How to speak with a British Accent?

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Kimo said:
The guys in Frasier are supposed to have a bit of that snooty Boston accent, but more so the younger brother...

On the accent thing. There are websites out there for help on this kind of thing, but I couldn't tell you which to use. As an US-dude, in the main what you will need to be able to do to help you in the quest for a brit accent is reduce the pronouncement of your "R"s when you talk. It's one of the consternent sounds Americans seem to be generally big on.
I hate generalising, but that's what I'm saying. I could do a gobbledy-gook voice of nothing but "R"s (of various pitch) and sound vaguely American to a non-english speaking person. I once convinced a room of people that I could speak fluent Italian (my italian is basic), until a European who knew 6 languages exposed me.
like any accent, focus on the reoccuring particulars of vowels but mainly consternants (they are the tools of articulation).
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Accent Training Programme
 
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Of course there is always the lo-tech approach that Brando used to portray Mark Antony...He took recordings of British actors reading his lines. He got a handle on the accent that way.
But then he was Brando...

And then the guys who read for him were only Richard Burton, and John Gielgud...
 
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sorry to burst your bubble but im english and we have loads of telephone exchance centers and most of the time we cant understand what has been said if you need to speak english learn from a english person not a tape with a dogdey accent ,this may sound harsh but here in the uk we are sick of getting these calls and cant understand a word of what has been said
 
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sorry to burst your bubble but im english and we have loads of telephone exchance centers and most of the time we cant understand what has been said if you need to speak english learn from a english person not a tape with a dogdey accent ,this may sound harsh but here in the uk we are sick of getting these calls and cant understand a word of what has been said
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Woah!

Just who are you getting at here?

If not understanding language and it's use is going to be a continuation on this thread (It really shouldn't be), how about getting your punctuation in somewhere, because that is something that cheeses people off too...!
 
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I am frequently complimented on the quality of my British (RP) accent -- I think this comes from working with Paul Meier (www.paulmeier.com). In addition to training CDs he has a site called IDEA that contains MP3s of native speakers for one to listen to.

Paul's products are very good as are his phone coaching rates. I did a movie with Tom Wilkinson last year and wanted to tune up my RP just in case the director asked for it -- wouldn't have been any fun to do a bad English accent when working with an English actor! As it turned out, I didn't need to use the accent but I was ready thanks to Paul's CD and coaching.

BTW, Paul is a Brit, too, so he has materials for many of the UK regional dialects.
 
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There are some great suggestions. I found that when I spent time in the UK, I became a bit of a chameleon. I talked to people everywhere, and asked them where they were from. There are as many regional accents there as there are in the US. Also, I adjusted my ear to the music in the speech: the rhythm, tone, etc. Maybe you can write it off on your taxes, too!
 
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I found that it has to do with the prounuciation. Americans stress the vowels while the english emphisizethe constanants. They also have a tendency to be 'clipped' if they are posh.

It's like vOcAbUlArY and VoCaBuLaRy
 
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"Americans stress the vowels while the english emphisizethe constanants"
Americans also spell centre wrong, nah just jokin, i think that as long as you pronounce tomato properly without the empthasis on the aaa than you shoud be fine. The best way to do it is just take a holiday in england and stay in a posh area.
 
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Whatever you do, please don't feed on the sterio-types of our accent.
Mostly we're portrayed as either RP speaking Toffs or Cockney Gutter-snipe.
If you come here you'll soon see that there are so many different dialects and accents.

Make sure you get the vocabulary right, use the right words: eg. You say windsheild - we say windscreen.

I normally find not many american actors do convincing English accents, there are a few though. I like Johnny Depp's English accent, it's a bit posh, but it works.
More reccently there seems to be more a trend of british actors playing Americans - Hugh Laurie(house), 3 main roles in the wire all played by Brits.
 
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