How to do a British accent: a step-by-step guide to Modern RP

A British accent is not a voice. It’s a set of habits.

That is good news if you want to learn how to do a British accent, because habits can be learned one at a time. You don’t need to put on a posh voice or copy a film star. You need to change a handful of sounds that come up in almost every sentence, in the right order, and keep them consistent.

This guide gives you those changes as seven steps, with words to say out loud at each one. Do them in order. The early steps make the later ones easier.

1. Choose your British accent

There is no single British accent. Someone from Glasgow, someone from Liverpool and someone from London all sound British, and they sound very different from each other. If you try to copy all of them, you end up copying none.

When people say they want a British accent, they usually mean the accent of a BBC newsreader: Received Pronunciation, or RP. This guide teaches Modern RP, the way RP sounds today. It is not the clipped, old-fashioned accent of black-and-white films. It is also the accent the Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries give as the UK pronunciation, so you can check any word yourself.

If you’re not sure how a British accent differs from the one you have now, read the eight differences between a British and an American accent first. This guide is about how to make those changes in your own mouth.

2. Train your ear first

You can’t say a sound you can’t hear.

It is tempting to skip this step and go straight to speaking. But then it is easy to practise the wrong sound with great confidence. Before you change anything, spend some time just listening to Modern RP speakers: newsreaders, audiobooks read in RP, podcasts from the BBC.

Don’t listen to everything at once. Listen for one thing. Today, notice every word where a British speaker drops the r: car, hard, first, more, mother. Tomorrow, listen for the t in better and water. When you start hearing a sound without trying, you’re ready to say it.

For single words, use a dictionary with audio. The Cambridge Dictionary gives a UK and a US recording for each word. Play the UK one, say the word, and play it again.

3. Drop the r after a vowel

Start here. It is the change that does the most, because it comes up in nearly every sentence.

In Modern RP, an r is only pronounced when a vowel sound comes straight after it. Red, very and story keep their r. But in car, park, first, more and water, the r is silent, and the vowel before it simply holds its length.

The same goes for the ends of words like doctor, mother, teacher and better. In Modern RP they end on a soft, short “uh”, with no r at all: “DOK-tuh”, “MUH-thuh”, “TEE-chuh”.

One honest note: the r doesn’t vanish completely. When the next word starts with a vowel, it comes back to link the two words. Far away becomes “fah-raway” and four apples becomes “four-rapples”. This is the linking r, and it keeps the words flowing into each other.

How to say it: keep the tip of your tongue low, behind your bottom teeth, and don’t let it curl back at the end of the word. Hold the vowel a moment longer, then stop. Try car park, first floor and more water without a single r.

4. Keep your t crisp

In General American, a t between two vowels, when the second is unstressed, becomes a quick tap, very close to a d. Water sounds like “WAH-der” and better like “BED-er”. In Modern RP, that t stays a real t.

You will hear many British people swap that t for a glottal stop, a small catch in the throat: “wa’er”, “be’er”. It is common in London and among younger speakers. It is not Modern RP, though, and if you start with it you may sound like you’re doing a London accent instead.

How to say it: touch the tip of your tongue to the ridge just behind your top teeth, hold it for a moment, and let it go with a small puff of air. Practise with city, little, better and a bit of water.

5. Learn the long “ah” words

In Modern RP, a group of words that have the short a of cat in American English use the long “ah” of father instead.

The catch is that this is a list, not a rule. Bath, path, grass, class, ask, after, laugh, half, dance and can’t take the long “ah”. But cat, hand, gas and mass keep the short a, and nothing in the spelling tells you which is which. Linguists call this the trap–bath split.

So don’t turn every a into “ah”. Learn the common long “ah” words as a set, starting with the ones you say most: can’t, after, ask, last, class and half. When you meet a new one, check it in the dictionary.

6. The vowels in hot, thought and go

Three vowels change here: the o in hot, the “or” in thought and the o in go.

The o in hot. In Modern RP, hot, stop, coffee and job have a short vowel with the lips gently rounded. In General American the lips stay open, closer to the “ah” of father.

The “or” in thought. Thought, law, walk, more and water share one long vowel in Modern RP, with the lips rounded more than for hot and no r at the end. Keep cot and caught apart: they never sound the same in Modern RP.

The o in go. In Modern RP, go, no, home and phone start in the middle of the mouth, on a relaxed “uh”, and glide towards “oo”.

How to say it: for hot, drop your jaw, round your lips a little and keep it short. For thought, round your lips further and hold the sound. For go, start with your lips relaxed and round them only as the sound finishes. Don’t overdo the “uh”: it is short.

7. Shrink the small words

In English, small words like to, for, of, and, a and can are usually not stressed, and when they aren’t, they shrink. Their vowel becomes a quick “uh”. Linguists call these weak forms.

• A cup of tea: “uh KUP uv TEE”, not “AY KUP OV TEE”.
• Fish and chips: “FISH uhn CHIPS”.
• I want to go: “to” becomes “tuh”.
• It’s for you: “for” becomes “fuh”, with no r, because Modern RP drops it.

Both British and American speakers use weak forms. But learners often give every small word its full vowel, and that makes even a good British accent sound stiff, as if it is being read aloud. Shrinking the small words is what lets the important words stand out.

One more: can and can’t. In a sentence, I can go uses the weak “kuhn”, while I can’t go uses the long “KAHNT”. In a British accent, the long “ah” makes the difference easy to hear.

Common slips, and how to fix them

Everyone makes these at first. Each one has a simple fix.

Watch for the first one most. An accent that is consistently British, even with a few imperfect vowels, sounds more natural than one that switches back and forth.

How to practise

Keep practice short and regular, and work on one sound at a time. Here is a simple routine for each step above.

1. Listen. Find the sound in a dictionary recording or in a newsreader’s speech, and listen until you can pick it out.
2. Say single words. Five or six words with the sound, slowly, then at normal speed.
3. Say short phrases. Put the words together, so the sound has to survive a sentence.
4. Record yourself. Play it back next to the dictionary recording. You will hear things you can’t hear while you speak.
5. Move on only when it’s easy. Then add the next sound, and keep the old ones going.

Here are some phrases to start with. Each one leans on one step.

How long does it take?

It varies from person to person, but you can begin today.

You can learn what the changes are in an afternoon, and you can start dropping the r the same day. Making the changes automatic is slower. A new sound holds up while you’re concentrating long before it holds up when you’re tired, nervous or talking fast. Which sounds take longest also depends on the sounds your first language already has.

What helps most is regular practice on one sound at a time, rather than trying to change everything at once. Sterling is your AI-powered accent coach that teaches you how to speak English with a British accent confidently and clearly. To see where your accent stands today, take the free accent test: read a short passage aloud and it names the accent it hears most.