How to pick up a British accent?

July 8, 2005 12:27 AM

How would an American pick up a British accent while in Britain?

Alright, since coming to Oxford for the summer, the question's been on my mind: Americans (of particular interest, the subset "American girls") swoon over British accents. It's said that an accent adds ten IQ points...

Of course, this is silly and irrational and anyway a poor impression of an English accent would likely be enough to fool most Americans anyway, and all that. But if one wanted to, how would one pick up a reasonable British accent? I know actors and actresses succeed at just such a feat all the time; what's the trick?

posted by electric_counterpoint to writing & language (40 comments total)

I'm surprised you're asking this when you're apparently already there. Just start subtly mimicking people's speech patterns when you're talking to them. Whenever I'm in England, I sound a hell of a lot more British than when I'm in the States, and while I'm not sure I could bring back an accent reliably, I'm also not trying to cultivate it.
posted by trevyn at 12:37 AM on July 8, 2005

Oh, and actors have speech coaches; that's how they do it.
posted by trevyn at 12:38 AM on July 8, 2005

Beyond getting a speech coach, you probably will pick one up, at least subtly, after a year or so. Or at least enough of an accent to have Americans notice. I'm not sure if this just applies when you're young, but I lived in the UK from ages 9 to 14 and still have the remnants of a British accent, especially when it comes to vowel sounds.

I found that eventually, a British accent became the norm, and American accents sounded odd and even mildly unpleasant. It was probably at that point that my speech patterns and accent shifted. However, as a pre-teen/teen I think I felt more pressure to conform to those around me than an adult might. I seem to remember being awful embarrassed about my accent when I still sounded like an American, which probably sped-up the process.
posted by almostbarefoot at 12:58 AM on July 8, 2005

I've been living here for almost two years and have picked up very little of the accent—that is, my vowel and consonant sounds have not changed that much. Some of my word choice, phrasing, and inflection has changed without thinking about it. This leads to endless ribbing when I'm back in Texas.

But if one wanted to, how would one pick up a reasonable British accent?

Don't do it, you'll sound pretentious, not intelligent. And the Americans I know who have lived here a long time and have a more British accent actually have a bizarre-sounding trans-Atlantic accent, not perfect RP.
posted by grouse at 1:08 AM on July 8, 2005

As Trevyn says, it's not hard if you're surrounded by it. When someone says something that sounds particularly British to your ears, just repeat it the way they said it (even if just quietly under your breath). You'll begin to notice the differences like the hard T's, the inflections, etc. Also, begin substituting the UK pronunciations for words like privacy, orientated, etc. And, most importantly, don't try too hard. You'll end up sounding like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
posted by gfrobe at 1:09 AM on July 8, 2005

I'm not American, but I picked up quite an accent while in the UK without trying... Spend time in pubs.
posted by pompomtom at 2:13 AM on July 8, 2005

You seem a little confused. I'm not sure what a "British" accent is meant to be (as Britain includes Wales and Scotland). Even narrowing it down to an English accent isn't much help - as you can travel 50 miles and encounter drastically different accents, particularly in the north. You would probably have a difficult time understanding my mother's accent (she's from the North East of England, where many of the vowel sounds are changed from the rest of the country).

Regardless of all that, this is a ridiculous and deceitful idea in the first place. You'll just end up sounding like Dick Van Dyke (as gfrobe already said). How many times have you seen British actors perpetrating woeful American accents in movies? If you try to mug some kind of English accent, you'll probably end up sounding even more stupid than that! Quite a feat.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 2:32 AM on July 8, 2005

Americans (of particular interest, the subset "American girls") swoon over British accents

I would dispute this allegation.
posted by cillit bang at 3:07 AM on July 8, 2005

You could have a stroke, but that's not recommended.

On the substantive question: voice coach, elocution lessons, studied mimickry. Indian call-centre workers are taught this: it's 'I put a pat of butter' (when talking to British customers) and 'I pudapadabudder' (for Americans). It helps if you know a little bit (or a lidderbid) about phonetics, since you'll be better able to appreciate which part of your mouth those sounds are coming from, and where you need to put them, especially the vowels.

