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Hi, sorry if this has been discussed before.
My question is, if you're not a native English speaker (but you have been learning it for a few years) and you move to, say, England, do you usually pick up the local accent there? How long does it take?
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That is really hard to say, because it depends on:
-how old you are
-how good you are at picking up accents
-how much time you are willing to spend on practicing,
etc.
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Not too sure if this answers your question but I'll give you a few examples of people I know.
- A friend of mine moved to Australia from Vietnam when she was about 9 (she's 17 now). She speaks English very much like a native speaker, although with a few little glitches.
- My parents who moved here about 16 years ago, their accent is nowhere near as fluent as a native speaker (about 5.5 out of ten)
- A woman, a friend of my mums, moved here about 5 years ago. She only knows how to say "Hello", "Good" and "bye" and a few other minor words.
- I know a British girl who moved here at about 9 as well (who's also about 17 now), she still has a noticeable English accent.
So yes, it depends on all the things PB&J has said but also on the accent you had to start with. If you were say Indian, it might be a bit harder to shag off your original accent.
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