The coolest accents...

[OneHungLow]

I have aways been partial to the New Zealand accent, which is even slacker with regard to diphthongs than my Capetonian slackness would ordinarily allow.

I have lived a long way from "home" for a long time but I still sound of whence I came. Unlike my legally trained sister whose accent became as cut glass as any dowager from Guildford within a nanosecond of arriving in fair Albion. I forgive and respect her, as she has done well, save for her foolishness in falling in love with a long haul pilot, with the baggage of teen-aged children from hell from another marriage, but enough of that!

All this said, at the height of my Covid Fever dream, I started to watch this Netflix cartoon,

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81095190

And developed a fevered fascination for the big breasted female cartoon villain, whose accent was so New Zealand but also so reminded me of home...

No surprise because...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesley-Ann_Brandt

Lest my shallowness be misconstrued, I am apt to like decent, nay good people, with whom I can empathize, and strangely, the Kiwis fit that bill too.

What accent does it for you?

[Karearea]

... whose accent was so New Zealand but also so reminded me of home...
...

How interesting: I picked up her SA accent at once, could not notice any NZ.

I have an appalling habit of picking up the accents of people I associate with.
DD1 has done it too: she came home from a Guide camp and I asked her straight away, "was there an English girl in your tent?"

As for what accent does it for me - I'm sure I could not say...

[OneHungLow]

... whose accent was so New Zealand but also so reminded me of home...
...

How interesting: I picked up her SA accent at once, could not notice any NZ.

I have an appalling habit of picking up the accents of people I associate with.
DD1 has done it too: she came home from a Guide camp and I asked her straight away, "was there an English girl in your tent?"

As for what accent does it for me - I'm sure I could not say...

I advise a South Western Cape Malmsebury accent Karearea...

[tango15]

The Geordie accent is generally accepted as friendly, and I have no argument with that. I can understand it well enough until they've had a few Newcy Browns, when comprehension becomes more difficult. The funniest episode I had with this was when we had the office in Athens, and two Geordie lads came over to set up the IT. Our PA lady, who spoke excellent English and was an absolute gem, struggled with their accent, though. One day, when they had gone out to lunch, she came over to me and said, "I know these guys are English, but what language are they speaking?"

[Rossian]

....Elefsis AB 1966. A conscript ordered to run a bar in the accommodation by his major for "the next two weeks", stepped behind the bar and asked "Right then gentlemen what can I get youse?" in an accent straight from downtown Newcastle. After I'd picked my jaw up and asked where he'd learned to speak like that, all became clear, "I did my degree in marine engineering there for 3 years, and no, we don't have Newcastle brown here".Here he was doing his National Service in the shape of odd job man around the base, what a waste. It was the time of the Junta and not a comfortable atmosphere for those of us in military uniforms.

The Ancient Mariner

[Hydromet]

Funny things, accents. When we lived in PNG our neighbour, a PNG native, spoke pidgin. his local place talk and heavily accented English. His wife spoke her place talk, pidgin and Motu, another trade language, so they communicated in pidgin. Their children spoke all of these languages, and their English had a posh, plummy accent

[G~Man]

One has remnants of an English/Scottish/Southern drawl........ Women seem to like it and often ask me to "say something dirty".....

Brings to mind this:

[ExSp33db1rd]

Now living in NZ I'm often accused, correctly, as coming from Yorkshire, and when in California with Mrs. ExS. I'm frequently asked if I come from Australia. ( once explaining that I came from NZ, the reply was - well, that is Australia, isn't it ? )

[John Hill]

We did a project in a former socialist republic and the project required a vocabulary be recorded in English, about 4000 words and phrases. At one point they were suggesting that I should do the job which I countered with "What about that lady in the AIS department? She speaks perfect English and I wonder if the is actually from England?"

This caused great amusement and it was explained to me "That is not London English, that is Moscow English."

[Rossian]

In the dim and distant days of DX-ing, the speaker on Radio Warsaw English? broadcasts had clearly trained by listening to Radio Scotland football commentaries by a chap called Andy Cowan Martin whose central belt accent was so thick it wouldn't be allowed today. As a young Scot I found it amusing.
However, many many years later in a group of French people a chap said to me "You learned your French in Scotland". Not a question, a statement, and I thought I was managing quite well too. And even more years later an old Italian lady asked me where I'd learned my Italian. When I said Naples she sniffed and said "I thought as much", clearly not thought much of it. Sigh.

