I *think* it's to do with what we call 'clipped tones' - the RP accent is quite brisk and each word deliberate and definite, which helps it to be clear. My accent is northern English so we tend to have a drawl and stretch our words out and sometimes into each other, which distorts the sound a little and may cause confusion if you aren't used to hearing that accent. Rosamund Pike is very well spoken in my opinion, interestingly though if you go up the class system to old Dukes, Prince Charles, etc they can sometimes be difficult to understand as it sounds like they're speaking with a couple of plums in their mouth. I guess upper middle class/RP is the ideal for English language learners, but it is also the accent of colonialism, so I embrace my drawl, and just speed up/move my mouth more/clip my tones slightly, if needed to help someone understand me
@@me0375 accent of colonialism? I didn't know you have those😁 what's important to us is we can understand you. Other than the upper class man accent we also like the Philippine English accent because it's understandable too.
@@stephanielim5544 ha it’s just a reference to a lot of the British in senior posts in the old Empire would all have had the upper class public school accent, and it’s still a thing between the English where that accent indicates success, power, etc and a regional accent is looked down on as part of our class divides ie someone calls me a peasant because of my accent, I call them a colonial oppressor because of theirs... Obviously this is just an exchange between English people when we’re fighting amongst ourselves, and it’s mixed in with class, identity, regional inequality etc. I think things are changing very slowly, but RP is the best accent to learn, and in terms of conversing with non-native speakers then I occasionally channel more Hugh Grant and less Liam Gallagher, same as in the US it’s just more convenient to use the American pronunciation to be get what you need quicker. I know a couple of Philippine people and yes their accent is lovely, I wonder if it’s down to the standard phonetics taught in their school system perhaps, or maybe that the sounds and mouth shapes of the Phillipine language are harmonious when applied to English words
@@me0375 humans 😁, I didn't even know your accent is connected to your social status. And the Philippine language are more harmonious when applied to English because we pronounce the word as it is, so it's easy for non native English speakers to understand and learn the Philippine English accent.
We northerners call them southern fairy as in gay.... And they call us Northern monkeys as in poor and dirty. Yeh we can't stand the South Englanders. At all. 😂😂
@@lalruatpuiikhiangte7030 yes :) his duality from *Rowan Atkinson* who is a respected CBE appointed by the Queen to *Mr.Bean* who is so adorable and much loved for his comedy :)
The reason ordinary or lower class British people don't like upper class or aristocratic English speakers, is that such perfect sounds make those who are blighted with a more vulgar voice feel disadvantaged - and they are. Received pronunciation is the greatest potential leveller available. Listen and learn.
@@puccini4530 In my country i was born in a city where it's considered to be the default language accent/dialect whatever it is you call. Everywhere else, most obvious around the borders of the country, where you can hardly understand it, even thought its technically considered native language still. This posh english here i can understand plain as day and there are british accents i need to think for 3 second for each word to get the meaning.
@@hattiespicer9735 No Jealousy is a bastard it turns people green, sly and nasty. Envy on the otherhand is not a bastard and doesn't turn people green, sly or nasty. Envy makes people strive and want to achieve and do better. It is not the bastard, jealousy is the bastard, the elephant in the room, the destroyer of soul and behaviour and turns people bitter and twisted crippling them.
@@rjwalker1726 lol you're welcome! It's really annoying, isn't it? Kind of related: there's an advert for a gym on LBC radio where the lyrics are spoken and there's a line which I can't make out and is really annoying me. It sounds like "lift my toddler"!!!
She's not supposed to. In almost every interview, she speaks after her husband & if she's by herself, she makes a pre-fixed speech. Mostly she laughs in front of the camera especially for the camera stills.
Surprisingly, they all sound very clear and easy to understand. For some reason, I expected that the more upper-class British person is, the less legible and more ostentatious his speech is.
I think it somehow works vice versa 🤭when i watched Misfits, I remember Kelly (Lauren Socha) talking cockney (i think it was cockney) and it was hard to understand sometimes. While people talking posh English are more clear to me.
On the contrary! They actually speak the proper-dictionary-Shakespeare English. Whereas regional accents or lower class like cockney are quite hard to understand for non-natives
Really? I never thought that ever. The more lower class they are, the more slang and jargon there is and the harder it is to understand. I meant look at Cockney or MLE.
Ummm.... I think it’s the opposite. The more high class, the clearer the speech, and the lower the class the more unintelligible the speech. Eg. Cockney.
