How to Learn a British Accent *Fast* - (Modern RP - ALL Vowels & Consonants!)

- Hello, lovely students, and welcome  back to English with Lucy. In this video,  

I'm going to give you pretty much  everything you need to mimic my accent,  

modern Received Pronunciation. These are some  quick switches you can make if you want to speak  

with this kind of British English pronunciation  fast. But firstly, what is this modern RP,  

modern Received Pronunciation that I speak of?  Well, it's often referred to as standard British  

English or standard Southern British English.  It's generally what is taught in textbooks,  

and you'd find it in most English dictionaries,  especially when they write transcriptions like  

these. Okay, so in today's lesson, we're going to  start with vowel sounds. Then we're going to move  

to consonants. And then finally, we'll take a look  at connected speech. These are some quick wins  

that you can do to achieve a British accent fast.  However, if you are really serious about achieving  

a modern RP accent, I have something even better  for you. I have just launched my 12 week Beautiful  

British English Pronunciation programme. In just  three months, you will have the most incredible  

pronunciation transformation. If you like the way  modern RP sounds and you want to speak with that  

accent, if you feel self-conscious or vulnerable  when you talk, if you find you have to repeat  

yourself or speak really slowly to make people  understand you, or you feel you have unwanted  

pronunciation habits that are really difficult  to change, maybe you learnt bad habits at school,  

you are in the right place. Week by week, over  three months, my carefully structured curriculum  

and my expert team of pronunciation teachers will  support you and guide you to totally transforming  

your pronunciation. There is even an option  to get personal weekly pronunciation feedback  

in both audio and written format. As we have  totally rebuilt and relaunched the programme,  

we are running a relaunch offer. You can save  $100. The link to enrol and to learn more is in  

the description box. Here is a quick overview of  everything you get when you enrol. You get the 12  

week programme, but you get lifetime access to  it. You never lose access to the resources. We  

have over 65 videos, downloadable mind maps, PDFs,  hundreds of interactive activities and exercises.  

You get 16 weeks access to the private course  community where you can contact my teachers,  

ask questions, clarify doubts, interact with  your peers, respond to the weekly prompts. If  

you join the feedback plan, then you can also  receive your feedback there, or you can also do  

it privately if you don't want to share your  audios with anyone else. Don't miss out. We  

start on Monday the 27th of March. The deadline  is midnight the night before. All the information  

is in the link in the description box. Let's  get started with the lesson. Okay, first, let's  

look at all of the vowels, how all of the vowels  are pronounced in modern Received Pronunciation.  

Then I will pick out some of those problem vowel  sounds that often prevent students from sounding  

authentically British when they speak. Let's  start with the monophthongs over there. These  

are vowel sounds with a single auditory quality  and articulation. Some are short, some are long.  

The colon mark indicates that they are long. We  have E as in meat. I in lip. U in foot. U in boot.  

E in met. U in better, the last syllable  of better. U in word. O in more. A in map.  

O in love. A in bar. And O in hot. Naturally,  in the Beautifully British English Pronunciation  

programme, we go into far more detail. That's  a really quick overview. Let's move on to the  

diphthongs. These are vowel sounds which include  a change in auditory quality and articulation.  

These are the vowel sounds that my students really  seem to struggle with, as many of them are very  

different than the sounds in their own language.  We have ear in here, A in face, U in jury,  

oy in toy. O, O, as in no. Not no, no. E in hair.  I in my, and ow in now. Okay, so that's all of the  

vowels. We'll look at the consonants later. I  want to start with the schwa sound. This sound  

once mastered will really make you sound like  a Brit. Look at these words. We have behind,  

amaze, control, financial, suppose. They all  feature that schwa sound, and any of the vowel  

letters can spell it out. A, E, I, O, U, and  sometimes even Y. So how do we make this sound?  

The lips are relaxed. The tongue is  relaxed in the middle of the mouth. U,  

U. It's the most relaxed sound  you'll ever make. Attend,  

fluent, dialect. Now here's a really important  part of British English pronunciation.  

Some words that have the schwa sound at the end  end with the letter R. This R is not pronounced.  

Better, pleasure, factor. I know it's  tempting to say better, pleasure,  

factor. No, better, pleasure, factor in modern  RP. In American English and other dialects, yes,  

the R is pronounced. A huge mistake that students  make is pronouncing the letters that they see in  

a written word. In my pronunciation programme,  I train you to think in sounds not spellings.  

