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People tell me i have an accent
I'm 13 years old and iv'e lived in India my whole life. Many people tell me I have an american accent but I don't think I do. Everyone in my family speaks English but i'm starting to feel self conscious about my accent
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An accent is the characteristic of the way you pronounce words. As such, everybody has one.
Unless other people cannot understand what you are saying, there is no reason to attempt to change your accent.
Language acquisition studies show that people's accents in their native language is primarily influenced by their peers. As such, if you are a native speaker of English, it is normal if you don't sound like your family members, especially if you spend a lot of time with friends with American accents. So, if it's your family members who are telling you that you have an American accent, maybe they're just noticing that you really don't sound like them.
Alternatively, if you have learnt English as a second language, it may be that you learnt it from someone with an American accent. In that case, it would mean that you have learnt it well.
Also, do you watch American TV shows? In some English-speaking countries outside of America, it is fairly common for adults to criticise young people for having an Americanised accent from watching too much TV.
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It is entirely possible for one member of a family to sound like they have an accent. One of my daughters while in grade school sounded like she had a "Boston" (east coast) accent even though the rest of us sounded like west coast where we lived. Cant say why it happens but those slight differences do happen. My daughter is in her twenties now and there is no longer any accent. A females voice changes just as a boys does once you have ended up going through puberty. So whatever you sounded like in childhood is not how you're going to sound as a adult. There will always be the few exceptions but that is normal.
I would suggest talking to your family, letting them know how it makes you feel self conscious and ask that they stop referring to it.
Just the fact that you speak the english language shouldn't affect speech to sound like you have an English accent. Afterall your family still retains the accent of your native tongue when speaking english. It takes some serious voice training such as actors and actresses do for a role they are playing to take on a heavy Scottish,or Irish accent if they are American english. If you came to the U.S. to live one day, surrounded all the time by nothing but English speaking, the way you speak some words will change a little after a long time. It happens even here on the continent, moving to another part of the country, we sound different and strange even though still speaking English and eventually pick up a few of the ways of speech of the particular area we leave.
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You shouldn't feel self conscious about this. I can't obviously say whether you have an accent or not but it's definitely not a bad thing and I doubt people are saying it as if it were a negative thing. Don't be bothered by it so much, it just makes you cooler if you have an accent, a lot of people actually like people with accents because they just sound amazing so be proud of it :)
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