What's up everyone?
I'm Andrea your RealLife English fluency coach
and in today's lesson we're going to be taking an in-depth look at the accent of Harry Styles.
So in case you didn't know Harry Styles is in fact British
he is one of the members of a huge band, One Direction
and he's also most recently forged a very successful solo career.
Now Harry Styles was in fact born in Birmingham
which we say is in the midlands because it's found in the middle of England but
when he was very young his family did move up to the North West
of England very close to Manchester in a place
called Cheshire, so his accent is quite
interesting because you will hear some variations
from the Birmingham accent and the Manchester accent
and also more recently just because he's lived in London
and also America he does have some other variances
to his accent as well it's also really interesting to know that in the UK alone
there are more than 30 different accents and dialects
so while you might not be that familiar with many
because generally in media you maybe hear
the RP the Received Pronunciation accent or a cockney London accent, there
are actually many many more so we're going to be taking
a look at this today and a real in-depth look at Harry Styles
accent in particular.
So before we get into the lesson
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Okay so the first aspect of Harry's accent that we're going to take a look
at is the way that he reduces the H sound.
at the start of words.
So this is very typical of
Northern English accents but also in other parts of Britain too it's also
synonymous with the cockney accent which is the
East side of London but you definitely won't hear this with
a received pronunciation accent.
So what Harry does is at the start of
words he tends to omit so he doesn't say that first h
sound so rather than saying "he's lovely isn't he?" he says
[e's lovely isn't e]
so let's take a look at how that sounds when he says it.
So there are quite a lot of examples of
when Harry does this for example instead of saying "I met him"
he would probably say [I meh-im]
and this is what natives tend to do to speak
faster and more naturally so sometimes we reduce words
so that it just becomes more fluent and more natural and more
quick to speak.
In the same interview we can find some other things that he
tends to do with the way that he speaks as well for
example another aspect of his accent that is
very Northern English is the way that he says
the U sound in words it's been it's been fun to kind of like
watch over it all so for example when I say
lucky the u has an uh sound and when I say us
again it has an uh sound but with Harry's accent and very typically
in Northern England you will hear more of an uh sound
so it's a short uh sound so he will say lucky and us and
much, so let's take a look and see how that sounds.
So the further North you travel
you will hear this sound whether you are in
Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and even going all the way up to
Scotland they don't say this sound like I would, i'm from London
and we tend not to have this sound when we speak
English but certainly in Northern England
and the further up you go all the way to Scotland they do tend to have this
uh sound sound more like an uh sound you will also hear it in words such as
us, fun and stuff so let's take a look at
how Harry says it because he does say it very differently to me.
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You might have noticed also that in British English we tend to omit
the T sound in words and this is called a Glottal T
so with a Glottal T what happens is there is still a sound there but you
don't hear the t sound what happens is the flow of air is
stopped and then released so it does make a sound but you won't
hear that t sound so for example in words like better some
people might say better so there is still a sound there
if you can notice it better better all it is is the stopping
of the flow of air and then the releasing of it
so there is still a sound there that's called the Glottal T.
So this is very common in British English
and Northern England is no exception they also speak with a Glottal T and so
does Harry Styles so in some of these interviews he
doesn't say "a lot of," "a little bit" or
"Italy" instead he says it this way:
If you'd like to learn
more about the British accent and common mistakes
made in particular by Americans in our favorite TV series and movies such as
Friends, then I highly recommend that you check
out this lesson next you can click the link here or in the
description box below to watch it straight after this lesson.
Another characteristic of Harry's accent is the shortening of the A sound
so if you've listened to my accent a lot through watching our lessons
or you listen to more accents where they are from London
we tend to have a longer A sound in words such as last,
so Harry does not say this word like this
he says it like this:
So this is very typical of Northern English accents
they have a shorter a sound in these words
and in received pronunciation in RP and in London in general and maybe some
other parts of England, in the south of England
we tend to elongate this sound so I would say
last, I would also say glass, and I would say answer however
Harry does not say these three words like I would.
So there you can hear that it's a short A sound he says
glass, last, answer and so that's very typical of Harry's
accent and Northern English accents aswell.
Let's take a look at the six best TV series to learn British English.
So the first one is The Office
When you laugh your brain releases endorphins yeah your stress hormones
are reduced and the oxygen supply to your blood
is increased so you feel I try and laugh several times a day just because it makes you feel good.