UK Accent Tour: How Vowels Vary

[@ImproveYourAccent]

For a list of featured music and speakers, click "show more" in the video description 😊 For disclaimers and extra info, click "read more" below: 1. Topics have been simplified for a general audience. 2. Not everyone from a certain area will have the same accent feature (or the feature to the same degree) as those in the video. 3. I have not shown all UK accents. 4. There are other vowel differences that aren’t in the video. 5. Lexical sets were created by phonetician J. C. Wells to describe Received Pronunciation and General American (they aren’t perfectly suited to describing other accents). More information on lexical sets can be found in his book: "Accents of English 1: An Introduction". 6a. BATH: The BATH lexical set may contain different words in different accents. “Chance” and “half” are BATH in SSBE. But in some Northern and Welsh accents, “chance” has a short vowel and “half” a long vowel. 6b. Most Scottish accents don’t distinguish the vowels in TRAP + PALM; so referring to Scottish BATH doesn’t make sense. Some speakers make the a longer in environments described by Aitken’s Law. Nevertheless, an example of “last chance” is included as it’s clearly a different vowel to the southern English one. 6c. Some speakers in Wales and southwest England make a length difference between TRAP + PALM, but the quality will be the same or very similar. The speaker at 13:15 has a long vowel in “last”. 7a. FOOT-STRUT: Scottish accents have no distinction between GOOSE + FOOT, so it doesn’t make sense to refer to Scottish FOOT, but I’ve done so to facilitate comparing accents. 7b. The quality of the STRUT vowel varies, e.g. in Wales and southwest England it often sounds like schwa. 7c. I've highlighted the Isle of Man in the FOOT-STRUT section as speakers on the island may pronounce the words in these sets in the same way or very similarly. However, it is neither in the Midlands nor north of England. In fact, it's not technically part of the UK: it is a self-governing British Crown Dependency. 7d. At one point, I say "Here are some clips of speakers from the midlands and north of England saying words that belong to the STRUT lexical set". Some of these speakers will have no STRUT lexical set (only FOOT), others may do (and it will sound very similar to STRUT). For those that do have STRUT, the words that belong to this set may vary from speaker to speaker. 8. I talk about monophthongs or diphthongs with little movement being more likely for GOAT + FACE in the north. This does not mean all northern English accents must have monophthongs. The speaker from Liverpool at 11:27 clearly has a diphthong for GOAT. "Diphthongs with little movement" are better known as "narrow diphthongs" in linguistics. 9. FACE: In Northern Irish and Tyne & Wear accents, FACE may be a centering diphthong (i.e. the movement is in the direction of schwa - the centre of the mouth). 10a. HAPPY is usually written “happY” in textbooks, but I’ve written it in all-caps as it looks better in the video. 10b. I have referred to other lexical sets to explain the quality of HAPPY. But the quality will differ from person to person (e.g. FLEECE may be monophthongal or diphthongal). HAPPY may be dependent on the environment: for speakers in northern England, it may be more open (more KIT or DRESS-like) before a pause, and closer (more FLEECE-like) elsewhere. 11. I take full responsibility for any errors! Email me if you spot any and I'll add them here.

[@mergen9802]

me thinks this should be pinned on top. also i wonder if you'd be interested in making a video about different accents in the Witcher video game. they seem to correspond to different accents in the UK 🤔

[@MarcioSilva-ssiillvvaa]

One of the best I've seen on the subject.

[@PodcastItaliano]

Great video!

[@QHiguchi]

Great stuff, sir! I am (supposed to be) a linguistically trained language professional, and I am absolutely impressed. The use of video clips in particular is top-notch - something I would have liked to do myself. Allow me to use parts of your material in my classroom, with due credit of course.

[@ImproveYourAccent]

Glad you enjoyed the video. Of course you can show my videos in your class - I created them so they can be used educationally :)

[@QHiguchi]

@@ImproveYourAccent Thank you!

[@poggimusic]

A masterpiece. I have to prepare a final assignment at university for segmental and I have been thinking about accents in England .

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Such an entertaining and informative video. I learnt a lot. Thanks

[@lucaboscolobariga9859]

Grand video as usual. Very learnt and accessible at the same time. Congratulations.

[@БогданКостюченко-ц4о]

Thank you, Luke! Brilliant video! The British Isles have a great diversity of accents.

[@simonsm4631]

Sir Luke Nicholson,thank you very much for teaching the lesson that I was waiting for many days. Keep it up. Be blessed! I'm Simon Mkumbo from Tanzania. I love your accent,SSBE and your teaching style.

