RP (Received pronunciation) vs POSH ENGLISH The Differences and the HISTORY Explained. 

my ex-gf from Belarus said that I didn't say the letter 'h' properly; she said I had to pronounce it 'aitch' not 'haitch'. I dumbed her very quickly.

@@isaaccraft2050 lmao barely ever see any reference to Belarus

@@isaaccraft2050 Oh my god, yes- my mum says "haitch" and it drives me fucking mad hahah

@@isaaccraft2050 She is right.

I’m South African and I definitely speak better English than most English people

He basically said "I pronounce words according to the book written in 1926. That's why I sound weird." That cracks me up as well.

That's for sure the best example I have ever read. Stealing. 😁

Myself build my pronunciation via listening to BBC far in the south of Uzbekistan. And that guy from Zanzibar had clear marks of Hindustan aligned RP.

@@uzbekuncle "that guy from Zanzibar" and "Hindustan" makes me feel such... interesting feelings. India, friend, is the generally accepted appellation right now.

I'm not sure about that one, MrVovansim. I had a subject at the Faculty called Phonetics of the English and at some point we talked about the synonyms for RP. Among many synonyms, such as BBC English, there was the "King's English". The professor talked about it and said that today it is rather referred to as "Queen's English" since the Queen herself is the reigning monarch, after King George ascended the throne in 1936. So my assumption, although I don't know as much about it, is that before referring to RP as "Queen's English" it used to be "King's English" before the accession of Her Majesty to the throne. Sure, Freddie had a pure RP accent and that may be the truth, but there was also the "King's English" earlier, before Her Majesty, which doesn't really make sense if we're talking about the band. If you see what I mean :) I may be wrong, and correct me if I am, I'm just trying to learn more about RP since I think I'll do my PhD thesis on it.

A hundred percent agree

Exactly! That's why I believe that there should be an International Standard English. I can say that American Standard is unaccented and that RP is very mildly accented. Many would disagree. A mildly bent vowel isn't much of a concern but if it's bent to the point of matching a different vowel, you get one word sounding the same as another. If I was to drop into Scotland, I'd probably understand less than half of what they say but they would have no trouble understanding me. Either American Standard or RP is a good baseline to start from. Anyone leaning English as a 2nd language should learn either one of those two and I think it would be advisable to spend a few years fussing over how to unite them into one International Standard. I've been promoting a phonemic alphabet consisting of 34 characters. A fully phonemic English alphabet where you spell what you say would result in people spelling words according to their local dialect, which means that accents would not just be heard by the ears, but they would, albeit to a lesser extent, also be seen in the language of the eye - namely the written word. This would make having an International Standard for spelling and pronunciation much more important.

@@7MPhonemicEnglish I've been living in the UK ten yeas and I still can't understand half of what people say around here. Almost everyone understands me save one or two people who mistook "back" for "bag."

@@impishrebel5969 hmmm. Do you think that it's mainly accent or is it lack of proper enunciation? I know that where I live, I have to deal with thick Spanish accent which is bad enough but then on top of that there's often the toothless, low-income, low I.Q. bumpkin who just plain never learned to speak English, so I catch about 20% of their words or just enough to discern that English is the language they're targeting.

eeh, in the US, often people would make me repeat when i didn't speak with an american pronounciation. Asking for a glass of water in restaurants was often a mystery, until i asked again for a glass of "wodder".. Seems lots of americans aren't used to hearing anything else than american english ^^ The grammar of RP is certainly universal, but the phonems, certainly not. Still, it's the most widely understood one.

I'm an American English speaker and I have to enable CC when watching British TV shows lol.. None of those shows now use RP and I just have a hard time understanding cockney which a lot of their shows feature now.

@@jkid4855 I think growing up with the Redwall books and hearing a large range of accents in shows means I can usually still understand a lot of accents… but if you dropped me in the English countryside I would be struggling.

I learned American English and when I came to London first time I did not understand anyone. With time it got better

Britain.........

