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I am planning a summer trip to England. I love London, where I have been. But thought I would try a different city. Perhaps Birmingham or Manchester. I think the people of London generally have the typical British accent. NOT trying to be rude,but sorta BBC accent. This is not a slam. I love the accents.
Question. What part of the country would I go to to hear a little more broken/Choopy, stronger accent? Would either of these cities work?
Or is there this accent near Metro London?
Well the London Cockney accent is pretty pronounced and I think you would find most people think it is one of the most distinctive accents !
Other strong accents include Yorkshire, Lancashire, Birmingham, Liverpool , Manchester and the Geordie accent ( North-East , try Newcastle).
Unfortunately to me these places tend to be the worst in the UK so not somewhere I would "visit" unless I had too ( though I would strongly recommend a visit to the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland, both incredibly beautiful areas, just steer clear of the cities who thanks to industrialisation in the 19 th century, the LuftWaffe in WW2 and appalling Town planning in the 50s, 60s and 70s are to my mind pretty hideous places). Most of those places have been regenerated but I still hate them.
Go to Wales too, I love a good Welsh accent. Nothing is quite as pronounced as a Glaswegian accent though ( I love most Scottish accents but hate the Glasgow one, it is completely non understandable).
Other strong accents include Norfolk ( Norwich is a very nice town) and the West Country ( Somerset, Devon, Cornwall ) all lovely areas.
I am planning a summer trip to England. I love London, where I have been. But thought I would try a different city. Perhaps Birmingham or Manchester. I think the people of London generally have the typical British accent. NOT trying to be rude,but sorta BBC accent. This is not a slam. I love the accents.
Question. What part of the country would I go to to hear a little more broken/Choopy, stronger accent? Would either of these cities work?
Or is there this accent near Metro London?
I disagree, particularly since there are various accents in London.
I noticed that BBC news anchors had various accents, none of them particularly strong...but there were definite Scottish, Welsh, northern English accents, etc. I think the days of RP are over.
If you want really strong, hard-to-understand (to an American) accents, go to Liverpool, Newcastle, and rural Yorkshire. I lived in Yorkshire for years and up to the day I left I still occasionally went "eh?!?!?!" when people talked to me.
Accents vary from place to another in space of a few miles, the Geordie accent is a popular favorite (Newcastle), the Yorkshire accent, Sean Bean the actor has a Yorkshire accent which you might be able to relate too, I always get compliments from Americans when I visit saying they love my accent even though they don't understand what I'm saying lol. Scouse (Liverpool), Welsh (Wales) and Brummy (Midlands) are all horrible horrible accents and vey hard to understand.
That is not correct. Only a small percentage (2-3 %) of the British population speak Received Pronunciation (RP). It is also called BBC, Oxbridge or Queen's English. Even the Queen has changed her accent. Most of these people are public school educated. So you can get a Welsh or Scottish person who speak with this accent. RP is little heard in the streets of London which is a city of strangers with few natives.
People like Roger Moore studied at RADA. That is where he acquired the accent. Michael Caine who studied at RADA later when regional accents became more acceptable speaks with a more common cockney accent.
If you listen to radio and TV programmes from the 1950's you will surely hear the RP accent. Nowadays the Estuary English (which is sort of inbetween RP and cockney) or even a trans-atlantic accent is more popular and politically correct. The political correctness is frustrating when you call customer service agencies when it takes several minutes to understand the answer to a simple question such as the process of your application. I once lost a confirmation number. I was still unsure after the call.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cdcdguy
I think the people of London generally have the typical British accent. NOT trying to be rude,but sorta BBC accent.
My personal favorite is the accent from Manchester. The people I've met from there have a typical "Brittish accent" that we Americans love, but they're not hard to understand. I remember sitting in a pub all evening in Glasgow not understanding a word the girl next to me was saying.
Yes, you get that with political correctness and the reversed snobbery of working class people including Labour leaders. They don't seem to realise the standard English accent is better understood by everyone. It's not a matter of disliking local accents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nativeDallasite
I noticed that BBC news anchors had various accents, none of them particularly strong...but there were definite Scottish, Welsh, northern English accents, etc. I think the days of RP are over.
I am planning a summer trip to England. I love London, where I have been. But thought I would try a different city. Perhaps Birmingham or Manchester. I think the people of London generally have the typical British accent. NOT trying to be rude,but sorta BBC accent. This is not a slam. I love the accents.
Question. What part of the country would I go to to hear a little more broken/Choopy, stronger accent? Would either of these cities work?
Or is there this accent near Metro London?
Well, if you love London, and as your a guy. I think you should take a drive over in Essex, thats as cockney as it gets, ohh and see if the rumours are true "essex girls are easy" lol, you wont regret it
So I would be able to hear stronger accents without leaving London????? Why do people describe south London as very different? Is that where the working class live? Is it worth checking out? Do they have a different accent?
So I would be able to hear stronger accents without leaving London????? Why do people describe south London as very different? Is that where the working class live? Is it worth checking out? Do they have a different accent?
The East End of London is where the most recognised London accent "comes from" so to speak. London is such a Cosmopolitan place that most people will speak with different accents both National and International ones. For you as a foreign person to make a distinction in terms of geography though, you would need to travel in order to realise what a West Country burr is compared to a Liverpool one.
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