Shadowing Practice: HOW TO DO A BRITISH ACCENT CONVINCINGLY (2) FOR AMERICAN ACTORS (Acting Coach NYC) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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This is film two and there are three particular sounds
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which I'm going to ask you to repeat after me
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and I want you to be able to do these as exactly right as possible.
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If you don't know these sounds, it's rather like me doing an American accent and in the middle of it all dropping in the word tomato.
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So the first is a sound as in ask, which of course Brits pronounce as R as in ask.
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So please after me say ask.
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And now to ask something.
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Even if you know about words like ask,
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I'd like you to repeat these after me as the aim is to become conscious of these particular sounds.
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There is a.. it's not ask.
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There is a very silly upper-class British accent which talks away like this and ask, to ask something.
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I'll go into that when I'm doing a film on comedy.
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But in any case you have to learn this sound first.
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So for cast, please say cast.
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And for fast, please say fast.
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We ask to be cast fast.
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You don't need to remember any of these words, just to really get used to the sound of the change, from after to after.
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And just say them when I wave at the camera or if the words appear on the screen.
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Half is half.
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Task is task.
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After half the task on the raft.
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Laugh is laugh.
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Cant is can't.
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Bath is bath.
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He can't laugh in the bath.
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Example is example.
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Command is command.
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Grass is grass.
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For example, I command you to stay on the grass.
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Now, there are exceptions.
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A hand doesn't become a hand.
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And doesn't become and.
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But command does become command.
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And there's a rule which explains
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which letters have to follow the sound to make this change but there are exceptions to that, and if you try and learn it all, I think it'll just make things very, very difficult.
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Anyway, when you're listening to British Accent now, to anything on YouTube, start looking out for this particular sound now.
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One last time, this example takes us halfway, or part of the way,
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on the fast path to a perfect accent.
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I'd like you now to say the four words
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that are going to appear on the screen out loud with your British accent,
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please, and keep repeating the word until the next word appears on the screen.
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So here's the first.
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So, that was bath, if you'd say it again.
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And not photographs, but again say photographs.
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And not a glass, but a glass.
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And not laughter, but laughter.
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OK.
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Now, by the end of this film, you should be able to consciously notice whenever this kind of change comes up,
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then everything else about the British accent will start soaking into you around
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that sound around that sound and these other two ones we're going to work on, but that's the first one.
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Not ask, but ask.
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And the next is the letter R.
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Brits don't sound it when it's followed by a consonant.
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So when you say arm, we say arm.
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And even if you don't feel you say a little r in arm or hurt, normally, please say after me, not hurt, but hurt.
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My arm hurt.
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And not court, but caught.
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So Brits say court and court in exactly the same way.
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There's no difference at all.
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So please say after me, I was in court as I was caught.
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So we cut the R out before a consonant.
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So the name Mark is Mark. And at the end...
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Oop!
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Right, so where were we?
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Something to do with caught and caught.
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Yes, I was in court as I was caught.
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So cutting out this R before a consonant.
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And Brits don't say the R at the end of words like car.
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It's a car.
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Now this may sound like a very slight difference, car and car, but it's the ability to get that difference,
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that slight difference, right all the time that really makes you sound like a Brit.
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So, sir is sir.
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Far is far.
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Mark's car is far away, sir.
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And at the end of bigger words we cut it out, like in mother, it's mother.
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Father, other, tour is tour.
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Other mothers and fathers were on tour.
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So Brits don't say hard or harder as the R is followed by a D.
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And not third, but third.
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Third.
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And door, the word door, almost becomes door, D-A-W.
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So the third door is harder.
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My heart was mortally hurt when you hurled that marker at me.
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Now, don't think, please, or worry about the rest of the sounds in that sentence, or how silly the sentence is.
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It's just that there are no R sounds.
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It's not, my heart was mortally hurt when you hurled that marker at me,
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but my heart was mortally hurt when you hurled that marker at me.
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So hopefully you'll now be looking out for this R in scripts, and when you hear Brits talking, and when you hear Americans talking,
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that Americans sound it and Brits don't.
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So please repeat these three words
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that are gonna come up on the screen in your British accent and keep saying them until the next word appears.
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So here's the first one.
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Right, so that's not chair, but chair.
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And not curtains, but curtains.
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And this is quite an interesting one, not Shakespeare, but Shakespeare.
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Now, when I say it like that, Shakespeare, It might sound to Americans as sort of, particularly because of my accent, as Shakespeare.
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Oh, Shakespeare's so lovely, I love Shakespeare.
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It does sound a bit like that in a way, but however we're saying the word, if we're saying, you know, bloody Shakespeare, we just say, oh, bloody Shakespeare.
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That's the way the word's pronounced, we just don't say the R sound.
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So it's Shakespeare.
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Getting these three sounds perfect, the ah and the ah and the third one that's coming up now,
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will change the way you listen to a British accent for a while.
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And you'll pick up on other sounds amazingly quickly.
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Even listening to other films that I've got on this system, don't bother to listen to what I'm talking about.
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Just listen to what I'm saying and how some words like mask, I pronounce them as mask.
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So we only pronounce the R when it's followed by a vowel, like in Colorado, or as Y counts as a vowel in the word carry.
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So then we pronounce it like Americans do, but not in the word art.
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It's art.
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And it's just a coincidence that R and the letter R and T spell the word art.