While teaching college-level English and "moonlighting" as a lowly dishwasher and cook's assistant in a San Francisco Bay Area restaurant run by a German, a Swiss, and a Dane, I was struck (hearing them converse with their various friends in their own native languages) by just how much the sounds and cadences of their own languages sounded like English.

I love Terry Pratchett RIP taken too early

Hah! That’s a good one. RIP Terry Prachett.

The man who taught me how to speak in a Scottish accent with his Wee Free Men books 😆

Sounds like Jacob Reese-Mogg hahaha!

LOL!!! Great description! 😋👍😁

She must be Hungarian

The queen has german blood.

heheh was chatting with a friend about some videogame dialogue bits that were a bit painful for their slightly off grammar and word usage, and that particular line popped in my head when I realised the developer was Hungarian when I thought they were British.

@@jrkjalique posh is a german slang ; )))

@@jrkjalique so?

that's very common

I'm a Nigerian voice actor and my default accent (spoken with family, friends, my children, etc) is RP

@@RemiOlutimayin are you a prince ?

@@karimmanaouil9354 My friends think I treat them like one

More British-sounding to you, Alexander, but not to me as an English person. It is true that so-called 'perfect' English is spoken by very few in the UK - as familiarity with the language from birth allows us not only to have accents and dialects, but to use the language as we have all learnt and can understand as a tool of communication. As a learner of foreign languages, I can never hope to have the command of any other language than I have of my own. My own is therefore maleable to me in a way that no other language is.

@ThisIsMyRealName I'm not quite sure what you're challenging. If you are truly bilingual, I don't see why you shouldn't have an equal command over both languages, though I would say that might depend on where you spent most of your time, or the exposure and type of exposure you have had to each langauge. I can hear accents from all over the UK and place them (mostly, anyway). I cannot do that with North American English (though I am learning because I am interested and study what I hear). I hear an 'American accent', or an Australian accent', which are quite different, but I've only recently learnt to distinguish, for instance, Autralian and New Zealand. I have spent long years with the French language and can hear differences between French and Canadian French, for instance, and even between Northern and Southern France, but nowhere near the finer nuances that I hear in my own language. I'm also not sure what 'more fluent pronunciation' is. To me, fluency and pronunciation are separate. Fluency is the ability to communicate easily and without hesitation. Whilst reasonable pronunciation is necessary to be understood, one can have excellent pronunciation but lack fluency, or have a good level of fluency with many errors in pronunciation. Clearly if you have exposure to more than one language from an early age, you are likely to have a good level in both. Also, 'perfect' language, I believe, only exists in the minds of teachers, and in their prize students. Native speakers use language in their own way, and the word 'perfect' just doesn't come into it!"

A Taiwanese here. I would love to hear you speak Mandarin! 🤣🤣🤣

When I moved to San Francisco in 70s I remembered being surprised to find out my Chinese American co worker was studying Mandarin. She explained she had known only Cantonese from her relatives.

I have a friend from London. She’s grown up there but originally from Russia. She’s young but sounds like a ghost. Some of her words could be found in old books but no one in Russia speaks that way anymore

You know why? Because you pronounced every single word too clearly......! Few native speakers did like that. They could judge you in the very first time.

Not that you might know, however I wonder if South Koreans speak with a twang in their speech like American Southerners do in relation to North Korean speakers.

Love this comment, very well explained ❤️

what accent does conor mcregeor has?

i think the only place that takes it further than the british isles is china, where things have diverged to the point that the country is home to hundreds of, not accents, but regional LANGUAGES that all have various levels of inter-intelligibility between each other despite having identical grammar and nearly perfectly symmetrical written vocabulary. they can all write back and forth between each other despite not being able to hold a conversation, as long as they both know either simplified or traditional hanzi. AND EACH OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF LANGUAGES HAS ITS OWN ACCENTS. its absurd. i love it.

@@XcaptainXobliviousXye its totally mint, although i think british isles still has china beat for amount of accents and dialects to land mass and population haha

Hi, is northern ireland accent similiar to Scottish accent?

That's funny.

True that

No jodas!! o_O

Very true!

