Hi I'm Joel and I'm Lia and today we're going to be talking you through the
Bristolian accent and doing some examples before we start don't forget to
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day so Bristol in the UK is located sort of just underneath Wales so southwest if
you're looking at a map the accent is really really different to RP accent to
how we sound so we're just gonna talk you through some of the placements in
the mouth and then give some examples of the actual accent one two three four
five I spat four out of five times there one two three four five I think
the first thing to note in general about the tongue is that the tongue placement
is very high and it's very wide as well as tight so your tongue basically takes
up a lot of your mouth so that when you're talking like not much sound not
it's not that not much sound comes out but it's like it's very tight there's a
very small gap it's almost like you're talking but through a smaller tube I
guess yeah like if someone's tightening a bit so it's a little bit more tense
you can tighten by sort of keeping your lips a bit more tense and smaller and
your jaw is a lot tighter doesn't move doesn't go up and down as much as other
accents as well as limiting your facial movement so they don't really talk and
express themselves as much everything's a bit more restrained all of the
character tends to be in the musical lilt of the accent rather than in the lips or
in the rest of the face important to remember not to become like a caricature
of that so like you know obviously think about the tension but don't
actually do the tension it's like a really great exercise is to sort of
imagine that your lips are tight and your face is you know tightening
whilst the tongue is taking up a lot of space in the mouth but then don't
actually do that just imagine it yeah it's weird but it works yeah it's drama
school for you that's drama school do you remember that boobs on a tray
just imagine just imagine you're boobs are on a tray
even for boys don't do it just imagine that your boobs are sitting on a tray
sidenote from everything but also really good if you're trying to be sitting in
the right position for practicing any sort of vocal exercise so for instance I
think my attitude to life is very Bristolian
I'd say the two things I noticed that are different about my accent than ours
firstly is the word life instead of life it's got a slight oh would you say like
OI almost like life but it's not that severe it's like life and then
Bristolian we say Bristolian the same way but
they somehow emphasise the O a lot more so it becomes Bristolian Bristolian
they sort of emphasise the O's more than we would so a word that emphasises the O
other than Bristolian might be both we would say both they'd say both yeah
slight difference but really worth noting that's a really good one to
notice so of the AEIOU sounds, if you to do it in a Bristolian accent I guess
it would be AEIOU, see really tight, yeah, you can just tell, not even from
looking at your lips but just seeing your mouth it's very AEIOU so as well as that
tightness I guess all of the vowels are nasalised so slightly up here in the
nose like sounding a tiny bit like you've got a cold yeah
similarly in our Birmingham accent video we mentioned this and you know if
there's like a few people that disagree but it's just kind of AEIOU as
someone who's not from that it feels the placement of it feels more nasal
definitely and that's probably because they're from a similar area of the
country Bristol's more West than Birmingham
is but it is in the same sort of middle part of the UK yeah and that
nasalisation probably comes from the sound being caught on the back of the
mouth a bit with your tongue being raised so high and the sound being
caught at the back that's where the nasal sound comes from I think I was putting
my car in the car park and then both my mother and sister went inside the
shopping centre and that's the other thing they've got rhotic r's so every
time there's an R sound, an r written, they just pronounce the R whereas we
would say ah centre not centre centre, motor, motorcar yeah your
R's are really good for Bristolian just practice our tongues are really lazy
because they're not used to curling back or it's not even curling back the
sides of the tongue touch the ridge of the mouth when you say 'r', but your tip
doesn't it's just the sides go up and our tongues are too lazy coz we don't
make that sound so you just gotta keep practicing those r's interesting
teenager that's got a nice ending r manager mother mother father daughter so
even r's in the middle of words like stark or charm bracelet yeah and even
when I said daughter I think I put too much r in the middle of daughter
has got daughter, skipping over the T sound because the r sort of takes over. yeah they
tend to glottalise their T's a lot so water instead of water water water yeah
that's good yeah so if you're saying a piece of text or if you're trying to
learn the Bristolian accent for an audition for instance it's
really important to drive your sentences through to the end of the phrase so make
sure the energy is flowing through throughout and then ending on a minor
note so I was really happy that day up until I went to the shops I feel like a
lot of it does end on a minor yeah but driving through is really
important because they don't they think through exactly what they're saying and
then they just land the thought they'd never a sort of trail off and just yeah
obviously people can do that but they tend to finish what they're
saying and they never apologise for what they're saying
yeah some people that you can listen to that have got a natural Bristolian
accent check out Kerry Howard yeah who's in Witless on BBC she's doing a really
funny character and she's naturally from Bristol isn't she. yeah she is, but she doesn't naturally speak with
that strong an accent. We haven't got our NHS numbers is that gunna be a problem no
that's fine can I get your name my name is Mystique
Mystique and could you spell that for me now you're asking, M ...you on the internet there?
can we google it? Also Our Country on BBC iPlayer that's also really good
that's set in I believe it's set in Somerset which is kind of it's not really Bristol
but it's the same sort of West country accent we call that area west country
So they do speak like that they speak like that in Gloucestershire as
well, lots of areas. My attitude towards business is sell sell sell if you knock on someone's doors
It's what Shaz told me don't take no for an answer
get into the house if they see leave my house stay and if they say I'm gonna
call the police you walk upstairs and see if there's
anybody else upstairs to sell to. Yeah, Hagrid from Harry Potter
Exactly and there's also a comedian I saw up in Edinburgh called Jayde Adams who's from Bristol
We didn't have any roses to throw at you so
ladies and gentlemen I've supplied some there you are love you're going to feel
a moment at the end where you're going to want to like shoot something at me I
just want you to throw them all right babes?
So remember that everything we've
sort of gone through in this video is a tiny bit heightened because we're trying to teach
the accent and sort of help you get it out but when you speak to people that
actually from that area it's a lot more gentle yeah because accents do, sort
of begin to neutralise with the way everyone moves now around the country
everyone sort of comes to London and move back home and regional accents are, they're
not dying out but they're just becoming a little bit more diluted and I love it
I love the Bristolian accent it's so much so much fun and it's just like really
nice to listen to I wish you had a Bristolian accent...thanks I think
You wish I was Welsh, so get over it. get over it mate!
That's an O and an R, that's really good coz the O's are stressed and so is the R
Get over it. Yeah that's a really good one, and the it is eh so it's not it it's et
get over it just get over it Lia, alright I'm getting over it Joel just shut up that's it from us guys this week if
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