8 Tips for British English Pronunciation

Take your English to the next level by learning eight pronunciation tips that will help you sound like a native speaker. These tips apply to a British English accent or a neutral English accent. In this lesson, you will learn about -ed and -ing word endings, the difference in pronunciation between the north and south of England, the schwa sound, the pronunciation of the R sound in English, the tricky “th“ sound, and more. Whether you want to perfect your pronunciation or learn about different accents, this video is for you. After watching, complete the quiz to test your understanding. Want to train your British accent? Get my free British accent training pack: TRANSCRIPT Hi, everyone. I’m Jade. What we’re talking about today is some pronunciation tips for British English. Some of them are tips; some of them are observations that you might be interested to know. We’ve got eight of them, so let’s get started. Pronunciation of-ed word endings. This is not specifically a British English issue. If your preference -- I don’t know why I can’t speak suddenly in an English pronunciation video, but that’s how it is. If your preference is American English, this also applies to American English. So what I hear a lot at, sort of, around intermediate level -- sometimes upper intermediate level if you haven’t had someone to correct you -- -ed word endings sound like this. I can’t even do it because it’s so unnatural for me. “Excite-ed shout-ed, remind-ed.“ It’s so unnatural for me. But in fact, it’s not like that. It doesn’t sound like an -ed. It might sound like an /id/; it might sound like a /t/; or it might sound like a /d/. So I’ve got some examples here. This word, even though it’s spelled -ed, makes an /id/ sound. It becomes “excited“. “I’m really excited.“ “Shouted.“ “He shouted at me.“ “Reminded.“ “I reminded you to do your homework; didn’t I?“ And -- yeah. So now, we can talk about the ones that finish with a t sound. “Finished. Dripped. Laughed.“ They don’t have the-ed sound. So that’s an important thing to know about pronunciation. Even if it’s spelled-ed, it doesn’t mean it sounds like that. And what about the ones that end with a d sound, a “duh“ sound. “Remembered.“ “I remembered what you said to me.“ “Called.“ “I called you. Didn’t you hear your phone?“ “Imagined.“ “I imagined a better future for everyone.“ So with those, it’s a D sound. How do you know for each one? Go with what feels most natural when you’re saying the word. The main thing is don’t force the -ed sound at the end of the word because it’s that that gives you an unnatural rhythm when you’re speaking English. So moving on to -- this one’s an observation, really. British English pronunciation. We have so many different accents in England. But one of the biggest divisions in our accents is -- it’s between the north of the country and the south, and it’s our pronunciation of these words: “bath“ and “laugh“, as I say them. I say them in the southern pronunciation. But if I were from the north -- if I were from the north of the country, I’d say “bath“ and “laugh“ because they have a different accent up there. Well, they’ve got loads of different accents, but they don’t speak in the same way as me. So let’s break it down into the actual sound. So if you’re from the North, you say, “a“. But we, in the South, say “au“. So you say “bath“, we say “bauth“. And you say “laf“; we say “laugh“. And you can also hear it in these two words. It doesn’t have to be the first or only a vowel in the word. In the southern pronunciation, this is “commaund“. But in the northern pronunciation, it’s “command“. And the southern pronunciation of this word is “caust“. The northern pronunciation is “cast“. The cast of Brookside came to London.“ “Brookside“ was an old soap that’s not on TV anymore, and it was people from Liverpool. And I was just doing the accent. Probably that’s really irrelevant to you. You will never see that show, but anyway. You know, now. Next tip. I don’t hear this that often, but when I do, it sounds really, really, really wrong. And I think this tip generally -- generally a good example of how -- just because we write something one way doesn’t mean we say it that way. So in English -- American English, too -- W sounding words are the same as the “wh“ sound in words for spelling. It actually sounds the same. So we’ve got two words here, “wine“ and “whine“. One is spelled with WH, and one is just spelled with I. “Whine“ is a kind of moan or a kind of cry. Sometimes, young children whine. Sometimes, women who are upset about something are said to be “whiny“.