[@suh9118]

What an absolutely amazing and insightful video! I would love to see one focusing on Scottish accents.

[@ImproveYourAccent]

There will be more on Scottish accents in part 3 :)

[@carlosmaciel4307]

Brilliantly put together! It must've taken hours to record, cut and place all of these examples in one piece! I consider myself a reasonable speaker of the Southern British accent - not great though - and I absolutely loved the video! Thanks for taking the trouble to help us with this incredible professional work. On behalf of my stds, a big thank you!

[@dddaaa21]

You did such fantastic work! Very well done!

[@ImproveYourAccent]

Thanks :)

[@dddaaa21]

@@ImproveYourAccent That's alright!

[@khaledalnour4663]

Thanks alot my teacher.

[@detaildevil6544]

I had a course "Introduction to the English Sound System" at university. This is an excellent addition to that knowledge.

[@luissp6793]

Extraordinary video! Congratulations!!

[@alienwinters8473]

Yay, new video! Thanks a lot! Can only imagine how much time and effort it takes to gather all this together. And I wonder how long it may take for a non-native speaker like me to clearly distinguish most of the UK accents. I mean, I easily understand many of them, but I can't say right away where a certain accent originally comes from. I think, for now I only know what some of Scottish accents sound like. Btw, was glad to see David Tennant and Kelly McDonald in the video, love them both so much. Richard Ayoade and Russel Brand also. I hope to see Noel Fielding in one of the videos! :)

[@ImproveYourAccent]

Thanks :) Yes, it takes huge amount of time and effort to create videos like this! Distinguishing accents is all about exposure and awareness. The more you actively listen to different accents, the easier it is to hear differences.

[@Starstar52776]

I'm trying to understand british accent because my friend is british and I mostly don't understand what he is saying. Thanks so much for the video!

[@barraqali336]

This is fantastic! Brilliant for teaching English as a foreign language. Thank you ever so much!

[@EstebanGarciaAlonso]

You are brilliant explainer!!! I love your videos, man!!!!

[@sezarcarlos8691]

From Libya 🇱🇾❤ Thank you

[@yasinnabi]

Awesome video and I loved watching it. thanks for the upload ! ,,..,,

[@edoardottt]

Thank you!👋🏼👋🏼

[@auldfouter8661]

Had to think for a while how water and watch could possibly be different! In Scotland they are the same.

[@gaynormainwaring1853]

I live in South Wales and, I believe, we pronounce vowels as they would be pronounced if we were speaking Welsh, ie elongating the vowel sounds, eg eleeephant. I was told to try and skip over the vowel sounds to sound more ‘English’.

[@nuttiyadoughnut7836]

Such a work hard teaching VDO👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 It's really useful.

[@urnavpal3667]

love ya man thanks for this video

[@Kirschi__]

We _need_ such deep analysis for Australia and austrailan english!

[@afsanehmostofi9570]

Fantastic!!!I appreciate you for taking time.⚘⚘⚘⚘

[@jejakviesann]

Thank you

[@digiulioantonella]

Really love this!

[@Me.and.You.]

What a great video! So interesting 👏🤓

[@jameel__]

Thank You!

[@Lukz243]

It took me a while to watch the video, but this was a very informative video. I'll try to think about the lexicon when speaking

[@nuranozdil96]

Very usefull video amazing.

[@pablodescamisado]

In Soviet textbooks of English they prescribed to pronounce the days of the week with [i] at the end.

[@mdhasan9909]

I have no word that with i can thank u

[@loredanatagliaferri5339]

So very interesting! Thanks!

[@axelfoley5265]

19:29 Good thing there are subtitels. I would have thought she was floundering.

[@zehra0909]

Hello Lucas, I should admit it, I like your southern british accent. I wish you can make videos about how to learn your beautiful southern british accent.🌼🤩 I really want to learn your accent. Help me Lucas🌼

[@adrianlodzermensch1828]

In Poland we have only 5 simple vowels, plus 2 nasal vowels, whose use, however, is in decline. I've heard vowel length is not only about pronouncing a given vowel longer in English, it is also vowel quality, which means it can be pronounced in a different manner, so Polish /a/ may differ from English /a/. On the plus side, we have only one version of Polish all over the country.

