My friend went to England on a student exchange for a year and mind you she is from newyork like me but her newyork accent was alot "heavier or stronger than mine and when she came back from england not only did her accent get alot lighter and now she sounds completely british which blew my mind.

I've personally never met an American that lives in the UK, regardless of how many years, that totally lost all remnants of their American accent.

There are three types of people when it comes to accents:

1. Those who genuinely and unconsciously absorb a new accent.

2. Those who never do,and retain their original accent forever.

3. Fakers! :-)

I know Americans who have lived in the UK for over 20 years and still have a strong American accent. I know others who retain a teeny bit of their old accent but have absorbed tons of British features in their speech. I also know Brits in America who either retain or have more or less lost their original accent.

Bear in mind that in the Northeastern USA, the accent is a little more 'British' in that many people do not rhoticize every R. Noo Yawk. Pahk the cah in the Hahvad Yahd. The rhotic R is a very heavy and recognisable feature of the General American accent and is hard to lose. If you didn't have it in the first place, British accents are a little closer?

never

1. accent is something the local people can tell you apart by

2, you could successively speak out a whole paragraph of words in an accent, but unfortunately fail one word of them , then you are caught,and any local knows that you are not one of them

3, as an intellectually middle level man , you may pick up some accent by staying in a certain area for a decade

4, as an intellectually high level man , you may learn how to say most of your words in an accent, but you WILL fail some words.

Because you are from New York, and here the accent everyday, it will sound a lot lighter.

English people will think she has an American accent though.

I know somebody from New York who has lived here for over 17 years. She has picked up some bits of our accent but still sounds American to us. However, I expect she sounds British when she goes home.

People tend to mimic what they hear so accents can and do change - I don't think you ever lose your original accent completely but it changes and becomes a halfway house between your original and what you have been exposed to.

My American wife has lived in the UK for 15 years and still has her American accent

Yes, if you live in a certain area for long enough, you will eventually get that accent

definitely, but only if you like it.