Name: Learn English with LOVE ACTUALLY | British Accents
Uploaded: 2022-06-24T09:39:27.000Z
Duration: 15 min 50 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

"Love Actually" is a British romcom from 2003, set in London at Christmas time. It follows

the lives of eight couples and their love stories. Now, it divides opinion. Some people

love this film. Some people not so much. Regardless of whether you love it or hate it, I think it's

a great film to learn English and to learn about British culture. So today that's exactly

what we're gonna do. I can't wait. So let's run the intro.

English. If you haven't met me before, my name is Tom and I teach fresh, modern British

English so that you can take your English to the next level and achieve your life goals,

whatever they may be. Now, today we're looking at "Love Actually". How can "Love Actually"

help us to learn English. I'm gonna divide this video up into two main sections. The

language section and the culture section. Let's start with the language section and

particularly with the accents. "Love Actually" does a good job of having a variety of accents.

Both regional British accents and international ones. The main accent you're gonna hear is

received pronunciation or RP as it's also known.

- There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?

- Now received pronunciation comes in different forms, and not just one. It's regarded by

many as the standard english that you'll hear and that's because it avoids non standard

grammatical forms and slang vocabulary. As I said there are many examples of RP in "Love

Actually". So if you take Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, they speak with a sort of main stream

RP accent. It's quite posh, very well pronounced, all the sounds and syllables are very well

- We will of course try to be clever, but lets' not forget that America is the most

powerful country in the world, I'm not gonna act like a petulant child.

- There are also examples of contemporary RP, which is maybe a little looser with some

of the sounds. So for example you might get a glottal T. So they might say wa'er instead

of water. But generally they're using RP. Kris Marshall in "Love Actually" is an example

- American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.

- So contemporary just means modern, so this is a modern version of Received pronunciation.

We've also got Martine McCutcheon, who plays Natalie, the prime minister's assistant. She's

from London, Wandsworth, in the film which is in South London, but she uses broadly a

London accent with features of a cockney accent,

- No, I've um, I've just spli' up with my boyfriend actually so I'm back with my mum

- Then you've got Liam Neeson who plays Daniel and he has a Northern Irish accent.

- I think it's brilliant. I think it's stellar apart from one obvious, tiny little, baby

- There's also a soft Welsh accent from Joanna Page who plays just Judy.

- Nice to meet you, Chuck. You got met right though. I'm just Judy.

- We all do. That's why we're making the new version.

- A Geordie accent which come from Newcastle.

- I understand you've got a prize for our competition winners.

- And there are a variety of American accents as well.

- Two years, seven months and three days and I suppose an hour and thirty minutes.

- Now in terms of learning English, "Love Actually" is fantastic for British English

vocabulary. Particularly in formal words and phrases. It's also super rude. I'd totally

forgotten how rude it was. I watched it back. There's a lot of swear words in it.

- Geez, here's a short scene that we're gonna look at really quickly. To see what kind of

vocabulary they're using here. Now what I want you to do is to watch it once, see how

much you understand. Then afterwards, I'll explain some of the vocabulary and we can

watch it again and see if you understand more. Alright, here we go.

- I've just worked out why I can never find true love.

- English girls, they're stuck up, you see? And I am primarily attracted to girls who

are, you know, cooler, game for a laugh. Like American girls, so I should just go to America.

I'ma get a girlfriend there instantly. What do you think?

- That's where you're wrong. American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British

- Okay, so in this scene, you've got Kris Marshall telling his friend that he wants

to go to America because he thinks he'll be more successful with women out there because

of his British accent. Now, let's pick out four words there. Stuck-up, first of all.

Stuck-up is an adjective and it means that you think you are superior to those around

you. You think you are better than anyone else. So he describes English girls as being

stuck-up. You've to the phrase game for a laugh. Game for a laugh, or up for a laugh

as well is another way of saying that. And that means you are keen to have fun. So he

says he is attracted to girls who are game for a laugh, who are up for a laugh, so girls

who are keen to have fun. Crap, okay some people see this as a bit of a rude word. It

means not very good, okay? So if you say something is crap, you're saying it's not good at all,

it's very bad. So, Kris Marshall's friend here is saying that his idea is not very good.

And dig, which I think probably comes from American English, just means like. So, they

might dig my accent, means they might like my accent. So if you dig something, you like

it. Very informal. Okay let's watch the scene again. See how much you understand now. Okay,

let's pick out some other words and phrases that are really useful.

- Just around the corner. Just around the corner means really close. Like not far away.

It doesn't literally mean like round a corner, it just means like, yeah, nearby. So in this

scene the school is very close to the house.

- I um, I was hoping you'd win. Not that I wouldn't be nice to the other bloke too, just

always give him the boring biscuits with no chocolate.

- Could there be a more British word than bloke. Bloke just means man, like a average

man. Now, you put an adjective in front of that so he's a nice bloke, he's a good bloke.

- No one's ever gonna shag you if you cry all the time.

- Ah, shag. Now this is an informal word to mean to have sex. They use it quite a lot

- Bingo, alright, I like this one, bingo. If you want to show a kind of satisfaction,

that something has happened that you wanted to happen or that's positive, you would say

bingo. So if you're looking for something and then you find it, you say bingo, got it,

like yes. In this example Keira Knightley is looking at the video footage of her wedding

and it's exactly what she wanted so the outcome is positive, so she says, bingo, this is perfect.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Learn English with LOVE ACTUALLY | British Accents

stick

pronunciation

accent

regret