British Accent

Recently, I started to become obssessed with British accents.... I know there're different types of British accents (or so I've heard) but ... just British accents in general. I'm not too obssessed with it that I want to pay for it and get lessons or anything but I still want to learn it... any suggestions? If you do... please email me at: forevergod__--@hanmail.net

Find a British friend and chat with him/her or listen to BBC World Service Radio at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/index.shtml .

I know that in Britain, "holiday" can also mean "vacation"- i.e. school/work break. But recently, I saw the word "holidays" used as a singular noun meaning "vacation" in some books I read. Examples: "During the Summer Holidays", "the last holidays".

Can some of you Britons tell me...
1. When do you use "holiday" or "holidays"?
2. When referring to schools' 1-3 weeks break around Christmastime, do you say "the Christmas Holiday" or "the Christmas Holidays"?
3. Do you consider "holidays" (as in "the Summer Holidays") to be a singular or plural noun?
Thank you in advance, Britons.

Lauren,
watch PBS British commedies. they're funny and you get to hear an really great variety of accents.

Make sure to put an "r" at the end of every word that ends with "a." Canada thus becomes Canadar. I have no idea why English Brits do this and it always bothers me even though I don't mind the sound of British accents in general.

Ryan

To Lauren,

Listen to BBC London online radio at bbc.co.uk. And well, if you want to actually have the vocabulary of a british person, visit effingpot.com.

Hope it helps.

Most Britons pronounce Canada with a schwa, not an "ar" or "ah" sound at the end.

I am also very intrested in learning the British accent. But besides watching movies like Harry Potter, or watching the BBC, is there anything else you can do to learn it? I mean, you can't learn it out of books, so how can you learn it at all? If people could give me advice, that would be really helpful. Of coarse, people hardly ever give advice, but ask for it instead. I'm sorry I'm not a giver of advice, but I promise I will give you all the advice I used if I could learn how to do it myself!! Thanks for your help!

Oh, and if anyone knows about any useful sights that are FREE, and that could help with the British accent, I would be very grateful. Thanks a Bunch!!!!!

I personally think the british accent is cool even though i live in the usa, and always lived in the usa, so i have an american accent :)

Guofei, that's not true. All you have to do is listen to BBC and any announcer who doesn't use excessive RP pronunciation will pronounce the "r" at the ends of words. I was listening to BBC last night and they presented a story about Nelson Mandelar. I often listen to British radio as well and they are always talking about what movies are playing at the cinemars. I have no idea where this "r" comes from, but I wonder if it's an adoption from Celtic languages. In Welsh, when articles like "y" are before a vowel, they become "yr."

Supposedly, in the Bristol dialect, the "r" becomes an "l." America becomes "Americal." Of course, with American English, we have a larger problem with shortening words like "going to" = "gonna" than we do with adding phantom consonants.

Ryan

Has anyone seen the BBC show Changing Rooms? There are several accents represented. What is the name of Handy Andy's accent? I have trouble understanding him sometimes.

Lana, I believe Handy Andy's accent is South London. For some reason I catch myself repeating over and over certain words that he just spoke. I guess I find his accent amusing.

I recall one episode where Andy was talking about building some "shuh'ers" for the windows; Lawrence immediately corrects him, "shut-ters." I thought to myself, "what a pompous ass!"

Ryan
Although I've been listening to the BBC for many years now and all my English teachers were English, I'm under no impression that britons pronounce Canada like "Canadar". That's the first time I here this statement. I know the English don't pronouce the 'r's like in 'car' but the Americans do pronounce them.

After I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail I started doing the English accent. For some reason, i seem to be good at many accents. Scottish, Chinese, the weird one that Sean Connery has. I don't think the actual words matter as much as the way you sound. But it seems like when you say a word like "there" it sounds more like "the" or soemthing-can't really type it out. I also like doing a Boston accent. hah.