What you can do to get a British accent.
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How to Learn British Pronunciation
Introduction
- There are countless British accents in England, let alone in the whole world.
- Don’t worry too much about accents. Everyone has one (even native speakers) and it should be a badge of pride to show where you come from.
- However: Reasons to want a British accent:
- To be more respected at work
- To stop being treated like an outsider
- To impress your friends!
British accents have a few things in common which we’ll look at later
General Advice
- Get the foundations right when you start so you don’t cement your mistakes, but change will come over time.
- Watch lots of British TV shows, movies, and of course podcasts
- Talk with native speakers and try to mimic their pronunciation
- Getting a teacher would be even better because they can correct your mistakes
- It takes a long time, and many people don’t begin to develop their accent fully until they reach an advanced level, don’t give up!
Specific Advice
- Shadowing - repeat words from phrases you hear. Pay attention to vowel sounds.
- Watch your mouth in a mirror
- Pay attention to your tongue position
- L - tongue touches top teeth
- R - tongue moves back in mouth, not touching
Learn stress
I recommend https://forvo.com/ for pronunciation and https://www.merriam-webster.com/ for a dictionary.
- PreSENT / PREsent
- SUSpect / susPECT
- Record yourself and listen back
Specific Sounds
- T sound - Very strong
- R sound - Not so strong
- Car, Park, Hair, Hard, Ear
American vs British
- AdvertIZEment (USA) / AdverTISSment (UK)
- The ILE sound is different. MoBLE (USA) / MoBILE (UK)
- Words ending in "ation". Organisation
I recommend this poem called The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité
This poem shows the irregularities in English pronunciation. Try it for fun! It's very difficult though.
Recap: Having an imperfect accent isn’t the end of the world. We each have our own and should be proud of it. However, there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve, so I hope this helped.
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