Learn Stormzy's British English Accent | Multicultural London English

- Today we're gonna learn all about the most innovative and fast moving British English

accent: multi-cultural London English. And we're gonna do that by watching an interview

with the hugely popular British musician, Stormzy. So if you truly want to learn about

fresh, modern British English, stay tuned.

Welcome to Eat, Sleep, Dream English. If you

haven't met me before, my name is Tom and I teach fresh, modern, British English so

that you can take your English to the next level and achieve your life goals whatever

they may be. Now, before we get to Stormzy's interview, I wanna talk a little bit about

what multi-cultural London English is, or MLE as it's also known. MLE is a modern British

English accent that is predominantly spoken by young people of different ethnicities in

and around London. Now I think this accent is an amazing representation of modern Britain,

because it draws on influences from all around, so it's a bit like a British stew. You've

got influences from all the major immigrant groups in London, so that's African, Caribbean,

Indian, Bangladeshi, etc. You've also got elements of a Cockney accent, which is the

traditional, working-class accent of London. You put all of these elements together, and

you have MLE. So it's an accent that transcends ethnicity, and if you come to London, spend

any time here, you will hear it everywhere that you go. So, I'm really excited to get

into this interview with Stormzy, and try to identify what interesting linguistic features

MLE has. Just before we start guys, I just wanna remind you that I've done several other

videos with other famous people. So we've got Adele, we've got Paul McCartney, we've

got Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. If you wanna to learn English with any of those people

the links are above. Okay, lets get going.

Alright, we're starting off with the word:

innit. This, in my opinion, is genius. It's a word that helps you avoid difficult grammar.

Right, so let me explain that to you. So in his sentence it's a rapper thing, innit. What

is innit replacing? Well it's replacing isn't it. Isn't it. That is a question tag, we call

that a question tag. So it's an auxiliary that we use at the end of a sentence to make

it a question. So for example, you like chocolate don't you? You like chocolate, don't you?

The don't you there is the question tag, but here he's just using innit because innit can

replace any question tag. It used to be isn't it but frankly you can use it for any question

tag. You're from London, innit. So not: You are from London, aren't you? Take the aren't

you away. Innit. You support Tottenham, innit? You support Tottenham, innit? Should be don't

you? Right, should be you support Tottenham, don't you? We don't need don't you, it's too

complicated. Just use innit. It's making the English simpler. It's making it easier. You

don't need to think about, okay, which auxiliary do I need to use? No, just say innit. And

this is really common in multi-cultural London English, and in other accents as well. So

it's used as a question tag or it's also used to agree with someone. So, if they just said

it's cold outside, you might say innit as, like, a way to agree with them. But here in

this interview Stormzy uses it a couple of times.

- It's just a kind of rapper thing, innit?

- Now I'm gonna say right now guys you need to be aware of when you're using your English,

and in what context, and therefore is this kind of language appropriate for the context

that you're going to use your English? So, if you're learning English for a business

presentation and for clients then using the word innit probably isn't appropriate, okay?

But, if you wanna learn English because you are listening to music, British music, or

watching films, then yeah, this is really interesting and important stuff. So, think

about the context you're gonna use your English, alright?

I don't really like either. Now,

let's look at that either there. Either, either, you can say whichever you want. It's the 'th'

there, he uses a /v/ sound, /v/, either. I would say it in my accent, either, eiTHer,

but he's using a /v/ sound, and that's common in a Cockney accent as well. So that shows

you the Cockney influence into the MLE accent, is the /v/ sound, so either, neither as well,

you might have brother or, yeah, brother again so that th /th/ sounds in received pronunciation

is /v/ in MLE.

- I don't really like either...

- One feature of MLE that I find really interesting is stress, now in an MLE accent stress is

used in a really interesting way. There is a lot of stress going on, on certain words,

certain syllables, to show emphasis. So here he's at the airport, really putting a lot

of stress on the first syllable there, the airport. I guess its just to emphasize something

or to make something clearer. But yeah, it's definitely a feature of the MLE accent that

we're gonna see later on in the interview.

- And I remember driving, I was on my way to the airport...

- Just a little vocabulary feature there, for time. Just means for a long time, so for

time I was racking my brain. Racking your brain is trying to think, trying to remember

something. So for a long time he was trying to remember where he'd heard this song.

- [Stormzy] For time racking my brain thinking where I know this song...

- This is another feature that I hear a lot, nah nah nah, not no, no, no, nah nah nah nah.

Again you'll find that in a couple of other accents but definitely in the MLE accent.

Nah nah nah nah nah.

Okay, I know about those, now he said dose, dose with a /d/ sound on

that th. Now in received pronunciation, in some accents, you'll have those th, /th/ sound,

but here; /d/. It's replaced with a d. So in the MLE accent when there's a /th/, you

could use a /d/ instead. So dose, here, instead of this it's dis, or that is dat, etc, okay

I'm doing a terrible job of recreating it but you get the idea, alright.

