Received Pronunciation "The Grand Design"

[raystem69]

I'm afraid this is not RP; you can hear the German accent quite clearly, especially when you say 'considerations'. Nevertheless, this is a very good attempt. You need to focus on the rhythm as you say the words.

[b00i00d]

This is really good! As a foreign speaker learning RP for acting, I had to really listen to find any minor tweaks needed. I think the main thing you should work on is your "o" sound ("ɒ" in IPA) in words such as "was" and "proposed". You need to give it more room. In your "was" you also need to make sure you're ending on a definite "z" sound ("wɒz"), not "s" - in my experience this word is usually a giveaway for germans. And careful of the "oi" sound as someone else noted. Hope this helps!

[DeeJayBounce]

P P P PHH PPHA PHHHA.

[sukumvit]

For a non-native speaker this is really excellent - it sounds quite close to native English. Most non-native speakers carry a heavy accent from their native tongue which tends to remain with them to some degree for life.

On the down side, the area to which the English spoken is native to shifts all over the place - vowels in particular are coming everywhere from Oxford to Australia to the London East-End... "I" in particular should be "ai" not "oi".

Still - infinitely better than most!

[florybmw1]

super. congrats.

[Ctaak]

Good on ya cobber!

[Steedrider]

@Ctaak cheers, mate ;-D

[muskndusk]

Too nasal. Australian. Open your throat more to do English RP.

[c243mx7tr]

Australian mate! throw some shrimp on the grill

[Steedrider]

@c243mx7tr haha xD olroight but oi'll decorade 'em with some keyweys, mate! ;-D

[ornitorrinco01]

@c243mx7tr lol In Australia we call them prawns, not shrimp, and it is very rare to BBQ prawns here. We prefer to BBQ steak, sausages, maybe even some chicken but not many people BBQ prawns.

[bystanderable]

I've done a faster version

[MiscellaneousBytes]

Concentrate on exaggerating all the shapes with your mouth. You can really overexaggerate them to begin with, but if you are really working the lips and tongue to their maximum degree then the correct sounds will naturally follow. Your choice of material is really making it hard for yourself!

[mcbreit]

I think while the overall accent sounds quite Southern British to me, it does not quite accord to RP or Advanced RP. It seems to me that you are trying to raise the pitch of your voice higher than it actually is, something that many people do in trying to immitate the accent of older female speakers. This might also be the source for an overt hissing that goes along with many of your pronounciations where one doesn't usually find it (as in your What?). Good job though!

[brenniboi]

it sounds a bit south african at times

[shinypinktrinket]

I'm a native RP speaker from Cambridge (went to public fee paying school, etc.) and agree it's a rare accent that perhaps less than 1% will speak in England these days). You speech is good considering the other German accents I have to put up with on a daily basis, but I think to me it sounds more Aussie :-).

I think if you're still working on getting your RP up to scratch, you should slow down. Most other RP native speakers read a script like this much slower (in my opinion).

[elcamaleon1]

You need to work on you diphthongs. You should also improve your pronunciation in terms of clarity when it comes to words that contains many vowels, which you tend to "swallow". Stressed vowels are not pronounced in the way unstressed ones are, i.e. "an excellent" in the text, the "an" has an "ö" sound, not an "ahh" sound ( I don't have the IPA here).....and "r" is not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. Good work though! Keep it up!

[mattbackvass]

wow, i'm an american ( so that's basically the only language i know) and that sounds beautiful, haha.

[still2much]

wow, you're German? that really sounds excellent. I'm a first years student from Poland and MY recordings for phonetics classes are not quite as good! they suck, in fact :p we're being taught RP as well, but I just try to make my speech comprehensible without caring much about details. some guys from my group sound ridiculous when they use RP in casual talk with foreign students.

[perfacetus]

Excellent. The first one did have the mistake on "conser-ation" instead of consideration, but that was corrected in the second one. Very good, better than many English speakers.

In addition an excellent program on which to base your reading!

[myfrees]

One doesn't yod coalesce in RP. She said "that chore" instead of "that your."

Furthermore, in RP one aspirates initially in words such as "what" and "which."

Good job for a German speaker. Remember that RP is very rare these days :/

[NovaColonel]

1st year at university? Unbelievable, she's really authentic. I wouldn't have recognized her being a non-native speaker. Great work!

[fataldeception]

extremely good attempt =]

[Eithan89]

It's really hard to speak the RP english.

[northanortha]

This is a very good native-like accent, but not RP. This sounds like a normal Home Counties accent. RP is similar to this, but not the same.

