In one of my videos, Alice commented:
What about a lesson about accents? I really enjoy your pronunciation and it would be great
to learn how to do it.﻿
So here we are! Today, I’m gonna show you three ways to speak with a Northern Irish
Accent.
Hey, I’m Alister and welcome to another video.
If this is your first time here and you want to learn English on the go, remember to subscribe
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Make sure you watch until the end, where I’ll tell you about one word that I had to say
completely differently when I left home at 19, as no one understood what I was saying.
Our first feature involves a long vowel becoming shorter, something which is extremely common
in the Northern Irish accent.
Let’s look at:
The long vowel /ɑː/
In Standard British English, we drop the jaw, and make a long vowel sound /ɑː/ as in calm.
However, in Northern Irish English, the vowel is much shorter /a/, as in calm.
calm
Here are some examples I’ll say in standard British English and then in Northern Irish
English.
half
spa
Let's go to the spa.
Let me know in the comments which other accents you’d like featured.
Next up, we’ll consider:
The pronunciation of the letter R at the end of words.
For example:
far
Most accents in Great Britain, apart from those in the West Country, do not pronounce
the ‘R’ at the end of words, instead they use the schwa /ə/
far
However, in Northern Irish, the R is clearly pronounced, always
far
The Northern Irish accent is described as rhotic, which means any language in which
an /r/ is pronounced in every situation that it is written.
Listen to the comparison.
far
How far is it?
To be honest, this sound is incredibly difficult for me, every Northern Irish speaker always
pronounces every /r/.
daughter
By the way, this video is part of my Northern Ireland series.
The link to the playlist is up here and also in the description below.
If you want to know more about the Northern Irish Accent or words that Northern Irish
people use you should definitely check this playlist out after you’ve watched this video.
Thirdly, we have:
The diphthong /eɪ/
In Standard British English, as with all diphthongs, there are two vowel sounds and the mouth has
to move /eɪ/, as in train.
However, in Northern Irish English, we shorten this sound, as in train.
train
Let’s compare:
ace
The ace of spades
eight
Turn to page 8
Kate
Kate, please read number 8 on page 88!
For some reason, this seems to be everyone’s favourite.
Now, what’s the one word that I had to completely change how I said?
I was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and lived there for the first 19 years of my life.
Whilst I travelled quite a lot and came across many world languages and variations of the
English Language I was very much stuck in my Northern Irish ways, and stuck in my Northern
Irish way of speaking.
So, when I moved to Nottingham, England to study at university I encountered a problem
immediately.
As you can imagine, starting university, meeting other first year students, questions people
always asked each other were what’s your name, where are you from, what are you studying
and it’s with one of these questions that no-one and I mean absolutely no-one understood
my response.
Here’s my answers if you can you see the problem?
I’m Alister, from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
I’m studying Maths.
No one understood what Maths was, can you?
In Northern Ireland we say Maths , in England they say Maths and in America they say MATH.
No one knew what Maths was so I had to train myself to say Maths which took a few weeks.
So there you have it!
Pronunciation 100% matters, whether you’re a native speaker or a non-native speaker!
For more on Northern Ireland, I made a video about 20 words that Northern Irish people
say.
I recommend checking it out.
Thanks so much for watching, let me know in the comments which other accents you’d like
me to feature, and I’ll see you over here in this video.