*Grins* 😖🤯

There's actually a very good reason for it. People used to either be educated at home or at a public school that you would pay for. Those public schools are now regarded as private schools due to the fees meaning the school isn't available to everyone

@@-nyxhenderson7381 It would be time to change the terminology then, perhaps...

It defines the English mentality very well. For the rest of the world public refers to who can attend... In England it refers to who pays for it.......

@@herrbonk3635 Why? We understand it. I also understand the US version - and variety is, as they say, the spice of life....

Public schools are called state schools. There is also the presumption that private means elite, while American schools have increasingly turned to privately operate schools, that are accessible to the most needy.

Thanks bruv

He is not a good actor, so neither accents are accurate.

@@goatlps oh shut up

Thank you

Thanks

lol

Maybe it's because you were in Wales lol if you were in London it would have been a different story.

Welsh, Scottish and Irish accents are very different from RP or cockney, which is what people usually seem to associate with a ‘british’ accent! You likely sounded very ‘English’, rather than ‘British’, to them :)

@@davidthompson4383 I don't know mate, if I heard him trying to do a "british" accent at uni in London I would have called him a cunt

There’s no such thing as a “British” accent, there’s Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish and within those massive regional and class variations so saying “I have a British accent” is totally meaningless, just as a Scot doesn’t consider himself English, the collective “British” is only meaningful for international sport, politics and war 😀

ha ha. I insisted

😂😂😂

@@LetThemTalkTV And he en-Siss-Ted

Ur name is too hard man😎

😂😂😂😂😂

Yes, I think it's scary how fast American regional accents are dissappearing.

Don't be fooled. The youth in the UK all talk like wannabe London 'roadmen' these days. I don't speak the dialect of the place I grew up, which has all but disappeared in this day and age - I remember the way that old people spoke when I was a kid, and almost nobody speaks that way now. All regional accents are disappearing gradually. All accents evolve over time, and the more connected we are, the more they merge together.

I'm certain that higher mobility in upper middle class also plays a part--my parents have different US regional accents and I'm told that mine is neutral half of the time and borrows vowels weirdly the other half.

@@avalondreaming1433 Is "scary" a typo for "wonderful"? That we can all understand each other and don't grow up subject to prejudice?

@@ssl3546 One person's prejudice is another's lyricism, character, heritage, etc. 'Scary' is overstated, but I personally would hate it if everyone spoke 'Vanilla.' Or worse still A.I., Siri, Alexa. Not 'wonderful'!

And that word was?

Well yeah, you can reach that conclusion about any country and their native language. It's the way it is.

Having lived in Sweden in the early 80s, I went to Kursverkshamnet (from memory) in Vaxjo (without umlauts), to learn Swedish. Swedes from Stockholm could not understand people from Blekinge (where I worked), or even Goteborg, and would converse in, Standard English. Even in those days, a teenage Swedish school pupil (not "student") spoke better English than most british people. Ho-hum ... Slante.

Scone?

@@isladurrant2015 🤣 The sure sign of a fake "English" person: does _not_ have a strong view of the "correct" way to pronounce that word!

Hi, I'm Indonesian and also Javanese. Are you Korean learning Javanese? Wow, that's very...not usual 😀. And about Ngoko-Kromo in Javanese, it's actually a different way to speak, literally with different words with the same meaning, to an older or more respected person than you are. So I think it's not an accent. An accent in Bahasa Indonesia would be to listen to the difference pronounciation between many ethnics Indonesia has, such as by Javanese, compared to Batak or Sundanese, or even Papua from East Indonesia. Anyway, thank you for learning my language 🙏🏻😊.

It's strange that you think that considering how many regional dialects and accents exist in spoken Korean. And it is definitely not subtle.

Some people are much more tuned in to accent variations. I have noticed this directly. I am an American immigrant to Canada: some pick up on my accent while others do not. I live in Alberta and while visiting British Columbia, I have had locals comment that I don’t sound Albertan. In fact they thought I was from BC. I think my accent an American west coast accent. My pronunciation is sometimes corrected by people where I live. When I analyze the word in question, it is usually a word with more than one pronunciation suggestion, or an exception to a spelling rule in regards to pronunciation.

