Can I Fool Brits With a FAKE British Accent?!
In this video I attempt to learn a British accent ("Modern RP", or "Standard Southern English", to be precise) and speak convincingly with strangers from the UK. Can I pass as British?
Special thanks to Molly Parker (voice and accent coach) who appears in this video: / @mollypvoiceaccentcoach
An extended version of this video showing more of my learning process is available to Patreon members. Support Langfocus on Patreon: / langfocus . Current patrons include these fine people:
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00:00 Introducing the challenge
01:16 Learning process
01:48 Brit #1
03:06 Reflecting
03:28 Brit #2
03:45 Brit #3
04:11 Reflecting
04:41 Brit #4
06:35 Reflecting
06:52 Brit #5
08:50 Reflecting
09:08 Brit #6
09:56 Reflection
10:18 Accent Coach
11:03 Physicality and imagery
12:51 Brits #7
16:17 What I learned from this challenge
18:43 The Question of the Day
The british have an in built accent detector because from birth we are trained to know someones socio-economic status after a single sentence.
But that works even in many other countries, maybe most of them. For example I am Czech and I also always think about where that person is from by their accent, when a person from Moravia is trying to speak in common Czech, it's pretty annoying, or Slovak trying to use Czech colloquial words, it should be illegal. 😀 Or sometimes you focus more on a question if that person is Ukrainian or Russian more than on what that person is actually saying. 😀
Unfortunately it is so true too polite to ask just put you in a box in an underhand way.
U wot?
Not just socio-economic status. Location too. Growing up in Birmingham, with family around the city and throughout the black country, I used to completely weird people out by telling them where they were from, down to a few streets.
It's not only accents. Just reading your one sentence - and your unaccountable failure to capitalise the 'B' in British - tells me that you almost certainly do your shopping from Iceland, you greasy peasant!
If you're trying to explain to British teenagers what RP is, call it the BBC news accent. They'll immediately know what you mean.
RP is actually that high-pitch clipped accent developed especially for the radio. It was never the natural accent of any group of people (not even the Royal family) but it did develop into the later BBC accent, which became contiguous with a generalised middle-class accent and more recently with Standard Southern British. As for the queen and now the king, that family and aristocrats in their circle have an accent all of their own. Langfocus guy is a Canadian, and like many North Americans he confuses RP and "BBC"
@@DrWhomI know, but to the average teenager who has never heard of RP, calling it the BBC news accent is the quickest way to make them understand what you mean. Kids on live chat are not going to sit around for your lecture.
@@DrWhom RP wasn't deliberately designed. It developed naturally during the 19th century in south-eastern England: kzhead.info/sun/grF-lp15qHtjlWg/bejne.html
@@MB-st7be I think anyone who's interested in language, or British accents, knows what RP is. If somebody asks, you can explain it with the BBC newsreader idea, although the BBC start allowing... accents!... into their serious programmes a couple of decades ago. So they might not even get that reference. Good, RP needs to die. It's a horrible accent, sounds ugly, and was created from snobbery anyway.
@@DrWhomI heard that 'Received Pronunciation' was what they taught you to speak when one entered the Public School system. As only very wealthy people can generally afford to goto Public School, the accent is associated with the upper classes but, seriously, noone really speaks it. If they did, they'd get a good kickingm
"Why do you sound so posh?" In the most posh accent 🤣
No but I get what he means because it’s a different kind of posh
Was going to add this comment myself if i didn't find it... hilarious!
My farts are better than Langfocus’ farts 💨
he sounded like a baked private school boy, he sounds high af, and has possibly once heard multicultural london english and thinks he is doing that a bit but still sounds like he goes to eton, but he ain't speaking 'straightforward' like how much has he smoked lol
@@jorgepeterbarton1324 for sure lol bless him
Here are a few more factors to consider, Paul: 1) When one asks people where are we from, it is usually implied we're from somewhere else. Therefore, people will start trying to identify foreign accents. Or else, if the accent is ambiguous enough, they'll try to establish where else in the same country you might be from. 2) You have your own peculiar way of speaking, superimposed on your native Canadian accent. I think you do have a particularly distinct way of speaking, which must be contributing to your sounding foreign. Your way of speaking is such (to my non-native English speaker ears), that even if you asked Canadians where are you from, you seem likely to get same sort of answers (i.e. originally German or Swedish, etc.). 3) The way you speak is kind of terse (or "dry" as we would say in Catalan), plus you were slightly tense due to the effort you were putting in, all of which suggested some foreign ingredient. 4) Who are often perceived, portrayed, or imagined to be terse, and/or have a language that sounds terse? Germans, Fins, Swedes, etc. I guess, which might be why more than one person answered "German". 5) You also have body language to consider. How do you look and how your anatomy might even account for some features in your speech. Your mouth opening, your lips and jawbone are rather wide and flat. If native English speakers already seem to open their mouth very little to speak, you seem to do it even less. It seems as if you learned to speak in this particular way for some reason, to correct or compensate for something as a young boy. Did you have any speech issue as an infant? Anyway, I wanted to thank you for all your videos, which I enjoy so much. They are very interesting and well done, and you are very talented! Congrats and keep it up! Oh, this reminds me something else, regarding the guy commenting on your posh accent, and the language coach commenting on some heightened features of it, also regarding your mouth and prosody: 6) Remember the expression about having or keeping a stiff upper lip? You might be coming across as literally keeping it stiff. 😉 kzhead.info/sun/lql6Z8d_q4eKoGg/bejne.html
My thoughts exactly. If he asked me where he's from with how he normally speaks I wouldn't guess Canada because he doesn't really pronounce words in a stereotypically Canadian way. He has very sharp pronunciation which combined with his facial features and way of only moving his lower lip makes me think he may be Scandinavian. Brits typically have longer faces and seem to let their jaw hang open more which creates more movement and opening when speaking.
My farts are better than Langfocus’ farts 💨
Ask "what city do you think i'm from"
Very good, well explained points!
@@newbilong That question already marks the enquirer as not being British. If they were, they'd most likely use 'part of the country' or 'town', not 'city'.
You sounded quite staccato, that's why some people thought that you might be German.
I sound like that in my native accent too. The reason for that is probably best left for another time and place.
@@Langfocus I always wondered why you sound a bit "foreign". If there's an actual reason, it would make for an interesting video. Love you Paul!
This is the main thing I noticed too - his speaking sounds very choppy, and not as fluid as someone with the accent natively.
I think it's a feature of his Canadian accent. The likeness to northern Europe is unsurprising, given immigration history of Canada. Northern US states have similar Germanic or Scandinavian features.
That’s exactly what I thought
the funny thing is that even if he spoke in his native canadian accent people would probably assume hes from germany or netherland
Yeah, I'm Canadian and was surprised when he said he was too, I assumed he was European at first as well.
Why does he have that accent? Is it a normal Canadian accent?
@@ChristianJiang No, but i wouldnt explicitly call it foreign sounding either. He just sounds like he's forcing some of the sounds out, stiff or robotic. As other commenters pointed out he could be purposely emphasizing his pronunciations to sound as neutral as possible, which, just like the RP examples in this, sounds uncanny to those who natively have that accent.
He doesn't sound Canadian at all, he really does sound more European.
@@technicolourmylesHe has a very staccatto way of speaking and it doesn't sound like the more usual Canadian accent with which I am familiar, maybe he's Quebecois, that would make sense because that accent it totally different from non French speaking Canada.
Hey I've moved to the UK for uni and I've got to say -- you've given yourself a much bigger challenge than you might think! When he said you sounded "posh," he meant upper class (possibly an accent instilled by private education -- he was asking you to be throatier to inhabit that). And when the person said he was trying to figure out what part of the UK, that person meant that he wasn't noticing any regionalisations that would add authenticity. I'd pick a specific British accent to learn and have another go!
Bu isn't RP a specific British accent in itself?
