- Hello, lovely students, and welcome back to English with Lucy. In this video,
I'm going to give you pretty much everything you need to mimic my accent,
modern Received Pronunciation. These are some quick switches you can make if you want to speak
with this kind of British English pronunciation fast. But firstly, what is this modern RP,
modern Received Pronunciation that I speak of? Well, it's often referred to as standard British
English or standard Southern British English. It's generally what is taught in textbooks,
and you'd find it in most English dictionaries, especially when they write transcriptions like
these. Okay, so in today's lesson, we're going to start with vowel sounds. Then we're going to move
to consonants. And then finally, we'll take a look at connected speech. These are some quick wins
that you can do to achieve a British accent fast. However, if you are really serious about achieving
a modern RP accent, I have something even better for you. I have just launched my 12 week Beautiful
British English Pronunciation programme. In just three months, you will have the most incredible
pronunciation transformation. If you like the way modern RP sounds and you want to speak with that
accent, if you feel self-conscious or vulnerable when you talk, if you find you have to repeat
yourself or speak really slowly to make people understand you, or you feel you have unwanted
pronunciation habits that are really difficult to change, maybe you learnt bad habits at school,
you are in the right place. Week by week, over three months, my carefully structured curriculum
and my expert team of pronunciation teachers will support you and guide you to totally transforming
your pronunciation. There is even an option to get personal weekly pronunciation feedback
in both audio and written format. As we have totally rebuilt and relaunched the programme,
we are running a relaunch offer. You can save $100. The link to enrol and to learn more is in
the description box. Here is a quick overview of everything you get when you enrol. You get the 12
week programme, but you get lifetime access to it. You never lose access to the resources. We
have over 65 videos, downloadable mind maps, PDFs, hundreds of interactive activities and exercises.
You get 16 weeks access to the private course community where you can contact my teachers,
ask questions, clarify doubts, interact with your peers, respond to the weekly prompts. If
you join the feedback plan, then you can also receive your feedback there, or you can also do
it privately if you don't want to share your audios with anyone else. Don't miss out. We
start on Monday the 27th of March. The deadline is midnight the night before. All the information
is in the link in the description box. Let's get started with the lesson. Okay, first, let's
look at all of the vowels, how all of the vowels are pronounced in modern Received Pronunciation.
Then I will pick out some of those problem vowel sounds that often prevent students from sounding
authentically British when they speak. Let's start with the monophthongs over there. These
are vowel sounds with a single auditory quality and articulation. Some are short, some are long.
The colon mark indicates that they are long. We have E as in meat. I in lip. U in foot. U in boot.
E in met. U in better, the last syllable of better. U in word. O in more. A in map.
O in love. A in bar. And O in hot. Naturally, in the Beautifully British English Pronunciation
programme, we go into far more detail. That's a really quick overview. Let's move on to the
diphthongs. These are vowel sounds which include a change in auditory quality and articulation.
These are the vowel sounds that my students really seem to struggle with, as many of them are very
different than the sounds in their own language. We have ear in here, A in face, U in jury,
oy in toy. O, O, as in no. Not no, no. E in hair. I in my, and ow in now. Okay, so that's all of the
vowels. We'll look at the consonants later. I want to start with the schwa sound. This sound
once mastered will really make you sound like a Brit. Look at these words. We have behind,
amaze, control, financial, suppose. They all feature that schwa sound, and any of the vowel
letters can spell it out. A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes even Y. So how do we make this sound?
The lips are relaxed. The tongue is relaxed in the middle of the mouth. U,
U. It's the most relaxed sound you'll ever make. Attend,
fluent, dialect. Now here's a really important part of British English pronunciation.
Some words that have the schwa sound at the end end with the letter R. This R is not pronounced.
Better, pleasure, factor. I know it's tempting to say better, pleasure,
factor. No, better, pleasure, factor in modern RP. In American English and other dialects, yes,
the R is pronounced. A huge mistake that students make is pronouncing the letters that they see in
a written word. In my pronunciation programme, I train you to think in sounds not spellings.