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It might help you to remember them, but that's just an accident.
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An accident.
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So the last of these three sounds that I want you to nail,
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after ask becoming ask, and large becoming large, because R is followed by the G.
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Not large, but large.
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This third sound, much easier, because it doesn't come up that often, but it really stands out, is the letter T.
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And it stands out because Americans pronounce it as a D, in some words.
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You say a bottle and better and attitude.
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So in a British accent bottle is bottle and butter is butter and fatter is fatter.
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Butter makes us fatter.
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My daughter ought to have So again,
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it's not with a D in the middle of daughter and in the middle of order have caught her.
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It's my daughter ought to have caught her.
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And I said the word tomato earlier on.
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It's not only tomorrow that British say, but the second T is not a D, so it's not tomorrow, but tomato.
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Sounds a small thing, but you get that right, and people just think, oh, well, he's obviously British.
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So it's A in the word after, and no R when it's followed by a consonant like in farm.
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So say, my ma is calm on the farm.
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So calm and farm rhyme exactly.
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There's no R in calm.
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We don't pronounce the L.
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And there's no R effectively in farm.
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So calm and farm are exactly the same.
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My ma is calm on the farm.
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We like large art in Colorado.
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So it's not large, large, but large.
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Now, please repeat these three words that'll come up on the screen out loud.
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Keep saying them in a British accent till the next word comes up.
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So that was Empire State Building, so there's no R at the end of Empire State Building, and there's a slight tendency to say State with a D,
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State Building, State Building, and if there's anything in British there's a slight tendency to say a T, State Building.
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And Water, and the first part of the name of Shakespeare's play, Titus.
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So it's not Titus Andronicus, but Titus.
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And then when you know these sounds, when you recognise them all the time, you'll naturally absorb all the other little things about the British accent,
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like the OR in all, all you have to do is call in the fall.
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And the OO having a Y behind it in New York.
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and also in words that you'll notice and start collecting, like assume and Tuesday.
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I assume it's Tuesday.
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And that we don't say accent, we say accent.
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Not accent, but accent.
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Right, now, just say after me these lines, please.
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So you'd better go now.
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When you listen to British accents, try hard not to copy one voice.
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It's important to hang on to your own.
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Make sure you find the right accent to listen to.
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Nearly all British accents now include a mixture of other accents.
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But virtually all British plays, the ones produced in the USA anyway,
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require the accent I'm using.
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So, search for people and films on YouTube that are about people who are clearly middle class like me.
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Now, you'll find more details on my website about exactly what it means to be British class
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and you'll probably look for interviews successfully on YouTube by people like Emma Thompson,
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Judy Dench and Helen Mirren, who are very middle class.
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And one last quick thought, which is to remind you that what you have to do, as I answer my strange doorbell, to remind you that your job as actors is to act,
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to give a performance.
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So don't worry yourself to death about the accent all the time.
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In the end, you've got to deal with that, what the play is, what the character is.
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So thanks very much for watching.
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I'm going to answer the doorbell.
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Bye-bye.
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Hello, my doorbell.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 168 sentences and 1793 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:51. The speaker talks at a steady 121 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| accent noun | /ækˈsɛnt/ | A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to… |
| pronounce verb | /pɹəˈnaʊns/ | To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously. |
| bath noun | /bɑːθ/ | A tub or pool which is used for bathing: bathtub. |
| slight adjective | /slaɪt/ | Minor; small in amount |
| butter noun | /ˈbʌtɚ/ | A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk). |
| grass noun | /ɡɹɑːs/ | Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as… |
| marker noun | /ˈmɑː(ɹ)kə(ɹ)/ | A felt-tipped pen, a marker pen. |
| tomato noun | /təˈmeɪ.toʊ/ | A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit. |
| litter noun | /ˈlɪt.ɚ/ | Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals. |
| silly adjective | /ˈsɪl.i/ | Laughable or amusing through foolishness or a foolish appearance. |
| remind verb | /ɹəˈmaɪnd/ | To cause one to experience a memory (of someone or something); to bring to the notice or consideration (of a person). |
| exception noun | /əkˈsɛpʃən/ | The act of excepting or excluding; exclusion; restriction by taking out something which would otherwise be included, as in a class, statement, rule. |
| mask noun | /mæsk/ | A cover, or partial cover, for the face, used for disguise or protection. |
| photograph noun | /ˈfoʊ.təˌɡɹæf/ | A picture created by projecting an image onto a photosensitive surface such as a chemically treated plate or film, CCD receptor, etc. |
| laughter noun | /ˈlæftɚ/ | The sound of laughing, produced by air so expelled; any similar sound. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. |
| stand out verb | To jut out, protrude (from a surface etc.). |
| cut out verb | To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something). |
| pick up on verb | To notice, observe, learn, or understand, especially something otherwise overlooked. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 44 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, you'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bath /bɑːθ/, bother /ˈbɑðɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: exception /əkˈsɛpʃən/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/
- Long words — get the stress right: naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, successfully /səkˈsɛs.fə.li/, virtually /ˈvɚ.t͡ʃə.wə.li/, coincidence /kəʊˈɪnsɪdəns/, amazingly /əˈmeɪzɪŋli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like accent, pronounce, bath.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was caught · is followed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · thought, which is |
| Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form | start looking · keep repeating · start soaking |
| Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea | should be · ought to have |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.