Hard to imagine for an American but the average Englishman/Scot probably speaks to someone who speaks "RP" a handful of times a year. It's just not common among the regular people unless you're mingling with aristocrats or wannabe middle class twats.@@FartSquirel
@@FartSquirel It's a very uncommon accent, and more of a learned accent than one associated with a region. When I lived in Germany an English lady that had been living there for 15 years sounded English to the locals in Swabia (a part of South Germany), but sounded Swabian to non-local Germans. Also a few Germans there spoke with such a good American accents (to my ear)! So you'd definitely stand more chance of fooling people if you chose a specific regional accent. In some parts of Britain, you'd also sound a bit strange if you spoke differently to other people your age. Where I'm from older people tend to have thicker regional accents than the younger generation.
@@lk-music Received pronunciation is the antithesis of a British accent. It was once adopted by much of the uk media ie radio, tv to sound non-regional specific.
@@FartSquirelKind of -- it's taught in grammar schools and often times the result of many people from different regions coming together in a single setting like a university. But it's so sterile as an accent that it cannot be associated with any region. Normally, regional mistakes would slip through the accent. It's definitely a sign of a specific education -- but not a posh private school. I agree with the teens in this video -- his accent sounded less RP and more like an international student who spent a short amount of time at a 'public' school before leaving midway through the acquisition of that accent
As a Brit, it is so funny to see you explain weird speech things that we all do so often XD
My farts are better than Langfocus’ farts 💨
Put a lot of effort into mastering that RP, just to develop the Dutch accent - priceless
At least they didn’t say French!
Sounded more Afrikaans to me
Dutch? You've never heard Dutch people speaking English??
I think your accent sounded more South African than Dutch, but there is obviously a connection between the two. South African English has the more clipped vowels of RP English.
I think it sounds more like a German person who learned British English than a Dutch person because the shorter vowels and word spacing sound more similar to German than Dutch
You actually sound incredibly German- like a very good English speaker who is native to German. Have no idea how you managed that. It’s definitely the the staccato. Seriously uncanny.
I guess since English is a Germanic language it still remains its German roots, even after many centuries of its own development. Interesting
I think German comes from the top of the mouth whereas 'normal' English is more from the bottom. Try doing a German accent and notice where in your mouth you are making the sound.
Yep...he sounds German regardless of what accent he tries to adopt. He sounds like a German who moved to Britain as a teenager and learnt most, but not all, of the accent. He doesn't sound British to British people.
He doesn't even sound North American to me in his normal accent. It's very odd. He speaks a bit choppy and mechanical and it doesn't feel natural
@@didrikmesicek4825 Yeah same. I'm from the midwest US and usually besides a few specific words (progress, eh, about), a lot of Canadians are usually indistinguishable from the midwest US accent but he doesn't sound like that to me. He sounds like english isn't his native language even when speaking in his original accent for some reason which probably translated over to when he was attempting an English one.
I definitively noticed a huge improvement after your session with the accent coach!
Great attempt, I really enjoyed it!
Paul’s regular Canadian accent sounds a bit German to me. All very clipped and precise. This is maybe why Paul’s RP accent sounds German/Dutch/Swedish.
Really? Where are you from? He absolutely sounds Canadian to me! When he slipped up with the RP accent, the errors still came across as North American, although difficult to place exactly because they were very short slips.
Paul definitely sounds North American to me. Whether American or Canadian is a subtler distinction.
He sounds like he’s speaking English as a second language.
I really thought he was german
@@pukkavidz his face looks very german
I think the first attempt sounded more South African to me 😂
A lot of people are saying that! 😄
@@Langfocus Yes, I'm British and if you'd have asked me I May have said South Africa but it sounds like a fake South African accent.
@@LangfocusActually, as a South African who's lived in the UK for 2/3 of their life, your RP accent started bringing out my Saffa accent in my inner monologue haha! It's definitely the vowels - that's by far the biggest difference between my accent and a native Brit's. And I'm an English Saffa, so I don't even have the Afrikaans accent. The ɑ:, the ɔ:, and especially the ɪ exemplify the key differences between the British and Saffa accents, and I'd say, at least until 10:00, you were rocking the first 2 pretty often.
🤣🤣🤣
I also thought South African-esque, because of the clipped vowels, but there were also some decidedly un-south African sounds too
From Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire,🇬🇧 You are getting on really well Keep it up my man All the very best Over and out ❤
What accent are you considered to have in Buckinghamshire? You are 30 miles from London. But you dont have an Essex accent. Is your accent interchangeable with London? Do you say 'yeah' at the end of every sentence? that is something I see a lot of .
@@bunjijumper5345 im from buckinghamshire and i'd just say people speak with a very general standard southern accent, nothing too special sadly- also i think it depends on the person whether or not they say "yeah" at the end of every sentence, not really an accent/dialect thing imo
incredible video, keep it up man, it's just like live science
Haha, thanks!
When you ask people in the context of a quiz, "where do you think I'm from?" People will assume the answer is not what it seems.
That’s definitely something I wasn’t quite sure how to approach.
@@Langfocus You could ask "which part of the UK do you think I'm from?" Even if your speech rhythm did sound German.
@@Kivikesku Or by using more idiosyncratic (?) English, like saying "whereabouts" instead of just "where". It's a subtle difference, but it suggests you're saying "where in the UK" rather than "where in the world" without being obvious or deceptive.
@@avaggdu1 or ask the other person where they're from first, turn it into more of a game than a surprise quiz
@@caramelldansen2204 Yeah, that works; anything that takes their mind away from "which foreign country do you think I'm from?".
I am from Germany and when I discovered your channel many years I ago thought you were a non-native speaker of English probably Danish or from another Scandinavian country. The way you shorten vowls and the stiff way you pronounce sentences also came through slightly when you were speaking in the RP accent.
Ich hab das genau selbe gedacht😂
I am a native english speaker, and i also thought that!
Canadians clip and shorten everything to death we’re stiff af
Well, he doesn't have a potato in his mouth, so he's definitely not Danish.
Yeah, I'm a native English speaker from the US, and I thought he was not a native speaker when I first found his channel. My husband (a German) still thinks he sounds weird, for the same reasons you listed. He has an unusual cadence to his speech, like you mentioned, and it definitely was still there when he was trying to affect the British accent. I think it probably threw people off. I think his parents are Dutch or Danish, so I do wonder if that's why he has such an odd cadence.
Was expecting this video to be super click-baity but was actually super interesting and informative
You did very well. Enlightening video. Very interesting and shows the direct similarity between ability to imitate accents and ability to learn languages
As an American studying in the UK, i often pull a decent fake rp accent to avoid extra questions when I'm asking where something is 😂
Same here when I, a Dutch speaker from the Netherlands, spend time in Belgium. I don't do it all the time (only in certain situations), but the Dutch accent can be a little jarring to a Belgian in the same way an American accent can be to a Brit. It's just easier and prevents misunderstandings, questions, or even prejudice in some situations.
Just so long as you’re not asking for directions to Worcestershire you might get away with it!
If you keep at it you might just pick up a British accent and stop having to fake it!
it's not fake rp. you're just using rp. roger moore had to learn rp like the rest of us.
either fake it well enough to avoid detection...or do it so bad that people are embarrassed to point it out...and just let you move on 🤣🤣
As an English person, I can hear a massive difference between day 1 or day 2
Exactly, even as an American I could tell the difference, this goes to show that immersion is the way to learn any language. As a matter of fact, I think that if I move there, the accent will just stick regardless at the end, like it or not 😂
"or"? You mean "and"
yup, day 2 would have me fooled, he sounds like one of these posh quizmasters
This was fun. Well done!
Mate you did amazing!
This was really cool! As a native Englishman the only things giving you away was overpronouncing the T sounds and the overall flow of speaking was slightly unnatural, however it was honestly an amazing attempt that probably would have fooled me at least for a while!
Yeah this - maybe too much precision and clarity gives impression of conscious effort, even when the sounds are themselves perfect?
