British Pronunciation Secrets (Modern RP) Learn British Accents

today we are learning some secret tips to help you achieve a British accent [Music] hello everybody and welcome to another etj English British pronunciation lesson and as I mentioned just now we're going to be learning some secret tips some tips which will help you sound more British now when I say British I do have to say this because I get people from places like Scotland and up in the north of the UK and various other areas complaining saying that I'm teaching only one British accent this is the accent I teach and it's my accent it's a modified RP modern RP British accent so if that's the accent you want then my videos are for you if you want a Scottish accent go and find a Scottish youtuber ok so just a disclaimer there for those of you sensitive people so these secrets secrets what are they well these are things which I think are very very important to the British accent things which you need to do if you really want people to think suddenly oh they sound a bit British so that's what we're aiming for today and these kind of few tips should help you with that now there are many many many many many different secrets and tips I could give you but these are just a few if you want to learn all of the tips and all of the ways of sounding British you'll need a full-length course and that's why I have a British English course available a pronunciation course at ETJ English comm the links in the description below but just for these few kind of free tips I hope you find them useful and I really hope they help you with achieving your goals so let's get started the first thing I need to tell you in fact is to think about words for example if you're speaking with a British accent or you're trying to speak with a British accent but you say a word like trash instead of rubbish then you're going to still sound American you're going to sound like a British person who is struggling with vocabulary and using American vocabulary so try to avoid American words okay try to use the British form so as I said instead of saying trash say rubbish and of course you can find various other words which is which is similar where we have a British version and Americans have their own version maybe I'll make a video about that in the future now another really important secret I have for you is don't forget your t's the letter T that sound firstly let's check that you can pronounce it let's say a word like 2 2 now in the beginning if you find it difficult you might find that you're spitting the sound out quite a lot too but we need to learn to relax it to sound a bit more natural now remember that the tongue rises to the top of the mouth and we create some pressure and we release it make sure it's nice and relaxed don't do a big because you might blind someone with your spits and we don't really want any kind of germs going in other people's faces so just try and gently produce that sound 2 2 now the tea is extremely important to British English make sure you're pronouncing your teas between vowels whoa this is really important let's take a word like city ok City so City the tea is surrounded by two vowels right so you have the tea and then you have two vowels now the important thing here is that you don't pronounce it as a D which is what Americans do they would say city city city British English city city tip so make sure you can pronounce those t's firstly and then make sure that between two vowels you're pronouncing that T now there are situations where we can use a glottal T I could say for example I live in a city see this is what we call the glottal T now lots of people think that they can just remove the T and that's a glottal T but it's not okay or is not the glottal T is actually a sound but it's not a sound at the same time sip e what we're doing is we're creating some tension in our throat and we're cutting off the sound before the T so sip sip it imagine your do you have a long and then you want to cut the sound out you have to do it with the tightness in your throat sick sick sick so that's how we do the glottal tea it's tightening the throat really tensing it and cutting a sound out to replace the tea it's very advanced and it's very difficult and lots of students say to me Elliot I can do the glottal tea I say okay send me a recording they send me a recording and it's not right so it is really really advanced and it's really difficult in my suggestion for now if you don't feel like you're a very advanced British English speaker start by pronouncing your teas and then eventually if you want to you can start using the glottal tea and learning about it because it's a whole new sound it's not just a technique it's almost like a sound so just a few other words Americans would say whatever whatever and we would say whatever whatever or again whatever whatever with the glottal T so whatever or whatever would be the British version water we would say water an American would say water water we say water or water now the difference here is of course the tea but also the vowel sound and I'm going to talk about vowels a bit later on water but it also happens between words you heard me then I just said but it but it also happens between words now an American would say but it but it also but it also we say but it also we have to pronounce that T or we drop it with a glottal sounds but it but it but it but it those are the British way American bird did they use a D so when we have a T which is between two vowels whether it's in a word or it's between two words we pronounce it as a T or we can use of glottal T Americans there use a D to join it now as well as the t's the R is also very very important or sad right like in red so let's just check that you can pronounce it lift your tongue to the top of your mouth or in kind of the bend of your mouth feel your tip of your tongue reaching up there or look at my lips I read right now if you're having trouble pronouncing that you probably need a teacher to directly help you with that and as I said my course is available if you need some help with the arc but the thing that I need you to know is that and I've taught this in one of my most popular videos the R is sometimes replaced by vowels okay so for example course we don't say course we say course now the reason why and I've told you this before we only pronounce the letter R or when there is a vowel sound after it that's it so if you see a word and it has an R and followed by a consonant sound then you know it will be replaced by a vowel so that vowel could be a could like for example work it could be or for example course could be the R sound for example party party we're not pronouncing the R and there are lots of vowels which replace the letter R so you need to know all of the British vowels to understand when they replace the letter R but just remember we only pronounce the R or when there is a vowel sound after it easy so they say the next important part of British English an important secret you need to know is the schwa sound the schwa sound is about thirty to forty percent of British pronunciation it's everywhere everywhere everywhere everywhere it's in words like teacher potato about adventure two can be pronounced as turn and if you didn't realize by now the sound is a and it's a very easy sound to produce I've taught you this in lessons before just very quickly so you know mouth is relaxed tongue is relaxed in the middle of the mouth so there are lots of complex kind of reasons for when and why we use the schwa sound but you need to know about the schwa sound if you want to sound British it's so important to British English for example as I said before an American might say teacher we say teacher whenever a word finishes with her we pronounce it with uh okay and that also goes for the spelling of oor for example doctor so you need to learn a lot about the schwa sound about how it appears in words not just replacing ER but it happens in lots of other situations I'd be here all day if I had to explain it for you and that's why there is a whole chapter in my course about the schwa sound it's that important I guess just a few kind of important mentions I need to give you DIF dongs if you don't know what they are you need to learn about them sounds like ear air ow you need to learn those because they will make you sound really British again they are kind of sounds with replace the letter R so make sure you know your diphthongs and you started learning them but learn your vowels before you learn your diphthongs a sound which is really important as well as the schwa sound to sounding extremely British or in a word like hot not pot so an American would say hot we say hot this very round shape with the mouth where we lift the tongue in the mouth or it creates such a British sound you know for example it's hot today right an American say it's hot today it but we say is hot today and this kind of op sound really does create a British sense about you so make sure that you get this sound right and you're not doing the kind of our open mouth sound you're doing more of the round shape or and pushing your lips out so as I said there are hundreds and hundreds of secrets and tips I could give you about the British accent these are just a few I wanted to give you today because I think they're quite easy to understand and they're things which you can start looking at and studying right now and training yourself to do when we get to more complicated things like stress and intonation I mean that's when things get a bit more confusing and that's when you really need direct contact with a teacher so if you do need my personal help and you want to learn more secrets and more ways of sounding more British you could become my student and talk with me with voice messaging on whatsapp whenever you want or WeChat you just have to join my course at ETJ English comm remember you also use my podcast for listening practice if you need some listening practice but thank you very much guys please give me a thumbs up and don't forget to hit the subscribe button if you haven't already take care I will see you soon and she is guys fine [Music]

Channel: ETJ English

Views: 3,453,307

Rating: 4.9621978 out of 5

Keywords: British English, British accent, British pronunciation, sound British, speak British, ETJ English, accent tips

Id: agUuOtgHdGY

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2019