- Aaahh, I know about dose.

- Now some of you will have noticed that that's the same sound, th is the same sound in those

as it is in either or either, that we met earlier. Now in that first one he used a /v/

sound 'cause it's in the middle of a word, so either, or either, but because it's at

the beginning of a word now, with those we're using a /d/ sound. So /d/, dese, dose, dat,

etc. So that same sound, /th/, could be pronounced with a /v/, or with a /d/.

This phone's waterproof,

so another influence of the Cockney accent coming in. Water, use that glottal T, water,

waterproof. So that T disappears. As I say that's from Cockney, also though interestingly

Ed Sheeran also uses it, he uses that glottal T as well, so the glottal T dropping the T,

appears in lots of different accents. So you've got Cockney, where it's mostly featured, multi-cultural

London English, and in contemporary received pronunciation which is the accent that Ed

Sheeran uses. So the glottal T is found in a multitude of accents.

- 'cause it's waterproof now.

- This phone's waterproof?

- Great phrase here; oh my days. Just to show surprise at something like you can't believe

something's happening. Oh my days.

Interesting bit of vocabulary there, bruv, short for brother,

it replaces mate, it's something that you call a friend or someone like that. It's a

term of endearment, yeah, so he calls Ed Sheeran bruv in this one.

- Bruv, I'm not gonna, do you know I'm not just saying this cos you're here...

- Little bit of grammar here. So, you was, everything. Now, in standard British English

you would say you were everything, right, you conjugate that verb to be as you were,

but in MLE accent it's perhaps a non-standard form of the verb to be so you was, there.

This again as something, as a learner of English maybe it's important to be aware of that it's

not a mistake on his part it's just the grammar that he uses.

- You was everything that I hoped for you to be...

- Another use of innit, so you can't say that without being cute, innit. But how confusing

to think well what was the auxiliary? The first one was can't, so it has to be can now.

Just say innit, much easier.

Alright, there we go again with dey, so they becomes dey,

it's using that /d/ sound on th. You'll also see on area he's using a slightly wider vowel

sound, and also the stress, putting a lot of emphasis on that word because he thinks

it's important in a sentence. It's an important piece of information so he's getting extra

stress.

- As in, they are from my area...

- Piece of vocabulary there; sick, is an adjective here meaning like cool or awesome or brilliant

or fantastic.

- That's why it's so sick...

- Got interesting things on the T's here so he says the T for 19 then he drops it later

for 90. So, sometimes he'll use the true T, sometimes he'll use a glottal T there. That's

interesting because I think in MLE that is something that happens where there's not a

consistent use of either the glottal T or the true T, I think there's a mixture of sometimes

in MLE you'll use the t, the true T, sometimes you'll drop it, depending on how you feel.

So, here he uses both.

- When you see you can buy them from Superdrugs for £19.95

- Thinking there, he uses /f/ on the th. So the th in received pronunciation would be

thinking, thinking, he's using /f/ so it's finking, that's an influence of the Cockney

accent there. Uses oh my days again, I think he loves that phrase.

- And I remember thinking oh my days, that's so expensive

- The /i/ again there, high, really wide. Really wide sound there, and again, interesting

emphasis so and high getting all the stress.

- I remember him being so high...

- We've got another example there of a use of non-standard grammar, so he said he probably

don't instead of he probably doesn't. Doesn't would be the standard grammar, standard form

of grammar, but he's using he don't. Again, that's used in quite a few different accents,

but a feature of MLE and certain accents in London could be from Cockney, that's another

feature of Cockney, that non-standard conjugation.

- He probably don't even remember...

- Another example of a vowel getting a wider sound phone there, phone, phone /o/ has a

wider, broader sound.

- Ah my phone's dead

- [Ed Sheeran] Was this recently?

- No this was ages ago, he definitely didn't know me.

- Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed that little look at Multi-cultural London English. I think

it's fascinating. It's an incredibly interesting accent that has evolved and developed over

the years because of the influences that London has in particular. I advise you to check out

more of Stormzy's work, his music is fantastic, super popular here in Britain and you'll hear

his accent and the language that he's using. So if you enjoyed it guys please give it a

big thumbs up, let me know in the comments below who would you like me to do next? Which

accent? Which famous person would you like me to do a little study on. Yeah, tell me

in the comments below. Remember if you wanna be a member of Eat, Sleep, Dream English you

can hit that join button. I've got lots of t-shirts and merchandise in my shop, you can

check that out as well, and of course go to my Instagram page where I do fresh modern

British English every single day. Alright, I think that's enough. Guys, thank you so

much for joining me. This is Tom, the chief dreamer, saying goodbye.