@@DanBrickleyalso having a play button behind you and telling them you’re a language youtuber probably puts people on edge once he asks the question
Yeah the "flow" sounded somehow a bit rigid, which is why it came across as a tad German to me too at times. Which makes sense as he's been studying individual words & sounds rather than adopting a language naturally via normal flowing conversation. Bloody impressive though
Hi Paul, Brit here. I think you did a really good job in terms of pronunciation, I would say it was pretty accurate. What gave you away though I would say are two factors: 1) Sentence rhythm, we tend to 'eat' many of the words such that several words get mashed together like "do you know what I mean" becomes "dyunoewatamin" whereas you were clearly pronouncing individual words. Regional accents do this more but even people with neutral accents do this in the UK, so the way you spoke sounded a bit robotic, like someone learning English as a second language. 2) I actually think throwing in some regional pronunciations would have helped you, so a mostly RP accent with some South-East local accent features. This is because very few people in the UK really speaks in a pure RP, most will have some minor traces of a local accent even if they are middle class/posh. For example I'm from the East Midlands and the way I speak is very close to RP but pronounce certain words differently like 'path' as /paθ/ instead of /pɑːθ/ Overall good job and I look forward to seeing you attempt this accent plus other accents in the future
I thought it was good also, but I noticed that in the video, there was no mention of the (mid) central vowel (schwa). Native British speakers (in RP and many regional accents) use a schwa for almost every unstressed syllable.This distinguishes modern RP from the more clipped traditional RP that (to modern ears) sounds rather more like South African English. Thus for example "garage" with an unstressed second syllable can sound more like "garudj" than "garidj".
He gets better I think but I disagree that even his pronunciation is accurate. Like most attempts at UK accents, his vowels are all over the shop IMO (some spot on, some way off). And of course unlike the guy himself, I bet neither of us watching were really expecting people to call BS on his accent - sure, we can be a cynical bunch in the UK but English people especially have basically turned politeness into a combat sport, unless explicitly invited very few are going to enter into the potential social minefield of challenging a stranger about who they present themselves as. Not without being at least 3 pints deep anyway :). Still a good effort though, he gives it a proper go. (and no one has a "neutral" accent incidentally. RP uses a specific set of sounds, just like any other accent. Unlike the label's implication, there's no meaningful sense in which it's a "non accent" or "what happens when you take any regional elements out" and though it's _less_ region specific than many UK accents - because its "region" is effectively "posh" :) - it's still pretty closely associated with the south-east of England. As a related aside BTW, I used to live in Nottingham and a few of the Notts natives I worked with would insist they "didn't have an accent", a claim which I, as a _non_ Notts native, found absolutely hilarious :)
jeah. shust shrough een sum raindoem shite. there are sooo many REALLY strong accents in UK, that most people only recognize the one locally nearby and some generally well known ones (like that gosh darn brummie 😆)
@@anonymes2884 I think the reason it's considered 'neutral' is because although it is like you say associated with the south-east and originates from there, people all over the country speak a kind of RP. In Leicester where I'm from, having a "neutral" vs local accent is often a marker of whether you are from the middle/working class. I've met many people from the north who also haven't adopted the local accent, in fact only last week I was travelling in India, and met a guy from Newcastle who spoke in a very RP-like accent and only after some time and careful listening could I make out any Geordie accent features. But that's exactly my point, even people from posh backgrounds interact on a daily basis with people who speak with their local accent, and so they speak a version of RP with some traces of regional pronunciation. I imagine in the south, this takes the form of more (for example) cockney/essex/east anglian/west country influences on someone's accent.
@@harriehausenman8623although a lot wouldn't necessarily be able to distinguish a true Brummie accent (eg Ozzy) and a Black Country one (e.g. Adrian Charles)
I think the reason people kept saying Germany or Eastern Europe (and at times I heard bits that sounded *almost* South African) is the clip you had. A lot of it was in the way you carried your speech and some of your consonant sounds. I also feel that some people unintentionally overstress RP - you have to fight the urge to sound like a 1950s housewife. Having said that, you did remarkably well. English accents are much harder to emulate than most would believe. EDIT: I wrote this about 2/3 the way through the video. After that masterclass, the flow of your speech improved *significantly*. There is the occasional lilt in there, but you clearly gained confidence in it. I would suggest thinking about pitch and inflection a bit more to fine-tune it. Again, you did exceptionally well and this was a cool experiment. Thanks for uploading!
Well done on this challenge!! As a non-native English speaker myself, definitely is not easy to learn a new accent when your used to your one. But you learned quickly and corrected your mistakes... the only thing that gave you away, as other mentioned, was the flow/stress of the sentences. RP or other English accents not only have different pronunciation of certain words but also the whole "rhythm" of a sentence can vary and sometimes, I agree with those in the video, you sounded like German or Scandinavian. But anyway, well done!!! 😊
Paul, you don’t even sound Canadian. You have always sounded like you are not a native English speaker - I always thought you were Eastern European or something
As a Canadian, I can affirm that Paul sounds distinctly Canadian when speaking in his native accent. 🇨🇦
I find this to be common in parts of Canada where French is spoken. When I went to Montreal I felt like I was in a very foreign country because people around me not only spoke french most if the time, but when they spoke English they sounded to me like English was very icy not their first language, but this wasn't true in Ontario
I'm definitely not French Canadian. I'm an Anglophone Canadian who barely says an unscripted word on his channel and always speaks extremely clearly for an international audience. That's pretty much it. This video is one of the few times I've said anything unscripted, and it wasn't in my own accent.
@@Langfocus thanks for the reply and clarification. I wouldn't have expected you to reply so late at night
I don't particularly think so. There are many canadian accents, not always one or the other.
Your pronunciation was accurate, and the occasional Canadian pronunciation was not obvious. But your enunciation was more precise than that of the average speaker of modern RP with clear gaps between the words, perhaps a very short glottal stop at the start of each word, giving your pronunciation the feel of a German who speaks excellent English.
I kept getting flashbacks to mr Data in star trek. Technically the accent was mostly there but it sounded like a bunch of words in a row rather than someone speaking normally where it flows more.
Yes, it sounded like there was a lot of hard attack in his speech. (Paul might have that in his usual Canadian speech as well.)
Yeah mate was talking too well 💀
I agree mastering the English accent glottal (or should I say glo'al) will go long way. The stronger the glottal the less posh you will sound and more "everyman". But usually only used in the middle or ends of words and the words themselves can be more slurred together. Like for isn't - just say isn' on its own, or isenit for isn't it. If if you really want to sound like a London teenager say innit!
@@jennymulholland4319 That's good advice except for the innit, I reckon. I think that would only make the rest of his speech stand out as something extremely different.
Very amusing. I liked this video even more than your usual content. I know Canadian, (after many decades and provinces), and sometimes listening to you, I can't at all place where you are from, or even have ever heard a group of Canadians talk like you do. So, I get the feeling of you trying to pull off ANY regional genuine accent might not end up be very convincing. I'm trying to imagine speaking like a Newfoundlander, or a francophone who speaks Canadian english well (but with a bit of an accent), or someone from Nova Scotia, or, going out of Canada, a southern USA accent. BTW I think you are either from Montreal but don't talk like any Montrealer, or are from Alberta/Saskatchewan and don't talk like anyone from there either. I'm sure, however, that probably anyone outside of Canada can tell you are Canadian from lots of the words, however, they don't have the experience to tell that it's not "typical" Canadian or even "typical" regional location X Canadian.
I'm just glad the Brits can handle the basic trivia questions. Keep up the good work lads.
I am glad to know that it is not only the Amercians who are the dumb ones.