But as coach_mcguirk suggests: don't even try it. Given that you're only there for a couple of months, you're likely to sound something like Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Even if you pull off some kind of accent, you will still look and act like an American doing funny voices, and thus won't fool anyone.

You're in Oxford on a summer programme, I'm guessing? Best to be resigned to it now: the female American students will hook up with British men while you. will. not. pull. Sorry about that.

Reader, I married her.
posted by holgate at 3:15 AM on July 8, 2005

Ask Madonna.
posted by fixedgear at 3:38 AM on July 8, 2005

In Monty Python's Meaning of Life, there's a scene where John Cleese does an aweful impression of a Texan waiter. To Americans, it was definitely a Briton trying to do an American accent, but I'm sure to viewers in England it was "spot on".

If e_c's intent is to have the accent on return, I think its pretty easy to fake, but its the subtle differences (lift/elevator) that will make it convincing.

My friends and I got stuck on a fake accent simply by continuing to speak with it. It got to the point we couldn't speak to each other without it. It doesn't take much.
posted by y0mbo at 4:34 AM on July 8, 2005

In Monty Python's Meaning of Life, there's a scene where John Cleese does an aweful impression of a Texan waiter. To Americans, it was definitely a Briton trying to do an American accent, but I'm sure to viewers in England it was "spot on".

You haven't seen much Python, have you?
posted by nthdegx at 4:39 AM on July 8, 2005

You'll pick up some accent automatically, some people pick it up faster than others. I've lived in Wusconsin for 8 years and have picked up a bit of the accent at the expense of my Southern Ontario accent (which I didn't even know I had or existed)

My cousin who was raised in Michigan and had a definate Michigan twang moved to Georgia as an adult and 15 years later now sounds like a southern belle.

If you try to force an accent you end up sounding like an idiot. A friend of mine in high school decided that a British accent was the key to getting laid. So he started using one, instantly, and thus ended his chances of getting laid for that entire summer despite bartending at one of the hottest downtown bars.
posted by substrate at 4:53 AM on July 8, 2005

Be very careful with this -- you could easily wind up sounding like Brad Friedel, the American goalkeeper who plays for Blackburn Rovers. His accent is about 1/3 American, 1/3 British and 1/3 Martian.
posted by Zonker at 5:10 AM on July 8, 2005

I lived in the UK from age 14-16, and again from 20-21, and definitely sponged up the accent. Same thing happened in Texas a decade later, though that took 4 or 5 years to really kick in. It just takes time, but it is almost inevitable.

But a simpler question. So the American girls dig the boys with local accents. Of course they do. Why the heck do you think they came to the UK, to study? You're at a disadvantage. Have you considered the inverse? Certainly the case in my youth that local roses (this would be in Chelmsford, Cambridge, and North London) really dug Yank swagger. Of course, the coolness of Americans has suffered a wee bit of a hit in the last few years in Europe. But it might still work.
posted by realcountrymusic at 5:22 AM on July 8, 2005

Some people naturally pick up speech patterns and pronunciation more easily (ie, without trying, or in my case, noticing). I spent some time abroad a few years ago, and noticed that while I am constantly told I do not have a southern accent at home, I consistently sounded quite southern against the British voices around me. Conversely, I came back and sounded strange against the American voices I was accustomed to, because I'd picked up some British speech patterns and inflections. I hang out with a few Canadians now and I find myself unconciously saying certain words in a slightly Canadian manner. I think it's my natural desire to be understood -- my speech alters for the audience. I've never actually sounded authentically anything other than American; to actually make the change completely would be difficult, to say the least. For us mortals, anyway, without speech coaches.

If you want to "talk British!" as it were, just listen carefully and don't try to actually sound authentic. You won't. But you might figure out how to sound a little more cosmopolitan, which is helpful in the girl department, anyway.
posted by Medieval Maven at 5:59 AM on July 8, 2005

Of course, the coolness of Americans has suffered a wee bit of a hit in the last few years in Europe.

