you may be surprised that people don't speak the same

as the recordings in your English language textbook

English - like every other language – exhibits variation

People speak with different accents

If you're aware of how people speak differently

you'll find it easier to understand a wider range of native English speakers

To help, I've made a 3-part video series

exploring the phonetic diversity across the UK's four nations

England

Wales

Scotland

and Northern Ireland

This video is about consonants

the next will be on vowels

and the final video

will focus on sounds characteristic of certain accents

Let's get started by focusing on 5 consonant features

that distinguish UK accents

Rhoticity deals with /r/ sounds

Rhotic speakers will always pronounce the letter "r" as /r/

For example

Here, there are four /r/ sounds

Non-rhotic speakers only pronounce the letter "r" as /r/

when there is a vowel sound afterwards

For example:

Here, there are no /r/ sounds in the second word

We find rhotic speakers

(those who always pronounce the "r")

in Scotland

Northern Ireland

and South West England

I was born in the southern part of England

and you'll hear that my accent is non-rhotic

I only pronounce the letter "r"

if there's a vowel afterwards

Most speakers in England

and Wales

are non-rhotic

This is a map produced by the University of Cambridge in 2016

Orange marks areas where there are more rhotic speakers

Green where there are more non-rhotic speakers

And yellow where there is roughly an equal mix of both

It's true that we find rhotic speakers in Scotland

but we also find non-rhotic speakers there too

Linguists have documented non-rhotic speakers in Scotland

since the1970s

In south west England,

the situation has changed significantly in recent times

When a survey was conducted in the 1950s,

this area was strongly rhotic

but nowadays there are far fewer rhotic speakers here

If you're travelling within the UK,

then expect to hear both rhotic and non-rhotic speech

You may have heard of Received Pronunciation – or RP

Different people have different definitions of what RP refers to

but for many it describes an old-fashioned English accent

In this video series I'm going to refer to the modern successor of RP

called Standard Southern British English

or SSBE

I'm speaking in this accent now

and you'll find lots of people with this accent

throughout the south of England

SSBE is a non-rhotic accent

In some accents, the [h] sound

is always pronounced at the start of sentences

or stressed syllables

like "hair", "hear", "behind"

In other accents, this sound is dropped

"air", "ear", "be-ind"

This is known as H-Dropping

The H sound is pronounced

by speakers of SSBE

and people in Scotland and Northern Ireland

But many speakers in England and Wales

drop this H sound

H-droppers may not be consistent in their H-dropping

For example, somebody may pronounce a word with H

and later pronounce the same word without the H

For these speakers,

the H is variable

If you're in England or Wales

then expect to hear words pronounced

with and without H

A glottal stop is made

when the vocal folds inside the larynx (or voice box)

firmly come together for a short period of time

It sounds like an abrupt pause

For example,

if I replace the [t] sound in "better"

with a glottal stop

it becomes "be[ʔ]er", "be[ʔ]er"

Glottal stops are often used

to replace a [t] sound at the end of a word

in many accents across England,

Wales

and Scotland

Even members of the royal family

use glottal stops

Glottal stops are also used to replace a [t] sound between vowels

It's perceived negatively by some people,

but it's normal for many in England, Wales and Scotland

If you're in England, Wales or Scotland

you might hear a [t] sound

being replaced by a glottal stop

There are two TH sounds in English

They're made with the tongue touching the teeth

Linguists call them "dental fricatives"

More and more speakers around the UK

pronounce these TH sounds

as an F or V instead

These sounds are made with the lower lip touching the upper teeth

At the start of a word,

[ð] is sometimes replaced by [d]

particularly by some speakers in London

Most speakers in the UK

do not pronounce a [g] sound

in words ending NG

like "sing" and "song"

There's still no [g] if a suffix is added

"singer", "songs", "singing"

But in the Midlands and the North of England,

some speakers will pronounce a [g]

For example

Speakers in different parts of the UK

use different consonant features

There is nothing wrong or right about this

it's just part of normal variation within the language

If you're aware of this phonetic diversity,

you'll find it easier to understand native speakers

Expect to hear:

The next time you listen to a native speaker from the UK,

see if you can identify some of the features listed in this video

If you're a non-native English speaker

and you want to improve your English pronunciation skills,

then sign up for my online course

It's tailored to your native language,

prioritises sounds that improve your intelligibility

and uses SSBE as its model

Click the link to find out more

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