I need some answeres to be fluent at British accent !

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mido Torres

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Arabic
Home Country
Egypt
Current Location
Egypt
Hello guys,

Actually it's a massive honour to be right here with you :)

I just need a kind of help, and I'm sure it's the best place for that :up:

I'm an Egyptian Guy, 18 years old

I'm very interested in studying and learning English especially the British accent
I love it indeed

So, I'd like to know
what's the best guaranteed site for the right British Pronunciation ?

another question ...

at every word that ends with ing or ong

Which pronunciation is right ? "Playing" or "Playin'"
"King" or "Kin' ?!!

Surely I mean at the British accent

Thank you.
 

Route21

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
Thailand
As an NES but not a teacher:

Best site for BrE pronunciation?: Looks like you've already found it! :lol:

If you want to speak English correctly, you should always pronounce the final "g" in "-ing" and "-ong".
"Playin'/runnin'/walkin' etc" are often heard, but don't represent good/correct English and should be avoided.
Unlike typical "Thai-speak", in English you should always specifically pronounce the ending where not doing so makes the meaning ambiguous.
In your example, the meaning of "kin" is a totally different from that of "king".

Regards
R21


PS: An example of "Thai-speak" is "lie", which could mean "lie", "lied", "light", "rice", "ride", "right", "write", "rai" (size of a typical ricefield) etc.
 
Last edited:

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
If you want to speak English correctly, you should always pronounce the final "g" in "-ing" and "-ong".
Note that the g in -ng is not pronounced like the g in 'bug'. the letters ng represent a single sound - /ŋ/.
 

Route21

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
Thailand
Oh! I wasn't aware that the "ng" consonant cluster in English was regarded as a single consonant. You live and learn!

There's a single consonant "ง" in Thai that equates to the English "ng".
The difference is that, in Thai, words can and do start with the consonant "ง" - as in "ngu", which means snake.

Regards
R21
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
Oh! I wasn't aware that the "ng" consonant cluster in English was regarded as a single consonant.
It's not a consonant cluster. It's a separate phoneme. Compare:

singer -- one phoneme in the middle, /ŋ/ and finger, two phonemes, /ŋg/.

Although some people don't realise it, the sound we produce in such words as sink, bank, trunk, is /ŋ/, not /n/.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velar_nasal
 
Last edited:

Route21

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
Thailand
The problem I have is that I have never pronounced "singer" and "finger" differently.

I have a similar problem with "Teach yourself Thai" books that say that the sound they write as "a" should be pronounced like the "u" in "put" (but never like the "u" in "but"). I similarly would have pronounced them the same way.

I have also never thought of "bank" etc as having an "ng" "phoneme".
"Bangkok" includes "ngk", and uses the Thai "ง", but Thais call it "Grungtep" rather than Bangkok anyway!

It seems I have a lot more to learn.

Many thanks for the link. It also helps me to understand the pronunciation difference between the Thai words "nu" (rat) and "ngu" (snake). It's a wee bit difficult when you are asking if what you've just seen in the garden is a harmless rat snake (ngu nu) or a cobra! We also get huge pythons.

Regards
R21
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
The problem I have is that I have never pronounced "singer" and "finger" differently.
Then I guess you are not from Southern England. In some dialects of BrE, 'singer' contains the /g/ phoneme, but I don't think that 'sing' does. In any case, you will know from radio and television what the RP pronunciation of 'singer' is.
I have a similar problem with "Teach yourself Thai" books that say that the sound they write as "a" should be pronounced like the "u" in "put" (but never like the "u" in "but"). I similarly would have pronounced them the same way.
A feature of many dialects of Northern England is that 'but' has the same vowel as 'put'. Once again, you will be aware of the RP version of the vowel in 'but' even if you don't use it.
I have also never thought of "bank" etc as having an "ng" "phoneme".
"Bangkok" includes "ngk",
I do not know how you personally pronounce the word 'bank', but speakers of most dialects/varieties of BrE, pronounce the word 'bank' with exactly the same phonemes as they use in 'Bangkok' Try saying 'ban/bank' several times. I think you'll find that your tongue touches the alveolar ridge for the /n/ of 'ban' but not for the /ŋ/ of 'bank'. Don't be misled by the spelling.

Now try saying "I live in London' and 'I live in Cardiff' as naturally as you can. You'll probably find that, in the first sentence, 'in' is pronounced with a /n/ sound. In the second, it has become an /ŋ/ . We don't think about this; it just happens.

I
 

Paulys

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Lithuanian
Home Country
Lithuania
Current Location
Lithuania
I pronounce such words as going - goin', dancing - dancin', running - runnin', making - makin' et cetera. I pronounce these words in this way, because it's easier for me. Sometimes I try to pronounce these words correctly at school, but it's not easy. :)
 

Mido Torres

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Arabic
Home Country
Egypt
Current Location
Egypt
Thank you guys,

So, What is the best guaranteed site to hear the pronunciation from ?

[British Pronunciation]
 

konungursvia

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
English has been in Britain for a very long time, so there are hundreds of accents there, and no single "British Pronunciation."
 

Mido Torres

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Arabic
Home Country
Egypt
Current Location
Egypt
I just need a great site for the right Pronunciation

I mean I wanna hear some people talking this accent

I need a guaranteed site having a sound dictionary
 

Mido Torres

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Arabic
Home Country
Egypt
Current Location
Egypt
Guys,

What's the difference between ŋ and n at the pronunciation ?
 

Mr_Ben

Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Switzerland
I just need a great site for the right Pronunciation

I mean I wanna hear some people talking this accent

I need a guaranteed site having a sound dictionary

Anyone who guarantees anything about learning or teaching English is nothing more than a salesman. NOTHING can be guaranteed about learning ANY language (with the exception that you cannot learn without hard work), or there would be no academic debate any longer and everyone would teach the same way. What I'm saying is, don't look for a guaranteed site, look for good sites and choose what works best for you. :cool:


There are many listening (and reading and vocabulary and grammar) activities on BBC Learning English.

