Hi and welcome back to love English my name is Leila and today I want to help
you develop a more British accent. Whether you are a student learning
English or even an actor trying to develop a British accent for a role. This
lesson is for you the key to understanding and speaking in any accent
is to isolate some of the specific sounds were used in today's lesson we're
going to be focusing on four features of British pronunciation sounds simple
enough and it really is so if you want to sound a little bit more like your
favorite British actor or actress think Keira Knightley who is whom whom is the
most well-spoken actor you or me or even the American actress Renee Zellweger in
Bridget Jones she did a brilliant British accent see some people have
terrible personal problems and other people who might have lost their family
and some you know tragic ferry disaster as you are listening to my pronunciation
watch copy and even record yourself to see if you sound like me so are you
ready to sound British over the years the British accent has really changed
quite a lot in the past we had something called received pronunciation this
really isn't as common anymore we have a variation of this which is slightly more
neutral more relaxed which is basically how I speak and how most people in the
South of England speak so that's what I'm going to be teaching you today now
if you do want to listen to some of the old english pronunciation received
pronunciation or BBC english then why not watch one of my favourite Netflix
series the crown there you can listen to the Queen speak in very traditional
received pronunciation you are permitted to return to an Ida Kingdom only at the
pleasure and invitation of the sovereign right the first feature of British
pronunciation is the a the r sound now listen
carefully to this sentence are there more birds are there more birds well
there we have an art in each of those words we do not pronounce them ah there
more birds not are there more birds sounds very strange in fact however
listen if we change more to any are there any birds essentially with the r'
sound don't pronounce it unless it is followed by a vowel so there any there
any they're more they're more in fact this is a distinctive feature and
difference between British and American pronunciation think about the word water
water very clearly you can hear we have the schwa sound at the end the lazy
vowel sound ah like Laila water computer make sure you let me know below in the
comments box if you would like to learn more about schwa but back to this R
sound water not water water but water the same better better not as the
Americans would say better better but better
so no ours when they come at the end of words unless they are followed by a
vowel sound how simple is that practice with me now better water daughter
brother car keep practicing those invisible R sounds
did you listen carefully there to how I pronounced water and better with an
American accent a bad American accent I grant you better American better British
water American water British what happens to the T sound there that's
right it becomes more of a D sound so in standard
British English we generally pronounce the T clearly but an American
they often drop it now in British English there are some accents that will
drop the T but they will actually use a glottal stop so some people in the UK
might actually pronounce better and water better water better water it's
often a feature more of London accents perhaps cockney but essentially a
glottal stop a very important feature of the English language and you can even
find this in some other languages Arabic for example is where a consonant sound
is filmed by the audible release of the Airstream after complete closure of the
glottis so I guess the glottis is something we have here so remember no
flow of air better instead of better I'm still breathing that I stopped the flow
of air to make the glottal sound this is a standard consonant sound in the
English language that is not associated with more received pronunciation the
southern English accent now another important feature of the British English
accent is how we pronounce our use now in many languages not just American
pronunciation but other languages like Italian for example the U is often
pronounced boo so for example tuna tuna or dooty dooty
or stupid stupid okay for example in Italian I know that you say stupid oh
now in British English we don't we actually add a year it's more of a
diphthong you so Stu you stupid or duty ordering or even Tuesday not Tuesday
Tuesday so practice with me Tuesday duty stupid tuna and even YouTube we wouldn't
say YouTube YouTube we say YouTube so another feature of British English
attention next time you're listening to a British movie and see if you can hear
that you sound so finally the fourth feature
of British pronunciation is our short vowel sounds
they really are short so for example pit put cut Pet Pat not Pat pet pit this
would be more a feature of American English elongating slightly their short
vowel sounds so those are some of the features of British English now of
course it's going to take practice focusing on these features listening
carefully to British English pronunciation and imitating copying the
accent it is totally possible to sound more British if that's the accent that
you choose of course American English is just as good some people actually find
American English easier to understand I'd like to know which accent you prefer
and which accent you are able to understand best often this comes from
how you were taught English whether you had a British teacher or an American
teacher let us know and tell us what features of pronunciation would you like
to look at next thank you so much for watching I hope that accent tutorial
tutorial nook tutorial has helped you improve your British pronunciation and
it may even help you understand us a little bit more when you're listening to
ask to speak keep watching if you want to learn how to reduce your accent
focusing on the sounds that you get wrong in English thank you for watching
bye doody doody American Beauty but that was really
helpful I was still doing it can you kick him