8 BRITISH ACCENT Tips to Sound Like a NATIVE Speaker | Easy English 138

Hiya, welcome to Easy English.

So today, I want to give  you eight pronunciation tips

to help you sound like a native speaker.

Now before we get started,

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This is eight pronunciation tips

to help you sound like a native speaker,

here we go!

Now it's worth mentioning, before we start,

that even if you perfect all eight of these tips

to sound like a British native speaker,

but you're still using American English words,

then all your work will be undone

and people will spot you from a mile away.

You firstly need to stop using words such as;

soccer, trash, candy and zucchini

and instead start using words such as;

football, rubbish... sweets and courgette.

And then you're going to start  sounding more like a Brit.

Yes!

Now to help you with this,

we made a video giving you  50 alternative British words

to American words in this link up here,

so watch that first.

So the first tip I have for you,

I'm gonna to call the 'T's and the glottal T's'.

Now on a basic level,

you shouldn't be pronouncing your T's

like you're imitating someone spitting on someone.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to

you.

Now in order to pronounce proper T's,

you need to place that end of your tongue

on the roof of your mouth,  just behind your front teeth,

and apply pressure and release...

t.

Now the glottal T is a very informal way

which us Brits like to pronounce our t's.

An example of a glottal a T would be;

city or pretty or Putney.

Now to perform a glottal T,

you have to go along the lines

of preparing yourself to do a tiny cough.

You must first, trap air  in the back of your throat

and then when you release,

you say the final letters of  the word you're pronouncing.

And now a good way to practise this,

is to say the letter E. And then, try to stop it,

suddenly, without closing your mouth.

eeeeee...

that's a glottal T.

Now once you perfect glottal T,

you yourself will feel like you're a super-Brit,

able to pronounce such British  words and sentences such as;

Oi! I'm British mate, now  pass me a bottle of water.

Next up for you, I have the 'Schwa  sound' symbolised with this.

Now, in order to practise the schwa sound,

you have to make a noise a bit like a zombie;

/ə/

Yeah? Got it?

Now you give it a go.

That's right!

Argh!

Now the schwa noise features in  many words, such as; /Ləndən/.

Where non-native speakers might say; /Lon-don/,

the O is replaced with the schwa sound.

So instead we have London.

However, there is a good rule;

the schwa sound can be put in place of any word

that finishes with 'er', or 'or'.

For example;

teacher.

Author.

Footballer.

Carpenter.

Doctor.

Butcher.

Actor.

Okay my next tip I've called 'The /o/ sound'.

Now you probably heard this  in the glottal T example

I gave to you earlier.

Brits like to pronounce the letters  'A' and 'O' as /o/ in certain words,

such as; water or whatever.

Now, this is in contrast to American English,

where Americans like to  pronounce it with an /a/ sound,

such as; water or whatever.

Now luckily for you, this  pronunciation is very easy

as we pronounce the /o/ sound by  making an 'O' shape with our mouth.

/o/

Today's episode is sponsored by the letter /o/.

Words such as hot, not, for.

And now with the glottal T; a bottle of water.

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Now back to the episode.

Next up, a topic I like to call  'The non-rhotic /r/ sound'.

Now in its simplicity, a non-rhotic 'R',

is essentially the /r/ noise that's not rolled,

which is very typical in English.

This is why you'll often see British people

struggling to learn Italian or Spanish,

where the 'R' is often rolled; ⟨r⟩.

Now a good way to practise this,

is with the word 'murderer' or 'murder',

where you simply just pout your lips out.

Murder.

Murderer.

Now there is, as there always  is, an exception to this.

If you go to Scotland,  you'll hear complete opposite

to the non-rhotic 'R'.

It appears there’s been a murder.

Aye, I don't know. But the murderer  was driving a purple Ferrari

Now the next segment I like  to call 'The ed word endings'.

Now this isn't specific to British English,

this also works for American English,

where most words finishing with  'ed' aren't pronounced /ed/.

For example, you wouldn't say excited,

chopped or used.

You'd say; excited, chopped, used.

Now the pronunciations can be separated

into three different categories;

'id', 't' and 'd'.

Some examples of 'id' would  be; excited, waited, lifted.

Examples of 't' would be; chopped.  tripped, laughed... or laughed.

And examples of 'd' would be; used, banged, loved.

Now the next topic I like to  call 'The /w/ and /wh/ sounds.

Now as you just saw and heard,  these two are spelt differently

but are pronounced the same.

Now you might be caught out  by this pronunciation error,

because maybe, you've watched  an old movie on Netflix

set in 1900s Britain, where people  would be saying which or where.

This pronunciation is very outdated.

Nowadays, which is the same as witch

and where is the same as wear.

Other examples of this are;

wine and whine.

Weather and whether.

And Wales and whales.

And finally, my last tip to  sound like a native speaker

I like to call 'Don't ring the ing'.

Now you'll find that most Southerners

will not even pronounce the 'G'  when they're speaking informally.

For example; thinking.

However, if you want to speak  ''proper'' British English,

then the 'G' has to be present,  but just 'don't ring the ing'.

Now it's quite common for non-natives

to over enunciate thet 'ing'  sound to the following words;

listening, speaking, reading, thinking.

It's fine just to cut the 'g' short.

For example;

Listening.

Thinking.

Reading.

Speaking.

So there you go,

there's eight tips to help  you sound like a native Brit.

Let us know how you get on,

or if you can think of any  more in the comments below.

And we'll see you next week, te-ra.