My farts are better than Langfocus’ farts 💨
I think if you did the same challenge in your native accent and then asked people where you're from they would mostly give the same answers thinking it's a trick, assuming you're a foreigner who has learnt English well
This. He got shocked that a few didn't say British but he "felt off" - yes, but because he's actively asking them this question, making them think. Makes it even worse that he chose RP, a non-specific accent, which makes it very sketchy when he asks them. Compare if he imitated a typical Scottish accent and asked non-Scot Brits, it would be very easy to point out he's Scottish unless somebody's extremely aware of Scottish accents. But then even then, if he asked them where they think he's from, they'll start thinking it's a trick question and that he is not in fact Scottish, and if his Scots accent was far from perfect, the imperfections will be noticed when he asks them where he's from
Yeah he should have asked them first, as if it's like a friendly thing and not a challenge or trick question
Yeah. Just ask them "Where do you think I'm from?" And if you're doing a good British accent, they will guess a region in the UK.
this
Or.... Say "I've been working on a Canadian accent. Do you want to hear it?" Then speak normal. Now, ask "Did that sound pretty good?" Let them answer that (and focus on it first). They might ask you where you are from originally, then turn that around and have them guess. That's probably the only way to get a real authentic guess without making them think it's a trick.
The standard relaxed nearly RP is VERY difficult to fake. English is my first language but I found it easier to 'pick up' and switch off the local accent in the region of Spain where I used to live. When I was in London I was instantly conscious of other English as a first language speakers trying to fake it!
"Fake" is a very loaded term, admittedly. During the video there is an evolution in how I think about adopting an accent. And I think "faking" and accent comes across quite differently from *adopting* an accent with genuine intent.
@@Langfocus Agreed... Faking and genuinely trying to adopting and learning the accents are two different things... By faking we learn nothing.. But the later helps us to master any accent..
@Langfocus I just meant fake as in, it's not my authentic accent. When I'm in Spain, I can lean in or out of the Elx accent, so I understand the distinction you're making. You're not faking. You're learning how to make it.
@@Langfocus also, I made my comment before I watched the video. It was an interesting process.
@@LangfocusIt seems to me that you and Susana perhaps talked past each other because they assumed that you were aware of the normalcy of rampant accentism and classism in the British society. It needs no mention that we the linguists have no distinction except operational between a dialect and a language. Now, this is heart-wrenchingly painful to hear: "I just meant fake as in, it's not my authentic accent." What this means is that the societal pressure literally _forces_ people to _rescind their native language,_ a large part of their core authentic identity, and learn (adopt, fake, whatever) a different one. _Of course_ it feels fake-for it _is_ fake! This is really a terrifying situation. Your healthy self wants to reject this transplant. But if you refuse to cave in and keep yourself whole, you're in for a rough ride. You'll be unfairly judged who you are by your language. You might not get a job that you would otherwise get. You may be laughed at in your face _for speaking your native language, for being who you are!_ This is really a terrifying situation, and barely anyone even speaks out except for a few linguists-this is how deeply ingrained into the society fabric this aberration is. It shouldn't exist in the modern world. People do suffer from it daily, and it takes its toll on mental health. I touch on this in my longer top-level comment, if you wish to read it (although it's focussed more on how choosing SSE was setting you up for a failure of the experiment). We despise racism, at least pretend to scorn at sexism, but are absolutely fine with accentism. It's extremely ugly and plainly wrong. And languages keep dying out.
I'm Scottish, and I've just spent a couple of days in Manchester. It reminded me just how wide a range of accents there are in England, particularly in the bigger cities. There's a lot of people from continental Europe or further who may have emigrated and attempted to integrate with English culture, or who may live around people mostly from their native country, or may have been born in England to foreign parents, so even within specific regional English accents, there's quite a range. There's a lot of diversity, and most people are generally fairly tolerant of variances in accents without even thinking about it. It's just a natural part of interacting socially.
I’ve learnt to love my posh accent, it warms my heart to see people try to speak the way I do. ❤
Was a pleasure to chat with you. Nice video! ❤
I notice you also spoke to mainly the younger generations - and amongst them I would suggest that the slangy street pronunciation is more common.
@@Cymraesarall As one of the people in the video stated, it's "chavvier".
@@allendracabal0819 I was trying to be….polite, lol
Ironically the guy who asked you why are you speaking so posh sounds very posh 😂
He doesn't sound posh though...
To me that guy sometimes sounds posh and sometimes sounds working class, weird!
right
Paul didn't sound anywhere near posh. I thought he'd get to that point after mastering the sounds but nope. His intonation didn't change at all, he just slowed down a bit
That guy had a strange accent- it sounded posh at times and kind of farmer at other points
As I'm sure has been pointed out already, your starting point is one in which you speak with impeccable, almost robotic enunciation. That is very helpful for all your videos where you try to explain linguistic concepts to us. But it's likely a big part of what your test subjects were picking up on and describing as less colloquial or too formal.
Yes, this is a good point. I remember wondering if he was a native English speaker when I first watched a video because his prosody is reasonably unusual.
@jockcox thank you, you just gave me my new word of the day! I have never come across or seen the word 'prosody' until now. I like it a lot! 👍😉
My farts are better than Langfocus’ farts 💨
So I should've watched the whole vid before commenting lol. Good video bro
I am a Francophone Canadian who lived in France for a few years in the 70's. I did my best to speak with the best international French accent I knew. At first many correctly identified me as Canadian quite quickly, though quite a few asked me if I was Belgian or Swiss. None doubted that I was a native French speaker, but many just couldn't place me. After a year in France, I had people guessing I was French, but from maybe Vendée or Normandy - I by then sounded to them French, but regional . By that time when I told people I was Canadian, I often got the reaction: `Mais vous n'avez pas l`accent`. (I then had to explain that I was not Québecois but Franco-Ontarian, because they thought Francophone Canadians were all Québecois, but that's another story). Loved this video.
When I lived in Geneva, I had a friend from Montreal (but somewhat more internationalized accent because of ethnic origins), whose French totally flummoxed the local Swiss. But rather than thinking she was from someplace faraway or exotic, they thought she was from Vaud, one canton over. 😂 When I went to France with my Québécoise wife, by contrast, everyone kept switching into English on her!
@@i.d.6282 As a Brit who was living and working in France (Pas de Calais) I was often quizzed by locals saying "you're not from round here are you?". They would sometime ask if I was from Belgium. When I told them I was English they were quite surprised as in Calais they have the day trippers from England who by and large never speak any French. After being there a couple of years I answered the phone at work and was told "You are picking up a Calaisian accent" which I was quite proud off until I found out that a Calaisian accent was similar to a West Country accent in England. Many years later when I was back living in the UK I had to go to Brussels on business. I got a cab from The Eurostar station to my hotel and and was chatting to the cab driver. He then asked me "What is the weather like in Paris?" When I explained I was English and came from London he was quite impressed. He said "I thouught you were French as you speak French very well." That made my day!
Nothing wrong with sounding Dutch! 😂 (it wasn't a Dutch accent at all though 😂)
der is nohting rrrrong wid mai eccent, beut venn aii talkkkk laik dis, den dey vill no det ai kom frrrom de nederlands
Verre van!!
I have been told that Canadian vowels are closer to Dutch vowels than any other accent of English. He was deliberately trying to change them to RP, but maybe a fake RP accent with a Canadian accent behind it sounded like a native Dutch speaker? The rhythm is wrong though.
@@toomuchjamI think most English text books used in European schools are based on British pronunciation and vocabulary, but people are exposed to American accents a lot through media, advertising, music etc, so they try to americanise their "school English". There's also the impression that rhotic pronunciation sounds more native and helps gloss over a foreign accent. (It doesn't, but people think that)
There is if you're trying to sound English though 😂
It's a good attempt and I love the video. It took me a few years before I started sounding convincing around my british girlfriend me being from the states. After 10 years I can pull it off like I'm from there but it took a lot of work, it was something I enjoyed and had fun with.
The accent you used from about halfway through the video in the voiceover until the last chapter actually sounded really good. not necessarily accurate or very british, but soothing and enjoyable for lack of a better way of putting it. for example, 12:06 "imagery" was perfection. you do clip ending consonents though. just a bit later at 12:37 the way you said "accent" wasnt even close to how id imagine another british person saying it.