Oh, more than a little bit.
posted by grouse at 6:03 AM on July 8, 2005

My friend's family moved to America (North Carolina) from Manchester about 12 years ago. My friend, who had no interest in losing his British accent, still has it more than a decade later. His brother on the other hand, who was trying to fit in, lost his accent (or gained an American accent) entirely in about 2 years. People think he's from California now. So it can be done, convincingly, but it probably takes longer than you've got. And if you're trying to cultivate an accent to pick up girls, well...
posted by Who_Am_I at 6:05 AM on July 8, 2005

the female American students will hook up with British men while you. will. not. pull. Sorry about that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, mate! My girlfriend (at Oxford as well) would, I think, be quite incensed if she read this and thought I were online trolling for pickup tips.

To save my newly registered Ask Metafilter persona from being dragged through any further mud, I'd like to ask that everyone who insists I'm trying to pick up girls, here or in the US, please re-read my question. I just threw the "American girls" bit in as a joke because, in my experience, many do swoon over English accents. My girlfriend - honestly - isn't one of them, so there's that.

If anyone's still curious, I'm most interested in the question for two reasons: first, I'm interested in international law and expect to spend a lot of time in the definite future outside of the US, including in some places where Americans aren't immediately liked. Second, I ask because I find my writing has started to look a tiny bit "British" lately on its own ("haven't got" instead of "don't have," and all that), so it's been on my mind.

Finally, I know there are multiple English-language accents to be found in the British Isles - if I didn't know before I came to Oxford, Christ, I would know by now! I hope I don't come off as snarky, but I'm just curious about the actual process by which people concertedly pick up an accent. Like I said, I know actors can do it for roles, so I imagined there was some trick, like what holgate mentioned before he started speculating about my personal life. Apparently there isn't a trick or anything after all. Can we all still be friends?
posted by electric_counterpoint at 6:35 AM on July 8, 2005

Oh lord, please don't do that "picked up a the accent living in the UK" bit when you get home. You'll only pick up stupid girls, and your friends and family will find you insufferable.

On preview: Um, re-read your question. You sound like you want to adopt an accent to pick up chicks. Sorry, but you really really do.

Re: Your future in International law. Don't try to modify your accent to avoid American steretypes, just be an American who's not a jerk. If you spend long periods of time out of the US, your accent will get influenced naturally anyway.

Actors work with diction coaches who teach them how to speak with an accent. Amateur actors watch a lot of movies and imitate the sounds until they sound decent.
posted by desuetude at 6:45 AM on July 8, 2005

I agree with desuetude.

Whatever you do, electric_counterpoint, don't let your American accent be affected!

As for how accents change ... I don't know. I'm pretty good at imitating people AT HOME (Los Angeles, CA). I found that when I was travelling in England, or around English people in my travels, I could not do any kind of English accent at all. No chance. But when I got back home, I would call my English friends, imitate their accent for them and they would tell me that it was really good! I'm not sure what the hell happened there.

My guess is that at home, it is easy to focus on the accent of one English actor or English friend and just imitate him. In England, I was surrounded by so many English people (go figure!) with so many different accents, that I couldn't focus on any single one.

I would recommend taking in the speech patterns and the words that people use. When you get home, imitate a single person and I think you will do pretty good.

Whatever you do, though, don't incorporate an English accent into your everyday speech. Especially on purpose! It's probably the most annoying thing to have happen to you as a result of travelling ... well ... maybe right behind exotic ailments and diseases, but I don't know about any of that. I'm just saying. Really, I just brought that up fo ... ok, that's enough.
posted by redteam at 7:27 AM on July 8, 2005

If it's not too late, what kind of accent does Robin Leach (Leech?) of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" have? I don't think I've heard it on anyone else, ever.
posted by geoff. at 7:55 AM on July 8, 2005

geoff - that would be australian
posted by pyramid termite at 8:01 AM on July 8, 2005

oops ... he's from england ... but he sounds australian to me
posted by pyramid termite at 8:03 AM on July 8, 2005

In The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, Suzette Haden Elgin gives this advice on shifting one's accent:

1. Get a recording of someone with the target accent
2. Listen to it a couple of sentences at a time -- enough to remember -- and play that section over while saying the same words aloud yourself, along with the recording. Repeat several times until bored with those sentences. "A dozen times is not too much."
3. Continue through the tape.

Do this daily for a half-hour to an hour; every week or so, record yourself speaking and listen for whether you're where you want to be. Stop before you're doing a perfect imitation of every nuance of the person in your recording.

