Not every English speaker talks like the Queen! And some accents are harder to understand than others!
From lovely Laura Noble, here is a list of the top 5 hardest accents to understand if you are not native to the UK.
accents
British Accents: West Country
This series focuses on different accents from the United Kingdom. Many thanks to Tom for providing him fabulous WEST COUNTRY accent. Useful links are below: Want to sound British? Take our Pronunciation course: https://englishlikeanative.co.uk/onli…
In Search Of London’s Last Cockneys
“We had to move away, Cos’ the rent we couldn’t pay.”
What does it mean to be cockney? Pearly kings and queens? Rhyming slang? Pie and liquor? It’s commonly believed that to be truly cockney, you must be born within earshot of Bow Bells, which peal from Cheapside’s St Mary-le-Bow church.
Noise pollution and a lack of maternity wards in the area have rendered this definition practically obsolete. The term ‘cockney’ dates back to the 1300s and was originally used as a pejorative label for the city’s toffee-nosed urban folk. It’s since become a term of endearment primarily referring to the working class, down-to-earth, East Enders of London.
But in 2010, Professor Paul Kerswill of the University of York estimated that the cockney accent would disappear from London “within 30 years”. 10 of those years have now elapsed. Is this native London breed really set to become brown bread? And what has triggered the mass exodus of these former city-dwellers to surrounding counties such as Essex and Kent?
“We’re still alive and kicking, but we’re hanging by a thread”
Think cockney and Pearly Kings and Queens often spring to mind. The tradition, dating back to the Victorian costermongers (street traders) of north London, was founded by Henry Croft, a former workhouse inmate, who — inspired by the style-savvy costermongers who sewed lines of pearls onto their clothes to mimic the rich — chose to go one step further by completely embellishing suits with pearl buttons [ . . . ]
Read complete feature story in THE LONDONIST: In Search Of London’s Last Cockneys | Londonist
Top 50 sexiest British accents ranked from worst to best
HAVE you not been very successful with the ladies recently?
I have bad news for you — it might be your accent.
After Big Travel 7 surveyed 1.5million people, Britain’s sexiest (and least sexy) accents have been revealed.
Well gentlemen, take a look through the list below and find your accent.
Maybe its ranking will explain why you haven’t been getting any action recently… Or just stop wearing Crocs.
Here we go [ . . . ]
Continue at source: Top 50 sexiest British accents ranked from worst to best
The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Series 12, The Stressful Scone
Why do we have regional accents?
“How do accents start and where did they come from?” asks Sachin Bahal from Toronto in Canada.
Hannah is schooled in speaking Geordie by top accent coach Marina Tyndall. And Adam talks to author and acoustics expert Trevor Cox about how accents evolved and why they persist.
We meet Debie who has Foreign Accent Syndrome – an extremely rare condition in which your accent can change overnight. After a severe bout of flu, which got progressively worse, Debie’s Brummie accent suddenly transformed into something distinctively more European.
Listen to the podcast at: BBC Radio 4 – The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Series 12, The Stressful Scone