Fun fact about Tilda Swinton: she belongs to the Swinton Family, which is one of only three that could trace its unbroken land ownership and lineage to before the Norman conquest, making it one of the oldest landed families in Britain.
I adore what was called the mid-Atlantic accent. It was supposed to be acquired if you were raised not in England or in the US, but somewhere in between in a mythical land out among the waves. Wonderful examples were English actors who sought work on the New York stage or in Hollywood. Cary Grant and Claude Raines - now those were accents! On the American side we had Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, John Barrymore as well as Groucho’s favorite Margaret Dumont. This sound used to signify sophistication.
You cannot acquire a mid-Atlantic accent, no one has it naturally. It was taught to actors and singers because it travels over radio and speakers better.
@@Currentlyprocrastinating37I believe that was what the original commenter meant. It's not an accent that one develops naturally; but it's acquired by being specifically taught. I love it too. It's probably my favorite English language accent
Katherine Hepburn had a very pretentious, overly exaggerated New England accent. I had seen every adaptation of Little Women except for hers. The third time she said "MAHHHmee", I turned off the video.
I’ll be honest, this is probably the first time I’ve actually heard Princess Kate talk Edit: OKAY I GET IT, SHES NOT PRINCESS KATE. CAN YALL LEAVE ME ALONE NOW. Thanks for the likes btw :)
@a user I think the thing with royals is that they are supposed to be heard but they're also supposed to listen first. Like we had Meghan talking all over the place... but on things like how difficult her life was whilst visiting africa
To be completely fair, these accents may not be as much a product of their social class, but a necessity of the type of positions these people are in. Royals, politicians, actors, etc. are in positions where they need to have very clear and precise diction as a part of their work, and so they may have developed this style of speaking over time
These accents are fairly different one from another, but by and large they are very close to my own. However, I am in no way upper class, I am just a man of 71 who managed to acquire an excellent education for free from primary school, grammar school and university, when access was the result of passing examinations, not location or wealth. I was very frugal and saved a good deal of my university grant, that I received as a result of the very low income of my parents.
One actually speaks more like one's peers than one's parents (think children of Australian parents who live in the UK). Received Pronunciation was/is a major part of schooling.
@@maiholden5278 He is just expressing his opinion in the comment section and you have to watch someone in order for you to find it annoying or exaggerated. In your logic you will never watch something annoying because you have to know beforehand that it is annoying and therefore not watch it
This is more in line with RP (Received Pronunciation), hence much easier to be understood compared to most other region-based dialects/accents. BTW, I wonder why it's being called the "Posh accent" by some of the native English speakers, because, rather ironically too, I find it to be a much more modest, less animated/showy and neutral way of speech compared to most other dialects/accents spoken by them. I think the proper term has to be "Modern RP", in order to denote the slight deviations noticeable in certain cases from its more conventional form "RP" (or "Conventional RP") ....
That's exactly true, but they're not normal people. As foreign language learners and instructors we have to learn and teach how *normal* native speakers of a language speak.
@@noorykorky5056 But I think this is more in line with the Received Pronunciation (RP) which is the standard for pronunciation used for the purposes of learning and teaching in most other countries. I feel that the other region-based dialects/accents used by most normal native speakers can still be much more confusing at times to others coming from different backgrounds/regions. So I think most people who're using English as their second language, despite how fluent they are, may still prefer RP.
So, why do you not use that kind of English for your students? I have always tried to teach my students high-class English, just as I have always oriented myself towards upper-class English.
When we say upperclass "british" we always think english but i'd love to hear some upperclass scottish, welsh, and irish examples Edit: UK accents not British as I realise northern Ireland is not in the island of Britain
@@AnnabelleJARankin Do they speak in english accents? Coz I remember when I lived in Wales when i was in primary school the "posh" families still had a welsh accent but it was more enunciated
I mean there are wealthy Scots and Welsh who speak with the regional accent but it's no different from the lower class people. The aristocracy in Scotland all speak upper class English. Rose Leslie was brought up in Scotland
Rose Leslie is upper class Scots. Her father is Chief of the Clan Leslie. Upper class Scots ,Welsh, and Irish all sound like the people in the clip above because they went to the same sort of Boarding Schools (private fee-paying schools) such as Eton and Harrow and the huge variety of other private schools (known as Public Schools) in the UK.
