I don’t tend to deliberately change my accent, unless for example someone is having trouble understanding me. However my accent gets a lot stronger when I’m drunk or annoyed at something. When I’m on the phone though or in a formal setting I might unconsciously talk in a more neutral accent.

  23. No, code-switching is something different. Code-switching happens when you switch back-and-forth between two or more languages within the same conversation or even the same sentence. People who grow up bilingually do this a lot and also people who use multiple languages in their everyday life. For example my wife and I speak English with each other but English is neither of our native tongues, so sometimes we also say single words or parts of a sentence in Korean (her native language) or German. We might say stuff like: “That movie was so museoueo but the Regiesseur did a really great job at it.” That’s code-switching. What you’re describing is a phenomenon that linguists call “chameleons and fossils”. In simple terms, there are two types of people. You’re either a chameleon or a fossil. Chameleons adapt their dialect and sociolect wherever they go and with whoever they meet. They try to fit their dialect to the person/people they’re talking to. Fossils are people who always keep their own dialect and sociolect, no matter who they talk to. Of course this is a spectrum and there are many people in between those extremes but that’s roughly how it works.

    To answer your question, I’m mostly a chameleon. Sociolects aren’t much of a thing in Switzerland (with a few exception) but there’s a wealth of geographically distinct dialects. When I travel around my country, I usually weaken my home dialect and adopt the local dialect. Depending on how well I can imitate the other dialect, I do it just a tiny bit or almost entirely. I’d say the most extreme case is when I travel to Bern. I like the Bernese dialect a lot and I can also imitate it well, so whenever I’m in Bern, I basically talk like the locals (at least TO the locals). It’s something I mostly do for fun and maybe also because it’s part of my personality to please others/adapt to their ways. Since we don’t have a standard in Switzerland, dialects are viewed much more favorably here than in other countries. They don’t feel uneducated or lower-class or anything like that to me. So, there’s not actually any need to hide your own dialect. People wouldn’t look down on me if I was a total fossil. However, in Switzerland it can sometimes also be helpful to be chameleon because depending on what dialect you speak natively, people in other parts of the country might actually struggle to understand you.

  24. I speak English with a bit of a Scottish accent, because that’s where my mum is from. I put on an accent similar to my dad’s a lot of the time because I don’t want people to comment on how I speak or ask me my family history, which would frequently happen when I worked summer jobs in the hospitality industry. It’s become something I do instinctively.

    I think I also go into a more standard Portuguese (Coimbra) accent when I speak formally. My normal accent is already kind of like that, but with some Sotavento influence, probably because my dad originally wanted to become a journalist and tried distancing himself from how my grandparents speak (my uncle on the other hand has more of an accent). It’s not too dissimilar with how the people in Alentejo speak, and when I studied there I won a university contest and had to do an interview that aired on TV. Upon watching said interview I was surprised at how much of an accent I had, my grandparents (who also watched it) jokingly said I sounded like a “campónio”.

  25. Well in Flanders you essentially have 3 ways of speaking: dialect, Tussentaal and standard Dutch.

    * Standard Dutch is reserved for meeting the king.
    * Tussentaal has become the standard, it’s essentially a mix between standard and dialect (it literally means ‘in-between language’).
    * Dialect is mainly spoken by older people and is slowly dying out.

    Tussentaal is also really region dependent and can be more closer to dialect or standard Dutch depending on person. I personally I’m a bit closer to dialect but I’m perfectly understandable for every Flemish person. I would have to use more standard Dutch words when meeting a Dutch person though since they would not be able to understand every word.

    On the subject of accent however it really depends on the situation and place. If I’m staying at home for a while I’ll have a pretty thick accent with typical sounds like not pronouncing the end of words and pronouncing the ‘sch’ as ‘sk’. When I’m studying and as such staying in a different city my accent will become a lot more neutral.

  26. I just speak my real dialect in the mountain village where I grew up and in the surrounding areas.
    In Vienna or elsewhere I speak some half-dialect mixture that is comprehensible for the people here, it would not be feasible to speak my village dialect because they cannot understand it.
    There are some people in Vienna that consider you a peasant if you speak a dialect,
    which in return I usually go full dialect just to bother them.

  27. Not really. I’m from Madrid, so my accent is what others might try to emulate to sound more “neutral”.

  28. Honestly, that’s just one of those things I don’t think twice about.

    I don’t feel I talk differently to a costumer compared to say, my father.

    But obviously I do speak differently.

    People will probably notice I’m from the region of Ghent.

    Somebody with some knowledge might be able to point out what city I’m from.

    But no, I’ve never actively tried to hide my accent.

    As the other guy said already. Clean dutch is reserved for things like courts and such. Even when you meet somebody for say a job you’re going to use a bit of dialect here and there but just sparingly.

  30. In a professional context, it’s better to speak the ‘General Dutch’ in Flanders, Belgium. So yes we hide it.

  31. Yes, I had to alter my accent both for work, and because the majority of my friends are not native English speakers

  32. Hiding your dialect is a big no no here. Would never happen unless the person you’re speaking to literally can’t understand whatever you’re saying, which would be rare. Dialects are highly appreciated and used in all contexts. Business meetings, polticians or TV host/anchor/weathermen will all speak their local dialect without questions asked. Supressing your own dialect in any way is kind of seen as rude towards where you come from.

  33. It depends by the situation and the place. In formal/very formal situations (job interviews, when I’m at doctor, dialing with call centres, etc.) I try to hide everything about my “regional” accents and speak very standard Italian.

    Because my “accent” is a mixture of two different ones (central Roman and southern Apulian), I change/focus the accent in this way:

    * with my parents and “historical” friends: Roman/central accent
    * with my southern relatives: Apulian dialect/accent
    * with my close colleagues and my girlfrends: mixture of the two dialects/accents.

  34. Both of my parents had been living in many places in different dialectal areas of Finland during their childhood so even they didn’t had any “natural local dialect”, which comes from living just in the one place. As a family we also moved in many different places during my childhood where I soon adopted the local dialects, while in home we spoke in rather neutral [“colloquial Finnish”.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquial_Finnish) Especially my mother could easily switch to the local dialects of the places she had spent part of her childhood, which always felt kind of annoying for me and my brother when she started to speak even for us like that when we were visiting to some of our relatives, like she had became a different person. When I moved to Helsinki, I discarded my most recent regional dialect and regressed to colloquial Finnish, then again it could be claimed that it is “my natural dialect”.

  35. I moved a lot as a kid so I tend to code switch accents a lot. Like I can go from full on hillbilly USA to Harvard professor type (though all American English) In Spanish, I initially learned in the US so when I talk with a Mexican, sometimes I start speaking with a bit of a Mexican accent though you can still hear the Spain in there.

  36. I’m switching between 3 different versions of German – Standard Austrian German, the dialect of my birthplace, and the Viennese dialect. It’s not because I have to, but because I like it.

  37. I think my accent gets stronger the further I am from home, or maybe people just comment on it more.

  38. My wife speaks lower Saxon (bit more than an accent, it is a recognized regional language) with family and when she is in the North, and standard Dutch the rest of the time.At work when she gets phone calls from the North she sometimes switches to Lower Saxon too. I can understand it so I hear it a lot at family gatherings.

  40. Yes, when I started working I soon realized that my natural rural accent sounded unprofessional. But speaking “correctly” is really hard and it feels so fake.

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