@@fronts3165 I'm from Alberta, but have spent half my life in Europe. Every time I go home, they ask me if I'm from Scotland or Ireland, bc they say my accent isn't Albertan with a side of Saskatoonian lol (I went to university there). I've only ever had 1 person who could tell exactly where I was from and only bc he'd spent time there and knew the accent. He even got that I'd lived in Saskatoon! (that was the freaky part lol)

I've always wondered that too. In south America where I live (Chile) , you can tell who belongs to a class seeing its appearance! Sad but true

It is very common for people who want to get involved with Radio or Television in the USA to move to New Mexico, namely Albuquerque, where a large majority of the population speak with a pretty near flawless Standard American English accent. It’s really weird for me as a person growing up there, I remember one of the first times I saw the news in another region, and I was perplexed why they were not speaking in the local accent, like we did in New Mexico. Then, I picked up German, and as a foreign fluent speaker, I of course sound German but not _from_ anywhere in Germany.

The same goes for the Czech Republic. The most standard language is the language of the former Sudetenland, where the German population was expulsed from.

I like Poland! 🤍❤ Uczę się języka polskiego! Kiedyś będę odwiedzić Polskę. 🇵🇱🇵🇱

Anagha Shyam haha, yes exactly! That makes perfect sense 👌

The Queen has actually changed her accent over the course of her reign. Go listen to some of her speeches in the 1950s and compare it to how she spoke in the last part of the 20th century (before her voice became 'old lady")

No she’s a thousand

She will outlive us all.

🤣👸

You're Canadian?

same here, I can't get my head around the UK's public school term because it's used for the opposite where I live

@@BenefitCounterbench because public schools were originally for clever kids from the working class sponsored by the crown

@@BenefitCounterbench They were called public schools because they were the first schools open to the public, ie, anyone who could afford to attend could go. 'Private' schools were those in royal palaces, monasteries etc where there were strict restrictions on who could attend, ie those in holy orders or members of royal households.

TY to Oliver and Londonfogey, I always wondered about that.

I was in Edinburgh when I was 18. I am American. I was trying to ask for directions, and people very kindly explained things to me, but I couldn’t understand one word that they said. Then I met this guy who was born and raised in Edinburgh, and we went to get a drink. I think he had a hard time understanding me, and I had a hard time understanding him. I was really surprised.

@@dazzlingdeb8427 I've explained this to friends before but they don't understand why it's so hard. You have to experience it first hand I guess lol

As a Canadian trying to understand different accents from the different contries it is not only words themselves which may be harder to understand but the many unique idioms and nicknames. These are so numerous and quite baffling.

I love a Welsh accent though

The Welsh accent varies from the North to the South. Maybe he was from the North.

Most accents used in England today have been around well before 1960s

had no idea he was northern - mad!

Your mum was a woman of vision.

That is very sad!

I’m only 22 now but my mum specifically sent me to a expensive nursery, so I would learn “better” english, and she also spoke rp as best she could around me as a child. It’s because we are lower class and live in somerset and she’s from Elsewhere in england and she thought the local accent was too ugly for a girl to have! I still talk in a very slightly accented rp and she laughs at me for the way I pronounce sandwich/sandwiches!😩 (I feel like I should also mention that my mum is an older mum as well...)

@@wrentherainfalls2925 your english should not be the parameter of your knowledge

Can you give me a link for that moment, I'm writing diploma about English accents in movies)

@@Natalia-tq6wv I'm not sure if that counts as a movie, since it's actually an American production of an operetta that first premiered in 1879. The only proper Brit in the cast is Angela Lansbury as Ruth. If you want the movie version, that's actually on RU-vid. But there are also many other performances in RU-vid , many by English companies.

@@BethDiane can you, please, write me full name of your it? Maybe you know another movie with English accents or dialects, like Ireland or Scottish?

@@Natalia-tq6wv I'm American, so I don't know a lot, but I'd look for any movie featuring Jack Buchanan or George Formby, who had the additional benefit of having slid a lot past the censors.

