Accents

I'll answer in this, even though my speaking language isn't English. It's Finnish.

I lived my childhood in a small bordertown (5 miles to the border of Russia) that has its own accent VERY distinguishable from every other region/city in Finland. Speaking it sounds like citing a poem, it's quite lyrical and practically every word is a slang version of its original. Everyone natively Finnish speaking understands it, though. The weirdest thing is: it's extremely contagious. Before you know it, you have your friends from the other side of the country speaking with that particular accent to me and to each other. It's quite frightening, actually. The "contamination" can be permanent, meaning I've created another person speaking like that for the rest of their lives. =D

The power of words!

If it's English I end up speaking in a conversation, I try to keep it without the American accent (preferably talking in some form of British) - sounds like what the language was meant to sound like.

How ya doing, buddy?