FRIENDS | When AMERICANS FAIL at BRITISH ACCENTS

- So, we all agree that Friends is one of the best shows of all time, right? Like, I

think it's amazing. But what happens when they try to do a British accent?

- Well hello, Rachel.

- Wha, wha, wha, what's that?

- Oh bloody 'ell.

- You see what I mean, right? So, today we're gonna look at several examples of British

accent fails in Friends, they're hilarious, they are brilliant, they are genius, but,

we're going to try and understand where they went wrong, okay? Let's get started.

- 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 your English to the next level and

achieve your life goals, whatever they may be. Now before we get started, guys, I want

to remind you that I've released my British Slang Posters, they are perfect for anyone

that loves British English. As you can see they have a variety of British slang words,

you can pop them on your wall, in your home, or in your language school, wherever you want.

Perfect to inspire anyone that loves British English. If you'd like to get one for yourself

or for a friend, then you can hit the link in the description below. In this episode,

Ross accidentally slips into a British accent because he's nervous and he wants to impress

his students.

- Right, okay. First of all to say that Ross is trying to speak in received pronunciation,

so that is the standard British accent if you will, it's the one probably most commonly

heard. It was the voice of the BBC for a long time and lots of sort of famous actors and

politicians speak with this accent, it's commonly thought of as a kind of posh accent. Now,

he does a terrible job of trying to speak with received pronunciation. It's too much,

right? It's too exaggerated and I know it's for comedy purposes so, you know, that's a

part of it, but right, I mean that extension of the vowel sound there is too much, it's

too much. And then get the word laboratory. Now, in British English, that's how we'd say

it, laboratory. In American English, laboratory, apologies for my accent, but laboratory. He's

broken it down too much, and this is a part of why when some Americans try to do British

accents, it goes wrong because they try and pronounce every sound, whereas in reality,

in British English, we're using a lot of shwas to blend sounds together. So, labora-tree,

not labora-tory. Laboratory. So example on the "a" we would use a shwa, "uh" sound, because

it's not an important syllable. So interested of saying labor-ra-tory, it's labor-a-tree.

Labor-ra-tree, laboratory, laboratory. That "a" kind of disappears almost, becomes a shwa,

and the word is easy to say, laboratory. In fact, let's look at another example of this.

- Sedimentary. I mean, it's too much, sedimentary. So again, that "a" disappears and we just

say sedimentary, sedimentary. So, sounds are becoming shorter, they're becoming weaker,

we are squashing those words down, instead of saying every single syllable or every single

sound.

- He does pretty well there, consternation. Consternation get's that "au" sound pretty

well there, Cau, cau, cau-sternation. 'Cause in American English it'd be consternation,

so you'd be using an "ah" sound, ca, ca, can-sternation. In British English, cau, cau-sternation.

- This is brilliant, this is pure comedy gold, so he goes, "Oh bloody hell, oh bloody hell."

So now, Ross has switched from received pronunciation or trying to do received pronunciation to

cockney. And this is the accent of London, particular East London, that you would have

seen in films like Mary Poppins, probably, Green Street, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking

Barrels, lots of different films, different examples of this accent. But he does it terribly.

Really bad. What he has tried to do there is drop the "h" and that is a feature of a

cockney accent is you drop an "h", So, I'm just having, that "h" there disappears, it's

'aving, 'aving a laugh. So the "h" disappears, and he does do that, kind of, pretty badly

I'd say. But "bloody hell" is quite authentic English, we use it to express anger at a situation,

it's a little bit rude, so be careful where you use it. But yeah, his attempt is pretty

bad.

- I was nervous, you guys had me all worried, I was gonna be boring. I got up there and

they were all, like staring at me. I opened my mouth and this British accent just came

out.

- Do you have a moment to talk about your lecture?

- He's still going, "I'm sorry, I've got plans with my sister." What's that about right?

The intonation is too much, it's goin' up and down, it's too staccato as well, "I'm

sorry, I've got plans with my sister," it's like, almost like a computer saying words

randomly, it's not so up and down like that, it is you know, where does that come from?

