First Attempts in Received Pronunciation – Trying to Read using the British Accent!

I’ve begun my second Accent Learning Mission – Received Pronunciation (Traditional British Accent) – and here’s a video where you can listen to me trying to read and sound like a Brit! 😉

Of course, these first feeble attempts into the British Accent are laughable; however, not every start is easy – and this one is definitely NOT because I’m so used to the General American Pronunciation!

Here’s what I noticed during this reading practice:

For some reason I’m completely changing my voice.

It’s normal – to a degree – because every accent will make you sound a bit different. This time around I overdid it, and it’s most likely caused by the fact that the General British Accent does sound quite posh due to the mouth placement and sound production in the lips area (unlike the American Accent when your whole mouth resonates!)

Conclusion: I have to try to sound more like myself, yet at the same time adopting the typical Received Pronunciation mouth placement. It’s not easy, but I have to find the middle-ground here!

I’m finding it hard to speak – so I speak very quietly.

When I was on my American Pronunciation mission, I didn’t find it hard to speak at any stage – largely due to the fact that American accent requires your whole mouth to resonate so it’s in fact difficult to speak quietly.

When trying to read using the Received Pronunciation, on the other hand, I felt that my speech becomes quiet, devoid of emotion and impersonal. Am I really trying to sound like an impassionate aristocrat? Well, there is something of that to the British accent, no doubt about that, but once again – I have to find the middle-ground here!

Conclusion: I have to speak up when practicing my Received Pronunciation. I have to allow for full airflow through my mouth and work on my British pronunciation while doing so instead of training myself to speak quietly and learn an artificial accent that’s no good for real life!

Thanks for reading and watching my first attempts to learn to Received Pronunciation, and there’s loads more videos to follow in the near future documenting my progress (hopefully!)

Chat soon,

Robby 😉