Excellent attempt! For a short time attempting to get it right, it's pretty good! Brits definitely are able to pick up different accents very quickly though, as one person already said because of economic status (lol - that's true) but also because British accents vary so much over short distances so our ears are trained to notice differences much more. There's a few things I noticed: Firstly, you speak with a hard attack, while British people tend to speak with a soft attack. Even RP. I think this is why some people are saying Germany/Eastern Europe too as that's common there. Secondly, it sounds like you're producing a lot of sounds from the front of your mouth, sometimes almost nasally (I don't think I'm describing this perfectly lol, but I believe North American accents typically produce more sounds from the front of the mouth/nose while Brits speak from the middle/back of the mouth) so this is another indicator that your accent isn't native. I remember learning once that because Brits speak more from the back of the mouth & Americans speak from the front, this means that typically it's easier for Brits to fake American accents than it is for Americans to fake British accents as it uses more facial muscles. Next, your vowels are just a touch shorter & not as wide as British & RP accents usually are. For example with the sentence "Go back about a thousand years," your pronunciation sounds like "goh buck abot a thohsund yihs" (I've exagerrated my spelling there because I don't know how to spell it properly phoenetically) whereas in RP it'd be more like "gOw bAck abOWt a thOWsund yIIHs". I suspect this is the Canadian slipping through a tad. Also, your U's are shorter & don't have that "y" sound just preceding in some words, which certain words in RP are pronounced with due to the Norman French influence. For example, with the words "during" & "neutral" your pronunciations are more like "dooring" and "nootral" whereas in RP they'd be pronounced as "dyuring" (or even "jyuring") and "nyootral". Similarly, with "Tuesday" an RP accent would say "Tyoosday" while a more typical Southern accent would say "chyoostday". Lastly, there's a lack of glottals in your speech. Your Ts & Ds sound like they're pronounced with your tongue softly touching just behind your top teeth, whereas in British or RP they'd either be pronounced more hard & clearly with the tongue clearly touching behind your top teeth, or with with the tongue not touching at all & producing a glottal stop in place of a T. These were some of the main things my own ears picked up on! I hope this didn't come off as "lecturey" at all, because I don't mean it to haha! Just identifying the things that I personally noticed & giving my best tips to help you nail it next time round ;) But anyway, great video! Very fun & educational. Thank you 🙏
Those are the things I noticed, as well. I'm in the US, and I've picked up on British accents over many years of consuming British media. I started to find I was talking to myself with an SSB accent so I leaned into it. A few years ago, I had a friend in Kent, and we'd chat by video every day. One time, she heard me mumbling to myself when I forgot the camera was rolling, and she was startled because apparently it sounded native. :D When I was a kid, I was moved from one part of the US to another, and kids would beat me up for my accent, so I learned to change it very quickly. Maybe that makes it easier for me to do this now. I certainly did well at pronunciation in Spanish class as a kid, and now when I travel to Canada or other parts of the US, I slip into the local accent within a day or two.
You could try "faking" some regional UK accent, so that when you ask the "where do you think I'm from" question, people would more naturally think "where in the UK", since the standard RP does not really have a location to it.
This was my thought too - if I hear the RP accent my immediate thought is that the person is covering up another accent. A lot of English people of a certain generation and class learned RP to cover up less desirable regional accents, and most foreign speakers learn RP. It's not something that I think of as genuine in anyone.
Oh true. Hardly anyone has a natural RP accent, apart from the royals. The closest is probably that general southern English accent but even that is toned down from RP
As an RP speaker I think the subtleties that gave you away are really more related to word choice that makes it sound formal. When confirming understanding you would say "right" with a clearly pronounced 't' which I think would feel natural in a work setting but in this setting even a very posh RP would probably just reach for 'oh' or 'ahh'. But more than that there is a strong confounding bias with asking them where you are from, a native English speaker asking the question would make people assume it isn't the easy answer and guess somewhere else. I think you were doing better than those answers suggested. Fun video 👌
Brilliantly done in number 7, you sounded spot on quite a lot
You’ve clearly put in so much work. The reason why people were guessing you were German is because of two features (a) your vowel reduction in unstressed syllables syllables is not as extreme as native speakers tend to have; and (b) there is a lot of hard attack at the start of words with an initial vowel. To sound more natural, there should be more liaison and less attack. But really impressive results!!!
This comment is spot on!
I think it also has to do with his appearance, I don’t know how to explain why I think it but there’s something very German about it. Wait upon reflection during the writing of this comment, it’s because I think he looks very similar to Flula Borg
He needs hard attack in the middle of words not at the beginning. He does a lot of it to make himself clearer but we do it in the middle of words because it's how English is now spoken.
@@ardentspy I’m a bit confused by that - are you talking about T-glottalisation?
@@raylewis395 He probably also needs to take more care to avoid rhoticisation but to use r-linking. It's really hard for North Americans to properly deploy linking elements. Paul should practice "law and order". Even RP speakers pronounce it "lorenorduh".
You would love Dr Geoff Lindsay’s series on this very topic
Thanks! I'll look into it.
@@LangfocusI second this recommendation. Dr Geoff Lindsay comes from a linguistics background, so he explains stuff differently from a vocal coach with a background in theater. His videos really go deep into the English phonetics.
I love his channel❤
Lindsey, not Lindsay.
@@deleted01 Dr Geoff Lindsey, not Dr Geoff Lindsay.
This is actually well done. One tip, though, I would recommend learning a regional accent rather than PR because regional accents tend to hide more letters pronounced. That way, you won't have to deal with learning EVERY SINGLE syllable like when learning PR. Instead you'll use glottals, hidden r's and, most importantly, your sentences would be much, much shorter, and you can take advantage of that. Try studying Ricky Gervais' accent, for example. He has the most natural, most relaxed and best understood accent there is. Plus, he talks alot lol.... so you have enough material to practice.
Hey Paul, would you do a Quiche (K'iche') Language overview? I'm planning a trip to Guatemala, and your overviews have always been SUPER helpful Much love 🫶
This was a great video, and I think your attempt at an RP accent was a really good one! One thing that I think makes your accent stand out, even without placing you as a non British speaker, is the lack of elision in your speech. You've got a lot of the sounds correct, but the diction is too formal to sound genuine. It comes across like you're reading from a script rather than talking comfortably. Conversational English in Britain, even amongst the poshest RP speakers, sees a lot of words run together, and sounds change based on the adjacent words. Looking forward to hearing how far you can take this accent!
To be honest, I always thought you had a scandinavian accent (or other european accents) even when you spoke in your own Canadian way. It's pretty cool actually! I think the way you pronounced certain consonants made me think that
I think he’s Danish. Even his “Canadian” accent is a little off lol. Nothing wrong with that, just noticed.
People like Ria Lina, who went to an American school in Netherlands, can sound American or Canadian when they speak English, even if they've never been to either country. I've never been outside Canada for more than 8 days at a time and was told once that I sound European.
Yes. I Really thought he is Danish. 😅
Same here. I am American, and I have always thought you sounded like English is your first language. I would have guessed you were originally Scandinavian or German. Most Canadians sound American to me, although I have met some French Canadians that sound different. Maybe it has to do with where in Canada.
@@whokidd124567 Noticed it too. His Canadian accent does not really sound Canadian. He sounds like himself. lol
Keep going, you're clearly improving towards the end of the video
I've never deliberately trained myself to speak a different dialect of English, but I lived in the north of England for many years and unconsciously picked up some Yorkshire dialect traits over time. For example, reducing 'the' to 't' or omitting it altogether; dropping initial 'h's on words like 'happy' or 'house'; using 'right' to mean 'very' and using 'were' instead of 'was' for third person singular: "That were right 'ard." As for the other question, I would say that I've achieved near-native pronunciation in Catalan, again after living in Catalonia for many years and it becoming one of the main languages in which I live my life. I think, at least in a short interaction, most people wouldn't notice that I wasn't from here. Over an extended conversation I think people do still tend to sense that there's something up with the way I speak. There's always something that gives you away whether it's phonetic, an expression that's just not quite the way a native would say it, or just a silly grammatical or vocabulary mistake.