Want to speak upper class? A) How to speak Speak like you have a hot egg in your mouth. B) Use the correct vocabulary, for example: Say Lavatory (not Toilet) Say Alcohol (not Booze) Say Film (not Movie) Say I'm finished (not I'm done) Say May I have (not Can I get) C) Position You sound better if you stand up (that's why singers usually stand up when they sing) D) Speed Speak slowly, but not too slowly. Never speak fast, not even in an emergency E) Interupt others Never
@@christinet6336 While living in Germany I was told that English sounds as if we're talking with a hot potato in our mouths. Any English - regardless of where you're from, so you are probably already doing the hot egg thing :-)
As an Indian I could hardly tell whose accent was classier, but one definitely melted in my ears and that was of Tom Hiddleston.......what a voice and perhaps what an accent !!! 😍😍😍
Sir Jacob-Reese Mogg.....reminds me of my grandfather's English. I remember that we had ellocution lessons on Our Lion of Zion. Nowadays teachers accept essays that read like mobile rubbish eg: B4 for before etc ...unbelievable 😝
Tom Hiddleston, Emma Watson and Rosie Leslie speak in RP as do several others here. The only upper class ones were Prince Charles, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Sumpton. There's a noticeable difference, for an English person like me, between upper class English and Received Pronunciation
For a non English speaker living in a non English country, they are all very difficult to understand, compared to, let´s say, American English. British E. is almost impossible without subtitles at least for me. Let alone recognize the posh ones from the non-posh, although the first ones are a little worse in terms of clarity, maybe bc the speakers seem to have a potato in their mouths.
You mean estuary not RP, practically nobody has an RP accent anymore not even the queen. I guess you could classify it as non regional standard English, with rising inflection. It greatly varies from case to case though
Only Prince Charles and Lord Sumption have proper "upper class" accents. The rest are standard RP. You can tell the difference by how they pronounce certain vowels.
Lord Sumption speaks classic RP as do most, if not all, sitting judges of the UK Supreme Court and the Bar. Lawyers are communicators first and foremost and RP has been the lingua franca of the legal profession throughout the latter half of the 20th-century till now. Notable exceptions include the late Lord Elwyn-Jones, a Welsh speaker, and Lord Mackay, a Scot, both of whom spoke/speak beautiful English with a faint Welsh lilt and a more pronounced Scottish accent respectively. Mr Justice Mars-Jones was a Welsh speaker who spoke classic RP without a trace of his Welsh roots. He had a beautiful bass-baritone voice which he would use to admonish Counsel in open court if they dared to mispronounce a Welsh city, town or village. The town of Tonypandy caught out most members of the Bar who had crossed the Severn Bridge to attend Assizes and Quarter Sessions in the Principality. Mr Justice Mars-Jones waited patiently on the bench, ready to pounce...
In defense of accents. It’s not necessarily that they’re speaking clearly, but more of, that the English taught is more like how they speak than everyone else. It’s the literature we read and study because the upper class recorded their language for everyone, but the isolated groups did not.
Not really though, upper class people just speak exactly as words are pronounced, your argument that we all get taught their English doesn’t work because we all take shortcuts etc when talking and use slang
@@sampowell1649 But the thing is, language evolves and things like pronunciation, grammar, and spelling change to reflect that. You can even see that with how standard english slightly varies between the different English speaking countries. A standard is only kept so long as a majority decides it to be that way. So as long as the majority decides the aforementioned work the way they do, then everything else becomes irregular and informal. This is also why there are regular conversations in academics that decide what is acceptable in writing because language is not perfectly static or uniform.
Really? Last time I checked Scots Dialect has been recorded in books and poetry for thousands of years! And still is today. An Robert Burns has his own day to celebrate his written works in Scots. You can even read writings in the old Yorkshire dialect so NOT TRUE! But the issue is PR is taught in School which can be confusing for child who start school and have a regional accent. Trust me I know, that happened to me, the first time I saw RP written was at school at 5 years old, I was so confused!
One of the most interesting pronunciations of these examples is Kate Middleton's "parrents and carrers" (i.e. "parents and carers") - this is a quintessentially extreme upper class affectation that you won't hear from anyone below the very highest level of British aristocracy. It's definitely testament to people's inclination to acquire accents that confer social status even in the upper social strata - her own "parrents" pronunciation is certainly not that rarefied!
I thought "parrots and carrots" when I heard it. It was confusing at first but when I look at the comment section it makes my confusing brain shut down 😅.
