One of the material 'flip sides' of prevalence of a language that has a long history of recognition as the most important means of international communication is a variety of its dialects spoken among various regions with different thesaurus and specific grammatical nuances. They are also very different in pronunciation.
Accentuation — something characteristic of particular groups of people and/or of a specific area — is called accent, and today we know various English accents and dialects along with the standard British which is spoken by people in the upper and aristocratic classes, by the Royal family, and by leading British media (classical British, or Received Pronunciation).
This well-bread speech can be learned in Russia. The students of CIS International School can not only study from English-speaking teachers but also use English in their everyday interactions, so they become bilinguals in the process (for more details, please book a get-to-know tour to learn about the life across the campuses).
But even if you have mastered English par excellence, it can take time to get used to the way they speak in the capital of the Foggy Albion for example.
There are slight differences in the way native speakers speak almost in each British city, with four 'live' accents of British English spoken in London alone. They are described below.
Received Pronunciation (the term 'preferred' was used by linguist Daniel Jones) |
commonly understood, all major dictionaries provide RP-specific transcriptions |
long [a:] is pronounced from the root of the tongue in stressed syllables, such as in grass, bath |
Cockney |
ancient dialect of workers in the capital East End based on a rhymed colloquial language (such as Eyes / Mince Pies, etc) |
rhymed colloquial language is not used, its key feature is that [f] is pronounced rather than [θ] in the words such as 'everything' |
Estuary English |
dynamically developing transitory unit, free of deliberateness of two above accents |
some features of its flexible system set it apart, such as almost total elimination of sound [l] and a glottal stop instead of sound [t] |
MLE (Multicultural London English) |
young accent which was shaped by immigrants who had mastered English by the end of the last century |
social dialect with many deviances from RP including lack of clear articulation of vowels and specific articulation of 'th' |
Speaking of modern English requires mentioning of such dialects as Welsh, Scottish, and Irish. How is language different in these regions?
General American (commonly shortened as GenAm) is considered to be an example of proper English in the US and it represents a universal general pronunciation free of any distinctive regional features. Media and educational audio courses use equally this kind of pronunciation.
One of the key features of GenAm is distinctively pronounced sound [r]. In such words as 'class' and 'demand', you cannot hear long British [a:] (which is pronounced as [æ]), while in such words as 'hot' and 'want' sound [a:] can be heard instead of [о].
For the other accents of American English, they are at least ten of them, including Western accent, Valleyspeak, Country, Midwest accent, and others.
We interviewed CIS graduates about their plans to graduate from Cambridge International School.
The colors of the rainbow are part of the basic lexicon. Try spending an entire day without naming colors, and you'll see for yourself how hard it is to do without them.
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Transcription in English: how to read and pronounce correctly? The difference between pronunciation and spelling in English.
In this article you can learn about the most famous museums that are located in Britain. What these buildings look like and where they are located.
Is knowing a language without grammar possible? For sure, but only to a certain level. This is, for example, how toddlers speak their native language. They can indicate their wishes and problems or ask questions, often twisting words and sentences so sweetly. But it is impossible to have a full command of a language tool without knowing its grammar rules.
In fact, there are some similarities between the two along with important and curious differences. To see the difference between college and university, let us discover the opportunities that their students get during the study years and after the graduation.
To see closer into the practices that will help you improve your English pronunciation let us discover the specific phonetic characteristic of English and the nuances of its sounds vocalization.