You mentioned this at the beginning but, sorry to say, I think you made it almost impossible by choosing RP. The problem is not many people speak that way in the UK and so British would struggle to place you in a city or region unless it is perfect. I'd love to see you try a more distinctive regional accent like Geordie or Cockney. These are so recognisable to a Brit that I think they would hear the key sounds and overlook any small faults. Actually, you could try a Devon/Somerset accent because it's rhotic like your native accent. I believe it was actually the "RP/Standard/Posh" accent of it's time! Which is crazy because it's now the UK's "country" accent, far from posh.
I think if he'd chosen a Birmingham accent he'd have done better cos in the midlands our accents are basically a modulated yawn
As an English person who's grown up around posh RP speakers, cockneys, and people from all over the country and the rest of the world, your RP attempt definitely sounds like someone from North/Western Europe who has learned to speak British English really well. But honestly, even your native accent from Canada sounds a bit unfamiliar, although I'm less familiar with the various regional accents around Canada than the US or my home country they UK! The best way to pick up the accent would be to come and live here for a few years and really listen closely. Thing is nobody's going to correct you because it's incredibly rude and perhaps even bigoted to "correct" an accent unless asked to. Anyways keep it up Paul, great video as always, been watching your stuff for years at this point :) Cheers
Please make a part 2 or even turn this into a series. I wanna see you improve your accent and give us an update. I'd really like to see you fool some Brits. Maybe next time you can try a specific regional accent to give it even more authenticity. Alot of English accents turn the Ts into glottal stops and turn TH sounds into F sounds. It might give off a more casual middle class vibe to it...
If I do that then this will very quickly become the “guy who fakes a British accent channel” and people will demand only that. Believe me.
hey Langfocus. Long time fan of your content and I loved this one, was impressed. Would you ever consider doing a video on the yam-yam AKA Black Country dialect of English, it's my native dialect and it's super interesting: we have a very unique grammar (for example we use second person plurals) and intonation (one of the only english dialects to roll our Rs). Some people say it's the closest modern English dialect to middle English. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.
Ow b'ist gooin, mate?
Spanish native here, I speak english and portuguese on a native level, people never believe i'm not american/brazilian. I'm amazed you never used the word "cadence" in this video, I think it's the most important part of trying to actually achieve a regional accent.
Estou aprendendo português. Eu sou Irlandês
it make so much sense thinking about it that you came across as german/dutch/swedish, because those people tend to learn uk english over american english. so hearing someone who has learned an rp accent would usually mean those groups. very interesting.
Also has something to do with his clipped speech pattern- it really does sound Swedish
Your accent sounds like an audiobook or something, very precise with every syllable, part of the reason why might be the studio microphone. In some words like "modern" the vowel is still a little off but it's not too noticeable unless you're trying to catch the mistakes. The abrupt stops at the end of words is really common in western Europeans speaking English which is probably why so many people thought you were from Germany. By the end, your accent sounded very similar to an "upper class" guy I know from Kent who spent a few years in the states so has a slight twang. It's certainly different from the "generic" british accent that southerners have adopted, we're a lot lazier with the elocution.
Not your traditional style of video, but I thoroughly enjoyed it :) I also like the personal touches that you've added in
There's another thing that I'm not sure anyone has mentioned yet, but for English people specifically (and probably people from other UK countries) we would rarely describe ourselves as being "from the UK", especially when talking to someone else from here. I would say "I'm English" more than "I'm from England", and I'd hardly ever say I was from the UK.
Great video, thanks. As a non native speaker of Portuguese and living in Portugal for 22 years, I’m always happy when people ask me where in Portugal I come from (not from which country). Keep the great work. I appreciate it for years.
I am from South East England and tend to speak English without too much regional accent, I thought you did pretty well, although I probably would have assumed you were from Norway.
Thanks for this installment! I’ll answer the second of your two questions: I began learning German in my early teens in high school and had the opportunity to spend a few months near Hannover one summer, and again a couple of years later… Fortunately, the local dialect is the same as ‘newscaster German,’ so that helped! Fast forward: many years later I had a a couple of older German immigrant gents ask me where in Germany I was from and how long I’d been in the US…😁👍
I'm from western Canada and, when I first found your channel, I thought English was your second language and that you spoke it very well. It surprised me to learn you also are from Canada, and in the west.
I immediately thought he was German or Dutch.
I still think he's a foreigner😂
i think he just speaks in a weird cadence
He is stiff in every dialect he attempts, including his own.
The thing that speakers of American English just can’t ever get right is phonemic vowel length. Length is so important in English that it really needs to be considered the main differentiator amongst pairs of similar vowels, with timbre being secondary (but also important). You only really make timbre distinctions, with length varying allophonically. So, when you try to say ‘off’ properly, it ends up sounding as if it were ‘orf’. Edit: I’ve just got to the bit where you introduce Molly, and I literally only understood because her name was on screen. It wouldn’t otherwise have been comprehensible, as what you said would have to be spelt ‘morley’ or something. It sounds like a plausible surname, but has no resemblance to the name Molly. You might as well say Polly. Basically, it’s like when English speakers try to speak languages with long consonants, but make no distinction between _pero_ and _perro,_ and don’t understand why they’re not understood. It’s a completely different phoneme for natives.
This is so true- when he said his own name it sounded strange because he closed off the au sound and didn’t elongate it enough
@AmyThePuddytat I think you won the "I love language" phrase of the day: "timbre distinctions with length varying allophonically".
lol at assuming all American English speakers don't do vowel length
@@BoxStudioExecutive I can hear they can't because they f it up so consistently. They don't even know what they are doing. They can't hear what they are making long or short.
I wonder if that varies with how much exposure you have to British content. I am American and I watch a lot of British KZhead, and I definitely automatically perceive an elongated vowel spoken by a British person as having an R at the end. I don't know if I could produce it though.
great video, I think I can make of the amount of effort exerted to do what you did. pronunciation is absolutely stand-alone and complex topic in language learning. the problem is that our brains aren't the same as they used to be in the childhood, when we could stay in the "learning mode" all the time with a brain absorbing and chiseling into itself literally everything we were doing including an accent. that's why for an adult must pay conscious attention to every single move they make to get it done right.
Your observation about people who learn authentic pronunciation is very interesting. Cultural immersion vs. observation and such. I'm an English speaker from America, and I learned Spanish in college, but it wasn't until I spent a semester in Spain that I learned to speak it decently well. I was very fascinated by the country around me and felt deeply connected to it. Spanish speakers know immediately that I'm not Spanish, but once in a classroom in America, one of my students from Colombia heard me speak Spanish and commented that I had an accent. As in, my Spanish was different from the Spanish she was used to, not that it was off or lacking. It felt pretty good to hear that. Best wishes to all the language learners out there.
