ACQUIRING A BRITISH ACCENT

ACQUIRING A BRITISH ACCENT



Brexit is one of the trending topics on the Internet right now. It was shocking to many people that the majority of Britain voted to leave the European Union and chose their identity over their current advantages in the economy.

That's just a few words from my head about Brexit. But this blog is not about Politics (at least, not for now)! Today I will provide some tips on how to have a posh British accent so that through this you guys will know more about Britain's culture.

Source: so-relatable.tumblr.com

Leave out the R's:
- In most parts of Britain, people tend to drop the R's when they speak.
- The R's that British people drop out is normally at the end or near the end of the word, e.g. "hear" and "there" will be pronounced /hɪə/ and /ðeə/.
- However, not all R's are left out. Words that have R's before another non-silent vowels will still be pronounced. e.g."Berry" and "Blurry" will still have their R's pronounced: /ˈber.i/ and /ˈblɜː.ri/.

Pronounce the T's:
- Do not make the T's sound like D's as in American English. Pronounce the T's as in "tea" and "beauty" with words where Americans usually make them D's.
- However, British people sometimes tend to leave out the T's when speaking. For example, "butter" becomes "bu'er".

U, not OO:
- While many Americans pronounce U as OO (as in "too"), the British U is pronounced EW. For example, instead of saying "yoo are stoopid", British people will say "yew are stewpid".

Talk and listen to the natives:
- While reading these tips would be recommended, talking to people who have British English as their mother-tongue would be the best option.
- Watch and learn from British movies or movies set in the UK. Personally, I would not recommend watching movies like Mr. Bean, although it's a British comedy series because of its limited amount of talking. However, movies like Harry Potter and Nanny McPhee are great ones that you can learn from, and they're really good, too!