[fernmeio18]

im studying in a University in Germany and have the same class this Winter semester Phonetics with Frau Zier. Need to learn how to speak received ronunciation properly.

[beingforitse1f]

This is really excellent for a non-native English student.

[nextstep333]

It is British but not the King's English,

[jpschubbs]

Good job. I wish I British Accent.

[airhab]

Das is Guud

[jimmyboy131]

Yeah, there does sound like an Australian influence there.

[ojideagu]

She doesnt sound English, maybe Australian.

[Yoshuayovel]

She sounds English I think. The Australian one is even worse.

[ojideagu]

Im English and her accent sounds Australian or Kiwi the majority of  the time. Doesnt sound like any real English accent.

[fataldeception]

I'm australian and it sounds like the English accent.

[ojideagu]

What is "The English accent"?

I'm English and it doesnt sound like any English accent. It sounds South African or something far more.

[LeDratt]

Perhaps because you're a bloody Chav or a Cockney. As far as the civilised world is concerned, RP is the only way to speak the English language. She does like royalty compared to English working class scum.

[LeDratt]

Sound

[ojideagu]

You ignorant twat. RP is spoken by 1% of the UK population at most.

Listen to any local dialect, RP is textbook English not real English.

[LeDratt]

You lumpen rat-faced uneducated moron. Your working class British dialects make me want to vomit. RP is beautiful and elegant, and perhaps more importantly, comprehensible to someone not from your depraved neighbourhood. The dearth of RP and other forms of cultivated English reflect the decay of the British society and the rise of the Chav. English is a global language, and RP is its gold standard. The language spoken by the majority of English working class scum cannot even be called English.

[ojideagu]

RP is a fantasy that non English people still believe in. A language is what is USED most.

Not what a textbook says.

That's why the oxford dictionary adds new words every year. That's how languages evolve and were created you idiot.

[ojideagu]

RP itself changes, RP today is nothing like RP in the 1950's.

It has been shown even the QUEEN does not speak RP the same as she did when she was first on the throne.

RP is merely an accent, not superior English.

[LeDratt]

Shut up chav.

[ojideagu]

LOL an Aussie calling someone a working class or a Chav,

Your entire family tree Descends from Scum that was sent to your shitty island as a punishment for being the criminal filth of Britain.

The average Aussie sounds like a dray horse speaking "English".

[SohoDelights]

Actually quite a large portion of the original settlers in Australia were free immigrants... it may well be that LeDratt's family had convicts or free British settlers or more likely, both. Anyway, in Australia we have a certain accent that is a leftover of our colonial days called "cultivated Australian English", and it's generally our equivalent of RP. Cate Blanchett, Barry Humphries, Alexander Downer, Geoffrey Rush all speak it, but yes most of us speak "general Australian"- like dray horses.

[AkiraUema]

Gor blimey, mate!

Your bloody prejudice makes me want to vomit...

[alinamakarova]

May I please please ask you to post some more similar videos - its absolutelly amazing and helped me sooo much to improve my own pronunciation, i didn't find anything better on youtube than your video - so good!! Thank you

[Kypros]

A very slight foreign accent: in places where the 's' should be voiced (like the letter 'z') the speaker pronounces it voiceless 'like the 's' in 'sell'), but this detail is so paltry that I raise it nothing other than an observation, rather than a criticism.

It isn't RP, but seems slightly Australian-influenced at times and reminds me very much of a modified Brummie accent, as remarked by smlbailey.

Excellent stuff! VERY impressed!

[Steedrider]

Thanks for your commet! I spent some time in NZ actually. :-)

[mcbreit]

@Kypros The initial alveolar fricative in "sell" in at least standard southern British English is unvoiced, not voiced as you point out. And I am not aware of any area where it is voiced, either.

[Kypros]

@mcbreit The 's' in English can indeed be voiced, as in 'compromise', for instance.

[nathananise]

The /ou/ sound belies your true language background.

[smlbailey]

Well done!

No one could guess that this was not a native English speaker unless they had some linguistic background. You sound like you have a posh Birmingham accent to me. The script would be difficult for even a native speaker to negotiate 10/10.

[fnord321]

I can tell it's not a native British-English speaker; but I wouldn't have been able to tell it was a native German speaker. If I were to guess I would have said Swedish as she pronounces some 'o's as 'å'. e.g. 'approval' as 'appråval'. I guess it's very similar to 'umlaut a'.

[Ketrin01]

Well yes - Germans can have a good pronunciation...

but then...grammar... ;D

Sehr schön!