Very interesting video, thanks. As an RP speaker myself, my impression is that you did do very well, but I could also tell even without seeing the process of what you were doing that it "wasn't quite right". As an aside, your own native accent is interesting, because it doesn't sound like most Canadian accents that I've heard, it must be something regional I'm not too familiar with. You are giving off with your "fake RP" accent, a kind of German-who-has-lived-in-the-UK-a-long-time vibe, in that it's _almost_ perfect, but perhaps a bit too clipped or staccato for RP (in the way that German is quite a staccato language). Whilst RP is also clipped in the end consonants in particular, it also _flows_ and is actually fairly slow, so your river analogy perhaps works on that level. Your accent coach I think definitely helped you, but one thing I noticed from the clips of the videos that you showed in your prep work before that - and I do appreciate that those were probably just a small sample - is that most or all of the clips you showed were of _female_ RP speakers. Bear in mind is that men and women speak differently in subtle ways, even disregarding the amount of bass that gender difference on average brings. That might be why you didn't quite have that resonance that one of the listeners was looking for. As a man, listening to male RP speakers more will I think help you. One thing I noticed is that most of your British listeners were (a) very young (teenagers and early 20s) and (b) non-RP speakers themselves. RP is actually getting quite rare in the UK nowadays, especially in younger generations; I'm in my forties and went to a private (public) school, which helped solidify the RP, as that was the standard there. Most "Gen Z" youngsters will not know it's called "RP" (or that RP stands for Received Pronounciation), the Queen to whom it is also attributed passed away over a year ago and even the BBC consciously tends to use more regional accents now for its presenters. You might try calling it "James Bond English" (by which I mean the James Bonds after Sean Connery!) if people are struggling to understand what you mean by RP. It's why they sometimes reach for "posh" when trying to describe how you talk. We also have to remove some of the unconscious bias that perhaps was introduced by your question: "Based on how I'm speaking, where do you think I'm from?" immediately subconciously introduces the concept to the listener than you might not be what you are portraying yourself to be, then they might subconsciously look for other cues - including how you look. If I had not known you are Canadian, based on your look, I would have said German or Scandinavian - and I don't know perhaps that is in your heritage somewhere. Perhaps you would have scored better if this has been audio interviews rather than video.
He sounds south african
This was a great video. You also have a distinct voice, so I was somewhat surprised that the quality of your voice changed so much when putting on the RP accent. And it was interesting to see how much of an accent is more than just the sounds themselves, but the vowel lengths and how relaxed your mouth is (pause).
I like incorporating words and phrases from my native Black Country dialect, even though, having lived in Shropshire since I was 3, I don't carry that accent except in a few words. It helps me feel more connected to my roots and my family. I've also been learning Welsh for the past few years and my tutor says I have a nice accent, one of my classmates thought I lived deep in a Welsh speaking community and practice regularly, whereas I live in England and rarely practice with native speakers, which was very pleasant to learnt.
i think you sounded really good by the end! I think you should try a regional accent next like Geordie :D
As someone from England you did a pretty good job aiming at the RP accent, however I can't say I've ever ran into many people with an RP accent in real life so maybe not the best accent to aim for.
Yeah, fair point. Our main point of reference would be older royal media. We would never know what it's actually like to hear someone talking like that.
I think that the accent too stereotypical which makes it harder for people to think its a real accent
Fascinating as ever, Paul. My natural dialect is traditional RP, but as a child I slipped in and out of "Sahf London" as the situation required. I learned German as an adult and, surprisingly, I am accent-free - only the sometimes wobbly grammar gives me away. My approach to accent in either English and German is completely different from the deconstructive and analytical approach you take. I just reflect what I hear. If I want to imitate a regional accent in either English or German, I just think of a speaker I know well and imitate their speech. I have no idea how I do this. Keep up the good work! John
This is what I do too, I prefer an analytical approach only regards to writing and grammar. Also it's rather useful to watch the face and mouths. I can do a reasonable enough Oop North impression thanks to watching Christopher Eccleston interviews so much. But more impressively, I managed to drop my native Standard West American for a Classic Southern Drawl..just to avoid Napoloen Dynamite comparisons. It worked.
My home accent (Medway) borrows a lot from the "Sahf London" type and my friend here up north makes fun of me all the time when I say brown or house or round.
I speak with RP and it’s so interesting hearing you explain things that I never consciously noticed because I just do it automatically, like the fact that there’s no ‘r’ sound in ‘far’ when you say ‘far from’, but there is when you say ‘far away’. A lot of what you said didn’t sound quite right to me, but you gave it a good shot. Can’t say I’d be able to do a convincing Canadian accent.
To do a convincing Canadian accent, just do an American accent, but pronounce "out" and "about" as "oat" and "a boat" and "sorry" as "sah-ree". And say "zed" instead of "zee". And say "process" as "pro-cess" (first syllable rhyming with "go"). Most everything else is the same as AmE.
This was a fun experiment! This was a brilliant idea to step away from just explaining languages, and doing something different and absolutely fun props to you !!!
Amazing video. Thank you for making this. As an English man, it's quite interesting seeing a Canadian put so much effort into imitating an RP accent. You did a very good job, but obviously as a native British person I could very clearly hear the inadequacies. I would love to see you try a more colloquial accent, such as a northern accent (Manchester or Yorkshire). Not many people actually speak with the accent you were trying to emulate.
Props to you for trying, it must have been incredibly tiring! You did alright, although I could tell. In my opinion, English is one of them languages that enables a variety of accents, so within the UK itself there are many accents, Scouse, Cockney, Glaswegian etc, but i think that can also extend to different countries, French/English accent, Indian/English accent, all can be perfectly understood and gives a sense of identity to that person. When something is too perfect, it takes away all the character, but that's only my personal opinion.
Nice video, subscribed. First time I've seen this channel, you've got a really engaging way about you. I actually thought your accent was pretty good on a technical level, but it's just that you have - and I mean this as a compliment, not a criticism - a very unique, clipped way of talking, even in your native Canadian voice. In fact, when you were introducing the video I was trying to place your accent there, and it wasn't until you confirmed you were Canadian that I heard it. As others have said, the question "Where do you think I'm from?" will automatically get people thinking it's not the UK by the nature of the question. But there's also the physiology. Although the UK is very diverse with lots of different-looking people, you do have more of a Germanic look than someone from England. Could also be mouth placement as well - if I see a commercial from the US that's been dubbed into English I can IMMEDIATELY tell by the mouth movements. I know the US isn't Canada, but that's just a side example. If you check the video, most of the people you speak to have their mouths opening slightly wider than yours. (the US is the reverse - they tend to open their mouths MUCH wider than people from the UK). Really though, it's a good accent, I think at least 70% of the reason why people didn't believe is your natural staccato way of speaking. I did learn basic level Polish (very basic level) and one time entered a Polish shop saying "good morning" (in Polish) as I put my items on the counter to pay. The lady serving spoke to me at length in Polish, forcing me to apologise and say I didn't understand her as I didn't know that much Polish - so I must have somehow convinced her that I was a native speaker. Only a one off, though, possibly it was the noise of the shop.
As a German native speaker and former student of English studies, I picked up the RP-pronunciation to a nearly perfect level after years of practicing. What plays a big role in picking up the British accent is mastering the intonation correctly. That’s even more difficult than learning how to pronounce in RP properly. As for instance, which vowel in a word is stressed shorter and which one is stressed longer. Also, stressing the consonants, low or mid or high pitch sound etc. In addition to that, depending on the length of a sentence, the rules can change quickly. What helped me the most was just keep on listening to British radio presenters on a daily basis for many years. Still, the reaction of BE native speakers is interesting since they get distracted by the fact that I don’t speak a particular local British accent but in RP.
Hey Paul, I have followed you about 10 years and this was one of the most interesting videos you've made. Accents are very interesting thing. My native language is Finnish and our language has many accents or maybe they can be called as dialects. They are very strong that way that a person can live in another part of the country than they are originated, and even after decades it is often hearable where they originate. I am quite fluent in English but of course I have foreign accent. Sometimes foreign people have told me that I and other Finns sound "slightly American". At school we are taught "plain Oxford English", but in our country tv series, movies etc. are not dubbed but have subtitles and we hear the original speech. And because of that we Finns have heard a lot more American English than British in our lives. Of course that is the case with the internet too. I am sure it has a strong effect.
I love the way you are so passionate about languages and accents. Just like me. 🎉
I have a 1950s RP accent. It’s never changed. My family and friends and schoolmates all spoke like me = BBC news at the time… What’s funny, given your experiment, is that several times over the last few years - in England (!) - I have been asked where I’m from, apparently because I don’t sound English. Take heart, therefore! If people don’t think you’re English you’re getting closer to your goal!
Now I'm curious about hearing your accent
I think it is rather difficult for someone to learn a different accent in your own language, for a variety of reasons. Then again, I thorougly enjoyed watching you, great effort !