Of course, all this was intended for re-training your default speech; if you want to be able to turn an accent on and off, it's probably not the right choice.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 8:18 AM on July 8, 2005

I went to London on a highschool field trip - being young and obnoxious, me and my friends would walk into a bar and immediately try out an English accent. We thought this was funny at the time.

Here's the thing - we were never caught. Even when I would purposely try out the most ridiculous accent I could.

Why? I think it's because in England they have a ton of dialects, many, many more than we have in the States. If someone is catching on, they may ask you where you are from, but I didn't see anyone outright call me or any of my friends on it.

So if you want an English accent - try it out on strangers. If they catch you, say you are trying an experiment. I think you'll be surprised by the results. For us, it was surprisingly easy, and I don't think the people we met were just being nice.
posted by xammerboy at 8:29 AM on July 8, 2005

I've lived in widely divergent regions of the U.S. (Midwest, NYC, California, Pacific Northwest), and my accent tends to just naturally mold itself gradually to wherever I'm living. I've also been very quick since childhood at picking up music "by ear" and also learning foreign languages, so I think it has something to do with just the innate ability to latch on to aural cues and to mimic. For some people who might not have this ability as much, they would probably have to do more work such as that suggested by the acting coaches and others cited above. You haven't indicated where you think you fall along that spectrum of ability - maybe after you've been there a month or two you can call your friends back home and see if they remark on how your way of speaking has changed.

Oh, and for god's sake don't end up sounding like Madonna.
posted by matildaben at 9:06 AM on July 8, 2005

I naturally pick up accents very quickly and don't realize it until it's brought to my attention. I have a friend in Michigan with a strong UP accent that has me flattening my words and calling coke "pahp" without me even thinking twice, after talking on the phone to her.

My normal accent is pretty generic with a very vague southern drawl (north Florida), but when I'm talking with someone with a broad southern accent I begin to say things like "truuuuuuuck" and "ole" (oil) and "wrench (rinse), again without even being conscious of it.

I also worked closely with a very British doctor for several years and began to catch myself saying "in hospital" rather than "in THE hospital" which my friends teased me like crazy for.

I think if I actually spent time in England I'd probably pick up somewhat of an accent rather quickly just by being around it. My son has a friend that was born and lived in London until he was 5. He is now 19 and switches his accent on and off at will. Most of the time he has a thoroughly american young southern man voice, then he'll begin to speak with a very proper Londoner accent. His parents are British with very strong accents still, so that might have something to do with it. His younger brother, who is 15 and has Down's Syndrome was barely talking when they moved here, but he speaks with a British accent.
posted by hollygoheavy at 9:23 AM on July 8, 2005

It's said that an accent adds ten IQ points.
It does until people find out that you're from Kansas. Then it adds ten obnoxiousness points.
posted by 4easypayments at 9:39 AM on July 8, 2005

My suggestion would be to strive for a standard, or general, American accent instead of something that doesn't suite you. True, many people overseas don't like Americans, but people don't like posers either. The standard accent is what most news anchors and movies stars strive for because it has the fewest negative perceptions. There are lots of resources available for acquiring this accent. So stick with being an American, clean up your speech a little and be straightforward with clients and such.
posted by wallaby at 9:39 AM on July 8, 2005

The English have so many regional accents that i suggest you just keep you American accent, deep and strong. Everybody likes to hear a foreign accent live and in the flesh. When I'm in England it seems to attract attentiuon in pubs, and yes, British women will seem to fantasize a lot about you being Tom Cruse or Leo DiCaprio.

When you get back to the US people will crap all over you for speaking like a Brit.
posted by zaelic at 9:45 AM on July 8, 2005

I heard that woman who had a stroke and claimed to have a British accent. She was being interviewed on the BBC, as a matter of fact. The presenters didn't think she sounded particularly British—and there was plenty of evidence that she was trying to cultivate a British accent, because she used some distinctly non-American word choices and expressions.
posted by Mo Nickels at 9:45 AM on July 8, 2005

So if you want an English accent - try it out on strangers. If they catch you, say you are trying an experiment. I think you'll be surprised by the results.

