So in case you aren’t already aware I have two accents. One is my Canadian accent which I use when conversing regularly in my everyday Canadian life. The other is my British accent that resurfaces when I speak with my family or if I travel to the UK – and occasionally when I’m drunk. As I moved to Canada when I was eight, my accent split rather than being completely erased. Strangely, there are now words I rarely use that I pronounce in new and strange ways each time as I learned them in one accent and have to use them in the other, but I digress.
I’m thinking about permanently switching back to my British accent.
I think I like it better. Obviously this is not as simple as it sounds as everyone I know relates to me with a Canadian accent and would presumably find it odd if I suddenly adopted an RP accent but I’m thinking it might be worth the initial awkwardness for the long-term payoff.
Believe it or not it’s actually quite difficult to speak with my British accent to Canadians as the dual-accent thing is not a conscious decision I make but rather it just happens. I kind of wonder how long I would have to use the British accent regularly before it started coming out naturally?
Decisions, decisions….