[General] Can you judge my accent?

[bach98]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RptA3EpMBoy6Pt7wQam3C-IrLyh78Je6

Here is the link to the video. I'm practicing the Southern British English (RP/ London)

 

[emsr2d2]

Now that's how to do a recording so that we can judge an accent! It was natural and clear. So many people read from a text when they do these things and that makes it really hard for us to comment.

I would not have been surprised to find that you grew up in the UK although of course you still have a clear accent. I would say that you have certainly nailed BrE pronunciation through most of it. There are a few grammatical errors ("My hobbies is", for example) but generally it was clear, well enunciated and you have a good approximation of a south-east BrE accent.

 

[probus]

I probably shouldn't make this comment since I am North American, but here I go anyway. South-east England, yes; RP definitely not. Overall an impressive effort. To my ear the main thing that gives you away as a non-native speaker is missing or swallowed Ls, as in little and old for example.

 

[bach98]

Thank you guys. Your comments are definitely helpful and encouraging.

Sorry for the silly mistakes. I hadn't prepared the script so i just said what popped up in my head.

I once tried RP but their intonation is too Posh and unnatural to me so now I want to change it to something more common, contemporary RP/ Multiculture London and Estuary might be my options.


Again, thank you all for your comments.

 

[jutfrank]

Your pronunciation is good but you do have mild Vietnamese accent.

I think there is some confusion in your mind about the terms 'RP' accent, London accent, South-East England accent. These are not the same thing. In fact, they can be very different indeed.

It seems clear to me that you are going for an 'RP' accent, even if you're not quite there yet.

 

[jutfrank]

I have heard many young native speakers from London and south-east England speak in almost exactly the same way.

I really don't know what you mean here. What way? bach98 does not speak like any Londoner I've ever met.

I don't mean to say that everybody from London has a London accent (they don't), or that there is only one London accent (there are many) but it might be a bit confusing to suggest that somebody who speaks in a more generically standard way (what we tend to call RP) has in any sense a London, or South-East accent.

 

[jutfrank]

South-east England, yes; RP definitely not.

I have heard many young native speakers from London and south-east England speak in almost exactly the same way ... The accent is definitely not RP.

probus and Piscean—I understand from the above quotes that you two are saying the same thing. I just want to understand what you mean because I would be tempted to say the complete opposite.

What I mean is that I believe that bach98 is at least attempting a standard British pronunciation (what we call 'contemporary RP'). I can't see what South-East England has to do with anything. There are plenty of people in the South-East who use RP, yes, but of course this is not by any means exclusive to the region. People speak RP from all areas of the country. Also, many, many people who are native to the South-East speak with regional accents (often very strong), whether they be London accents or others.

 

[probus]

To repeat myself, as a non-Brit I should have kept right out of this one. And lately it seems I learn as much as I teach on usingenglish.com. ��

It has been more than forty years since I lived in London and I was quite unaware of contemporary RP, both the concept and the sound of it. When I said RP I meant what the Wikipedia article calls Conservative or upper RP, English as the Queen speaks it. I'll now shut up and leave the field to those who know what they are talking about.

By the way, that capital C Conservative was not intended as a joke, but it's not bad, eh?

 

[bach98]

Your pronunciation is good but you do have mild Vietnamese accent.

I think there is some confusion in your mind about the terms 'RP' accent, London accent, South-East England accent. These are not the same thing. In fact, they can be very different indeed.

It seems clear to me that you are going for an 'RP' accent, even if you're not quite there yet.

Thanks. Can you pin point exactly which part of my speech that i need to improve?

I m thinking about practicing something more common but still
distinctive because Upper RP is too Posh to me, i must say. Any advice?

Also i ve heard that the contemporary RP is kind of similar to American General Accent nowadays in terms of intonation. Is it true?

 

[probus]

In this forum we don't use cuz, i, and kinda. Less advanced students than you are entitled to believe that what they read here is correct English.

Kindly rewrite your last question in correct English.

 

[jutfrank]

The time has come to abandon the archaic name Received Pronunciation. The model used [in the dictionary] for British English is what is referred to as BBC English

I really don't think BBC English works better as a term than RP. The majority of BBC presenters (on TV at least) do not speak in this way.

It has a lot to do with what we are talking about. You are far more likely to hear accents similar to bach's in London and South-East England than in, for example, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Barnsley, etc (or, of course, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland).

Right, this is where we disagree. I don't think 'far more likely' is correct. I think it is more likely, yes, but I don't think this is as significant as you think. Also, the reasons why there may be a greater concentration of RP speakers in the South-East is, I suspect, more to do with class (and other social factors) than with any regional effect.