The Ancient Mariner

[Hydromet]

I studied Japanese for a year (to very little avail). The teacher, a Japanese lady, was doing her Masters on the accents of Japanese children being raised and educated at the Japanese school in Sydney. Apparently, they cop a bit of prejudice from other children when they return to Japan.

[Boac]

In my second year University summer placement (Aeronautical engineering) I worked at Aviolanda in Brabant in Holland for 6 weeks and was placed with a wonderful Dutch family (brief migrants to Aus before returning to Holland) who would not let me speak English in the house.

At the end of the time I was pretty fluent in Dutch and was told "You speak Dutch with an Amsterdam accent". Weird, isn't it?

[limeygal]

My sister lived in Berlin during the 1970s. She worked at Templehof where there were many Turkish workers. She was told that she spoke German with a Turkish accent.

I worked for Durst (UK) and the Director had two secretaries who spoke German. One was obviously German, the other I took to be English-no accent whatsoever. I was chatting with her one day and asked her where she had learnt her German. She looked very puzzled. I later found out she was German. I felt a complete idiot.

[Archer]

In my second year University summer placement (Aeronautical engineering) I worked at Aviolanda in Brabant in Holland for 6 weeks and was placed with a wonderful Dutch family (brief migrants to Aus before returning to Holland) who would not let me speak English in the house.

At the end of the time I was pretty fluent in Dutch and was told "You speak Dutch with an Amsterdam accent". Weird, isn't it?

That is a bit weird, as the Brabant accent is quite distinctive in Dutch and very different from an Amsterdam accent! I grew up in Brabant but as neither of my parents were 'local' I never picked up the accent. Perhaps your Dutch family had a similar situation.

[1DC]

When I came home from my first trip to sea as an 18 year old, after 15 months away. The first thing my Mother said to me was "What have they done to your voice?" . Apparently after living on a ship together for over a year it was not uncommon for the ship to develop its own accent as a combination of all the accents on board, not everyone succumbed to this but the majority did!

[John Hill]

Few would argue that Kiwi do not have a somewhat unique and uniform accent which is surprising considering the variety of accents that most of their parents and grand parents would have brought to NZ. There a different theories of why this may be but one says the kids learned their accents at school where they were influenced by the accents of their teachers who had all been trained at just one or two national teachers' training colleges. Another theory says the accents were learned from radio broadcasts at a time when all radio stations were state owned and operated where announcers and news readers had all been selected for their 'correct English' and posh intonations.

[tango15]

Many years ago, I found myself in a small port town in northern Peru. I wandered into a bar in the town. It was quite quiet, and I was having a general conversation with the barmaid. She asked where I was from and her eyes lit up, which is not the normal reaction when you tell people you're a Scouser. It transpired that her sister had married one, and he lived in the town. She phoned her sister and explained and then put the guy on the phone. The conversation began something like this:

Me: "Hello."
Him "All right der la, how're doin'?"

We continued to chat for a while, from which it transpired that he had worked for Princes Foods, and had been sent out to show them how to can fresh fish about ten years previously. (This was in the mid-1970s) He met the sister of the barmaid, got married, and settled down there. At the end of the chat, I asked him if he'd learnt any Spanish.
"A bit, lad," he answered, but I've lernt dem all English. It must be de only place in Peru were de speak English wid a Souse accent."

[Hydromet]

New Zealand - land of the long flat vowel.

[CharlieOneSix]

I love the lilting Welsh accent and Max Boyce is a great example. I saw him in concert in Brighton and Swansea in the 70s. Like all of us he's aged but his post lockdown poem is memorable:



....and as it's Rugby World Cup time here is Max in 1999 whipping up the Welsh crowd at Cardiff.....

[OneHungLow]

That was superb C16. I lived in Cardiff for 8 years, and worked in Swansea as well. Never picked up the accent but it sure brings back good memories... Just played that to my better half, and she has just wiped a tear away.