Not all British people speak like this, I know, but Now I envy people who speak the way they do. And it's not only the accent, but how eloquent their words are. 😚
Those who are from South , they definitely do sound like these people above. Rose Leslie is Scottish and if you have ever heard local Scottish accent , you know how difficult it is to understand.
Oh come on, there is nothing wrong with speaking with an accent, it's what makes the British Isles so unique and interesting. I would hate it if everybody spoke posh
Phoebe Waller-Bridge sounds like a lot of middle class people from southern England. I pretty much sound like that and I'm definitely not upper class! The aristocracy accent that the first few people had is different
What is "upper-class" is the accent, not the person. Meaning that the accent is mostly associated with the upper-class, but is most definitely not exclusive to them.
Fun fact: Rose Leslie was raised at Lickleyhead *CASTLE* in Aberdeenshire, her family's 15th-century ancestral seat, where she lived until the age of 10. Her father, Sebastian Arbuthnot-Leslie, is the Aberdeenshire Chieftain of *Clan Leslie*
@@umartdagnir Okay but what do you imagine Scottish castles look like lol... Very few castles in the world look like something from fantasy. They can't all be like Karlstejn Castle in Bohemia. Most of the time all that remains of the original castle is buried under additions and updates by subsequent generations.
Sometime i laughs when i heard indian speaking english with their indian accent... I find it comedic. As for singaporean speaking english, its nasty it hurts my ears.
I’m an American; I rather like the Standard Indian English accent. I think it’s deserving of a lot more respect and prestige than what it’s usually given. I love that English is a pluricentric language.
It's the same here in Sri Lanka. When the Brits colonised us South Asians, they sent their high class people here and the colonised people learnt English from them. That's why Received Pronunciation is the desired accent in South Asia.
It really boggles the mind how unstable the pronunciation of vowels is in any number of languages, but English takes the cake. I'm still amazed by the fact that in Shakespearean times spelling/orthography actually had a purpose and the words were spoken much closer to the way they were written. Realizing that the spelling of the English words is an actual historical record of how they were spoken some 3 or 4 centuries ago is fascinating.
Old English was essentially Old German with some foreign elements in it. While German remained fairly stable and unchanged in its facilities and inner workings, English was fucked up by the influx of so many Latin and French words, and later losing most of its Indogermanic grammar.
Only Prince Charles' is upper class (aristocratic). The others are what the British call Received Pronunciation. It is an accent that was refined during the television era for clarity and ease of understanding. It is most commonly found amongst the middle / upper middle classes, predominately in theatre and in politics.
And the upper class accent - otherwise known as 'Queen's English' or 'King's English' - actually has its roots in Germany. It's often attributed to Prince Albert - legend has it that it was actually how he spoke English with his heavy German accent, so Victoria, out of loyalty, adjusted some of her speech patterns to not make his accent stand out so much in public, and it gradually became associated as being the 'Royal' accent. However, there were German Royals on the English throne as far back as the Hanoverian family (i.e. the multiple Georges,) so it could have had its roots as far back as then.
I'm a native of Japan although just recently became a American citizen. I've been speaking English for over 50 years now and considered bi-lingual. To me the posh English is the easiest to understand as it is spoken crisp and each word can be easily separated and defined for a non native ears. Don't get me wrong but I can hear many different accents of English speakers although some are quite unique and need some adjusting time before I start understanding the speaker. I do love hearing these different accents though, I must add.
yeah i can understand everyone in this video way more than some of the irish people ive listened too. im a native american english speaker out of the midwest.
As an Indian Idk why they call it Upperclass English accent Its the Most Understandable English... and thats how means of communication should be , ie a language should be
The Duchess of Cambridge isn't upper class, she's from a wealthy middle class family but married into an upper class one. I've noticed Americans often equate class with money and how you speak, and those are components, but ultimately your class stems from your family background and upbringing. For example, you can be middle class, or upper middle class and be struggling financially, but your educational background, upbringing and outlook will still be very much in evidence.
That's what class means, socially, in North America though. Not wrong, just different. You can be a different class than your parents here, higher or lower. Yet a third definition of economic class, the Marxist definition, is your relationship to the means of production and whether you primarily make money for others or for yourself; whether or not you are selling your labour to someone else. In this definition there is no middle class, only working class and capitalist class.
@@mary-catherinecroshaw6369 That's largely a correct characterization of Marx's class analysis, but he also characterized a third group: artisans who are entirely self-employed and who do not exploit the labour power of others to generate surplus value.