[@receivedSE]

Southern speech (RP) : cut /kʌt/ Northern speech : cut /kʊt/ Southern speech (RP) : grass /grɑːs/ Northern speech : grass /græs/

[@RicardoAntonioHinostrozaMoreno]

Great!

[@عبدالرحيمعبدالرحيم-ق5ض]

What a great video!!! I think you can do all these accents perfectly. I’d like you to do that 🌹

[@ldesigner392]

that is great video :) I'm waiting for the video when you will analyze why Arabic people sound Arabic?

[@Taric25]

Could you do this for the rest of the world, such as the United States, for example?

[@familyvlogs4271]

okay now i know, thank you very much 💖

[@brianherbert2061]

As a Devonian I would pronounce bath as baaath, and certainly not as bahth. (and similarly the others in the bath lexical set.)

[@essohanfy7305]

Hope you download more videos.

[@keziacosta9126]

Dicas MARAVILHOSAS! AMAZING❤👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@ruicoelho1962]

I would say Having and Father have the same sound

[@katjusza999]

Nice vid :)

[@dogedoger2606]

Wow thank you!

[@jellydev992]

What did the Santa from London say to the smoker ??"Please,Don't smoke . It's bad for my elf(health)."

[@karliikaiser3800]

Diphthongs are not vowel sounds. Diphthongs are two vowel sounds combined. Vowel sounds are always monophthongs. Diphthongs are their own category. But maybe the english language has a different approach to this because of it´s pronounciation. Generally difference in vowel/ diphthong pronounciation is something I pretty much hear every day in my own language. That helps me a lot in understanding different Germanic or Romance languages.

[@ImproveYourAccent]

In English phonology, a diphthong is considered one phoneme. In phonetics, a diphthong is a glide from one vowel quality towards another (which is what I say in the video).

[@Juergen707]

Thank you for this outstanding and informative video - Can I ask you, where these maps can be found?

[@Tommat194]

Maybe my ears are deceiving me, but I'm fairly certain that the Welsh lady who spoke in the example made zero distinction between the vowels in "look" and "luck", similarly to that of the midlands/north of England.

[@ImproveYourAccent]

She’s definitely making a difference. However her STRUT vowel is perhaps different to what you expect: it sounds like a stressed schwa.

[@juliz2500]

I like all the accents but the midlands sound especially sexy haha

[@axelfoley5265]

What I learnt from this video, as a German, is, that I *had to (!)* learn Standard Southern British English in School. Although it would have been easier for Germans to learn and pronounce Scottish English, it was deemed "wrong" pronunciation. A German just learning English often pronounces words like a Scot would.

[@zara6910]

4:18 who knows this guy's channel?

[@studywith-ajju6586]

Good

[@affable.pebble]

18:09 Alex from Sheffield, from Eng... Shef... Arctic Monkeys

[@mkphilly]

With the "a", in the same sentence, it is sometimes long and short... after which consonant is either used?

[@minirop]

"there is nothing wrong in saying 'face' or 'fesse'"... except if you are talking to a French person. 🤣 Now I understand why my acquaintances from Manchester say "up" as "oop". thanks.

[@0296กันดิศเวทวิทู]

in 0:41 you say it's /ɔː/ but i heard is [o̞ː] and sounds like /o/ for us

[@sunblock8717]

Thank you for your video! English is so confusing

[@SurprisedPika666]

Canadian accent next.

[@nadiaumairah2449]

I have a serious question. How about 'today' sounds like 'to die'. Which parts of the UK is using that?

[@receivedSE]

Yes, it does. It sounds like Australian English..../tə'daɪ/. Sama

[@oskarm646]

Mostly, London and Birmingham

[@sam6719]

Birmingham

[@pedrocovas8140]

Do u give private lessons?

[@ImproveYourAccent]

Hi Pedro, please email me at [e-mail]

[@auldfouter8661]

In some Scottish accents lookin ( for looking) would be said like luckin.

[@capra7647]

DER MOTTENMANN IST HIER

Why do you say «accent» and not dialect?

[@ImproveYourAccent]

“Accent” refers only to sounds. “Dialect” refers to grammar and vocabulary as well. In this video I’m only talking about accents.

[@aluette1]

Too many examples many?

[@WeAreNotExperts2007]

You are scarily skinny

[@L-mo]

American is easier

[@oskarm646]

Too many "R" s, I can't breathe when I try to speak with an American accent lol

[@roarzplayz8422]

British People lmfao

[@norbertplaminger560]

Nice video!!!

[@MsClocks]

Great video!