@@BethDiane thank you a lot, I'll check

While American English is more common orally in Norwegian classes and society due to media influence, British English is what's officially being taught in Norwegian schools. I also use "ou" rather than "o" in those cases, because that's what we were being taught, and it's better to be consistent rather than to switch between the two.

I know a guy who is born and raised Dutch who speaks with a strong East-Texas accent and he's never been to the US lol

Please don't call British English "proper" as opposed to American English. Both dialects are equally valid forks of the English that was spoken when the British colonized America. The two branches evolved over time as every language does. In fact, linguists say American English has stayed closer to the English spoken back then, while British English has changed more.

@@goombapizza6335 No, it's not.

Well, that's how you spell colour and armour . . 👍 👍

it's contagious

same here

Same, I realized I say both depending on if I’m emphasizing anything

Same!!

Sorry, if find ofTen to sound irritating. Indexes irritating. Indices sounds much better. Most financial writers seem to have forgotten that. Henry Higgins was right. REx Harrison good example of elegant English pronunciation

Very interesting. I cut the phonetics bit short but I'm glad you fleshed it out a bit here.

@@LetThemTalkTV , my pleasure! The thing is, I'm overly focused on phonetics in general. In regard to English, I know that many people (you amongst them) say - 'Don't you bother about sounding foreign. Don't worry about your accent. As long as you're understood, everything's alright!' Except it isn't 😥 Let me elaborate. It's quite natural for people to judge others by their looks. In our case, we are judged by the accent. And the last thing I personally would like to hear is - 'Mate, you're from (country of origin), right?' Because it shows me that I haven't studied well enough. And again, in my country we don't have regional accents in a way you have them in the English speaking world. (Strictly speaking we do, but those are simply slight variations of the 'standard' speech.) Thus, if one speaks unusually and non-standardly, chances are they are not well-educated. Apart from that it makes my ears bleed 😅 Wouldn't wish that for those who hear me speak.

@@emeralddream5965 , one speaks unusually and non-standardly, chances are they are not well-educated - well , it`s kinda soviet or post-soviet complex though. And what kind of Russian are you if you can not define regional accent of Russian? Don`t you know that поребрик in St. Petersburg is not поребрик, but тротуар in Miscow for exanple? We here in Ukraine do know because in that way we`ve find out that the separatists from occupied Donetsk were not from Ukraine at all, but from mentioned above Petersburg region

@@crowe2508 it's бордюр in Moscow.

Bloody (literally) soviets went posh xD

Damn, even the most posh Scottish accent is still seen as "uncivilized" to the British. Now if that isn't discrimination, I don't know what is.

Scotland is part of Britain. I think you are trying to refer to England. @@ToaOfFusion

@@clairemcconway6266 Nah, we just refer to England as part of the Brits, therefore it's British. Also it sounds confusing when you use English in its place because folks are going to be confused if you are referring to the language or the specific dialect of the *English* language

Ah, but what sort of Edinburgh accent do you have? The Morningside "Miss Jean Brodie" one where a creche is a collision between two motor vehicles? (does anyone under 50 still speak like that, by the way?). Or the rather less-posh variants? I had a cousin who lived her entire life just off Easter Road and another from Trinity who sounded quite different from each other. (I should say that although I was a student for 5 years in Edinburgh in the 1980s, I never quite got familiar enough with the various Edinburgh accents to pinpoint them accurately).

@@ToaOfFusion hey, I consider myself British as my mother is Welsh. We obviously have very different views on what Britain is, but I think you're really writing off a whole group of people with such a blanket statement as Britain = England. I struggled with my national identity growing up so having that catchall "I'm British" was really helpful. Sorry if this comes off as rude, I just want to present a different side of the argument to you :)

Loool what a snob

@@linsayross278 David Beckham had voice coaching because he has quite a high natural voice and it was affecting his confidence.

My cousin (another cousin) checked him in for his flight at Heathrow. Till today she won't stop saying how common he sounds

@@auracle6184 His voice coaching is one thing, and his poshification is another thing. It's no secret that David Beckham has lately been poshing up his accent.

Auracle I do know what his voice was like ffs. One doesn’t need RP English to sound like ones balls have dropped

that sounds awesome!!!!!