Ich spreche leider ein von verschiedenen Akzenten durchzogenes English mit vielen glottal stops, ziemlich weiten Diphtongen (die sich manchmal wie Triphtonge anhören ^_^), einem hier und da eingestreutem "u" (pub, etc.) und des öfteren einem "innit", "oy" etc.

Can´t help meself, I get jealous. ^_^

[Steedrider]

Well, reckon what me English was loyk when oy came beck from New Zealend! :-D

[Ketrin01]

Hehehe....

How did you manage to "fix" it?

[Freddy97450]

Doesn't sound RP to me. For example look up in your dictionary the pronunciation of "what" in RP, it is more /wot/ than /wat/. There is a diphtongue in "careful" too, not car - ful but excellent for a first year student.

[asmodeus585]

For me it's rather Estuary, but nvm. The fact is that she can really get rid of her German accent, which is wonderful. And sounds much better than most of the foreigners living in London. You can hear she isn't native, but I couldn't tell of which origin she is. Actually I could even think that she's English but from some region I've no idea about. =)

[scruffybusker]

It certainly sounds English, but not quite like RP.

[anaghwilliam]

I would not call this Received Pronunciation because it is all wrong.

Forgive me, I'm not trying to be rude, but as a native speaker of the accent, and having grown up with people who speak it as well, I can honestly say that the tonation of the accent attempted in this video and the way some of the vowels said are quite incorrect.

For example,

a lot of the words are said with an "oi" sound, like the compromise was said like "compromOIse."

That's more on the Cockney side, I'd say.

[ChipChipBreak]

i think that the compromoise part sounds a little bit like a birmigham accent.

[Myndir]

Correct. This is a very good rendering of a native English speaker and impressive in that respect, but it is not proper received English.

[jimm2224]

@anaghwilliam Sounded the same to me and I'm American. Sounded a bit forced to me.

[AHumbleNarrator]

Wow, that's great! I'm a native English speaker and I can barely get through that without stumbling!

How long have you studied English for?

[smfmshsl]

Superb pronunciation. You most definitely sound like a native speaker and enunciate better than most.

[Steedrider]

Thank you very much! :-)

[MindTheGap09]

Definitely! I wish I spoke like this! :)

[GMJ7]

Did you create this dialogue or snag it from some other source? I'd be interested in knowing its origins!

[Steedrider]

We were given this text in our phonetics class at uni. It's been taken from a Britsh comedy show but I don't know it's name - sorry!

[nad2k8]

the lines are taken from one of the funniest sitcom - "Yes, minister".

[anorak2]

Wie schon jemand anders schrieb "Yes Minister", eine BBC Sitcom aus den 1980er Jahren. Lief auch damals in der ARD mit deutschem Synchronton. Die DVDs der Serie kann ich nur empfehlen, auch die Nachfolgeserie "Yes Prime Minister". Eine Version der DVDs mit der deutschen Synchronisation wäre mal lustig, aber die gibt es nicht.

[johnnysucker]

Hi. I am also an English Philology graduate. We also had classes in phonetics. In my humble opinion, you really sound like a native speaker.

[jhose87]

oh, this is amazing. I'm taking phonetics at the university too. I think this is a great attempt. How did you do it? Let me know how you got it. I've got a problem with the "prominence" in some words. I could say that my english a little flat and that's not fair for me!!!! I studied a lot! but I don't want to give up! any good advise for other non- native speaker who wants to get rid (reduce) of the "mother-tongue accent? :)

[Steedrider]

The best advise would probably be to visit an English-speaking country for a considerable time. ;) The speaker in the video spent 6 months in New Zealand. If that's not possible for you, try to watch many news clips/films of the variant you would like to adapt (British English or American English). Learn short passages by heart and repeat them over and over again, reply the original, listen carefully and try to imitate the sound. Good luck! :)

[fisher242000]

she sounds northern

[Steedrider]

Could you explain what exactly is northern about it? :)

[Xerphiel]

Very good for a non native speaker, better pronounciation than many natives.

[operation1enduring1b]

That was a lot of P's...but I can see its for learning the difference in the words that sound the same but are spelled different and have different meanings?

[Steedrider]

The speaker is a non-native English speaker. This video was principally made for the purpose of proper pronunciation, so people can hear (and judge) a non-native speaker pronouncing English words. ;)

Phonetics is a course at university (for those studying languages) and also deals with the student's pronunciation - and attempts to improve it.

[DiscipIine]

I find it humorous that you typed principally... Man, I cracked up with all those principals and proposals...

[Steedrider]

Yeah, the actual recording was quite funny as well. ;-)