- Hello, muggles, today we're learning English with the half-blood wizard himself, Harry Potter
- Holy Cricket, you're Harry Potter! I'm Hermione Granger.
- We're going to watch clips from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and we're gonna
study Harry's British English accent and learn lots of fantastic vocabulary along the way.
So, hop on board the Hogwarts Express and let's learn some English!
Let's start with
Harry Potter's accent. He speaks with received pronunciation, which is a British English
accent that's associated with education and with privilege. Now, it has no geographical
boundaries, so you can find it anywhere in the UK, although it is connected with London
and the South of England. Here's an example.
- A key part of received pronunciation is clarity, it's being understood by the person
listening to you. So therefore it's very important for each sound to be clear. So in this example,
the consonants are very clear. For example, that. The T at the end of that he pronounces
very clearly.
- Hagrid, what is that?
- In other accents, that would be dropped, it would be tha', but with Harry Potter and
received pronunciation, that.
- In this example, the H of hear in some accents of British English, that would be dropped,
it'd be 'ear, but in received pronunciation it's nice and clear, you're saying every single
sound, hear.
- Can you hear me?
- Now, Harry does use examples of connected speech, this is where we join sounds or we
omit sounds.
- For example there, talked to. Now, that ed of talked is a tuh and in the next word
is a tuh, too, so the first tuh disappears, so it's talk to, talk to a snake.
In this example, he says often off-en. There are two different ways to say this word: off-ten or
off-en. It's up to you, it's up to the individual speaker which one you prefer, there's no change
in meaning, it's exactly the same. Often or offen.
- Here again is another example of a word that could be changed in sound, ee-ther or
eye-ther. Ee-ther, eye-ther. It doesn't matter which one you choose, they're completely interchangeable.
- Okay, here Harry uses up, up, he uses the uh sound, uh. Now, in England, this sound
divides the country in half. In the South they say uh and in the North it's oo, oo. So
in the South uh-p, in the North oo-p. Take the word butter, butter. Now, I'm using that
uh sound, buh, buh-tter. In the North of England, bu, bu-tter, bu-tter. Muh-ther, in the South
of England, moo-ther in the North of England. Sh-uht in the South of England, sh-ut in the
North of England. Now, speaking of different accents, this is something that I love about
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is there are a variety of British English accents.
We'll look at a few of those right now. So let's start with Harry's best friend Ron Weasley.
He speaks with a London accent. It has features of RP, of received pronunciation, but also
of cockney. It's a kind of mixture between the two. Very common in London and the southeast
of England.
So, in this example, he's showing features of cockney, so things like the glottal
T. So the glottal stop of bit, it's not bit, it's bi'. It's not toast, it's toas'. It's
not mate, it's ma'e, ma'e. So that glottal T sound.
- [Ron] Take a bi' of toas', ma'e, go on!
- Even just the word mate is quite an informal word, and probably wouldn't be used by some
speakers of received pronunciation, but in Ron's accent it's a very common word. Also,
that broader vowel sound t-a-ke, t-a-ke. So it's not take, it's t-a-ke. So a slightly
wider mouth position when he says that.
- Ah, here's another example! That T disappears, shu' up, not shut up, shu' up. And Harry.
Now, if he was a true cockney, he would drop that H, it'd be 'arry, shu' up, 'arry. As
I said, his accent is a combination of received pronunciation and cockney and sort of general
London influence, so he's using that H there, Harry.
- Shu' up, Harry!
- We've also got Neville. Now, Neville speaks with a Yorkshire accent, this is a northern
accent and it's very distinctive.
- Here's an example of that oo sound. So, in received pronunciation it's c-uh-me, uh,
uh, but in a Yorkshire accent it's c-oom, oom, oo. And you also have there baa-throom,
baa-throom. This is another sound that distinguishes the North from the South. So in the North
of England, that A has a aa, it's an aa, but in received pronunciation and southern accents,
it would be ah, so bah-throom, bah-throom. In Yorkshire and northern accents, baa-th,
- Okay, he says aa-fternoon, aa-fternoon. In a southern accent and received pronunciation,
ah-fternoon, so ah. So that aa and ah, there is a division between the North and the South.
So another example might be fast. Fah-st in received pronunciation, faa-st in a northern
accent like a Yorkshire accent. Now, it does depend on the speaker, so sometimes someone
with received pronunciation might say faa-st or someone with a northern accent might say
fah-st. It depends on the speaker but those are general rules. Before we continue, guys,
I just wanna say a big thank you to Cambridge University Press for sponsoring this video.
Now, you guys know how much I love Cambridge University Press, I think they do some fantastic
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I think that's fantastic! So, it's called Learn English with Cambridge and what I want
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And, as I said before, I love that since that English is a global language, that this is
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Now, they're releasing one video a week and they're quite short videos, one to two minutes
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on it, and then go and subscribe to Learn English with Cambridge. Okay, let's look at
Hagrid! Now, Hagrid has an incredible West Country accent. It's very strong, it's very
distinctive.
- You'll notice here he's dropping the Hs, so it's 'e's and 'ave. And he says dunnae,
dunnae. Dunnae is a spoken representation of doesn't he, but it's merged together as
one, so dunnae, dunnae.
- Norbert?