It's tricky, but with my support, you can do it.  As I said, more information in the description  

box. Okay, next, I want to look at two diphthongs.  Do you remember, those are vowel sounds with a  

change in auditory quality, like two vowel sounds  squished together. The two I want to focus on are  

ear as in here and E as in hair. Here, hair. Let's  start with the E sound. This sound is a diphthong,  

but nowadays it's usually pronounced  as a monophthong. Originally,  

we would pronounce it with the E sound and  then the U sound. E, U, one movement, E, E, E.  

Nowadays, we have a trick. We usually pronounce  it as a long E sound, E. You won't see it written  

like that, but that could help you to understand  how to form the sound. Try practising it in this  

sentence. The millionaire had an affair  with the heir over there. You try it.  

Now, let's try ear, ear. We start with the I sound  and move to the schwa again, U. I, U, I, U. Ear,  

ear. It's almost, almost, not quite, like we  insert a little Y sound, ear, ear, but very,  

very soft. Ear, ear. The important thing  is that your tongue moves down, ear, here,  

near. Try this sentence. I fear that it  appears you have some beer on your beard.  

Now, you might hear some native speakers saying  fear, appear, beer, beard. This is very normal,  

and if you find it easier to pronounce it that  way, I, then please do. But for me, it's fear,  

appear, beer, beard. Now a super difficult  sound for so many students. U. The U sound,  

it's like an extended long schwa sound. The  lips, tongue, and jaw are relaxed. U, U. This  

sound is found in words like word, world. Notice  that the R is not pronounced there. World, word.  

Try it in this sentence. It's certainly a learning  journey. It's certainly a learning journey.  

Okay, let's move on to consonants. Let's bring  this chart up again and go through all of them. We  

have P as in pen and B as in bit, F as in fig and  V as in vase, T as in tip, and D as in done, th  

as in thought, and th as in those, ch as in chip,  J as in jam, S as in save, Z as in zoo, sh as  

in sure, zh as in vision, C as in cat, G as in  goat. Did you notice in those two lines there,  

the top line is unvoiced and the second line  is the voiced version of the one above? It's  

exactly the same movement, but when you pronounce  the top one, P, or T, there is no vibration,  

and when you pronounce the second line, B,  D, same mouth movement, vibration here. Isn't  

that cool? Let's go across the bottom line  now. H as in him. M as in may. N as in no.  

Ng, right back there, ng as in sing. R as in  reach. L as in lie, W as in will, and Y as in  

yet. Okay, two sounds that I always hear students  mispronounce, the th sound and the th sound. Now  

look at their placement in that chart again. Th  is the unvoiced version of th. Let's start with  

making the th sound. Lift your tongue so that  the tip makes gentle contact with underneath  

your upper front teeth. Relax your tongue so that  the sides touch the sides of your upper teeth, th,  

and breathe out. Th, th. The th sound is formed  in exactly the same way, but with voice. Th, th.  

Try saying both and feel the difference.  

Th, th. Th, th. Let's try some sentences.  We'll start with th. Try this one. I think  

Bertha is going to turn 33 on Thursday.  Okay, what about this with the th sound?  

Their mother was from the Netherlands where  the weather is rather rainy. Excellent job.  

You're sounding British already. One last point.  We're going to move on to connected speech. And  

in particular, we're going to talk about when two  sounds come together and mix to make a new sound,  

and this is called assimilation, and for me, it's  magical. I love teaching it. In the pronunciation  

programme, we go into a lot of detail on connected  speech. It is so important, at least to understand  

why it happens, and then if you're really  going to go for it, you can try to use it  

too. So assimilation, when a word ending in T is  followed by a word beginning with Y. We usually  

combine the two consonant sounds to make... Can  you guess? Ch, ch. Don't you becomes don't you.  

Won't yet becomes won't yet. So that's unvoiced,  ch. T and Y make ch. What about voiced? What about  

a voiced consonant like D? When a word ending  in D is followed by a word beginning with Y,  

we usually combine the two consonant sounds  together to make, can you guess? J, J.  

Did you, did you. Send Yasmin, send Yasmin.  Don't you think that's fascinating? How would you  

pronounce this university? Harvard University. Not  Harvard University. Although that's fine. But we  

would say, speaking quickly, Harvard University.  Harvard University. What about this sentence?  

We would say nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.  I could go on and on about connected speech. It's  

such a fascinating topic, but I will save  it for the pronunciation course students,  

the true pronunciation fans. We would  love to have you in the pronunciation  

programme. We start on the 27th of March.  That's a Monday. The deadline is the night  

before at midnight. That $100 introductory  offer will expire. All of the information  

is down there in the description box.  I will see you soon for another lesson.