@@ryanhuntrajput474 In my experience in professional situation we talk like that but it's a complete other story when we are on our own XD it also just develops when we get older
No we don't. We Americans read British literature, watch British tv and movies, listen to British audio books and at the very least have seen My Fair Lady and know that there are a multitude of British accents. Please don't add to the canard that Americans are all rubes.
I’ve been driving my husband crazy speaking in this accent since binge watching The Crown. It drives him absolutely mad. (In my English accent. 😂 I’m from New Jersey btw 😆)
One of the funniest days in my life was on my first trip to London, I decided to stop into a hair salon to get an "everyday taste of life" as lived by the people-of-color (mainly black) British. All the ladies were very friendly, lovely, curious about this (me) American black girl who strolled into their salon. The funny part? After speaking with them for several minutes, one finally had the nerve to say aloud what all of them had been thinking...and with a very polite giggle, she said (in a very polished British accent): "You have such a phony accent!" THEY thought my midwestern American accent was PHONY!!! Can you imagine that? Well, of course, we all laugh about it, and continued our very fine "getting to know you" afternoon. I laugh about it 'till this day....and that was some 40 years ago.
@@nkwari LOL! But hey, it's a big world...full of piss and sugar. Gotta take each in workable doses, so the glory and wonder of it all can be truly appreciated.
@@jiula Well, given my possibly flawed hearing of the British accent....you might very well have a point. I 'spose the midwestern American accent is kinda funny...but loveable. LOL!
Ahh, in British English, we definitely don't say the word "phony" they probably said "funny" and meant it in a way of meaning different! Anyway, yes can imagine it was a thing to have a laugh over either way! x
I'm Scottish and have spent my adult life working around the world. Just by virtue of having to ensure I'm enunciating words clearly in order to be understood, I've pretty much lost my accent and am constantly asked where I'm from when home (as well as accused of being 'posh' haha).
I ran management training for more than 30 years. In one programme we had a Scotsman with lovely English, but the Europeans in the group had a lot of trouble understanding him. I told him it wasn't his fault, but other people in the group had little or no experience with the Scottish accent.
As a person living in a country where we have TOEFL tests, for me personally I love the British English accent more than the American, cause they are more articulate in the words. American English use more drag in the sounds of their words and sometimes it can be hard. I grew up learning American English and I wanted to change it into British English but its so hard to do cause everyone around me uses American English rather than British :")
I did a full 180 in the middle of my second year in university. My accent was a mixture of American and British English. When one of my professors criticized me, i decided to switch to british because everybody was doing American. At first, i was laughed at and made fun of in the class. To the point that i didn't want to speak or read anything. It was as if my classmates were waiting for me to speak. Later, in about two months, i got praises from my professors, one of them even thought i had lived in England before. when he realized i had been practicing for a few months, he was impressed, i even got a job offer from him at my last year. I had classmates whom i wasn't close with text or talk to me in the class about how i had learnt the accent which resulted in friendships. In shared classes with other majors, i had people turning around to look at me ( mind you, English is a foreign language in my country and my level of proficiency is very rare). What I'm trying to say is, it made me stand out. It did initially had its down falls but, slowly things got better. So, if you like the accent, dive head first and have fun.
Objectively: American English is more comprehensible because overall they have fewer dialects, fewer variations, and AE is a lot less melodic and more monotonous than British English, especially the so-called "Network English" of the news channels. Yes, British English is more fun and more elegant, but not as easy to understand since Brits use so much more modulation, pitch changes etc. than Muricans.
I'm a german and when my friend from England posted an image of the english football team, stating they are all working class people, i was like "WAIT A SECOND!!! how can they be working class, earning millions" thats when i got to know that, unlike in Germany, where you actual current status determs what you are, in England it's more like "you are born working class, so you will remain working class, even if you earn millions now and live in a big villa, driving a ferrari"
@@meiris-ma it's just a different approach in our societies. As my friend from England said. In England you are born into a class, in germany you're class is determined by what you earn, your influence or power. Basicly what lifestyle you can afford. FOR EXAMPLE, if a person was born into a poor household but now earn millions, most poor people will say "he is non of us anymore, he reached a higher social status"
I do not understand how it works. Is it kind of like social discrimination? Is that really matter in your daily life? I have never heard of this. Can you kindly explain more?