- Yeah, well, 'e's gotta 'ave a name, dunnae?
- You got the vowel sounds there of pub, pub. Not puh, but pu, it's a kind of uh sound.
I won it off a stranger I met down the pub. Okay, I need to work on my West Country accent.
- I won it, off a stranger I met down the pub.
- And, of course, you have McGonagall with her soft Scottish accent.
- Well, thank you for that assessment, Mr. Weasley. Perhaps it would be more useful if
I were to transfigure Mr. Potter and yourself into a pocket watch?
- But perhaps the most distinctive is Hermione, with her conservative RP. Harry, I would say,
has contemporary RP, but Hermione has conservative RP, which is just a little bit more formal.
For example.
- You're Harry Potter. So every sound is given full attention. Pah, Pah-tter, not Puh-tter,
Pah-tter. The sound of that ah is made at the front of the mouth to create that ah sound,
ah. Also the T is so clearly pronounced, that true T, Pah-tter. Let's look at another example.
- Ah, now in this one scene, we get to understand the importance of word stress. It's not levi-osah,
it's levi-o-suh. That change in stress allows Hermione to perform her spell perfectly. If
you get it wrong, then you can't perform the spell. Now, that's much like in real English,
there are some words where if we change the stress of the word, it has a different meaning.
For example, pres-ent and pre-sent. Pres-ent, the stress on the first syllable is a noun,
and it means a gift. So, thank you for my birthday pres-ent, thank you for my birthday
pres-ent. Shift the stress to the last syllable, pre-sent, and it becomes a verb and it means
to introduce something, so often maybe a TV show. So, I've been asked to pre-sent the
news, I've been asked to pre-sent the news. So there the stress is on the last syllable,
pre-sent, and it becomes a verb. So you can see there the importance of word stress. Levi-osah,
levi-o-suh. Another really interesting feature in Harry Potter's accent is the formal, polite
structures that he uses. He's a very polite child and he uses long, polite sentences to
request things. For example.
- Can you tell me where I might find Platform 9 3/4? He's requesting to find where this
platform is. Can you tell me where I might find? Such a long way to ask where's Platform
9 3/4? That's how you could say it, excuse me, where's Platform 9 3/4? But that's quite
direct and less polite. What Harry is doing here is making it a less direct question that
creates the impression that it's more polite. So, can you tell me where I might find Platform
9 3/4 is more polite. And that's a very useful general rule with English, is if you are making
requests, the longer the sentence, the more indirect it is, also means the more polite
it is. Okay, let's look at some great vocabulary that appear in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone.
- Bits and bobs, this is a noun and it just means an assortment of small items. You don't
necessary need to mention what they are, they're just little things. So, for example, I could
say, I'm just going to the shops to get some bits and bobs. Now, I don't want to list all
the things that I'm gonna get, milk, eggs, bread, you don't care, I'm just gonna say
bits and bobs and that just means a few things, little items.
- And over there all your bits and bobs for doing your wizardry.
- Light reading is just reading content that's not too demanding, it's quite easy to read,
it doesn't have complicated words, it's quite pleasurable. So, for example, just a magazine
could be light reading. So you might say, "I bought this magazine "for a bit of light
reading on the train journey." Obviously, the opposite of light reading would be heavy
reading, that'd be more complicated, dense text. Here Hermione is being quite funny,
she says it's a bit of light reading for her, that big book, but for Ron, it's not reading,
that's quite dense reading, so it's quite funny.
- To break in. To break in a phrasal verb and that is when people intrude into a house
or into a building without permission in order to steal something or take something. So a
robber would break in to someone's house. So an example sentence, last night robbers
broke in to the museum. Last night robbers broke in to the museum.
- Ah, to sneak out, this is a great phrase! To sneak out is to leave somewhere without
anyone noticing, to do it quietly, secretly so that people of authority don't notice.
So maybe if you're a teenager in a house and you sneak out to see your friends, you do
it without your parents noticing, and that's the same here, the kids are talking about
sneaking out of Hogwarts. The past of sneak is snuck, snuck. So last night I snuck out
to see my friends.
- Nighty night is a phrase that we use, usually with children, to say good night. So if I'm
saying good night to my niece or my nephew, I would say nighty night. It's not something
you would probably use with another adult, but it's up to you, you can do what you want.
- Here's a wonderful phrase, holy cricket! Hermione here is showing surprise. "Holy cricket,
you're Harry Potter!" Now, I don't know how many people would say holy cricket, it's a
fun phrase but I don't think I would say it. There are other ways you might say this. Oh
my goodness could be a phrase. If they redid Harry Potter now maybe Hermione would say
OMG. "OMG, you're Harry Potter!" Possibly. But oh my goodness, oh my gosh, oh my God,
OMG, wow, jeez, gee wiz, there are lots of options. Okay guys, I hope you enjoyed that
lesson with Harry Potter. If you would like me to look at the second Harry Potter film,
then let me know if the comments below and I could maybe do another video for you guys
looking at the accents and language in that film. Remember to click the link below and
subscribe to Learn English with Cambridge. But until next time, guys, this is Harry Potter,
the half-blood wizard, saying good-bye. Guys! It's me, the Chief Dreamer! Shh, don't tell
anyone!