T.

J.

Let's get straight into the questions.

I have loads to answer today.

Hello, everybody.

This is Elliot from E.

T.

J.

English.

On those of you who have been following me for a while or who have watched some of my older videos, you might know that we sometimes do a little thing here called Ask E T J Andi.

I usually run this on instagram on.

Basically, what I do is I post a picture on.

I ask you guys following me to ask me questions, and I'll answer them in my ask e.

T j video on.

We've had some great questions this month on I'm just gonna go straight into it.

So first question, Really good question.

Are there any accents which native British speakers don't understand?

Now, from my perspective, these air the accents eyes struggle to understand sometimes very strong Irish accents.

Very strong Scottish accents.

Jordi a k a.

The Newcastle accent on Sometimes the Scouse Liverpool accent can be quite difficult to understand depending how strong it is s Oh, yes, there are accents which I find even as a pronunciation teacher difficult to understand in the South.

We all kind of sound particularly similar.

And then when you go into the north, each city kind of changes quite drastically with pronunciation.

So yeah, it za strange country.

The UK next question.

How do I pronounce this word directly or directly Me personally again, As a pronunciation teacher on From where I'm from in the south of England, I would say directly.

Okay.

And that is how Cambridge Dictionary would recommend that you pronounce it if you were going for a let's say, RP style accent.

However, when we do talk fast in English, sometimes vowels become relaxed on.

Instead of being this def thong off, I die directly like in the word die, for example, some people will even shorten this word and replace the I with a Schwab sound.

And it could become directly.

I do this sometimes when I'm talking really fast so I could stress the word if the word was stressed in my sentence, for example, she was looking directly at me.

But if I'm not stressing the word directly so much, I might say she was looking directly at me.

She was looking directly at me.

Next, I've been asked How do we pronounce the word world now?

This one is difficult because we have the ER sound which already lots of my students find very, very difficult.

Some students taking my course take weeks to start getting this sound correct Weeks of daily practice.

It depends where you're from and what sounds you're familiar with already.

So, firstly, the er sound to pronounce this the tongue should be kind of floating in the middle of the mouth on the mouth is very relaxed.

But that's not where the difficulty is in this word.

The difficulty is joining from this vowel into what we call a dark l old world.

So from this earth, I need you to start closing your mouth slightly.

Look at me.

Oh, old.

Okay, so you start closing your mouth on the tongue will actually slightly lift up.

It's like what we call a half finished.

L So we're not completely doing a le we're going up is if we're going to start the luck sound, but we don't complete it.

So world now for lots of people, this takes ages to improve.

This is highlighted as a very difficult word in my pronunciation course on.

I've had ah couple of students.

You know who you are If you're watching this, who have been practicing just this word with me for many, many days and trying to get it perfect.

Now a question personally for me.

Thank you for this question.

Elliot.

Do you like Tranquility Base, Hotel and casino?

Lots of you might be thinking.

What's that?

It's not a casino and hotel.

It's not the place I go and visit.

It's for those of you who don't know it's my favorite band, Arctic Monkeys, their most recent album, which was released nearly a year ago.

Now and yes, I absolutely love it.

I think it was a nice step in a new direction.

It was what we call a concept album, which means it's very different to what they usually do.

It was experimental, they tried some new sounds and some new things, and I really enjoyed it, and I still listen to it today, along with all of their other songs, they will always be my favorite band.

No matter what they do, I will appreciate there changes and the things they do.

Those of you who have a favorite band or musician You appreciate when they try something different or something new on, Uh, that's when you're a true fan.

Really?

Elliot, how do you pronounce this on this?

Okay.

Can can.

Can't.

But let me quickly explain that you don't have to pronounce the word.

Can't as can't.

You can pronounce it as can't.

That is still as much British as saying Can't.

Okay, it's just as British.

So those of you who here people who are British say I can't do it.

You think that's an American accent?

It's not.

There are many different accents in the UK, as I said in Question one.

And if you hear someone say can't it doesn't mean they're American is just something Americans also do.

But also, people in the UK might say the act sound instead of our, so just understand that you can say it.

Either way, it's up to you saying with past, you can say past fast, fast, whatever you want.

It depends where you're from.

Depends what accent you like.

Um, don't be closed minded about this sound or this word.

OK?

Really good question here.

I do a pretty convincing RP accent, but I feel like I'm faking it.

Do Brits notice it when we're faking or kind of putting on an accent?

I guess.

Do they feel weird when I switched to my natural European accent?

So here's the thing.

I've been teaching people accents pronunciation for a very, very long time.

Andi.

