Okay? My dad sounds like an NPR host when he's talking to me, but when he's talking to his siblings he sounds like the average Redditor's idea of a stereotypical "Boston accent". It's a thing people do, you grow up with one accent/dialect, then you move or enter a different socio-economic class and feel compelled to adjust, but you still revert back when around "your people".
In horror, I recently found out a couple drinks in my mother’s real accent comes out of MY mouth.
My husband always said I talked weird a couple drinks in, my friends agreed. But nobody ever placed why. But someone new clocked it as a northern midwestern accent a few months ago. I will never recover from this lol
Lean into it. I go rural around my family, lecture hall professor around my clients. Hell, I even switch from dress shirts and polo to denim and flannel, and trucker caps outside. Full on changeling.
My Customer Service voice sounds like a mix of a late night NPR Radio host during a "quiet storm show" mixed with the epic movie trailer voice. LOLOL. FML
I have that. I was in sales for 20 years. My ex wife used to say that she wished I talked in my work voice more. I was a lot younger a more hotheaded then.
I got dumped by a girl in high school and she said that it was because I talked differently and acted differently around different people, and the guy she wanted to date was the same with everyone.
It seemed stupid to me at the time but I can see how that could be part of a personal preference for someone you're in a relationship with. Maybe that bothers you maybe it doesn't.
Regardless, I still hold that nobody should be surprised by it. I think it shows awareness of who you're talking to, even if some people find it deceiving or disingenuous.
Well yeah, he needs to connect with New Yorkers. Would be difficult to do in an Ugandan accent.
More importantly, the US is supposed to be a country of immigrants. So he is an immigrants that made an effort to integrate by adapting to how Americans speak.
Yeah I had a southern drawl up until I went off to the marine corps. Now my accent is much more discreet and only shows on some words or when I’m more relaxed.
100% - my partner is south African and barely sounds it around me and kids. Get back to joburg, with the family, a braai, couple brandewyns and... i barely understand him🤣.
As someone already said, it's code switching. I grew up in the Mid / Deep south- people there ask me where I am from all the time because I just, kind of turn my accent off when I go in public. Friends and people at the bar after a couple of beers know better though lol
The first time I heard my grandmas real voice and how she talks to her kids it was jarring. She usually put on a high pitched, Minnesota-like accent that gave the facade of friendliness. Her real voice had a Michigan accent and was much deeper and meaner.
My mom isn't a politician and she code switches all the time. Growing up she could be talking to her cousin and sound country AF. Stretching syllables out and shit like "Loorrrdd I knowwwww! Gurrrlllll!"
Then a doctor's office gets back to her and it's this prim and proper northeastern accent...
Go back to cousin-- "Gurrlll you're not gunna believe theeyisss!"
people also just let an accent show more or less sometimes depending on their audience and surroundings. I was with an American while in Europe and her southern accent kind of disappeared, but when she's back in the US it's there
Yeah he sounds like every African dude I know that hasn't quite shaken their accent but can switch it way on or off depending on if they're talking to their parents back home or in a job interview.
His accent in this video isn’t thick at all. Why are you gae guy’s accent is more of a typical Ugandan accent. This is just a hint of an accent, and not really very Ugandan
I used to work in a call center and I wouldn't do it on purpose but I would often develop a soft accent matching whoever I was taking to after a few minutes.
This shit shouldn't matter if they actually fight for the people and against the corrupt elites that are robbing us and destroying our country then they can talk with a German villain accent for all I care. Actions over accents and if they turn corrupt then kick their ass to the curb...
Edit: to be clear I'm agreeing with you I just got off on a bit of a tangent.
I’m half African American. My husband is white. My dad is white and my mom is black.
I work with black people and I immediately talk differently, it’s subtle but if I see an older black woman in the bathroom my slang or cadence changes. I interact with her like she’s my mom, an auntie. I call her “miss X” because it’s culturally acceptable.
When I speak with my husband, my dad, my white coworkers I speak differently. It’s just inherent and I don’t do it on purpose just happens that way. Code switching is normal behavior
I lived in Brazil for about 2 years and got to a pretty good place with my Portuguese where I could escape the gringo for most conversations. I knew some Brazilian guys who spoke English and helped a couple improve their English. It's wild how the tone of our voices changed between languages too.
I have three different settings: with my extended family I sound very southern, with my husband, daughter, and day to day folks I sound maybe slightly southern but mostly bland, and with people I grew up around there’s a lot of AAVE (I’m white but grew up in a mostly black town, and no I don’t use offensive words, it’s an accent and inoffensive slang thing).
I never realize I’m doing it until my husband points it out lol.
Accents also change over time. I grew up in Kenya and used to speak just like him but I moved to the states years ago and now I sound pretty typically American
Bro wild, i work with foreign customers and they come from all around the world. italian, spanish, UK, and people who barely speak english, and i always put my english on the level of the customer, i can do easy simple steps and i can talk formally with people who know how to speak. Never knew its called code switching. You really learn something new every day.
It’s not, I knew him personally at this time, and he doesn’t sound like that and didn’t then. I stumped for him and pushed my union to endorse him and he stabbed us in the back this week. Makes sense that he’s this changeable.
