a British and an American accent

of course there are many British accents

and there are many American accents

but I'm going to show you some of the

major accent differences between them

so let's start!

linguists give vowels names to make it easier to talk about them

the LOT vowel sound describes the vowel in words like

“job”, “politics”, and “not”

when British speakers say this vowel

their lips might be slightly rounded

but Americans use a different vowel sound

and their lips will be more open

the BATH vowel describes the vowel sound in words like

“behalf”, “passed”, and “path”

British speakers – especially those in the south of England –

will use a more back vowel sound here

but Americans will tend to use a more front vowel sound

the words “water”, “authority”, and “fighting”

have a T in the middle

Brits will tend to pronounce a T sound here

but Americans will use a tap

this may sound like a short D sound

or even an R sound if you're a non-native speaker of English

the word “yod” describes a /j/ sound

in the word "new", Brits will tend to pronounce a /j/ sound here

but Americans don't – they've dropped the yod

in Britain this word can be pronounced with a

/dj/ sound

but it's also commonly pronounced with a /dʒ/ sound

this change from /dj/ to /dʒ/ is called yod-coalescence

you can hear Theresa May use the /dʒ/ pronunciation

but Donald Trump just uses a /d/ sound here

in the words “shared”, “hard” and “work”

most Brits will not pronounce the R sound

but most Americans will

Donald Trump grew up in New York

in traditional New York accents

the letter R is only pronounced in certain positions

but nowadays the situation is more complicated

with New Yorkers sometimes pronouncing the R

and sometimes not

this is what Donald Trump does in his speech

sometimes he pronounces the R

and sometimes not

but for the purposes of this video

it's important to state that

most Americans will always pronounce the letter R

I'm going to finish with an interesting

aspect of Donald Trump's accent

that's particular to New York - rather than American accents in general

for me, the words “human”, “huge”, and “humour” begin with a /hjuː/ sound

but in New York accents, the H is dropped

and we're left with /juː/

listen to Theresa May pronounce the H in “human”

and now listen to Donald Trump who doesn't pronounce the H

these are just some of the differences between a British and an American accent

if you've enjoyed this video

then please like it

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if you're a non-native English speaker and you want to improve your pronunciation

then take my online English pronunciation course

click the link underneath the video to find out more