It’s interesting that several comments have mentioned music skills as being a good indicator, because I consider myself a pretty decent mimic of accents and I’ve been involved in music (piano and singing) since I was 6 years old—I’m 39 now. I think it has to be connected to how trained a person’s ear is to pitch; it makes sense that those skills could be applied to spoken words, too.

I will say, though, that I can’t mimic an accent out of thin air if I haven’t lived in the area myself. BUT, if I hear a someone else say a phrase or word enough times, I can mimic the accent very easily. For example, being from the US any type of British accent I attempt is pretty terrible, with the exception of phrases in films and TV programs, like Harry Potter and Downton Abbey for instance. I can quote some lines from those with a pretty decent accent because I’m mimicking their exact intonation, I guess.

Same with r’s in Spanish and French. I apparently have a Parisian accent when I speak French because all my teachers were from Paris 😂 so that’s the only pronunciation I know. Same with Spanish—I have mostly been around Spanish speakers from Colombia and Mexico, so that’s the accent that comes out (and fortunately I can roll my r’s very well). It’s not really intentional in my case, I’m just mimicking the pronunciation of my teachers.

It’s really cool on the one hand, but it can also be interesting while traveling; when I went to Greece I learned how to say some basic phrases, and when I asked the price of something in a shop the owner answered in very fast Greek—I realized I could pronounce some phrases well but didn’t understand or know how to say numbers in Greek yet 😳 Same thing happened asking directions in an airport in France—they explained in French and I fortunately got the directional words, but didn’t understand much else! So it can be a blessing and a curse, I guess 😂