Uh...

GLAD TO HEAR THAT!!XD

To tell the truth, Taiwaneses (my parents' nation) never discriminate me specifically due to my accented Chinese

The main reasons they judge me is always due to my difference in opinions and the way I think (It's more mental than physical- accent is physical)

Accent doesnt really bother me as much as my other aspects of my "TCKness" XD HAHA!!

:-)

My accent changes depending on whom I am speaking to. After living in Australia for a while I mostly pass for an Australian but often get asked about the British, South African or Zimbabwe influences (have lived in the UK, have never even been to Africa though, I guess people assume my mixed accent is closest to Saffa or sth. Interestingly enough I have had a lot of South Africans tell me what a nice accent I have, but have never said that I sound Iike I am from Durban or something). There are quite a few accents that I "fall into" when speaking to someone from there as well...I was talking to someone British the other week and they asked me which part of the UK I was from (I haven't been there for 20 years).

Haha, my accent switches from British, to American, to Indian to slightly Chinese, all in a span of 5 mins. And sometimes I'd be talking to one person in one accent and then turn to the person next to me and start talking in an entirely different one.

It makes me feel really self-concious when people point it out, and I make an effort to keep them under control, as I know some people who love to point out, "Dude, you're doing it again!" in loud tones, and then proceed to make fun of me when others ask what they're talking about.

Not fun.

hahaha...this happens to me too!!
my mothertongue is Spanish ("Chilean Spanish") but eversince I moved out of CHile at age 13 my Spanish accent has changed...lol. I really don´t care what my friends from Chile say about it. In fact, I rather speak differently from most people. That way they can tell taht although I look 100% Chilean I am NOT. hehe. The only thing that sucks is that if I spend any longer than 3 months in Chile I sound 100% native and I can´t help it.

With my English accent...well, I learned English in the Philippines but I never spoke like a Filipina because I went to an international school with American ESL Teachers. My closes friend there was African American so I said a lot of words the way she did..lol...and of course there were traces of my Hispanic background.
After living for 17 months in the US though I sound much more "white" American and not Hispanic-African Amerian...lol. It all depends on whom I hang out with or what my friends sound like. I talk like them without even thinking about it.

I guess it´s part of adjusting..

but yea, I also feel distant from my friends from all over when they comment on my accent. its pretty easy to start sounding the way i did when i met them, though...so its not that big of a deal for me :)

i guess it will be a bit more annoying next year though, because im going to argentina for college and i´ll take a communciations major. so im SURE my spanish will change and ill end up sounding argentinian. Chileans HATE that...haha..so i know i´ll get teased a lot..but whatev.

I wouldn't worry too much. An accent is a fairly... superficial thing. It's something you notice, definitely, and something you might comment on, but fairly unimportant as friendships are concerned. Yes, it does suggest the change that you've gone through in your own directions, but as people have said, the friendship remains.

It'd be a pretty funny situation if someone were to make and stay friends with you on account of your accent. ;) But then, it has been known to be an attractive factor for some people, as I saw the group of American girls crowd around one Irishman.

My closest friends never really comment on my accent. We've gotten to the point that my whole 'tck' thing is just another oddity of my personality. im slightly wacky as it is, so why not add that whoel shabang in it?

but some of my less close friends comment on it. I don't generally like to talk about my accent with people, because I know it changes, and it shows how far I've moved on, while, though they are moving on with their own lives, they are still in the same place. When people tell me what my accent is, i just smile and nodd.

Oddly, I am very bad at imitating accents, but i pick them up so easily. While, my brothers accent always stays the same, but he can imitate accents perfectly.

Recently I just had another experience of the changing accent. Somehow I caught on and I don't even know why, people don't really talk like this from this part of Connecicut that I am currently living!

I developed an odd Bostonian/Far East coast accent o.O Me and my boyfriend went up to Boston to visit for a weekend and while we were driving, me as a navigator was pointing out directions for him. Well something weird happened. An odd Bostonian accent slipped out of my mouth when I said "north". Instead of just "north" as you see it, I said it with the long drawl of the "O" and the almost non-existent "R". And it somehow became difficult to change back LOL I can slowly find myself using that accent with other words.

My boyfriend was really surprised for a sec and even me! We were like "whoa, where did that come from?"

I don't feel self-conscious and find it kind of cool :p I am not sure where it came from since I've only been back in the East coast for about 2 months. My last job was in the most Eastern part of CT where it's borderline Rhode Island and people there have a really strong accent. However, that was..2 years ago! I'd have lost it by now!

Somehow I picked up an accent and it stuck. My boyfriend's sister and brother-in-law lived in Boston for 3 years and they didn't pick up any!!

Odd...

Anyways, I think it's cool that we are able to do that because people can mistaken us as locals which I like but at the same time we get mistaken as foreign which I have learn to love. The reason being that I can always secretly surprise people with my abilities that they do not think I possess because I am supposed to be "foreign". I love the look on their face XD

On another note, I recently saw a piece of news where this lady who actually got her head injured during a motor accident ended up waking up one day with an East European accent. She's born and bred American and never left the continent of USA. It was a bit odd hearing her speak when she showed us her old accent on her recorded voicemailbefore her accident. A lot of people mistaken her for being Russian.

My sister laughs at me all the time :( LOL

@ CATHERINE

You and me both. I grew up in Australia where being "Ethnic" (immigrant parents) I developed a hybrid accent on however I was feeling ("British" when attempting to speak "clearly", a "wog" when I was natural - lol).

Than I moved to Canada where I was confused for Irish because I developed rrr's.

Than I went back to Australia. When people found out I was born there they got an attitude that I sounded "American" (though I lived in Canada lol).

Now...folks assume Europe, Australia on occasion but mainly NYC (a place I have never been to). I know when I lived in Atlanta no-one understood me so I spoke "hood". Now, I'm just a damn mess, lol...

I wonder where my accent will go on my next move, lol...

I think you put it best - "your lives had grown apart". Their commenting on your accent is only one way in which this is manifested. However, friendships are always in flux and a person is really fortunate if he/she can keep one or two friends over many of life's changes. I once read a book entitled Necessary Losses. It is about how we lose people in our lives as we grow and we grow by losing those people.

More to your point, my accent changes depending on whom I'm talking to. My husband thinks it's weird that my accent changes when I talk to my siblings and friends from 'home'. I just ignore him :-)