It sounds to me that you nailed the South African accent. ( Australian ears )
I’m half South African and I thought the same 😅
Informative even for a Brit ;) Hadn't noticed we only pronounce 'R' before a vowel. You have learnt British pronunciation extremely well (I would be rubbish at any Canadian accent). As you say, though, your vowels are clipped. I believe RP draws the vowels out even longer than a 'normal' southern accent. In terms of "...achieved my first partial success..." at 16:06 mark: 'ie' in 'achieved' can be lengthened dramatically, said with a smile, turning the corners of the mouth up (funny example, lots of people in many countries on mainland Europe struggle with a 'piece' of paper or a 'sheet' of paper...) 'ar' in 'partial' can be more rounded, lowering of the jaw, and longer duration. It's this 'ar' sound that lends RP its distinctive socio-economic status the most, I would say. Hats off to you for the work and hours you put in. It has truly paid off. May I suggest, to get the last 1%, practice exaggerating the sounds to make them more rounded - even reassuring, and letting them linger a while to make them less clipped and more convincing. One final thought - imagine spreading warm gravy on a soft carpet with a ladle whilst sitting in a leather wingback armchair. Dunno, might work ;)
all british accents are easier to learn when you have context and understanding of the areas, classic RP is they think they run the world and want to tell you about it, modern RP is they think they may run the world and dont want you to know about it, cornwall think they are pirates, brummy accent is they work in a factory and know their life is crap, liverpool accent is they also work in a factory but want to fight you about it, manchester is they work in a factory but think they are clever and cultured,, norfolk accent is they live in the middle of knowhere and are clueles about evertyhing, cockney accent comes from victorian ginhouses where everyone is drunk and mocking eachother. if you understand the regional history youll understand accents better, the way you ask or answer a question can have many different meanings a question can be an insult, a complement, a demonstration of your understanding or lack of understanding, it could be a challenge to fight, if you say "i dont know" in classic RP it comes across as i do know but im not going to tell you, if said in norfolk accent itll seem genuinely lost, if said in cockney accent itll sseem like they dont care about the question as it wont bother them. if said in modern RP it will sound apologetic.
I think one of the biggest differences in dialects is the rhythm. Every lenguaje has a different rhythm, also there is the presence of a vowel sound that is use more, another thing is the "thinking vowel", some languages use the "a" sound, other the "e" sound and so on. You can sound more natural and local if you get the right rhythm and entonation, even if you are saying the word wrong is gona feel right, for example for me now, with the danish language, even if a say something wrong, because I aim the entonation and this other small details, sometimes they think I have a accent from a small island or a corner in denmark. I feel like in your case, the dominant vocals in Canada are the "a" and "e", but for the British accent is more like "o" and "u", also they have a tendency to lengthen vowels like in "sound" "pound", they sound for me more like "soouund" "pooouund", but in your case are shorter, more like a strike, is the same in how you end the words, you cut the word when ends, but they have the tendency to make the vowels longer.
I once achieved a near-native accent of English, when I spent a few months actually living in Britain. I don't sound like a native speaker anymore, because a lot of what made me sound more British was simply imitating people around me. Since getting back to my home country, I've had fewer opportunities to practise with native speakers, which is why my accent is now fluctuating between RP and mid-Atlantic (sort of British with a few Americanisms mixed in). I did keep my British accent for a few years though, RP with a few elements of regional Oxfordshire, and was sometimes asked by Brits where in Britain I was from because they couldn't quite place my accent. I count that as a win.
Fascinating!
I’m an American born to Korean immigrants. As a baby I apparently spoke Korean, but by the time I was 5, I spoke English and could only understand Korean. In the 6th grade I started taking Spanish. I was never a studious person, and always got by doing the bare minimum - even so, two subjects came naturally to me: geometry, and Spanish. I feel like I have a knack for accents, as I’m always trying to inmitate them. Whenever friends or family talk about me, the one thing that comes up is that I’m good at accents and voices. I think Spanish came naturally bc there are a lot of shared vowel sounds between Korean and Spanish. I retained the vocabulary and grammar as well. I remember working in the restaurant industry since 14, and always speaking with the kitchen workers who were mostly Spanish speaking, and native Spanish speakers always are surprised that I’m only casually learning it in school. yes i think you're right, it requires stepping into the physicality of the speech… the shape of the mouth, the breathiness, whether it comes from the chest or stomach, and it helps to be interested in the culture. as for accents, i grew up in Boston, and went through substance addiction and recovery (18 years sober), and in recovery i got to know many many hardcore, lower-income, from-the-boroughs Boston natives and instinctively started to mirror a little of their pronunciation probably as a survival thing… bc if ur this Asian guy and talk like a "yuppie" you become a target. they take advantage of the uninitiated, and the gullible. they perceive you as weak. now i can turn on my blue-collar boston accent on and off (oahn and oahff) without thinking. i can also speak rudimentary conversational Spanish without translating in my mind first. when i think of a vehicle on the water while speaking spanish, i think Barco, instead of thinking "boat… which is barco" If i think "tell her to come here" i think "ven aqui" instead of "come here is ven aqui" if that makes sense. so i can think in Spanish.
This video has to be the gateway to a video on the Mid-Atlantic accent we used to speak with in North America! 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇺🇸 I would add that because English is spoken by so many non-native speakers in the form of ESL, we have become accustom to hearing a varied range of accents. This has lead to the avoidance in questioning one’s accent (or origins) in English, I believe. This phenomenon doesn’t apply to non-native speakers in less common languages, where native speakers are quick to apply their curiosity and question speakers on their accent.
Unless said non-native is an Anglophone, then the b**tards just switch to blinkin' English.
Can resonate with that second point. Sometimes when I’m curious about where a non-native speaker of English is from, I shy away from asking because I wouldn’t want it to make them uncomfortable. It’s ironic because I myself am a non native speaker of English who moved as a child so have attained a fluency that’s native.
I'm Irish and I've been watching your videos for years, but for a long time I assumed you weren't a native English speaker because of your usual accent. I wonder if you did a similar video and asked Canadians where they thought you were from what their reaction might be. (Edit - I didn't intend for this comment to seem ungenerous or critical. I suspect Paul, like myself, almost only ever speaks English with non-native speakers, and that might well have been the case for many years. I haven't lived in Ireland for 35 years. When I visit, people tell me that my English is excellent and ask me what part of Germany I am from, though interestingly English people are much quicker to detect the Irish still present in my somewhat mixed and diluted accent. Hence my interest in seeing another native English speaker being mistaken for a non-native speaker.)
I think it’s more his intonation rather than accent/phonology in a strict sense. He sounds robotic, like some people with autism.
@@AmyThePuddytatthe intonation reminds the Eastern Europian way of speaking, doesn't it?
@@veirant5004It’s so staccato that it could almost be Japanese, although no one would guess that because of his appearance. I bet if he were Asian, people would think his way of speaking were due to coming from an immigrant family, rather than a personal quirk.
@@AmyThePuddytat yeah i believe his caucasian face with blond hair and clear eyes is part of the reason why people though he was from Northern/Eastern Europe.
Did you mean unusual?
That last conversation the accent was vastly closer! Reminded me of Alexander Armstrong.
I’m an occasional viewer of your channel, not a subscriber. I hadn’t realized you were Canadian. I’m English. I moved to Saskatchewan in my 20s. I got fed up with people asking me to say certain words just so they could be amused. So I did this in reverse. Now I flip a switch & use whichever accent I want to use. Pronouncing that rhotic R still takes every ounce of concentration I have though. Now I’m a subscriber. 👍😁🇨🇦
Some American TV shows and movies have Brits playing Americans. They are so good at American accents that I really found it hard to believe they were Brits!
There's some studies around to say that the English are the best at putting on other accents, as they all have roots in English English.
@@fuxkoff428 It's also cause of exposure. We hear every British and Irish accent in our media, plus North American ones, plus Australian and New Zealand, plus Indian, Nigerian etc. due to immigrant populations.
Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy come to mind