Why Hasn't My Accent Changed After 10 Years Living Abroad?

Rethinking Linguistic Identity Beyond the Pressure to Sound "Native"

Picture by Mantas Hesthaven, from Unsplash

A Colombian friend recently asked me, "Why hasn't my accent changed, in either English or Spanish, after 10 years living in London?" The answer can be complicated. We'd need to look into his community in London, his aptitude for languages, the age when he arrived, his sense of identity, cognitive abilities, education, and many other factors. But there's also a short answer: why should it change?

The Complex Reality of Language Learning

As a psycholinguist, I've spent years researching how different groups process language. We tend to simplify language acquisition to "learn young, sound native; learn as an adult, have an accent." But the truth is far more nuanced.

Some people are simply more talented language learners than others—no different from running, where some people complete marathons while some of us struggle with a 5K. It's not only about age. How, where, with whom, and how much you use the language matters tremendously.

Location Isn’t Enough

Living in London doesn't guarantee using English extensively. If you work in a Spanish-speaking office and socialize primarily with Spanish speakers, your English exposure remains limited. Consider English retirees in Marbella, Spain—many never learn Spanish despite living there for years because their communities provide all necessary services in English. Being surrounded by a language doesn't automatically create the need or interest to master it.

The Social Context Shapes Your Accent

Who you interact with significantly impacts your accent development. If your London workplace and social circle consist of international people with varied accents, you'll be exposed to diverse speech patterns without pressure to conform to any particular one. Conversely, if you're surrounded by people with a specific accent who criticize divergent speech, you'll feel immense pressure to mimic them.

I notice this in my own English. When speaking with Americans unfamiliar with foreign accents, I instinctively try to sound more American. When communicating with our Bengali janitor, whose English is limited, I somehow exaggerate my Spanish accent. It’s as if I try to be as non-American as him.

Accents Are Always Evolving

If we compared recordings of my friend's speech before and after moving to London using phonetic analysis software, we'd likely detect subtle differences. I'm convinced that he no longer sounds like the average Colombian in his demographic who hasn't left Bogotá. The changes might be imperceptible to him but would be visible in a spectrogram analysis.

Shout out to my phonetics professor Joseph Casillas who taught me to use Praat

Accent shifts occur not only in our second languages but in our native ones too. When I hosted my college radio show in Salamanca, Spain, my mother would listen and comment, "Pareces una niña pija de Madrid" (You sound like a posh girl from Madrid). This observation reveals something crucial in communication: the way I spoke on air differed significantly from how I normally talked to my mother. We all adjust our speech patterns based on context, audience, and purpose—often without realizing it.

The Most Important Question: Why Change?

We've internalized the idea that speaking a language well means sounding like a specific type of native speaker—"John from Ohio"—which directly connects to our stereotypes about those speakers. I've never met anyone learning English who aspires to sound Nigerian, partly because Nigerians aren't typically seen as a community of power.

We need to challenge the notion that speaking a language well means sounding a particular way. When people in positions of influence (like media personalities) exhibit diverse accents, it normalizes linguistic variation. Chef José Andrés exemplifies this beautifully—he's built a restaurant empire in the US and created an impactful nonprofit feeding people in crisis zones, all while proudly maintaining his accent. Perhaps that distinctive perspective allowed him to envision how things could be different.

Our accents are part of our identity. Instead of asking why they haven't changed, perhaps we should celebrate what they reveal about our unique journeys through language and life.