9 Very British Words & How to Pronounce Them

hi everybody it's me elliott from etj english today i have a list of some very british words how to pronounce them how to use them in context and of course what they mean uh do remember that although these are very british words in my opinion they can be used in other forms of english and you may find you hear these in american english i do find that these words in particular are used a lot in the uk and some of them would be considered to be extremely british and of course as always remember the accent i teach when it comes to pronunciation is a modern rp accent the accent i use is very common in the south of england there are many other accents available and don't be afraid to explore and learn those as well if you prefer them let's get straight into the lesson i don't want to waste any time today and the first word i want to talk about is one which people have been saying elliot why haven't you taught this word yet it's such a common word in the uk and to be honest i don't really know why i haven't taught it uh the word is bloody i guess i assumed that all of you already knew this word because it's always associated with the uk oh bloody hell you know we say it a lot it's generally used as a curse word we'll say oh bloody hell maybe when something bad happens or something annoying we also use it as an emphasizer we use it to emphasize maybe a feeling or emotion for example or that film we watched last night was bloody good wasn't it pronunciation is interesting because we have the uh sound which i find about 90 percent of the students no matter where they're from uh who join my course tend to have a problem with pronouncing this sounds and the sound is uh most of my students pronounce it as a so they'll say bloody instead of bloody the key is moving the sound more towards the middle back section of the mouth so pulling the tongue back slightly so the middle of the tongue slightly pulls towards um the lower section of the mouth but we're keeping it in that middle lower section towards the back again near the middle and the back uh try not to smile just open your mouth vertically bloody bloody another word i thought i'd talk about is the word scrap for example the dogs are having a scrap that would mean that let's say i have two dogs and they're fighting each other a physical fight i could also say my friend went to a club last night and he got into a scrap with someone outside meaning they got into a fight they were having a scrap so it means to have a physical fight scrap firstly let's talk about the vowel another sound which many students find quite difficult to pronounce when they join my course is the a sound many of them pronounce it as e so they might say scrap you will want to push your tongue forwards and down open your mouth nice and big and wide scrap scrap so with this consonant cluster at the beginning we're producing the s sound then we're cutting out it out with a sk and then we're adding another consonant so a third consonant into this cluster scrap scrap so you can have a scrap with someone which means to have a physical fight but the other form of a fight could be a row row is when we have a vocal argument with somebody so no physical violence involved usually it's just involving your mouth speaking shouting at each other for example my friend called me last night and he told me he had a really bad row with his wife okay so around or to be rowing is to have a vocal argument rao so of course make sure you can pronounce the sounds many of my students will say rau or lao because they have difficulty pronouncing the letter r so it would be useful to learn how to pronounce that consonant and also the ao diphthong we're starting with an a and then we move to a round shape now another one i expect probably most of you know is cuppa kappa now to have a cuppa is to have a cup of tea it's a very common expression here for example do you fancy a cuppa cuppa so here we have the uh sound which again we're slightly pulling the tongue back we don't want ka we want k and also we have a schwa sound at the end so so we're practicing the uh and the uh for the uh the schwa sound the tongue is more in the middle of the mouth and we don't really do much with the mouth so uh look at how my mouth changes so it's just a short way of saying a cup of tea very common word here in the uk do you fancy a cuppa now how about the word snog snog to have a snog is to passionately kiss someone this is a word which we use in the uk particularly the younger people will say oh did you see them they were having a snog last night okay snog you know maybe americans would say to make out right to make out with someone uh we tend to say snog sound and then we're cutting it out with a n sound snog the o sound requires a round shape with the mouth we slightly pull the tongue back snog snog now if something's a bit naff naf then that means it's not very good for example oh that food last night was naff just meaning it was a bit rubbish just wasn't very good again rubbish is a common word but i've spoken about that in the past on this channel so naf just means not that good so the key here is the a sound again tongue forwards and down ah and then finish with a f push your top teeth on your bottom lip and push the air around and through your mouth and it should be unvoiced naf naf that was naf what about knickers knickers knickers are the lower half of ladies underwear so the k is silent just like in knife or knackered which is another word i spoke about on the channel in the past to be very tired knackered but knickers again we don't say knickers or conife we say knickers we start with a m sound n tongue up against the top of the mouth and make the noise through your nose knickers now we don't want to say nika's again a very common mistake is when my students pronounce that it sound as an e and they'll say eat instead of it for example so we don't want knickers we want knickers so the problem is that people lift their tongue too high in their mouth and kind of spread the cheeks too much and it becomes an e sound you just need to slightly just slightly lower the tongue a little bit keep the tongue in the top of the mouth near the front kind of just behind the sharp edge of the top teeth [Music] and we're finishing with a schwa sound before the z us so we don't want knickers because that would be more of an american pronunciation pronouncing the r if you're going for more of a southern or rp british accent you'll want the schwa sound us instead of ers knickers one of my friends told me that he fluked his driving test the other day now to fluke something means to do it by luck so someone might say oh congratulations on passing your driving test and they could say ah it was a fluke meaning it was luck i don't know how i did it i didn't really do very well it was just luck i don't know so fluke again fl fl consonant cluster at the beginning f and l top teeth on the bottom lip push the tongue against the top of the mouth and flick it back down and then ooh ooh look at my mouth ooh i'm lifting the tongue backwards and up slightly ooh and then we finish with a fluke fluke so that's to kind of do something by luck and maybe if you fluked your test because you didn't think you'd pass it you might be chuffed which means to be really happy and pleased with yourself so for example i'm well chuffed is a common expression well chuffed i'm well chuffed so again we have the uh sound we've talked about that already of course you need to try and pronounce the cluster at the end top teeth on the bottom lip and cut it out with a t sound chuffed chuffed so those are your words i hope you found them useful remember if you want to join my court talk to me on whatsapp for feedback and advice and questions you're welcome to join at etjenglish.com and for the rest of you please give me a thumbs up subscribe and i will see you next time cheers guys bye

Channel: ETJ English

Views: 324,031

Keywords: british english, british words, british slang, british pronunciation, slang words, pronunciation lesson, etj english, english pronunciation

Id: -UJFQW1p2cc

Length: 9min 23sec (563 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020