Martha N. wrote:
I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?

Is it too late? Or will he automatically pick up the local
pronunciations when he spends more time with local people?

Children always conform to peer groups (although rarely to parents). He
will quickly pick up the local accent whether you want him to or not.

In 1972, I came from the Midlands (of England) to live in Yorkshire. I have
absolutely nothing against the Leeds accent, it's lovely, but as things
turned out I have picked up very little of it -- except that I now say "ont'
table", or even "ont'able", etc, instead of "on the table" etc . My wife,
who I married a couple of years after I came here, has even less of a Leeds
accent than I have -- she does not even stoop  to "ont' table". Our two
children, before school age, spoke with the same accent as we have. Within a
year of starting school, they were talking with a slight Leeds accent. That
was enough for them to be able to bluff their way through the Leeds
schooling system without being picked on.

I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?

Is it too late? Or will he automatically pick up the local
pronunciations when he spends more time with local people?

Martha N. wrote:

I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?

Is it too late? Or will he automatically pick up the local
pronunciations when he spends more time with local people?

Children always conform to peer groups (although rarely to parents). He
will quickly pick up the local accent whether you want him to or not.

In article <667sf9F2i6pt9U4@mid.individual.net>,
robban1@bigpond.com says...
Martha N. wrote:

I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because
he pronounces some things the American way, especially the d
for t in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?

Is it too late? Or will he automatically pick up the local
pronunciations when he spends more time with local people?

Children always conform to peer groups (although rarely to
parents). He will quickly pick up the local accent whether you
want him to or not.

This is true. YoungBloke is linguistically a Mancunian despite
my being a southerner and OldBloke being a West Countryman.
That's from nursery. Once he starts school in September his
accent will change to Wet Yorks.

Martha - my son (4) is aware that some people say things
differently.

I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?

Is it too late? Or will he automatically pick up the local
pronunciations when he spends more time with local people?

Thanks for any advice.

I've found the replies interesting.

On Apr 11, 1:10 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

People tend to settle (unconsciously) on the regional and social
dialect they'll have for the rest of their life (see other responses
in this thread) during their middle teens, when they first become
acutely aware of social pressure and peer groups.

This is as may be, but the accent people have is very much about who
they identify with. [...] Now that I have been living in Southwestern
Finland for half my lifetime, I have adopted both the local accent
and many local dialectal traits. Few people believe I am from Eastern
Finland at all when they hear me speaking. The fact is that I rather
like it here and identify with the place, and have even started
taking an interest in local history. The industrial casualty where I
grew up I never liked, or identified with. It always was a place to
get away from.

"Martha N." <martha@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message

I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

I've found the replies interesting.
My parents were from the midlands and say things like "b-ar-th" and
"gr-ar-ss". I was brought up in the north where it's a short "a" rather than
"ar".

On Apr 11, 6:23 am, Matthew Huntbach <m...@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:

We need to remember, when communicating with Americans, that they
pronounce their 'r's. So what you write as "ar", they will think of
as symbolising "arrr". You could write it as "ah" to convey the

And then there are those Americans who say warsh instead of wash
(appropriately making Washington Warshington).

Martha N. wrote:

I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?
Is it too late? Or will he automatically pick up the local
pronunciations when he spends more time with local people?

A bit of American would probably be considered rather glamorous anyway,
your child might be admired for it rather than bullied.

But likelihood
is he'll grow up able to switch it on when talking to you, and switch
it off when talking at school.

On 2008-04-11 11:52:09 +0200, Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> said:

[ ... ]



A bit of American would probably be considered rather glamorous anyway,
your child might be admired for it rather than bullied.

That is certainly true. Most people in Europe (especially children)
think that American television programmes present an accurate picture
of American life, and consequently find the idea of being Amerrican

very glamorous.

But likelihood
is he'll grow up able to switch it on when talking to you, and switch
it off when talking at school.

My advisor's younger son, last I saw him, had an accent
much like his parents' New York accents, though he had spent all his
life (early teens at the time) in Illinois

On Apr 10, 6:51 pm, "John Dean" <john-d...@fraglineone.net> wrote:
Martha N. wrote:
I'm American but live in England with my English husband. Our
three-year-old must've picked up his speech from me, because he
pronounces some things the American way, especially the d for t
in words like "wadder" and "nawdy" (water and naughty).

We plan to stay here and I don't want him to be picked on in
school for the way he talks.

Can we retrain him not to sound American? How?

Is it too late?

Uh huh.
But not too late to teach him to lie and claim he's Canadian.
Or you could change the way *you* speak and let him pick *that* up.

Well, no, she can't really, since she's presumably more than 16 years
old or so.

2. Do you really think that 4-year-olds are picked on for the way they talk?
By whom? The other kids? The teachers? If he _is_ picked on, or if he feels
uncomfortably different, you'll discover that at his age he'll learn to
conform in no time. Whatever transpires, there's no need for any
"retraining".