"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.
Welcome to Eat Sleep Dream
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.
- The lobster?
- Yeah.
- In the Nativity play?
- Yeah, first lobster.
- 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
pronounced
- 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
of a contemporary RP.
- 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
and dad for a while.
- 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
little hiccup.
- 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.
- There's also a Scottish accent.
- 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.
- Is Natalie here?
- Oh, where theis mycoat?
- 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.
- Why's that?
- 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?
- I think it's crap, colin.
- That's where you're wrong. American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British
accent.
- 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.
- How far is this place?
- Just around the corner.
- Alright.
- 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
in this film.
- Oh bingo. That's lovely.
- 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.
Alright, we've looked at the language. Now let's move on to the culture. And Firstly
as a Londoner I have to say that I do love the amount of footage they have of London.
It's almost like a love letter to the city. If you've seen it before you will have noticed
that it does feature Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr Bean.
- Looking for anything in particular, sir?
- It's Mr Bean. Perfect, doesn't matter what character he does, in any film, or any TV
series, he's always Mr Bean to me. Or Johnny English as well. Obviously it's a film that
stars a host of famous, British actors, you got Keira Knightley, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant,
Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, the list goes on and it also has a cameo from two super famous
British TV hosts. Ant and Dec.
- So Billy, three weeks till Christmas, looks like the real competition is going to be Blue.
- Up until recently they have been the faces of British main stream TV. They host a lot
of live reality TV, so things like "I'm a celebrity, get met out of here", "X-factor"
etc. I grew up with these guys, they've been on TV ever since I can remember. So, it's
a nice little cameo that they make. "Love Actually" is essentially a Christmas film
and it has lots of little traditions of Christmas that we celebrate here. So for example one
thread of the story is how Bill Nighy is trying to get a Christmas number one. Now this is
a huge thing, or at least it was when I was a child, when I was growing up. There is always
a battle between musicians to get the Christmas number one, which is the most popular song
at Christmas. It's a tradition, there's always a lot of hype about it, who's gonna be Christmas
number one? In the film Bill Nighy is battling with Blue which was a boyband from that time
and he wins. I'm sorry to spoil the story there, but yeah. He won. So to be number one
at the top of the charts at Christmas is a huge thing in Britain.
- And the big question is, who is number one on the radio one chart show tonight? Is it
Blue? Or the unexpected Christmas sensation from Billy Mac? Well, you might have guessed
it although you may not believe it, it's Billy Mac. Another traditional part of Christmas
is to have a Nativity play. This is a play put on by children at school, that tells the
story of the birth of Jesus. It's usually a primary shool, so very young kids of six,
seven, eighth years old and it's usually a very sweet event. Parents will attend, grandparents.
I went to my niece and nephew's Nativity plays and it's always really lovely. There's someone
plays Mary, one plays Joseph there's the sheep. There isn't usually an octopus in a Nativity
play, but "Love Actually" wanted to give it a bit of a twist, so yeah.
- ♪ put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day ♪ ♪ Catch a falling star and
put it in your pocket ♪ ♪ Never let it fade away ♪ another big part of Christmas
is a Christmas party. Or a work Christmas party. So every office or most offices will
organize a party for their staff and usually it gets quite crazy, gets quite wild and a
lot of regret. People say things, do things that they regret the next day. Yeah, gets
pretty crazy. there might something called a secret Santa. This is where you are given
a name of someone in the office and then you have to buy them a gift. And they don't know
who's bought them the gift, it's a secret, hence secret Santa. And sometimes there's
a price limit on that, so it could be five pounds, ten pounds, yeah, usually quite fun.
There were also carol singers. Carol singers are singers that go around houses, knocking
on doors and they will sing traditional carols for money and then they'll give that money
usually to charity. As you can see in "Love Actually" the prime minister does carol singing.
Again, not very traditional that one, Theresa May hasn't knocked on my door and sung a song.
what a strange image that is. Anyway.
- Are you singing carols?
- No, no I'm not.
- Please sir, please.
- Please.
- Well, I mean I suppose I could.
- Please
- Alright ♪ Good King Wenceslas looked out ♪ ♪ On the Feast of Stephen ♪
- I also love that in this film there are little aspects of British culture in there,
so for example there are some Waitrose bags in one scene. Waitrose is a supermarket here,
quite high end supermarket. And I just love that they've got that in there.
- See the problem is his mum always used to talk to him you know?
- Also there's a picture of Margaret Thatcher, so Hugh Grant, playing the prime minister
talks to Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher was prime minister in the 1980's here in Britain.
- You have this kind of problem? Yeah, of course you did you sorted minx.
- Another aspect I like is that they capture how British people are terrible at speaking
other languages. Now of course not all British people, but a lot of us are terrible at speaking
another language.
- She's Portuguese.
-
- What I like though is that they capture how hapless and useless Colin Firth is at
trying to speak another language and it's kind of, yeah it's kind of true for a lot
of Brits. As I said Hugh Grant plays the prime minister. We also get to see where the prime
minister lives. 10 Downing street. I'm sure that's not the real 10 Downing street, it's
just a set, but yeah, it shows you what it looks like it's that famous black door, the
number 10, so that's kind of cool. Then we touched on this earlier, but there is this
idea that certainly in "Love Actually", there's this idea that Americans love the British
accent. For Kris Marshall, that character, if he goes to America and just speaks in his
British English accent, that he's going to have girls surrounding him. Now, I don't know
if that's true or not. If there are any Americans out there, I'd love you to tell me. Is this
true? Do Americans like the British English accent, the Cockney accent, or received pronunciation
and the scouts accent, whatever it may be. Is it true? And also for anyone else out there.
Is there an accent from your country that is particularly revered, is one that most
people really like. Let me know in the comments below. Alright, before I finish, I need to
get something off my chest. There is one part of this film that really annoys me. This part.
- Over there. No.
- It's okay, we'll go to the airport, I know a shortcut.
- Which airport? London has five airports. You can't just go to the airport. Wh, what?
Which, which airport you goin to-- Heathrow? Gatwick? Stansted? Luten? City? Fuss probably
a few more. Which airport they going to?
- Okay, we'll go to the airport. I know a shortcut.
- Doesn't make sense. You shouldn't annoy me. I need to go for that, don't I? It's really
not that important. Okay, sorry. In one of the stories, language plays a huge part in
helping love to blossom. It's quite a sweet one. Colin Firth cannot speak Portuguese and
his love interest is from Portugal and cannot speak English. So through learning a language,
they both find a way to communicate to each other and love grows from there. And as an
English teacher, I like that.
-
- Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed that. Give me a big thumbs up and let me know, which
film would you like to learn English with next? Which British film would you like to
learn English with next? Suggestions in the comments below. Remember to check me out on
Instagram and on Facebook and if you wanna become a member of Eat, sleep dream English,
hit that drug button below this video. Until next time this is Tom, the chief dreamer saying
goodbye.