When people start changing their accent, when people start trying to copy or emulate new sounds that I teach them, um, they do sound like an actor or an actress in the beginning, But it's the practice on the training of the muscles, which makes it stop sounding like that.

So if you're at that stage where you feel like you sound like you are acting that simply because you aren't familiar enough with the sounds, yet you're not familiar enough with the rhythm, the stress, the intonation.

You just haven't had enough practice on.

You feel a bit uncomfortable, but this stage, this actor stage, I sometimes call it the drama teacher phase, where you are over exaggerating everything.

That's what my drama teacher used to do in school.

Once you get past that phase, um, everything becomes Rosie.

It's just now that you need to make the most of these new sounds.

Practice using them, Andi, Eventually, it will sound better now.

Do British people notice this?

Not as much as you think.

Okay, the only thing we would be is impressed.

And I'm telling you this now, we will not think that person is putting on a British accent.

They're not from here.

What are they doing?

Go away.

We're not going to think that we're actually going to think Wow, they speak English.

Really?

Clearly.

That's impressive.

Even if you sound like an actor or an actress, so please don't stop because you feel that way.

Firstly, that actor actress sound will go away.

You will stop feeling it.

Secondly, British people don't notice it.

We actually are impressed by how British you sound okay, so we might notice it a bit, but only for good reasons.

On if bits of your European accent come in there, that's fine.

It just shows who you are, Andi, that your accent is changing.

Could you explain the pronunciation off a final S t in a word, like first on when the next word begins?

With a continent like certificate?

Yes.

So I don't say first certificate.

Too much happening there on.

This happens a lot with continents.

When we have a word which finishes with a continent, particularly when it's like a T or a D on the next word begins with a particular continent, we might drop one of the sounds.

So instead of saying my first certificate, I will actually say my first certificate for certificate for certificate.

Okay, this is my first pet.

My first pet.

Um, this is the first time I've done this the first time.

So what we're doing is we're kind of molding the two words together, dropping one of those teas or the final t at the end of that word.

First on, kind of just joining them together.

Same thing with the word last.

This is the last time last time.

So you will notice that this starts toe happen.

I'm not going to go into this kind of concept in all of the complicated words and ways to describe what we do.

Um, that's all saved for my pronunciation course.

There is a whole connected speech section about how we join words together, whether it's linking intrusive sounds, assimilation, illusion, all of these things we do also the global T you can learn about that in the final chapter of my course.

When you do join, can you tell me the steps to reach British pronunciation?

Here are my my tips patients immersion.

So being around and hearing things a lot, that's how you will improve your Internation.

The most patients daily practice.

Okay, even if it's 10 or 20 minutes every day.

Daily practice of that sound that you're studying at the time.

Uh, patients repetition.

Repeat, repeat, repeat to train the muscles.

Muscle memory on board patients.

Next question.

How do you pronounce the word close?

Okay, two ways.

You can pronounce it with the th if you want to, but I would say probably about 10 or 20% of people actually do in the UK Just say close close.

Like close the door.

Okay, I'm wearing clothes.

That means don't worry about pronouncing that th sound.

I find it hard to pronounce the word that in a sentence particularly, I imagine when you're talking fast Now, the reason why is probably because you're finding it difficult to get your tongue between your teeth when you're talking fast, we don't actually have to pronounce the th sound completely.

I just did it then.

Now the reason why is because it's quite difficult, quite challenging to get your tongue between your teeth every time you pronounce the th sound.

So there is something you can do, and it's particularly good for people who have large tongues like myself.

Just tap the sharp edge off your top teeth with your tongue, and this is only do this when you're talking fast.

Okay, when you're talking slowly, try to get your tongue between your teeth like that teeth.

But when you're talking fast, you can tap just there.

Sharp edge off your teeth and you create the sound is very quick, but it's unnoticeable when you're talking fast so people won't know that you're maybe not fully pronouncing the th sound.

This is what natives do on.

I want you to learn how to talk like a native, not like an actor.

As I said, So that's the sort of thing I teach my students in my course, little tips and tricks like that.

So there's one for free, so I think that's just about enough.

We've answered quite a lot of questions today.

I hope this has helped you I tried to make it a mixture off a bit about me.

A bit about pronunciation and a bit about learning pronunciation.

Now again, if you enjoy this Siris of ask E T j and you want there to be an episode three please let me know in the comments section below and give this video a thumbs up.

It really does help me out on Remember, if you want to join my pronunciation course, you can ask me questions like this anytime by voice message or written message on what's up.

When you're a member of my course.

Eso.

If you want to use me, then become my student personally.

Then feel free to join my pronunciation course e t j english dot com Andre and I will see you next time.

Thank you very much for watching guys.

Cheers.

Bye.