My sister is really susceptible to picking up the accents of the people she's talking to, but when she actively tries to speak with a given accent it ends up being a mess.

I suck at both replicating accents and understanding then. I dread when I have to call a company for support at work and their call center is overseas because I know I'm going to spend the call wanting to crawl under my desk in embarrassment because I keep having to ask them to repeat themselves.

spend the call wanting to crawl under my desk in embarrassment because I keep having to ask them to repeat themselves

This is me! And the same holds when speaking to my friends and relatives on the phone. If I am looking at them I can grasp what they are saying, but on the phone it is hopeless. IT is super embarrassing. It isn't their accent; I blame my ears.

Yup, I'm like Tep. I still have a drawl from my year and a bit that I spent in college in Tennessee. I bring it out mostly to fuck with people, though. If I move back there, I'll need to cut it out, probably!

My sister is really susceptible to picking up the accents of the people she's talking to, but when she actively tries to speak with a given accent it ends up being a mess.

Yup, me too.

Our Utah cousins are coming to town for a visit soon. Mildly dreading the political discussions that might ensue. I'm predicting that the one is voting for Hillary and the other is voting for Trump, but I guess we'll see.

My son got into the same magnet as his sister, although that was considered pretty much a given. But hey, they'll both be at the same school again! For a year, then it's off to high school. Yipes!

I also have a weird accent that I use when I sing, and I have no idea where it's coming from.

My son got into the same magnet as his sister, although that was considered pretty much a given. But hey, they'll both be at the same school again!

Yay!

For a year, then it's off to high school. Yipes!

Yikes!

It used to make me giggle a bit, these British rockers singing with a forced blues-southern accent, mimicking their musical heroes. As if that's the way lyrics *must* be pronounced.

It always perks up my ears a bit when an actor pulls out a legitimate regional south accent rather than fake generic "southern." And though I have soft consonants and the occasional slurred vowel, I don't think I have as area-specific an accent as I grew up with. But my ears do snap to attention when I hear rural NC on my teevee. Such as Leon Rippy on Saving Grace. Or the occasional NC LEO interviewed on national news.

I pick up a hint of a Southern accent when talking to my dad's family or a couple of very country friends, and one time found myself adopting elements of a Boston accent when talking to a group of strangers from there at a tailgate party in North Carolina. But I seem to be immune to picking up Texas, West Coast, and Chicago accents as well as those from other countries.

When I was in middle school a friend who'd moved here from New York said I was the only person in our class he could understand at first—somehow I grew up speaking like a newscaster from the Midwest rather than either of my parents or pretty much anyone I was exposed to as a young child.

After years on the phones, I'm finally able to tell some of the Southern accents apart. I really love a true Georgian/South Carolina drawl. Texas just sounds harsh. I don't hear many Cajun, and Kentucky/Tennessee doesn't quite ping me. Maybe it's because of the Southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia I grew up with.

I got a lot of "Are you English?" when I went to college, but I've lost a lot of it from 30 years in Utah. When I'm tired or in a really good mood, though, the old accent comes back.