It's tricky, but with my support, you can do it. As I said, more information in the description
box. Okay, next, I want to look at two diphthongs. Do you remember, those are vowel sounds with a
change in auditory quality, like two vowel sounds squished together. The two I want to focus on are
ear as in here and E as in hair. Here, hair. Let's start with the E sound. This sound is a diphthong,
but nowadays it's usually pronounced as a monophthong. Originally,
we would pronounce it with the E sound and then the U sound. E, U, one movement, E, E, E.
Nowadays, we have a trick. We usually pronounce it as a long E sound, E. You won't see it written
like that, but that could help you to understand how to form the sound. Try practising it in this
sentence. The millionaire had an affair with the heir over there. You try it.
Now, let's try ear, ear. We start with the I sound and move to the schwa again, U. I, U, I, U. Ear,
ear. It's almost, almost, not quite, like we insert a little Y sound, ear, ear, but very,
very soft. Ear, ear. The important thing is that your tongue moves down, ear, here,
near. Try this sentence. I fear that it appears you have some beer on your beard.
Now, you might hear some native speakers saying fear, appear, beer, beard. This is very normal,
and if you find it easier to pronounce it that way, I, then please do. But for me, it's fear,
appear, beer, beard. Now a super difficult sound for so many students. U. The U sound,
it's like an extended long schwa sound. The lips, tongue, and jaw are relaxed. U, U. This
sound is found in words like word, world. Notice that the R is not pronounced there. World, word.
Try it in this sentence. It's certainly a learning journey. It's certainly a learning journey.
Okay, let's move on to consonants. Let's bring this chart up again and go through all of them. We
have P as in pen and B as in bit, F as in fig and V as in vase, T as in tip, and D as in done, th
as in thought, and th as in those, ch as in chip, J as in jam, S as in save, Z as in zoo, sh as
in sure, zh as in vision, C as in cat, G as in goat. Did you notice in those two lines there,
the top line is unvoiced and the second line is the voiced version of the one above? It's
exactly the same movement, but when you pronounce the top one, P, or T, there is no vibration,
and when you pronounce the second line, B, D, same mouth movement, vibration here. Isn't
that cool? Let's go across the bottom line now. H as in him. M as in may. N as in no.
Ng, right back there, ng as in sing. R as in reach. L as in lie, W as in will, and Y as in
yet. Okay, two sounds that I always hear students mispronounce, the th sound and the th sound. Now
look at their placement in that chart again. Th is the unvoiced version of th. Let's start with
making the th sound. Lift your tongue so that the tip makes gentle contact with underneath
your upper front teeth. Relax your tongue so that the sides touch the sides of your upper teeth, th,
and breathe out. Th, th. The th sound is formed in exactly the same way, but with voice. Th, th.
Try saying both and feel the difference.
Th, th. Th, th. Let's try some sentences. We'll start with th. Try this one. I think
Bertha is going to turn 33 on Thursday. Okay, what about this with the th sound?
Their mother was from the Netherlands where the weather is rather rainy. Excellent job.
You're sounding British already. One last point. We're going to move on to connected speech. And
in particular, we're going to talk about when two sounds come together and mix to make a new sound,
and this is called assimilation, and for me, it's magical. I love teaching it. In the pronunciation
programme, we go into a lot of detail on connected speech. It is so important, at least to understand
why it happens, and then if you're really going to go for it, you can try to use it
too. So assimilation, when a word ending in T is followed by a word beginning with Y. We usually
combine the two consonant sounds to make... Can you guess? Ch, ch. Don't you becomes don't you.
Won't yet becomes won't yet. So that's unvoiced, ch. T and Y make ch. What about voiced? What about
a voiced consonant like D? When a word ending in D is followed by a word beginning with Y,
we usually combine the two consonant sounds together to make, can you guess? J, J.
Did you, did you. Send Yasmin, send Yasmin. Don't you think that's fascinating? How would you
pronounce this university? Harvard University. Not Harvard University. Although that's fine. But we
would say, speaking quickly, Harvard University. Harvard University. What about this sentence?
We would say nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I could go on and on about connected speech. It's
such a fascinating topic, but I will save it for the pronunciation course students,
the true pronunciation fans. We would love to have you in the pronunciation
programme. We start on the 27th of March. That's a Monday. The deadline is the night
before at midnight. That $100 introductory offer will expire. All of the information
is down there in the description box. I will see you soon for another lesson.