 

[jutfrank]

Thanks. Can you pin point exactly which part of my speech that i need to improve?

Well, I think your pronunciation is fine as it is. You really don't need to improve much at all, if anything, in my opinion.

I m thinking about practicing something more common but still
distinctive cuz Upper RP is too Posh to me, i must say. Any advice?

I don't know what you mean by 'distinctive'. My advice would be to find someone to use as a model, and then just try to mimic the way he pronounces until you can't hear any differences between you and him. Make sure you choose your model very carefully.

Also i ve heard that the contemporary RP is kinda similar to American General Accent nowadays in terms of intonation. Is it true?

I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me. I think that now there is more cross-cultural communication between varieties of English than ever before, it is only natural that these would tend toward some kind of international standard.

 

[probus]

Bach98 wrote "Also i ve heard that the contemporary RP is kinda similar to American General Accent nowadays in terms of intonation. Is it true?

I know the answer, but I will not give it until you rewrite your last question in correct English.

And I regret that some of my fellow teachers have let the side down by answering you in part and not supporting my request that you do so. It is bad for usingenglish.com.

 

[bach98]

EDITED.

 

[jutfrank]

Here are samples of the first twelve people listed on Wikipedia's List of BBC newsreaders and reporters:

George Alagiah
Fiona Bruce
Rachel Burden
Victoria Derbyshire
Reeta Chakrabarti
Tina Daheely
Victoria Derbyshire
Huw Edwards
Christian Fraser
Joanna Gosling
Jane Hill
Mishal Husain

They seem to be fairly typical of professional speakers employed by the BBC as newsreaders and announcers on BBC1 and BBC2 television, the World Service and BBC Radio 3 and 4, as well as many commercial broadcasting organisations such as ITN.

I don't know many of those people. I know Fiona Bruce and George Alagiah, who are both good examples of RP. I know Huw Edwards too—he has a Welsh accent.

What do you think the benefits of the term BBC English over RP might be? What reasons did the English Pronouncing Dictionary give?

You have brought up this class point in at least one other thread.

Well, I brought up the subject, yes, but it was an unrelated point. Do you agree with me to any extent that there may be a correlation of some sort between likelihood to speak RP and middle-class background?

Whatever the reason (and I don't necessarily agree that it is class or other social factors), if there is a greater concentration of RP speakers in the South-East, then I can't see any valid objection to my saying that it is heard among many speakers in that region.

No, of course I don't object to that! I think you may have misunderstood my point. I think it is likely that the South-East is home to more RP speakers than any other region in the UK.

(When you say 'necessarily' do you mean that you don't completely disagree?)

You are the only person who has mentioned 'regional effect'.

Yes. I'm just trying to address what I think could be confusing to some people—the nature of the association between RP and the South-East of the UK. My claim is that the standard way of speaking that we call contemporary RP is not (fundamentally, at least) regional-bound, and so is not best described in those terms. It's more like a kind of standard, or norm, which, for whatever social/historical reasons we don't have to get into here, has become something of a prestige form.

I don't mean to suggest that there is no connection between RP and the South-East. The connection is that a lot of people in the South-East speak it. What I'm having trouble with, as someone who has lived all his life in London and the South-East, is the idea that RP is in some way the way that people in the region speak. The fact is that RP is a), only one variety in a region of many, quite different varieties; b), not the dominant form in the region; and c), by no means exclusive to the region.

 

[probus]

Okay bach98, thank you for editing your question.

In linguistics terms the difference between intonation and accent is that intonation is the rise and fall of the voice in speaking while accent is the distinctive manner of pronouncing a language associated with a particular region, social group, etc, whether of a native speaker or a foreign speaker; the phonetic and phonological aspects of a dialect.

So the two are separate and when discussing accent it makes no sense to ask about intonation or tone as it is sometimes called.

As far as your accent sounding like a native speaker, our answers to date indicate that you are doing very well indeed, but you are not quite there yet. For someone like you choosing a particular accent to work on is less important than getting those non-English features out of your speech. To refer back to my own previous answer, make sure you are clearly enunciating your L sounds. All your sounds, in fact. The D at the end of around could be clearer, and the voiced sibilant at the end of means is missing.

Once you've got that under your belt you can progress to differentiating Standard American from Contemporary RP. That is primarily a matter of different allophones.

To reiterate, get rid of your foreign phonemes first, then move on to English allophones.

 

[jutfrank]

I really think we should leave this thread to bach's question. We can discuss this elsewhere if you wish.

Sure. I'm sure the subject will come up again. I do think it's a fascinating issue.