Here are two videos to illustrate some differences between British and American varieties of English.
Pronunciation
Vocabulary
Have fun!
Category Archives: Pronunciation
A tour of the British Isles in accents
Have you ever talked to a British native speaker and wondered why you didn’t understand them at all? I bet you have. That’s because there are so many different accents on the British Isles. Here’s a video that demonstrates some of them.
It starts with RP, or Received Pronunciation, which is the kind of ‘standard English’ that corresponds with “Hochdeutsch” in German. The next thing is Cockney, the traditional working-class Londoners’ accent, and then the speaker sweeps up and down the map at a speed of nearly one accent per sentence. Have fun!
© Andrew Jack, taken from YouTube
Brassed Off
Mark Herman’s 1996 film Brassed Off shows the struggle of a miners’ band to avert the closure of their pit in Grimley, Yorkshire, in 1992. Although Grimley is a fictional village, both the pit and the band existed (the real village is Grimethorpe), and the story is partly true. The real band, which also played the soundtrack to the film, is called the Grimethorpe Colliery Band and has been playing on to this day as a professional brass band.
The film features Pete Postlethwaite (Jurassic Park), one of Britain’s best-loved actors, as band leader Danny, and Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting, Star Wars) playing the trumpet.