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  • What's up everyone!

  • I'm Andrea your RealLife English Fluency Coach,

  • and today we're taking an in-depth look at a range of British English Accents.

  • If you haven't seen it already I highly recommend you check out this lesson that we did

  • on little known secrets of the British accent where we had a look at how the British accent

  • can tend to get confused and misinterpreted in American TV shows and movies.

  • In today's lesson, we're going to travel around Great Britain to see a range of accents

  • because there are so many and most of these don't get depicted in TV series and movies,

  • so we don't have time to look at all of them.

  • There are very, very many but we're going to start off by taking a look at a few in today's lesson.

  • So Emma Watson is really famous for her portrayal of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series,

  • but as she has become older and I think because she's lived in America more,

  • you'll find that her accent has changed a little bit.

  • She does have a modern RP accent which is quite popular with youngsters today,

  • particularly in London but also in other parts of Britain.

  • That is to say she does speak more like the Queen's English but a more modern version.

  • It's a little bit less formal and you'll hear it when you see the clip.

  • Now, the first thing we're going to take a look at is the way that she says "that I've."

  • You'll actually hear her saying it more in American English. She says "that I've"

  • and that is with the Tap T sound so in American English when you don't pronounce the T

  • but your tongue hits the roof of your mouth, that is called a Tap T.

  • And that is how she says these two words.

  • Now in British English we have something similar called a glottal T and there are usually two ways of saying the T.

  • So if you heard me the first time I said "that I've"

  • so there that is called a true T where you actually hear the T sound.

  • Now remember Emma used an American accent here

  • and she said "that I've" so a glottal T in British English is where you don't hear the T but there is a sound there.

  • It's more to do with the stopping of the air so I could say "that I've".

  • So you don't hear the T but i'm stopping the air from coming out of my mouth

  • and then it's released so it's quite subtle, but you do hear a difference.

  • So the three would be American English.

  • "that I've" you can have the true T "that I've" and then you have the glottal T "that I've"

  • so you can notice the difference there if you listen very closely.

  • So just to explain it a little bit further the glottal T is used when the T comes in the middle of a word

  • or at the end of a word.

  • Never at the start.

  • If a T is at the start of the word we always pronounce it.

  • So you can hear a glottal T in words such as "water".

  • So that's a true T where I'm pronouncing the T "water" but with a glottal T we would say "water".

  • So that's kind of very Cockney but it is also found in many other parts of Britain where people use a glottal T.

  • It's not just a London thing.

  • Other words such as "city" so with a true T: "city" and with the glottal T "city".

  • So, I'm holding in that air when I'm not pronouncing the T sound, and then I release it so "city"

  • It's quite in the throat, and there is a sound there so there is a sound there but you cannot hear the T

  • and when you have that T sound at the end of words, it might sound like this so instead of saying "light"

  • I would say "light" and instead of saying "right" I would say "right".

  • Now if you listen to the way that Emma says "put together" you'll notice that the first T is not sounded.

  • This is because T is a plosive speech sound.

  • That is to say, when you make that sound some air is released.

  • So what happens when two T's come together at the end of one word and at the start of another

  • is that first one is not released because it just wouldn't sound right.

  • It would be really strange to try and pronounce them both, and say "put together".

  • It just seems like too much effort, so to make it easier that first one comes away and we say "put together".

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  • Now the schwa sound which you may have heard about is probably the most common sound

  • and the one that you would really need to learn about if you want to sound like a British native.

  • So where words end with "er" for example we don't really pronounce that R again.

  • It has more of an sound as in "umbrella".

  • So rather than saying "together" and pronouncing that r or like in american english saying together,

  • in British English we say "together".

  • So you can hear it in words such as "together, brother, mother".

  • So I hope you can hear that at the end there that is the schwa sound.

  • So it's more of an "uh" sound. You'll hear it in other words as well not just words that end with er.

  • For example, you'll hear it in survive so we don't say survive we say survive it's very very subtle.

  • So next we're going to travel up north and take a look at the Manchester accent which we actually call a Mancunian accent.

  • We're going to take a little look at Liam Gallagher, who does have quite a strong accent

  • but we're going to look at how he pronounces some words so as I mentioned before even in Cockney London

  • accent the h at start of words is often not sounded out and you'll hear Liam Gallagher do that as well in this clip

  • so instead of saying "have" he'll say "av" so instead of saying "I had a good time"

  • some people might say "I ad a good time".

  • another interesting word that he pronounces here is glasses

  • so he actually says glasses and this is really more in north of england as well as scotland and wales

  • it's only more in the south and in particular london where we say these words with a longer r sound

  • so generally in britain you'll hear words like glass dance pass with a shorter a sound

  • glass dance pass but in london and accent we have that elongated r sound.