Maybe that's from Mary Poppins, maybe we gotta blame Dick Van Dyke for that.

- Alright, ladies and gents! "Will you excuse us for one moment?" Huh, alright, let's just

take that one word there, moment, he's trying to use a glottal T at the end of it, so not

pronouncing that "t", alright, that is a feature of British English, "moment", but the stress

of that word is wrong, so we'll put the stress on the first syllable, moment, moment, but

he's putting on the second, moment, moment. Almost on both, mom-ment. It's not right,

we have a flatter intonation, stress on the first syllable, and you may or may not use

a glottal T at the end there.

- What are you doing?

- Oh, you can have an accent but I can't?

-Alright, this is Monica's turn to try and do an accent, this time an Irish accent, nothing

to do with British accents, an Irish accent, "Top of the morning to ya, laddies." "Top

of the morning" is a phrase that is associated with Irish English just to mean like, good

morning. She does a pretty terrible job of that as well.

- Look, I really need some help, okay? Why, why did I have to speak in a British accent?

What do I do?

- Well, why don't you phase it out? Yeah, phase the accent out, people will think that

you're, you know, just adjusting to life in America.

- Alright, so the plan now is for him to fade out his accent, to slowly blend from his terrible

British accent into an American accent, or his natural accent, let's see how he does.

-Alright, keep going, we are phasing the accent out, phasing it out.

- Identified! It's brilliant, yeah, alright, so he's gettin' the sounds right, I, identify.

This stress is off, obviously but poor Ross at this point, he's really struggling isn't

he?

- Were there any questions at this point? Yes?

- What's happening to your accent?

He's gettin' the vowel sounds better, what, instead

of watt, what, what, but he is extending the vowel sounds a bit too much, nonsense, and

the stress is off as well. It continues, it gets better.

- Look, I was just trying to make a good first impression, obviously, I screwed up, but what

you guys think of me is really important because I'm hoping to get a permanent job here. So,

if you just give me another chance to make a good impression.

- Ross! Are you crazy! I'm still your wife? What, were you just never gonna tell me? What

the hell is wrong with you! Ugh, I could just kill you!

-And there he goes back into a cockney accent, "'Ello Rachel", droppin' that "h" on 'ello.

Um, it's comedy gold, I absolutely love this scene. I quite enjoy listenin' to Ross' accent,

it's terrible, but it's so funny, so so funny. Now there are some important cultural aspects

that I want to talk about that relate to each scene here. Certainly, with received pronunciation,

there is this concept, this idea that it is respected, it is desirable, that if you speak

with this accent, you are educated. Now, I'm not here to say whether that's true or not,

that's just a perception that some people have of the accent. Now maybe that does come

from the fact that received pronunciation was the main accent of the BBC, which was

the key source for information in Britain, so there could be something in that. Now why

that's the interpretation, in America as well, I'm not quite sure. And maybe that's something

my American viewers could help me out with, why is that Ross wants to speak with a British

accent, received pronunciation in this case? Alright, let's switch to Chandler, now Chandler

slips into a British accent when he's around Emily, who's Ross's girlfriend and she is

from Britain, she speaks with received pronunciation and he in turn, kind of mirrors that accent.

- Okay, it's pretty good, he's really pronouncing every single sound there which is something

that you would do in received pronunciation, more tea, more tea, that tea very well said,

that true "t".

-Alright this is super exaggerated. He's going for a very posh accent, received pronunciation

but, yeah really posh version, and he's saying everything very clipped and very pointed,

pronouncing all the sounds, "No, just me then?"

- Hey Ringo, every time Emily's around, you talk like her, would you please cut it out?

- Huh, oh, oh, I think you like it. I think you can't resist me when I do it, you wanna

eat me up like a creme crumpet.

- What?

- Alright, look, I don't know all the words.