Are there British state schools in the middle east?

English was learned in Primary School, along with "speech / pronunciation" classes. I heard my Teachers speaking it (initially) far more than from classmates, family, or neighbors. In addition to Teachers, television 📺 also provided supplemental vocabulary.

You happen to hark from? What sort of English is that?

It’s posh lol they’re lying about not being posh. Next thing they’ll be saying tally ho old chap.

I had a dear friend, now long deceased, who was the daughter of a school-master in Thuringer Wald. To my astonishment, she had great contempt for all things Bavarian, an attitude I found unnecessary for someone of her intelligence and bearing, and thus downright amusing.

@@waltperry5781 yeah that's probably down to georgraphic reasons because my father is from Coburg, a town in northern bavaria that couldn't be closer to Thüringen (the region/state just north of bavaria), and there everyone despises Thüringen and its people. That's just a rivalry thing that children are taught to remain the culture. I'm sorry for your loss though. She seemed to be quite an entertaining person

As an English speaker attempting to learn German, I would expect my pronunciation of the language is abhorrent, however I like to believe that I'm improving. 😅

There is also much less differentiation of "posh"/"common" in France, too. Regional and educational-level differences yes, but not so much class difference.

I find it interesting that German doesn’t have an upper class accent. In the UK the upper class always wanted to be seen as above the middle class commoners and one of the ways they did this was by using a different accent that they decided sounded more higher class and fancy. Someone from the upper class to know they’re from the upper class so they would do anything they could do differentiate themselves from the common people. They wouldn’t want to be misidentified as someone from the dirty working class.

No it’s regional, northeast southeast Deep South west, low, middle and upperclass lot of differences in annunciation, pronunciation and accents. Most Brits think all Americans speak the same way and have the same accents.

Bless his heart for trying to sound American. And yeah, I switch between saying the T and not.

Not true. I'm from the west and never heard the T pronounced until I was an adult and mixed with people who had moved west from somewhere else.

@@FigaroHey pronouncing the T is very southern

@@FigaroHey I'm from the west and I can guarantee we would make fun of you for not pronouncing the t in often

SuperSkyhorse Ever read Tarzan books? Even being raised by apes, he learned English with a posh accent from reading books. (He was born an aristocrat so spoke it naturally??) :D Luckily for you, there is a ton online and in recorded books. I can understand most British and their former colonies' accents because of that. For me, the hardest accent is Northern Ireland, in the comedy news show on BBC Radio Ulster/internet The Hole in the Wall Gang. Talk slowly, use gestures, write it down if need be...we'll figure out what you mean.

Loving it!

English is really forgiving when it comes to pronunciation i feel.

Lots of fs not ths, sounds really southern to me. But then I am from the civilised north.

@@paulshuttleworth6261 I agree, I Felt the speaker had little hint of RP. I thought he sounded like alot of London Taxi drivers

I think he has a strong London accent. Reminds me a little of Jonny Lee Miller when he’s speaking naturally.

It’s a north London accent, got a distinctive north London nasal twang

I knew he was from London straightaway because of how he said London 😂 I would suggest this is a Grammar School London accent like Roger Daltry and Alan Johnson.

That's because Oxford, Cambridge and that aren't in the current region of the East Midlands - they're in the South. They were in the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, which ecompased the current day West and East Midlands as well as a bit of the South, but yeah. East Mids is most definitely Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Rutland, with Northampton at the bottom (speaking as someone from just south of Nottingham)

@Novak Ingood that's why I put it in quotes cos I didn't know what to call it

Novak Ingood I think that’s the point. It’s “old fashioned” because not many people speak that way. He grew up in Zanzibar/India in the 50s/60s and schools would have taught that way.

@Novak Ingood Freddie's English has a slight Indian gemination.

@ThisIsMyRealName I think you're confusing the Queen with Winston Churchill

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 It was a joke, dear pedants.

I made it for you.

@@LetThemTalkTV I made this reply for you. Let's run off to Yerp and leave it all behind.

