How to get a Country Accent…..

So, once upon a time, I was born in NY. Yep, NY. I then moved to Germany, Georgia, NC, Utah, and back to good ol’ NC. For most of my life, people have asked where I was from, despite living all but 8 years of my life in North Carolina. They would tell me that I didn’t have an accent or at least not one that anyone could place. I was fine with that. I did, however, always have a knack for accents. Well, temporarily picking them up, at least. I get it from my mom. She has a friend from Chili that when ever she starts talking to her she starts sounding the same way. It’s always been kind of a funny thing that we do. When I went and spent the summer with my dad in Germany when I was a teenager, the other German teens told me that they could understand me better than any other American they’d ever met….probably because I was speaking English with a German accent!

Well, THEN I met Ryan. I’d known Ryan’s family for some time but had never met him. Now, Ryan’s family doesn’t have any accents, but Ryan sure does! In fact, his accent is so thick that even in our little town he stands out. When we first started dating and I started introducing him to people you could see the looks on their faces when he spoke. There were actually a few times that people just outright laughed. Still, it wasn’t long before folks started commenting that I was picking up a bit of an accent myself. I kind of laughed it off but sure enough, I could hear it. Then I began working for some friends of ours. I sat in an office all day with an entire family with accents as thick as Ryan’s. As the days and weeks went on, my accent got thicker. Not too bad, but thicker.

After Ryan and I got married, I basically stopped hearing his accent. I did, however, notice that there were a couple of families in our congregation that had thick accents. One day, we had the missionaries over for dinner and one of them commented on Ryan’s accent (not mine) and mentioned that he’d only ever met one other person (one of the people from church) with a thicker accent. He didn’t, however, mention me, and I was sure that was to my strong dedication to keep a slight accent but nothing too drastic. I never used Ya’ll, and every night there was the argument of whether it was Dinner or Supper.

WELL, over the last couple of years, I’ve picked up a few words….folks, britches, ya’ll, etc. I even recently, so as not to confuse the girls, started calling it Supper. I’d noticed that my accent has gotten pretty thick. My sister teased me when I went to Colorado and we both noted that it got a lot thicker when I was on the phone with Ryan. My brother and his girlfriend teased me this weekend about it, and that was fine. I live in the country, I love it here, I might as well talk this way, right? Besides, I think having a country accent makes me feel at home here. I think it makes folks more at ease when they talk to me. I kinda like it, honestly……

But THEN it happened. Tonight, I asked Ryan to pick up a couple of flower boxes for the girls. He stared at me funny and said, “What are fire boxes?” I laughed and said, “FLOWER boxes.” He then looked at me funny again and said, your accent is too thick, I couldn’t understand you! WHAT??!! Is that the Pot callin’ the kettle Black??!! MY accent is too thick for HIM to understand??!! LOL….okay, maybe I need to start cuttin’ back. Maybe I should start with adding the g back on the end of every word that ends in ING….like callin’ and cuttin’. Anyway, so I looked it up….where else would I find the answer to my dilemma but on eHow…..

How to Lose Your Country Accent

Contributor

By Jill Leviticus, eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating: (2 Ratings)

Losing a country accent can change your life and your potential for income. Often people with country accents are viewed as being less intelligent. While that is certainly not true, having an accent can mean losing out on a job or client. There are several steps you can take to lose or reduce your accent.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Video recorder
• Tape recorder
• Computer

1. Step 1

   Be committed to working on your accent every day. Losing an accent takes daily, repetitive practice. At first it may seem that you are not making any progress, but changing the way you speak can’t be accomplished overnight. Learn to be patient with yourself.

2. Step 2

   Record yourself speaking with a video recorder, tape recorder or your computer. Listen to the recording objectively and pick five words that you are pronouncing incorrectly.

3. Step 3

   Select words that you know you are saying incorrectly. You may know that “crick” is not the correct way to pronounce “creek,” but everyone else you know pronounces it this way. Every time you use the word, focus on saying it correctly. Start with easy words and repeat them several times into the recorder, trying to say them without an accent. Once you’ve mastered those words, move on to another set of five words.

4. Step 4

   Record one of the national news programs. Practice saying a few lines just the way the reporter says them. Imitate the people being interviewed, even if they have accent of their own. Practicing saying words in a different way will make it easier to change the way you speak.

5. Step 5

   Ask your friends (those without the same accent) to listen to you speak. Ask them to identify the main words they think you need to work on. They may hear things that you don’t and can help you progress faster.

6. Step 6

   After you have been practicing for a while and feel fairly confident, go somewhere where nobody knows you and see if anyone mentions your accent. If people always commented on it before, but they are not now, you’ve made progress.

So there you have it, my plan to sound like I’m from NOWHERE again….I’m not really excited about it…but oh well, I’m sure I’ll give up in a few days… :P You know….maybe all this time Ella’s just had an accent I couldn’t understand….maybe her spirit was actually supposed to go down to another country or state and it’s just in her to talk that way…..hmmmm….Nah!…She’s always been ours!