Name: London Accents: RP | Cockney | Multicultural London English
Uploaded: 2018-04-18T03:04:22.000Z
Duration: 12 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Tom - Hello and welcome to a very special lesson
because today I'm joined again by Joel and

Tom - Alright now today we're looking at accents
in London. Now these guys are absolute experts

when it comes to accents in London and you
guys have asked me so many times for a special

video looking at different accents around
Britain and so we are going to focus today

on London. So we're going to look at received
pronunciation (RP), we're going to look at

cockney and we're going to look at multicultural
London English. Ok, so who's going to do what?

Lia - So I'm going to take the RP accent.
So everything I say for the examples is going

to be said in received pronunciation. Joel
- I'm going to take MLE which is multicultural

London English, so yeah everything I say will
be in that accent. Tom - And I'm going to

do the cockney accent. Now shall we just quickly
talk about what is multicultural London English?

Where does that come from? So multicultural
London English is probably the newest of these

accents. I don't know exactly when it came
about, I think it was twenty or thirty years

ago. Basically it's heavily influenced by
African, black African communities and Asian

communities that have come to London and it's
sort of a blending of Cockney and this this

multicultural language. So it's a fairly new
accent but now it's probably the most widespread

of all of these accents. Tom - Yeah absolutely,
I think you described it earlier as the 'rebirth

of cockney' Lia - Yeah it's kind of like the
new sound of London. All young people, inner

city London born and bred sound MLE. Tom - Right,
I'm going to be doing cockney. Cockney is

the traditional accent of the East End of
London. So there's a church in East London

and if you were born within the radius of
that church you are a cockney and therefore

you have a certain accent. This accent isn't
maybe a widespread as it used to be and maybe

it has blended into the MLE accent that Joel
was talking about there but yeah it's still..I

mean anyone from London might have a cockney
accent these days. In fact it's kind of spread

out as well so as people from the East End
have moved out of London they've gone to outside

of London it's kind of spread and become something
else, it's estuary English. Lia - and it's

with that older generation as well. Tom - Yeah
definitely, it's a slightly older generation.

Lia- And I'll be taking on the RP accent which
is also known as BBC English. It's received

pronunciation and it's often known as sort
of the correct way to speak English. But that's

not necessarily true. Tom - Yeah of course
there is no right or wrong way to speak English

there's just your accent. That was the first
thing I learned on my teaching course when

I started to teach English was that it doesn't
matter what accent you have you just teach

with your accent and you guys learn whatever
accent you want to have and speak with whatever

accent you want to have. I think old course
books used to have RP. It used to be you could

only hear RP but these days, thankfully, there's
a variety of accents that you are going to

hear so we want to reflect that today. Lia-
Excellent.

Tom - Alright, so there's the sentence. Our
first sentence, let's hear how it's said in

RP. Lia - 'I want a bottle of water'. Tom
- In cockney 'I want a bottle of water' Joel

- And in MLE they say 'I want a bottle of
water.' Ok, alright so the features there.

i don't know if you picked it up. So the /t/
sound, we are particularly looking at the

/t/. In RP how is it said? Ts are pronounced
in RP. In contemporary RP there are sometimes

dropped a little bit, it's unlikely you'll
hear someone say water but you will hear water.

So 'I want a bottle of water' it's actually
more likely to be said 'May I have a bottle

of water?' because with RP comes sort of correct
manners Tom - Well structures yeah definitely

but then that was reflected in the MLE, right?
The /t/ sound there was also dropped. Sometimes

is, sometimes isn't. Joel - Yeah it's sort
of interchangeable. I think whereas, you'll

come on to this with cockney in a moment doesn't
have any /t/s MLE sort of takes a bit of both.

