The UK sound is a rich array of many
beautiful regional accents and some of
them differ vastly from one another so
it's no wonder that a non-native english
speaker might find it difficult to
understand the natives. In this series
we're going to be going on a trip of
discovery listening to lots of different
accents from different regions learning
the phrases that they use and finding
out what are the key features of each
accent. So who are we meeting today?
This is Tom. Tom is from the West Country
Hello Tom, say hello Tom, alright!
Now the West country accent is
wonderful and there are certain phrases
that you would only hear from someone in
the West Country for example - Alright my lover
hello mate, gurt lush, very good, 'ark at he,
listen to him haha
in any case, anyway, skew-whiff, crooked
Where be to? Where are you going?
Chucky pig, wood louse. Now as you
probably gathered the West country
accent is lovely it's a very fun accent
isn't it Tom? But some people will
associate the West country accent with
farmers which is bizarre but i think
that potentially comes from the BBC
radio program The Archers, and what was
the other drama you were talking about?Poldark
which is a drama all about farmers? That's
true yeah, and they have this West country
accent but you have to be aware that
just because someone has this accent it
doesn't automatically mean they're a
farmer or from a farming family so
let's look at some of the common
features of the West country accent now
so we're going to start off with a
rhotic R as you probably know from
some of my other videos a standard
British English accent doesn't have a
rhotic R we only pronounce the R if
it's at the beginning of a word or if it
follows something like a th but when
you're speaking with the West country
accent we do pronounce the R so for
example if we were to say the following
words farm so i do a long vowel AH
but Tom did AR and made the R rhotic
let's say that again, farm, I'm going
down to the farm
i'm going down to the farm, warm,
It's quite warm today
lover, now
you notice the at the end of the world
lover, I'm doing the schwa ending which
you would normally do for an ER ending
but Tom is curling into the R so
lover
it's lovely isn't it? He is my lover
He is my lover. Is he really? He's not!
And the final word we're going to look at is first.
So you'll notice I'm doing .... nice and
open and Tom does .... first, there we go.
I come first.
The next common feature we're going to
look at is the I diphthong. In the West
country accent this is more like ...
it's more rounded with the OR vowel
rather than the a vowel at the beginning
so in standard English we have I, but
in west country we have .....
okay so let's look at this in action so
we'll use the words guide
guide me home. White
Is it going to be a
white Christmas? Is it going to be a
white Christmas who knows! Life
I'll give him the kiss of life
I'll give him the kiss of life (Giggles) who is this man? I don't know.
The next feature is the ng sound only
when we have an ing ending so for
example I would say walking
walking walking
I'm out walking with my dog. I'm out
walking with my dog
you'll notice that Tom is doing an IN ending
meaning he's using the tip of the
time high upon the alveolar Ridge
closing it at the front, in in, whereas i
use the back of the tongue high closing it
off at the back: in in. So let's try that
again
walking walking, there we go. You could
also say talking
I was talking to my mother. I was talking
to my mother.
Another feature of the West country
accent is the .... vowel, so for example I
would say up. So you'll notice Tom is
making more of an .... sound
whereas mine's more open and light
good. That's have a look at some other words:
above, up and above,
love, I love it up and above
I love it up and above. It's
such a great accent. The final
feature we're going to look at today is
the west country accent relationship
with plosives, particularly the T sound
so when a T appears at the end of the
word in west country they generally
odmit it
so for example I would say: this and that,
this and that,
also when a
T is in the middle of a word mostly
when it starts the final syllable it
becomes a glottalised T, so for example in
the word water, or butter
and finally better
That butter is
better, that butter is better
mm-hmm so there you have it
five simple features and a handful of
phrases to help you get along if you're
ever speaking to someone from the west
country. So all that remains to say is
thank you very much Tom for coming along
Tah-dah loves. Don't forget to subscribe
and remember there's going to be plenty
more in this series of accent discovery. Bye