@@moaningpheromones 🤣

I've always pronounced the 't' in often as well lol

@@apriljasso9731 I think the pronunciation is similar to orphan, when said correctly

@De NAZI? there's a lot of Americans in the world.

In the late '50's, our "Language" textbooks taught us to not pronounce the "t" in "often" because it was silent. They said that was incorrect and to not pronounce it. In later years, I was surprised to learn that it actually could be correctly used.

@@kayclapp8639 I've been pronouncing the words in this video so frequently that I now think they all sound daft (darft). But , one thing I always do, is say often with a t.

Hmmm that's more what the Transatlantic accent sounds like really lol.

@desertrosereads WAS the standard accent of the BBC - less so nowadays. It is also true to say that in my lifetime (over 65 years) that accent has changed considerably, as, indeed, has the Queen's. I do have to say that when I hear a 'British' accent on American tv shows, it invariably sounds false, or 'too good to be true' to my ears, unless spoken by a British person, who may have learnt the accent at RADA (acting school), but is able to use it as their own. I am often suprised by the number of Australian actors that effect a 'British' accent in these roles as well, as though either American TV doesn't think brits can do such an accent, or maybe they just can't afford us! Who knows....

Honestly, Posh sounds more like the faux English accents by Americans than the RP to me... 😳

@@Yiran not literally never, Ethan. A rarity in our community, but not 'never'. I have a friend who speaks RP. Born in Hull (north of England), raised in the Midlands - he never did explain to me how he gained his affected accent, but he sticks out a mile as soon as he opens his mouth.

@@rawkhawk414 Surely not...

I'm no expert, but I find in places like Jersey some words have survived from the French, but the pronunciation doesn't sound like modern French. Your accent in France will depend on who you learn it from and what region you move to. It can be difficult to learn to speak French or Spanish without an "English" accent, but with work it can be done.

She wanted to work in an 'at shop where it was warm and dry indoors rather than a flower stall in English weather as I recall. That might be more Pygmalion than MFL but the idea is the same - she wanted to better herself.

I thought Higgins sought out Doolittle, to settle a bet with his colleague.

@@GeeTrieste That was Pygmalion. MFL took a lot of liberties.

MFL does explicitly tell Eliza's motivation is to learn to speak properly so she can get a job at a flower shop. With her thick accent, she'd be stuck as a flower girl in the streets. A fun linguistic detail suited for this video's theme is the conclusion of the bet where Higgins' rival determines that Eliza's English is too perfect for her to be English, so he guesses she's Hungarian.

@@mikegalvin9801 Mr 'iggins! 😅

Actually, there is evidence that the Queen's pronunciation has changed over time

The Queens accent has definitely changed. And younger members of the Royal Family tend to speak with a more RP accent. Prince William sounds less posh than Boris Johnson, for example.

@@ffotograffydd Boris Johnson doesn't sound posh, he's in the nuevo riche boorish group

If you say so.

@@em3000 Boris Johnson’s accent is perhaps a little put-on (read: not toned-down like most of his Elton contemporaries) but is certainly genuine. He comes from a family that is certainly not nouveau-riche. position as a

I live in the UK. Sometimes I in American dramas there is a character that sounds very odd to me, and then I realise that they are supposed to have a British English accent. The various American accents just sound normal to me. I would probably not notice if the British character just had an American accent. Maybe what I am hearing with the supposed British accent is just someone struggling or feeling awkward.

webbess1 errrrogenous zooooone!

I love you

They likely were/are fluent in Posh, since they're Oxbridge+Ivy educated.

we call those Russel Group

@@Artorus John Cleese for sure. His natural accent is quite upper class bordering on posh.n

Just use "high brow" instead of "posh" and you am become posh

​@@tedarcher9120 The problem with that is that most "posh" people are anything but high brow. You can be common as muck and still be high brow.

Victoria Beckham's nickname is Posh Spice.

I read that that 'posh' people- who are too posh to use the word- use the word 'smart' instead.

Was posh spice actually posh?

Er. that's fewer than 3% if you don't mind.