It sometimes pronounces /t/s, sometimes doesn't
so you might say 'Give me that water' or you

might say 'Give me that water.' You can do
either. Tom - So if you want to emphasise

then maybe you would use the /t/. Joel - pass
me the bottle T - Right yeah so but then in

cockney you are dropping the /t/ so it's a
glottal /t/ so we'd say 'water' or 'daughter'

as well so dropping that /t/ it's right out
of there, gone! L - Perfect. T - Sentence

number two, let's hear how that would be said
L - happy birthday T - happy birthday J - happy

birthday. T- What was going on there? L - Nice,
i noticed in the MLE that it's kind of like

quite strong on the consonants. Whereas with
the cockney you roll over that /h/ and just

go straight to the /a/ 'appy birthday' T - Quite
punchy J - Yeah in MLE you don't drop /h/s

like you would in cockney so you would say,
again it's a mixture so you keep the /h/ like

RP does but you drop the /th/ like cockney
T - Yeah which we are going to get on to All

- Woah! L - Slow down! T -But yeah in cockney
I drop the /h/ so generally its 'appy birthday

L - Hell bent T - Hell bent yeah so you are
dropping the /h/ right out of there. L- He

was saying hell bent. Yeah and in RP it's
just, say all of the, just say all of it.

Happy birthday. T - Happy birthday, yeah.
Nice! L - happy birthday Tom T- Thank you

very much. T - Number three, let's hear the
RP. L - My mate's really tall.' T - 'My mate's

really tall.' J - 'My mate's really tall.'
L - And an additional one here 'My mate is

really tall.' So pronouncing the /t/ in mate
is not unusual. Mate would be contemporary

RP and mate would be RP. T- Ok, interesting.
So a slight difference there. Again a slight

mix. People are kind of fusing the accents
together? L - Yeah definitely and also the

younger generation of RP. So say your parents
are quite strong RP and you're sort of you

know, you are living in London and you've
got of sort of a friend from everywhere, you

just start dropping them. So it wouldn't be
cat, cat. But you are still RP. T - Yeah no

absolutely yeah. That definitely works. The
feature we were looking at there was the /L/

sound at the end so in RP in tall you use
the dark L right? So it's 'tall' L - Yeah

T - Whereas in a cockney accent it's 'tall'
so it's almost like a /w/ sound I guess L-

and what is it for you? J - Similar. I think
it's the same in MLE as a cockney. You drop

the /L/ at the end you say 'tall' but the
vowel is slightly tighter but the /L/ is the

same. T - Yeah at uni we had a friend called
Paul and he was from south-east London. And

we'd be like 'Paul, come here Paul' it was
just really fun to say. L - 'Paul, he's really

tall.' T - This one time he was asleep and
we all wanted to wake him up so we all just

went 'Paul. Paul! It must have been strange
for him anyway. J - This is an interesting

thing that in cockney the words 'pull', 'pool'
and the name 'Paul' are pronounced the same

so it's pull, pool and Paul. Whereas in RP
it's Paul, pull and pool so it's slightly

different. L - So Paul the person, pull and
swimming pool. J - Yeah, it's all different

but in cockney and probably in MLE it's all
the same. T - So yeah we could get deeper

into this, there's so much to talk about but
yeah amazing. L - We'll do a part two. T - As

I said, these guys are accent experts. J - Oh
stop it! T - Alright number four L _ 'I live

in South London.' T - 'I live in South London.
J - I live in South London. T - Alright so

the feature here is that /th/ of south. In
RP what are you doing? L - South. /Th/. South

London. T - Whereas in cockney I'm putting
an /f/ there so south. The 'outh' is a larger

vowel sound there and then the /f/ south / north.
There's a /f/ sound. J - Same in MLE it's

south. T - Yeah it's kind of similar, isn't
it? Ok so those are sort of four of the main

features. There's so much more to explore
here. In terms of your accents guys. How do

you L - Identify? T - Yeah how do you identify?
what do you do? L - So I would identify as

someone who has a midlands RP. So I'd say
I have received pronunciation but with a midlands

twang and that's because I was born in Warwickshire.
So, I might say 'laugh' instead of 'laugh'

or 'bath' instead of 'bath' and that is a
whole other video because there's midlands

and then you've got Birmingham and there's
so many accents going on in the midlands specifically

West Midlands where I was born. So yeah I
would say I've got quite a neutral Midlands

RP. T - Ok, Alright and Joel what about you?
J - Kind of similar to Lia but not the Midlands.

So a neutral contemporary RP. I would say
'bath' and 'laugh' instead of 'bath' and 'laugh'

which Lia would say but other than that I
think are accents are pretty similar. T - Yeah