- I'm not quite sure what word he's looking for here, I think maybe crumpets which is

a kind of sort of savory cake that we toast and then you can put butter on, jam on, whatever

you might have it for tea. Um, I think it's crumpet, but I'm not sure. Now here again,

Chandler suggests that having a British accent is more desirable, that Monica, in this case,

finds it attractive, she likes it when he speaks with an American accent, which again

is a stereotype that I've heard before, that Americans love a British accent, I don't know

if that's true or not but, this is playing into that stereotype. Again, America viewers,

if you could enlighten me a bit more on that, what is the status of a British accent, certainly

of received pronunciation, what do you guys think of it, how is it perceived in America?

The other big theme here is how Chandler switches into a British accent when he's in the presence

of Emily, now that is something we could call it mirroring, where you kind of mirror someone's

accent. There are several reasons why you might do this, you might just wanna make them

feel comfortable, it's a sign of empathy with someone as well. I certainly do it when I

talking to certain people, I might switch maybe my accent a little bit, but certainly

I'll start using vocabulary that they might use as well. Now there is a term called bidialectalism,

in which you are fluent in two different dialects of the same language and you switch between

the two. So for example, you might speak with received pronunciation but you might also

speak with a cockney accent, and you kinda switch between the two and you are perfectly

fluent in both and depending on your social situation, you might use either one, I think

a lot more people do that than they think because it's a part of our social survival,

right? It's a part of blending in with other people so maybe we might speak at work with

one accent, and then with our friends and family in a different accent. So possibly

here, Chandler is doing a bit of that, okay he's not doing a very good job of it, and

it's for comedy purposes, but there is a certain aspect here where he's switching between the

two to make Emily feel more comfortable. As I said, I think I do mirror people when I'm

speaking, I certainly mirror their accents and their vocabulary, if you do the same thing,

let me know. I'm not the only one right? Please, tell me in the comments below, if you also

do this, tell me, how do you do it, when do you do it, why do you do it? Alright, lets

move onto Phoebe. Now, Emily has just been speaking to the group, and she leaves the

room and then Phoebe says this,

- Goodnight, it was very nice to meet you all.

- I'll get her.

- Please, hurry.

- Okay.

- So don't you just love the way they talk, ooo, oh, uh.

- Now what I love about this is, this is another stereotype, I think, that Americans have about

British people, is that we're, we bumble a lot, we kind of fumble our words, we don't

speak very fluently or very eloquently, we just kind of talk a bit like this, best example,

Hugh Grant.

- Uh, I just, um, well this is a really stupid question, and particularly, in view of our

recent shopping excursion, but, uh,

- So if we were tryin' to say that we love someone, we might sorta say like, "Well, you

know I, um, think that you're, uh, well, quite a, you're a lovely person and you know, I,

uh, well, I bloody well um, I love you." That's Hugh Grant, right? I think that's what she's

referring to. It's another stereotype that maybe Americans have of British people. Now

from all of those different examples of a British accent, you're only getting two different

types, you're getting received pronunciation or you're getting cockney. Now, I think when

I see British accents being done by American TV shows, there's only ever those two accents.

There's no other examples of the different accents. Now in Britain we have so many accents

that aren't represented in the same way. Mancunian accent, the Scouse accent, Geordie accent,

Glasweigan accent, Bristolian accent, multi-cultural and in English, we've got so, so many and

they're never, ever represented on American TV, I don't know why that is, I guess that's

just because in the movies and in the TV shows that we put out, those are the main accents,

but British English accents are so much more than just those two main accents. We're close

to conclude the intonation, the stress of a word, and the vowel sounds are problematic

in those examples. Now, as I've said before, this is a show that is made to make people

laugh, it's very exaggerated, I don't take it too seriously, but I just wanted to kind

of have a look at some examples of what people think British English sounds like and in reality

what it actually sounds like. I wanna remind you again, I've got my British Slang Posters,

they are available right now to buy, hit that link just below. Also remember to check out

my Instagram account where I put daily English content, thank you so much for joining me,

guys. If you have any suggestions and what video you'd like me to do next, please put

that in the comments below as well. Alright guys, thank you so much for watching. This

is Tom, the Chief Dreamer, saying goodbye.