@@rogerturner5504 Fewer is for countable things; less than is for things that are measured. If "fewer than" was used with 3% would imply that one could count all the amounts of percent that were "fewer than 3%". For example 0%, 1%, 2%. In fact there are uncountably infinite (using these terms as used in maths) amounts of percent between 0% and 3%. Some examples are: 0.5%, 1.6%, 2.2567898765% and uncountable infinite more. So percent is a measurement, and "less than 3%" is the correct usage.

@@franksierow5792 Apologies - you are correct. Like the man with the built-up shoe, I stand corrected.

"POSH"!, freaking, stAmped, on their tickets LMAO

Very interesting !

It's to do with when they went to school, Charles is over a decade older than Andrew.

It isn't a mystery at all. It makes you look like a right all douche bag.

Anne spent more time at home being home schooled with her parents than her brothers. Their accent may be more like their schools.

@alicia baldwin Accent of cohorts.

I always thought it was a conscious decision to make them seem more accessible/less stuffy.

I agree completely with your characterization of the Piedmont NC accent. It was pointed out to me when I first moved to London to work. And SC low country sounds a bit like certain Scots accents

Alessandro Visigalli Or Switzerland where people know their local dialect, a regional language, and the national language. Particularly where mountains have isolated people from a lot of outsiders, new dialects have emerged even short distances apart. Germany taught High German as a unifier across dialects. France is also very particular about their unifier. As the US media was not state run, there was never a central idea that dictated how people should talk or act. Local newspapers and then broadcasts tended to sound and look local, UNLESS someone had aspirations to rise to national stardom and then they tried to emulate their idols. Eventually diversity was more prized than uniformity. It was predicted Americans would sound the same by now but we are more diverse than ever, with rules being broken with impunity.

Same thing with spanish un Argentina......

Same in Spain, lots of accents but on TV you'll mostly hear central accent

Do not try to read this comment out-loud, your lungs will not thank you.

Lol.. this is the case with almost all languages. At least the European ones..

i think she was even born in 1926

@@dianamagritte5079 she was!

Just out of curiosity, where are you from?

@@kathleenhurst3590 I'm from Uruguay, South America.

The house staff spoke with a lower working class accent in Downton Abbey.

That's funny because as an American I understood the Crawleys perfectly.

The Crawleys were of course actors who had varying approximations of an old school posh accent. To my ear Edith sounded the most "posh", and Lord Grantham sounded much less so. Mary also sounded quite posh.

Some accents in the US are actually getting stronger, like the inland north accent around the great lakes.

@@joelp5093 The Great Vowel Shift is the worst thing I have ever heard! People pronouncing "Max" as "MAY-x" sounds absolutely horrible!

@@masoncrowley2777 It’s an abrasive accent for sure, but nowhere nearly as bad as the Long Island accent, another regional American dialect still going strong.

I though that I spoke standard non-regional American English until I arrived at a university in Indiana and learned that my accent is Californian, and, of course, California is huge, so there are regional subdivisions of Californian English.

Would you mind providing some examples of RP with standard Korean grammar and syntax errors? Sounds intriguing! Alongside the genuine question, that was my best attempt at RP)

@@DjurslandsEfterskole I can't think of any examples off the top of my head. I just remember the feeling I'd get hearing Wendy make the same grammar and syntax mistakes as her classmates but doing it with that flawless accent.

I just got the line. Wow, that took 30 years.... 🤣

LOL! "No, never! What, never? Hardly ever"!

Are you talking about [æ] sound?

I love your story !

I have spent months studying studying Spanish online and found a fantastic resource at Fergs spanish blueprint (google it if you're interested)

Aussie accent is so good! I love it! But I can feel it for you! I was surprised to learn from a londoner that so many young people in London are trying not to speak proper English. That's a pity...

@@jajangmyeon7951 well, don't worry. I am sure many people will admire your English. My assumption is that young people express their protest with skewed English, sort of, the opposite to the "high class". I guess the idea of layering the society into classes is something youngsters are trying to get away from. However, I've never lived in London, so for me, it is hard to reason about the root causes. But I am definitely sure that such trends exist, google "norf london", for example :)

I used to live with a Poshtralian in London.