If you come to the UK for the first time
you may be surprised that people don’t speak the same
as the recordings in your English language textbook
English - like every other language – exhibits variation
People speak with different accents
If you’re aware of how people speak differently
you’ll find it easier to understand a wider range of native English speakers
To help, I’ve made a 3-part video series
exploring the phonetic diversity across the UK’s four nations
England
Wales
Scotland
and Northern Ireland
This video is about consonants
the next will be on vowels
and the final video
will focus on sounds characteristic of certain accents
Let’s get started by focusing on 5 consonant features
that distinguish UK accents
Rhoticity deals with /r/ sounds
Rhotic speakers will always pronounce the letter "r" as /r/
For example
Here, there are four /r/ sounds
Non-rhotic speakers only pronounce the letter "r" as /r/
when there is a vowel sound afterwards
For example:
Here, there are no /r/ sounds in the second word
We find rhotic speakers
(those who always pronounce the "r")
in Scotland
Northern Ireland
and South West England
I was born in the southern part of England
and you’ll hear that my accent is non-rhotic
I only pronounce the letter "r"
if there’s a vowel afterwards
Most speakers in England
and Wales
are non-rhotic
This is a map produced by the University of Cambridge in 2016
Orange marks areas where there are more rhotic speakers
Green where there are more non-rhotic speakers
And yellow where there is roughly an equal mix of both
It’s true that we find rhotic speakers in Scotland
but we also find non-rhotic speakers there too
Linguists have documented non-rhotic speakers in Scotland
since the1970s
In south west England,
the situation has changed significantly in recent times
When a survey was conducted in the 1950s,
this area was strongly rhotic
but nowadays there are far fewer rhotic speakers here
If you’re travelling within the UK,
then expect to hear both rhotic and non-rhotic speech
You may have heard of Received Pronunciation – or RP
Different people have different definitions of what RP refers to
but for many it describes an old-fashioned English accent
In this video series I’m going to refer to the modern successor of RP
called Standard Southern British English
or SSBE
I’m speaking in this accent now
and you’ll find lots of people with this accent
throughout the south of England
SSBE is a non-rhotic accent
In some accents, the [h] sound
is always pronounced at the start of sentences
or stressed syllables
like "hair", "hear", "behind"
In other accents, this sound is dropped
"air", "ear", "be-ind"
This is known as H-Dropping
The H sound is pronounced
by speakers of SSBE
and people in Scotland and Northern Ireland
But many speakers in England and Wales
drop this H sound
H-droppers may not be consistent in their H-dropping
For example, somebody may pronounce a word with H
and later pronounce the same word without the H
For these speakers,
the H is variable
If you're in England or Wales
then expect to hear words pronounced
with and without H
A glottal stop is made
when the vocal folds inside the larynx (or voice box)
firmly come together for a short period of time
It sounds like an abrupt pause
For example,
if I replace the [t] sound in "better"
with a glottal stop
it becomes "be[ʔ]er", "be[ʔ]er"
Glottal stops are often used
to replace a [t] sound at the end of a word
in many accents across England,
Wales
and Scotland
Even members of the royal family
use glottal stops
Glottal stops are also used to replace a [t] sound between vowels
It’s perceived negatively by some people,
but it’s normal for many in England, Wales and Scotland
If you're in England, Wales or Scotland
you might hear a [t] sound
being replaced by a glottal stop
There are two TH sounds in English
They’re made with the tongue touching the teeth
Linguists call them "dental fricatives"
More and more speakers around the UK
pronounce these TH sounds
as an F or V instead
These sounds are made with the lower lip touching the upper teeth
At the start of a word,
[ð] is sometimes replaced by [d]
particularly by some speakers in London
Most speakers in the UK
do not pronounce a [g] sound
in words ending NG
like "sing" and "song"
There's still no [g] if a suffix is added
"singer", "songs", "singing"
But in the Midlands and the North of England,
some speakers will pronounce a [g]
For example
Speakers in different parts of the UK
use different consonant features
There is nothing wrong or right about this
it's just part of normal variation within the language
If you're aware of this phonetic diversity,
you’ll find it easier to understand native speakers
Expect to hear:
The next time you listen to a native speaker from the UK,
see if you can identify some of the features listed in this video
If you’re a non-native English speaker
and you want to improve your English pronunciation skills,
then sign up for my online course
It’s tailored to your native language,
prioritises sounds that improve your intelligibility
and uses SSBE as its model
Click the link to find out more
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