Guess it depends on what kind of pubs you frequent. When I read this, I first thought that the likely result is that he should not be surprised to get a quick lesson in derisive slang.
posted by desuetude at 9:45 AM on July 8, 2005

Er, to clarify: she was an American who claimed the stroke made her sound British.
posted by Mo Nickels at 9:45 AM on July 8, 2005

If you're seriously interested in going about it academically, have a look at the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is what dialect coaches use as a common vocabulary to explain the way sounds are made in the mouth. You can then match those up with sound recordings of various dialects and start practicing to build the dialect into your mouth's kinesthetic memory.
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:52 AM on July 8, 2005

In high school, I had to have a French accent for a play, and my director gave me audio tapes for learning a French accent.

I just did a search for "British English accent" on Amazon, and a few of these of training CDs came up.
posted by landtuna at 10:20 AM on July 8, 2005

Certainly people adjust their accents to the people around them. For some people, it happens automatically, while others retain their childhood inflections for decades. Note that immigrants to the US do this all the time -- at least here, it's a social stigma to have a foreign accent, and many people don't want that stigma for social or career reasons. "Accent removal" classes are a thriving business in many urban areas.

Seems to me that this is really the same sort of thing. For whatever reason, Americans -- the "classless society" -- still get a class kick out of a British accent. Personally, I think it dates back to prewar movies when a certain clipped American accent was very common; I'm not personally versed on whether it was a Hollywood phenomenon, or at some level realistic (I doubt all the actors came from that background).

This is silly, of course, because we don't understand the multiple British accents anymore. The most low-class Liverpudlian sounds "upper class" to Americans. To some, this is a good thing; to others, it's putting on airs, snooty. There's a reason that many movie villains have British accents.

In any case, I suspect that the type of British accent you're interested in imitating is what the Brits call Received Pronunciation, or RP. It's more or less become the standard media accent, the way that a twang-free Midwestern is the standard American media accent. You may also want to review U and Non-U.

Personally, I suspect that the short time you're there you'll pick up very little, and if you do try to force any Britishness into your voice, the Brits around you will look at you funny, rib you, or possibly pummel you (depending on what pub you're in). Think of hanging around black people and saying things like "Whassup, bro?" Subtle things may creep in regardless, like "tube" and "lift" and the odd elision. But if you're coming back to the US to speak it, try to inhabit the persona of Sean Connery, unless you want to be thought of as priggish. My own experience along these lines was trying to speak Swedish in Sweden. Even though I got several compliments on my accent, my grammar kinda sucked, and I was instantly twigged as American wherever I went and many people would just respond to me in English.

Oh, and for picking up girls in Britain, or becoming an American diplomat, I think your best bet for winning people over is to be unabashedly American, but never a jerk. Since the Ugly American stereotype is out there, and revived due to the GWOT, people will love you simply for not conforming to it.
posted by dhartung at 10:58 AM on July 8, 2005

Actors have to do this all the time. Get a dialect tape. The Drama Book Shop has many different options.
posted by grumblebee at 11:27 AM on July 8, 2005

I knew a London cabbie who had a classic working-class East London accent, came to the US and invested all his savings in a business that appealed to rich Texans, and parlayed his "classy accent" into appearances at PBS auctions and so forth until he was very rich. The Texans never guessed that in the UK he would have been immediately marked as a lower-class guy.
posted by realcountrymusic at 2:57 PM on July 8, 2005

Here's the thing - we were never caught. Even when I would purposely try out the most ridiculous accent I could.

hm, no one's reading this anymore, but, uh, why do you think you were never "caught"? They probably just thought you were being idiots. They didn't have to specifically comment on your accent to notice it. cf: madonna, etc.

In fact, in my opinion even many actors who fake accents sound pretty bad. Almost all "picked up an accent" folk I meet just sound pretentious and annoying, even the ones who honestly don't mean to alter their speech patterns but do. They end up with this weird in-between accent that just sounds like a snotty american, not a brit or an american proper. If on top of that they think they sound british it is just another layer of irritation. So I am firmly of the camp: please just do not. Be confident in your own natural accent and that will sound appealing. Trying to cop someone else's manner of speaking just makes you look like a loser.
posted by mdn at 8:30 AM on July 9, 2005