25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

How to Speak in a British Accent

Accents that are particular to England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are each different and with practice you can begin to talk with one that sounds genuine. Along with the accents are mannerisms that you will need to assume to affect the part. The following directions may describe Queen's English or "Received Pronunciation" (RP) spoken in south England and Wales, rarely ever used in the modern-day United Kingdom, but the foreigners' stereotypical view of how the British talk. This study of RP is concerned largely with pronunciation, while study of the standard language is also concerned with matters such as correct grammar, more formal vocabulary and style.

Steps 1
Start with the Rs. Understand that in most British accents speakers don't roll their Rs (except for those from Scotland, Northumbria, Northern Ireland, and parts of Lancashire), but not all British accents are the same. For example, a Scottish accent varies greatly from an English accent. After a vowel, don't pronounce the R, but draw out the vowel and maybe add an "uh" (Here is "heeuh"). In words like "hurry", dont blend the R with the vowel. Say "huh-ree".

In American English, words ending with "rl" or "rel" can be pronounced using either one or two syllables, completely interchangeably. This is not the case in British English. "-rl" words like "girl", "hurl", etc, are pronounced as one syllable with silent R, while "squirrel" is "squihrul", and "referral" is "re-fer-rul". Some words are easier to say in a British Accent. For example, Mirror, which sounds like "Mih-ra". Do not say "mirror" like "mere"; British people almost never do that. Pronounce U in stupid and in duty with the ew or "you" sound. Avoid the oo as in an
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How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

American accent; thus it is pronounced stewpid or commonly schewpid, not stoopid, etc. Duty would be pronounced dewty or more often jooty. In the standard English accent, the A (for example, in father) is pronounced at the back of the mouth with an open throatit sounds like "Arh". This is the case in pretty much all British accents, but it's exaggerated in RP. In southern England and in RP, words such as "bath", "path", "glass", "grass" also use this vowel (bawth, pawth, glawss, grawss, etc.). However, in other parts of Britain "bath", "path", etc. sound like "ah".

Enunciate on heavy consonant words. Pronounce that T in "duty" as T: not as the American D as doody so that duty is pronounced dewty or a softer jooty. Pronounce the suffix -ing with a strong G. This way it sounds like -ing rather than -een. But sometimes it is shortened to in as in lookin.

The words human being are pronounced hewman being or yooman been in certain areas, though it could be pronounced hewman bee-in.

Drop the Ts. With some accents, including cockney accents, Ts aren't pronounced in words where Americans use D to replace it. However, there is usually a short pause or "hiccup" in its
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25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

place. So battle might be pronounced Ba-ill, catching the air behind the back of the tongue at the end of the first syllable before expelling it on pronunciation of the second syllable. This is known as the glottal stop .

Americans use glottal stops, too, for words like "mittens" and "mountain". It's just that British use them more often. People with Estuary English, RP, Scottish, Irish and Welsh accents do consider it lazy and rude to drop the Ts, and this feature doesn't exist, but in almost all accents it's accepted to do it in the middle of words in casual contexts and almost universal to put a glottal stop at the end of a word.

Observe that some words are pronounced as written. The word "Herb" should be pronounced with an H sound, and "Often" is usually prounounced "Off tin", not "Off in". The word "Been" is pronounced "Bean", rather than "bin" or "ben". "Again" and "renaissance" are pronounced like "a gain" and "run nay snce", with the "ai" as in "pain", not "said." The words ending in "body" are pronounced as written, like "any body", not "any buddy." But use a British short O sound.

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25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

Observe that H is not always pronounced. The "H" is pronounced in the word "herb," in contrast to American erb. However, in many British accents, the H at the beginning of a word is often omitted, such as in many Northern accents and the Cockney accent.

Say "bean," not "bin" for the word been. In an American accent, this is often pronounced bin. In an English accent, been is a common pronunciation, but "bin" is more often heard in casual speech where the word isn't particularly stressed.

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25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

Listen to the "music" of the language. All accents and dialects have their own musicality. Pay attention to the tones and emphasis of British speakers. Do sentences generally end on a higher note, the same, or lower? How much variation is there in tone throughout a typical sentence? There is a huge variation between regions with tonality. British speech, especially RP, usually varies much less within a sentence than American English, and the general tendency is to go down slightly towards the end of a phrase. However, Liverpool and northeast England are notable exceptions!

Get a British person to say well known sentences: "How now brown cow" and "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain" and pay close attention. Rounded mouth vowels in words such as "about" in London, are usually flattened in Northern Ireland.

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25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

10

Notice that two or more vowels together may prompt an extra syllable. For example, the word "road" would usually be pronounced rohd, but in Wales and with some people in Northern Ireland it might be pronounced ro.ord. Some speakers may even say "reh-uud."

Tips
x As a child, your ability for the Thank ear to process different frequencies of sound is greater, enabling Our you to distinguish and reproduce the sounds of the languages that surround you. To effectively Volunteer learn a new accent, you must expand the ability of your ear by listening over and over to examples of the accent. Authors.

When you say "at all" pronounce it like "a tall" but with a British accent. As well as accent, watch out for slang words, such as lads or blokes for boys and men, birds or 185k lasses (in the north of England and in Scotland) for women. Loo for the toilet, but bathroom for Follow a room you clean yourself in.
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25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

When in doubt, watch Monty Python or Doctor Who. Watching Harry Potter can help too. RP is not called Queen's English for nothing, hear for yourself how HM Queen Elizabeth II speaks. A good thing would be to hear her at the State Opening of Parliament where she always delivers a very long speech, the perfect time to observe the way she speaks. With some very strong regional accents, there is a tendency to replace th with a ff - "through" may sound like "froo", and "birfday" for "birthday." Billie Piper of Doctor Who speaks this way. As with any accent, listening to and imitating a native speaker is the best and fastest way to learn. Remember that when you were young you learned a language by listening and then repeating the words while imitating the accent. Listen to British peoples talk. It will improve your vocabulary. Also, one of the words in English which shows very easily which accent someone has is "Water". In Britain, it would sound more like "war-tah". In the U.S., it sounds more like "wa-der". Don't learn more than one accent at a time. Since Estuary English sounds very different from a "Geordie" accent, you'll get confused very easily. Show 20 more tips

Warnings
Don't think that you'll get it right quickly. It is likely that any true British person will know that you're faking it straight away, but it might pass for a real accent to non-Brits. Don't be over confident that you do a good British accent. It is rare to find an imitation that sounds genuine to the native ear. Don't narrow your mouth too much when you say words with "A" as shark or chance. The result may sound South African. Shark should sound more like "shock". The RP accent (as in the movie My Fair Lady) is rare in Modern British. TV makes it seem like that's the main accent, but it isn't common. (As mentioned above though, it does still exist, especially with older people, and a milder version known as Estuary English is still very widespread.)

Things You'll Need

CD player, some CDs related to the British accent You can also refer to BBC Learning English Record the British accent and open windows media player and play it on slow. That will help you learn the British accent more quickly.

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25/08/2013

How to Speak in a British Accent: 10 Steps (with Pictures)

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Sources and Citations

regional accents and dialects across the UK. BBC internet radio channels. Videos of locals around the UK speaking in their accents.

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