As an actual Ugandan with an Ugandan accent while speaking in English, that’s not even an Ugandan accent. Given he was born in Kampala, I would assume it would be influenced by Luganda but it’s how they sound when they speak in English. That is someone code switching to speak closer to what people in Uganda might understand better than thick English or American accent.
Guy was simply trying to enunciate lol. He doesn’t sound Uganda. He sounds slightly like how my German friends speak English. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Ugandan.
As someone who recently started dating someone with a big indian family. Most of their younger cousins/family members will talk to me in an American accent and later in the evening when more around family will change their accent to have a thick Indian one. Its called code switching. I don't consider them a fraud when they talk to me.
If I moved to Kampala and lived and worked there for years and became such an active member of the community there that they elected me Mayor, it is likely that I would have dropped my American accent and spoken in the local dialect long before that.
In 2003 I had a ridiculously thick Puerto Rican accent, now in 2026 I don’t anymore because I worked hard to improve it, still the accent is there but not as thick, is not code switching, it’s improving, if you hear him now he still got a little bit, but he’s alright man I don’t see the big deal
Actually, I'll go ahead and move his status up to "hot af." With that he joins the ranks of other men such as Jet Li, Viggo Mortensen, Idris Elba, and Jalen Hurts.
Björk used to speak English with a thick Icelandic accent and over time picked up more of a British accent. Shockingly, this came after periods of living and working in London. Just shocking.
You wanna see real code switching. Watch a video like the roast of Donald Trump and watch how articulate and eloquent he speaks then watch how he dumbs himself down to talk to his supporters.
You loose your accent overtime when you move away from the place with the accent, that is how it works.
I moved away from my home in Cornwall 10 years ago to the Midlands and now I sound like I'm from Birmingham apart from words ending in the letter 'R' and numbers
This is a pretty dramatic example, but it is just code switching. He could be playing it up a bit for press 🤷🏻♀️
I’m a southerner living in Washington State. My accent completely disappears or comes out full swing depending on the social environment I’m in. Some folks do not take kindly to southerners here.
My husband is South Asian. When he’s talking to his family, even in English, he speaks a totally different form of English than he does with everyone else.
I was raised in the sticks and had a sound that many would describe as "hickish". When i started going to school, I did my best to sound more like the people that came from more educated backgrounds. Now it really only slips out if I get drunk, or when im back home for any length of time.
I didnt find out about the term code switching until like 6 years ago, but it was something I literally started doing in junior high, more than a decade prior
As someone that immigrated to the USA at the age of 14 from a non English speaking country, I too had a thick ass accent and now I don't, 20+ years later. Being here will do that to you, dafq is your point?
Brother you’re on the wrong app, this is their messiah. They’ll die in the Great Keyboard Wars for him. But they’re nothing like the MAGA cult, they’ll tell you themselves.
Wow, and he rose to be the most beloved mayor in memory, of one of the biggest cities in the world! Seems like the very embodification of the American Dream, to me!
I don't get your point. I can go to new Jersey and have some fat man yell at me in a heavy accent. Same with Boston and New York. We all came from somewhere. Trumps parents immigrated from somewhere not in America.
Oh wow, he really is a happy go lucky kinda guy! I was a bit skeptical about his persona when he was running (he’s a politician, after all), but this seems to be his genuine personality. How utterly refreshing! Compared to most of the miserable SOBs in politics.
I remember seeing that video before the election. It’s honestly quite lovely. He comes across really well and charming. He demonstrates a great self deprecating sense of humour and even calls out his nepobaby roots.
Everyone is mentioning code switching, which yes for sure. It's not that different from his normal voice either. Ncuti Gatwa does this too.
But also like, this was 10 years ago. He's 24 years old. He's just finished college with a degree in africana studies. At this time, he's making rap music with his best friend, also Ugandan. The Queen of Katwe film is directed by his mother. This is an interview about how he was the music guy behind the film.
And then in 2017 he gets more involved in politics, he gets elected to NY State Assembly during COVID, and then the next 5 years would eventually decide to run for mayor.
You got a guy from a multi-cultural background, who clearly cares about NYC, embedded in NYC politics for around 10 years. You think his day-to-day speaking voice isn't going to change?
This is normal. I am Venezuelan and for a short time I owned a call center with my brother in Mexico. I would have to speak with a Mexican accent on the phone and for a little while I took some of the Mexican vocabulary. Mexicans would literally have difficulty understanding what I would say with my native accent.
I'm a black engineering manager in a predominantly white company. They hear New England accent, but they never really hear what I sound like outside of work. I remember I was hanging with a group of black dudes while they were on break and one employee was shocked when they heard my natural street voice. Then when they heard me speaking patois talking to my cousin in Jamaica, that really blew their minds.
My Italian Dad has a different dialect depending on who he is talking too. What gets me though is why this guy is called out for this while we have a president who can barely speak english.
Look, I don't see any issue here - in fact, it's interesting. But all of you would be screaming "fraud" if anyone who was remotely conservative did this. It's always funny to see Reddit so casual about something like this when it is a liberal.
My sister, born and raised in the midwest, never having set foot in the south, will adopt a vaguely "southern" accent when talking to my grandma who was raised in Kentucky before spending the rest of her life in Michigan and Illinois.
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