life in london: 2

2. accents

to the average north american, the british accent is very attractive. people are probably wondering whether we'll come back with an accent ourselves. the short answer is no.

what we didn't realise until we got here is that there isn't just one british accent. in fact, there are quite a few. actually, there's a distinct accent for just about every major city in the uk. because of that, the only way we'd be able to pick one up is to surround ourselves with only one accent, say, by moving to the countryside. (the other reason is that a surprising number of people in london don't even have english as their mother tongue).

here's a short list of different accents that you may come across:
london (cockney)
manc (manchester)
yorkie (yorkshire)
geordie (newcastle)
scouse (liverpool)
brummie (birmingham)
brizzle (bristol)
essex
and the public school accent (the 'proper' british accent that most people probably imagine when they think of a british accent)

toss the irish (north and south), welsh and scottish, aussies, kiwis and south africans in the mix too because there are plenty of them about to.

by the time we leave, we probably still won't be able to recognize all the various accents, let alone pick one up.