  • Did you notice how instead of saying myself he actually said myself

  • now i think historically this was an influence from Irish English because in the north of england

  • especially liverpool is very close to the um to the sea and very close to ireland and so over time

  • the irish actually influenced the way that brits would say particular words so definitely in the north of england

  • you will hear people often say myself instead of myself

  • so we're now going to journey back down a little bit in between london and manchester to birmingham

  • so birmingham is found in the midlands and we're going to be looking at a clip from peaky blinders

  • now it's worth noting that even i struggle to understand them when they speak sometimes on peaky blinders

  • and i do actually watch the show with subtitles to make sure i don't miss anything

  • but if you do ever visit birmingham itself you'll find this accent is not quite as strong as in the show

  • and you will understand people a lot better so one thing that's really distinctive in this accent is the way

  • they pronounce the uh so it's that u sound that's found in the middle of words or sometimes at the start

  • and in london for example we would pronounce this as uh so when i say us it has that sound that you would

  • associate with the letter but here you can hear them say "ooz"

  • and you hear it in the way that they say pub as well

  • so in the south of england we would say pub but as you can hear in the birmingham accent we can hear pub

  • so it has more of an uh sound quite a short uh sound maybe as in good this sound is synonymous with more

  • northern accents you will hear it the further north you go up um in the british isles so it's not just a birmingham

  • accent but here it is very very strong.

  • so you'll notice that any time the word of is said it actually connects with the word before and after it

  • so we don't actually hear the v sound so when he says a lot of money it sounds like a lot of money

  • so it's more of a connected speech and here are some examples to see that even further

  • you can also hear this when he says a lot of money so rather than saying a lot of money he says a lot of money.

  • so again he's just shorting in it it makes it easier to say and again that you will find a lot in birmingham

  • did you also notice the way that he said pour it so when we say poor it has more of an elongated sound

  • but if you hear the way that thomas shelby says it in this clip he says pour it so again it has more of an ooh sound

  • but they also roll the r ever so slightly so you do hear the r sound a lot more than you would with an rp accent

  • or a more london or southern accent

  • if you'd like to learn a little bit more about british english and also the difference between this

  • and american english i highly recommend that you listen to our podcast where ethan and i actually went through

  • a whole load of different words that are different in britain and america so you can check out

  • in the description box below that link so you can listen to it after this lesson

  • so we're now going to travel a little bit further west to wales and did you know that catherine zeta jones

  • is in fact welsh you may not have realized because her accent is probably not quite as strong now

  • from living in America for so long but she is in fact from wales

  • now in this clip she describes the welsh accent

  • and i really like the way that she describes it because she says that it's sing-songy

  • now what does that mean if someone describes something as sing-songy

  • they mean that it sounds like a song so as you can hear in this clip the way that she talks there's a lot

  • of intonation and it does very much sound very sing-songy

  • i think that this is probably the best way to describe the welsh accent but it is also important to know that again

  • depending whether you're in the north or the south of wales the accent will be very different

  • i do find that they are a lot stronger in the south of wales than they are in the north

  • and the north as it's so close to liverpool manchester does have a little bit more representation of these two

  • accents so in this next clip from one of my favorite british tv series gavin and stacy

  • stacy is in fact from wales and you will hear a stronger welsh accent here

  • so let's see what you think

  • so we're now moving further north all the way to scotland and here you will hear a glaswegian accent

  • which means this person is from glasgow he is probably the most successful football manager

  • in the history of the game sir alex ferguson

  • now you'll probably notice in this clip that many sounds within words are unstressed

  • so it can be quite difficult to actually understand sometimes what is being said

  • for example the way that he says definitely

  • so you can hear that i'm pronouncing most of the sounds in that word definitely

  • but here he says it's so fast it's very easy to miss it he says definitely

  • so it's quite tricky to understand sometimes what is being said

  • You will also notice with a scottish accent that the r sound is more prominent at times they tend to roll the r

  • not so much but definitely maybe that one time so that you do hear it a little bit more

  • i do believe that in tv series and movies sometimes this accent is exaggerated and a little bit overdone

  • because they don't roll the r's that much but you can hear it there a little bit

  • this is in fact called a tapped r so you'll hear it in words such as bright so in scotland you'd hear it more as bright

  • and words such as red so they would say red

  • so you can hear that i am rolling that r a little bit

  • but not too much so it's called a tapped r another interesting thing to note about

  • the scottish accent is the way that they say words such as good and food and mood

  • so that double o sound in british english is most commonly that sound an ooh sound mood food

  • but in scottish accents you will hear that shorter sound as in good so they will say food rather than food

  • so as you've hopefully learned in today's lesson you will see that all around britain there are so many different

  • accents so many that we couldn't even cover them all in today's lesson so we just picked a handful for you

  • just to get started so that you can understand more native english so if you'd like to learn more british english

  • i highly recommend that you check out our playlist to learn more about this