Thursday 16 May 2013

A Human Parrot?

Do you ever find yourself picking up the speech mannerisms of the people you spend lots of time with?

I ask because it's something I find myself doing but don't know if that's just me, or if everyone does it.

Like, when I lived in England for the year, I came back and was told I had a huge English accent.  I didn't know, I wasn't trying or anything.

And I've been told my French accent is pretty good, probably because I learned from native French speakers and just picked up the way they pronounce things, so I think that maybe my brain just hears things and mimics them.

Maybe I'm like a human parrot or something.

Anyway, the reason I started thinking about this is that I've noticed that I'm starting to say things the way Jay says them.  Just, like, his little funny ways of saying this that or the other and without knowing it I've started doing it too.

It's funny.


2 comments:

Jonathan Beckett said...

I think everybody is different. My Uncle seems to shift accent (he lives in San Francisco). When he is over here, he loses his American accent almost entirely - and when he goes back, it re-appears.

I know other people that have been in the UK for years (Australians, etc) - and they haven't lost their accent at all.

Victoria said...

Fair enough!