You can hear the difference between ŋ and n by clicking on their symbols on this British Council page (they also have lots of activities).
 

Route21

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
Thailand
According to Wiki:
Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that only "3% of British people were RP speakers".
I graduated over 10 years earlier.

At that time, there weren't enough qualified RP teachers around, maybe even in Southern England, to teach pronunciation as a subject in its own right, even if you studied English at "A" level.

Shucks! It looks like I'm going to have to make do at my current English pronunciation level and concentrate on learning Thai.

I've not lived "up North" (Yorkshire/Lancashire) since the early 60's and have had not used RP, as such, in the multinational/multicultural oil/gas/petrochemical industries in the UK or abroad. I try to stick to plain English that most people can understand. As "they" say, a Yorkshireman calls a spade a spade!

I pronounce "put" & "but" the same way and can't generate an "ng" in "bank" although there's always one in Bangkok. My "in" is the same, whether with London or Cardiff.

I guess I'll just have to leave phonetics and the like to the specialists.

My specialities lie elsewhere (including trying to make sense of weekly/monthly reports and complex contractual documents from multinational engineers whose first language isn't plain English).

Regards
R21
 

Mr_Ben

Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
Switzerland
I can't generate an "ng" in "bank" although there's always one in Bangkok. My "in" is the same, whether with London or Cardiff.

I only just realised this myself, do you not feel the different "n" sounds when pronouncing ban/bane and bank? I was surprised.

I guess I'll just have to leave phonetics and the like to the specialists.

Agreed. :up:
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Forvo is a pretty good pronunciation website. However, you need to be aware that people record their pronunciations and those people come from all parts of all countries. Take the word "grass" as an example. On Forvo, you will find several pronunciations by people from the UK. There are at least three completely different pronunciations, one used by people from the south-west, one by people from London, the south-east and a lot of East Anglia, and another used by people from the Midlands and the North. That's before you even start on Irish, Welsh and Scottish pronunciations.
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
At that time, there weren't enough qualified RP teachers around, maybe even in Southern England, to teach pronunciation as a subject in its own right, even if you studied English at "A" level.
Phonetics has been taught at university level since the days of Henry Sweet and Daniel Jones. Pronunciation/Elocution probably has a longer history - think of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady. My present, roughly RP, accent is in part due to the 'how now brown cow' drills (I'm serious!) that began at my prep school in 1954-55
I've not lived "up North" (Yorkshire/Lancashire) since the early 60's and have had not used RP, as such, in the multinational/multicultural oil/gas/petrochemical industries in the UK or abroad. I try to stick to plain English that most people can understand.
There are many very successful English (I deliberately use that word rather than 'British') people who do not speak RP, and no serious linguist considers non-RP varieties in any way inferior. It is, however a fact (regrettable in my opinion) that for many years RP and similar southern British 'educated' varieties of English were, within England at least, considered to be a sign of intellectual superiority.

While listening materials provided with most modern course books do use speakers of other varieties of English, they mostly avoid the 'stronger' dialects, and the bulk of the listening material is roughly 'educated' southern English. As a result, many learners believe that RP and similar varieties are 'standard' British English, and they have genuine difficulties in understanding speakers of other varieties.
I [...] can't generate an "ng" in "bank" although there's always one in Bangkok. My "in" is the same, whether with London or Cardiff.
As I can't hear you speak, I'll have to take your word on that, but I have to say that you must be in a tiny minority of native speakers. When I was taking the phonology part of a Cert TESOL course, many of my native-speaker trainees denied emphatically that they used /ŋ/ in 'bank' or 'in Cardiff' (or that they pronounced 'handbag' as /hæmbæg/). Indeed, when they demonstrated the words/phrases to prove their point, they didn't, because they were thinking about what they were saying. I spent some time setting up situations in which they uttered the words without thinking, and eleven fellow trainees and/or my recorder testified that they did produce sounds that they claimed they didn't.

My primary interest in the English language (as you may have noticed) is in the tense system of English. However, during my time as a teacher trainer, I spent a lot of my spare time on phonetics/phonology - largely because I was appalled at the bilge my trainees were presenting to their students. I have had trainee teachers insist that in an utterance such as 'I think he's coming tomorrow', the h of he's must be clearly produced. Not to produce a clear /h/ is to drop your aitches, a clear sign of lack of education. Sphericals! 95+% of people from England do not produce a clear /h/ in such utterances in normal conversation. I doubt if many speakers of most other varieties of English do either.

I have to admit that I am on one of my hobby-horses. I honestly don't care what method (grammar-translation, direct, audio-lingual, communicative, etc) a teacher uses, so long as the learner is enabled to communicate in English. I believe passionately that teachers, however they enable learning, must, in order to be able to do this, have a clear understanding themselves of the grammar of English and of the way in which native speakers actually produce the sounds of English.

Time to stop, I'm getting warm.
 

konungursvia

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
Oh, 5jj, was that Eton, or Harrow?
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
Oh, 5jj, was that Eton, or Harrow?
In BrE, preparatory schools are for pupils aged eight to eleven or thirteen. Eton and Harrow are public schools, which in England and Wales are independent, fee-paying schools, unlike the public schools of the United States and Canada, which provide free education funded by the state. These are known in England and Wales as state schools.
 

billmcd

Key Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
English has been in Britain for a very long time, so there are hundreds of accents there, and no single "British Pronunciation."

I would add that there is a significant difference between accent and pronunciation. And further that pronunciation is more important. I am a believer that one should be proud of their heritage, and accent is a part of that characteristic.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top