002 - How To Understand Different UK Accents

In the UK, there are loads of different accents and they can be completely different to each other. And as an English learner, it can feel like people are speaking a completely different bloody language. And that can leave you feeling like you don't understand anything. But today, I want to show you some pronunciation techniques that you will find in different UK accents, so you can start understanding what Brits are going on about. Welcome to the Proper British English Podcast, the podcast that's designed to help you understand British life, British culture, and of course British English, so let's get cracking. Hey up mate! How you doing today? I'm not too bad. Thanks for asking and welcome to episode 2 of the Proper British English Podcast. My name is Dan, I'm a self-qualified British English teacher, and my goal is to help you feel more confident when you communicate in English. Now, today's episode is all about British accents and the different kind of pronunciation techniques that you're going to find. But before we get into the episode, I want to remind you that you can get the transcript for this episode. And every other episode, totally for free by using the link in the description below. Download the PDF now and you can follow along with what I'm saying, and it might make things a bit easier for you. So, UK accents then, right? There's a big problem with UK accents, that people think there is one UK accent. And we all speak exactly like you heard in your textbooks when you were growing up, and how you would expect the royal family to sound. The problem is, this accent is called RP, which is short for received pronunciation. And this is kind of the quote, "unquote standard British English accent", right? Now, the biggest issue with this is that less than 5% of people in the UK speak this way. It's not a very common accent at all. The only place it's really common is textbooks and English teachers. They teach you this when you are learning English, but in reality, most people don't sound this way when they speak in English. The truth is, in the UK, there's a minimum of 50 different accents, probably more, and even inside those accents, there's a lot of variation. So, that's one of the problems because how are you supposed to learn all of these different accents, right? That's a lot of bloody work. And you don't necessarily need to learn them all, but what I would suggest is if you're going to be communicating with British people, is learning some of the more common techniques that exist in lots of different accents. So, instead of focusing on a specific accent, like I don't know, a Scouse accent from Liverpool or a Glaswegian accent or something like that, it's probably better if you were to just learn the common techniques that'll help you understand most of what's going on. So, you're not surprised when you talk to people with a different accent, right? So, the point of today's episode is I want to go through and I want to explain some of these more common pronunciation techniques that exist in different accents. I'll try and explain what they are and give you some examples and explain where you might find this in different accents. So, that's kind of the point for today. The first thing I want to talk about is something called the Bath Trap Split, okay? Or should I say Bath Trap Split. Now, what this is in the UK, there is a big difference between accents in the North and accents in the South, especially in England. And one of the big differences is how we pronounce the A sound, right? So, in the North of England, you're going to find that a lot of these sounds are a short A, for example, Bath and Trap. They sound the same in Northern accents like mine. However, in the South, you'll find that some of the sounds are this elongated A sound. So, in the South, you're more likely to hear Bath Trap rather than Bath Trap in the North, right? Now, you can pretty much draw a line across the middle of the country somewhere around Nottingham, maybe around Birmingham, draw a line straight across the country. Everyone above that, well, most people above that are going to use the short A and most people below that are going to use the long A. And this is going to be in words like father, ask, and I don't know, Bath in all these kind of words. So, don't be surprised if you hear a lot of difference, right? For example, I'll give you an example of a sentence. So, in RP, which tends to use the A, the longer A sound. I had a bath after dance class. That's hard for me to say, because I don't do that. For me, it's I had a bath after dance class. And that's a big difference, the vowel shift, right? But it's not the only vowel shift in British English. We've got another one, which is almost exactly the same. So, in the north, we've got one variation, and in the south, we've got a different variation. And this is called the foot-struct split, or should I say, foot-struct split. Okay? Now, this is related to the two sounds, or as in foot, and A, which in the south is found in words like strut, bus, up, not bus, up, strut, like it is for me in the north. You can hear that difference, right? So, once again, everybody, and not everybody, but most people in the north are going to be using the same "u" sound for both. And in the south, you're going to get that difference with the "u" and the "a". Okay? For example, my mother took the bus up the hill. In the north, right? We've got that "u" sound. My mother took the bus up the hill. Okay? Whereas in the south, that same thing is going to be my mother took the bus up the hill. Okay? And that's called the foot-struct split. Very common vowel division between the north and the south. That and the bath-struct split will help you work out what kind of accent you're dealing with. Are you dealing with a northern accent or are you dealing with a southern accent? And that will explain why some words sound differently depending on where you are in the country, right? Another thing that I want to explain today is something related to the "th" sound, the "th" sound. You know, everyone's favorite sound when you learn in English, right? Yeah, we teach you how to say the "th" sounds correctly because there's two, right? We teach you how to say the voiced and the unvoiced sound. However, not all native speakers do that. In my natural accent, I don't do that. We've got a couple of techniques related to "th" that you will hear in different accents. The first one is called "th" frontin, right? And "th" frontin is where the "th" sounds become either a "f" or a "v", right? Depending on if it's the voiced or the unvoiced. So instead of saying "my brother lives with me", in "brother", it's going to become a "v" sound. My "brother", "brother", not "brother", "brother", lives with me, with, with me. My "brother" lives with me. My "brother" lives with me, okay? So we've got that frontin sound, and that's quite popular in like Cockney and South East London accents. And I do it in Yorkshire as well, so you'll find in Yorkshire accents. And the other thing is called "th" stopping. And this is where the "th" sounds become either a "t" or a "d", instead of "the" or "the", right? Now, this is more common in things like Irish accents or Liverpool accents a little bit. It does exist in other ones, but you will find it in those accents. For example, the word "three" is going to become "tri", which sounds like a thing you would find in a forest. But "three", "tri" or "that" will become "d" like a "d" sound at the beginning. So I could say something like "three people saw that today", and that's going to become "tri" people saw that today. "Tri" people saw that today. Sounds very Irish, doesn't it? So that is "th" stopping, and that exists in different accents around the UK. So if suddenly the "th" sound completely disappears, and you hear people say things like "think" instead of "think" or "tri" instead of "three". You know what's going on, OK? And it might help you understand and not get confused when you talk into those people. Cool. Now, we're onto some of the more famous stuff. Now, everybody knows there's a bit of a meme in the UK about how British people say "bottle of water". And we kind of swallow that "t" sound, right? And we get "bottle of water". Now, this is called a "glottel stop". That's the actual name for it. And what we're doing is we're cutting the airflow when we chop the "t", right? So we're kind of stopping the air in our throat. And the way we do that is we close the vocal cord so the air can't get out. It sounds complicated. But if you think about the word "Uh-oh", you know, something goes bad. "Uh-oh", I forgot my wallet, something like that. "Uh-oh", you can feel that little pause, that little stopping of the air. "Uh-oh", "Uh-oh", that's a "glottel stop". That's the sound we're looking for. And it's the same for us being like "but-oh", "what-uh", "but-oh", "what-uh". We've got that little pause, right? So that's a "glottel stop". It's very, very common in a lot of London accents, generally in the southeast of the UK. I mean, some northern accents as well. Like Newcastle does a lot of "glottel stops", not just the "t", they do a bunch of other ones as well. But, you know, it exists in a lot of different accents. I use it naturally in my accent as well. So yeah, it's something that you're going to notice. And it's stronger in different areas. Not all speakers in that area do it, and not every single time, but you will notice it quite a lot. Notice it quite a lot. I just said it there. So, if I was to give you a sentence where you could practice this, or at least get used to hearing it, it would be in RP would say, "Can you get the water bottle?" Whereas in the areas that glottelize that "t", you're more likely to hear, "Can you get the water bottle?" So it's dropping the "t" at the end of "get", and we're also dropping the "t" in water and the "t" in bottle. "Can you get the water bottle?" "Can you get the water bottle?" "Can you get the water bottle?" And that is called a glottel stop. And if you notice that people are not pronouncing the "t"s, they're probably using an accent that's got a glottel stop in it. Cool. The last one I want to explain to you is something called the non-rotic "R" sound. So, you know, in English, we've got a lot of words that end in the "R" sound, "R", yeah? And not every accent in the UK pronounces that "R". In fact, quite a lot of us speak in a non-rotic accent, so the "R" sound disappears, especially after a vowel sound. For example, if we look at the word "car", "car" or "river", "river", or "mother", "mother". There's no "R" sound at the end of any of those words. If I was to say them with a strong "R", more like an American accent, be "car", "car", "river", "river", "mother", "mother". And there's that "R" sound at the end, right? A lot of British accents don't do that, so "car", "river", "mother". And that "ER" sound at the end often becomes like a "er", "river", "mother", "er", "river", "mother", "car". So either the vowel gets longer or it becomes a schwa sound, right? Now, it's not every UK accent. For example, most Scottish accents, most Irish accents, and quite a few northern UK, as well as northern English, I should say, accents "R" rotate, and they will pronounce that "R", but there's a lot of English accents specifically that don't pronounce that "R". So this sentence, the "car" is over there, in American accent, the "car" is over there, but for me, I don't pronounce the "R" at the end of "car" or over or there. So the "car" is over there, the "car" is over there, the "car" is over there, the "car" is over there. Now what you'll notice is a bit of a weird thing that I do actually pronounce the "R" at the end of "car" in that sentence. And the reason for this is that the next word starts with a vowel sound, and this is called linking "R". So if I say the word "car" on its own, I don't pronounce the "R", but when the next word begins with a vowel sound, in this case "Is", I put the "R" back in because it's easier to link them together. So "car", "car" is, "car", "car" is, the "car" is over there. So we've got that "R" there to link "car" and "is" together. This is called linking "R". I'll do a whole lesson about this at some point. It'll be on my Brit-Speak pod, so check it out. But yeah, that is what's going on with the "R" sound in British English now. That is five techniques that you will find across a lot of different British accents, and hopefully that'll help you understand what's going on. Now my question for you today is, what is the hardest accent for you to understand? There's a bunch of different accents, which one do you think is specifically the most difficult comment? Let me know. And don't forget to download the transcript for this episode and every other episode using the link in the description. Thanks for listening to this episode today. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back again with another one really soon, but until then, look after yourself mate. See you there.