@@tomuraharashi3387 no not really, but if you earn million it doesn't matter if you are born into a poor household, if you won the jackpot in the lottery, if you are a native german or have migrant background. You are a millionaire now, nobody will care anymore about your social upbringing. OFCOURSE it's also true other way around. If you are born very wealthy but you lose all your money and become homeless, you are not in that social class anymore.
Damn watching that second clip of british politics, makes the state of the current US government look like it’s being run by the World Wrestling Federation.
@ tune into our politics now. It’s people yelling hyperbole and dangerous wording that is constantly heard by crazy people who then act on them. I’d prefer some nice slow boring british style politicking thanks lol
@Anacott Steel I’m an actual American. Saying stupid shit does not equal effective political moves. It gives us trump. Now that he’s out, we have to deal with the fallout of dumbass trump republicans who are peddling crazy conspiracy theories such as, the opposite party eats baby’s. And no I’m not making that up
Only the first three individuals were examples of upper-class British accents -- King (formerly Prince) Charles, Lord Sumption and Jacob Rees-Mogg. It is a pleasure to hear English spoken that way. The remaining, including the Duchess of Wales (formerly Cambridge) -- who sounds as if she went to a grammar school and not a public school -- may be posh, but are not upper class.
What "class" are we talking about? England is very much a third world country, Great Britain is a country that never was and just plundered its way around other developing countries? It has accents perhaps but certainly not class.
Rose Leslie's dad is a clan chieftain and she's a descendent of King Charles II. She grew up in a castle in Scotland. She's absolutely upper class. Her family tree is full of people with titles.
I would say actresses Gemma Chan and Cate Blanchett also have quite nice upper class-esque accents. I think it also has to do with the natural pitch of their voice which is deeper and richer that adds to the appeal of hearing them speak. So even though it may not be textbook upper class, those factors contribute to them sounding so.
Jacob Rees-Mogg .... the mellow richness of his voice, and the rhythm and cadence of the King's English as it flowed from his lips, greatly impressed me.
@@annonymous9439 My dear Ann, as for Jacob Rees-Mogg, again, a most genteel figure, a graceful noble air, a harmonious voice, an elegancy of style, and a strength of emphasis, conspired to make him the most affecting, persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever heard.
Interesting- some differ from others very subtly, some less subtly, but I found it hard all the same to differentiate most. Emma Watson's accent has always struck me as much more 'posh' than that of her co stars, even Daniel Radcliffe, but her accent has more edge to it than that of some of the other female performers here. Rose Leslie I have never heard speak without a performance accent, so that was interesting. I expected more Scottish, but I think I heard some.
Emma speaks in RP which is different from an upper class accent. Her parents are well off but she wouldn't be considered upper class by the true meaning of that term in the UK (which is different than North America; she was definitely raised upper class by our standards). This is probably not the accent she had as a child either but it's somewhat refined for public speaking. Daniel's dad is from Northern Ireland so he didn't have a hope in hell of coming out with a posh English accent and honestly we love that for him.
He's more middle class but he went to Eton, Cambridge and RADA, so yeah, he sounds quite posh. But what is really extraordinary about him is not so much his accent, it is his voice. Clearly one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard.
Yes, Tom has a mellifluous voice like warm honey. Tom, whatever his roots, is certainly now an erudite, sophisticated individual, as evidenced by the fact that he speaks MANY languages well. (There is a RUclips video of him speaking different languages.)
I'm almost 89. I grew up in England from the age of 4 and came to the US in 1962. I learned to speak English as a young child and once I lost my Austrian accent spoke what was known as BBC English and I still do.
my mother came from Austria and spoke very correctly . when young she was sent to a convent In england to learn to speak. nobody knew she wasn't english.
In my opinion, what makes un upper class language is not the accent but the clarity in the spoken speech (accent included). Upper class characters use a similar structural patterns of the written language (lenth of sentences, where does an idea start and when does it end, summarizing strategy....). The use they make of the language is, somehow, influenced by their large experience in "using elaborated speech" and "communicative strategies". Lower class language use it to convey simple meaning in ordinary everyday's situations... unlike "higher class" that uses language as a "work tool" (arguing, convencing, debating lows, diplomatic négociations..etc.).
As a non native english speaker, yes they are more understandable but it's very hard to replicate that accent. When I was a teenager, it was a real problem, because I was learning to speak english and it was a struggle. You can even develop a sort of complex, until i realized people of Liverpool, Newcastle, in fact most people of UK didn't speak like that. Since then, I understood accent is not an issue, to be understandable is the real goal.
The first 2-3 old chaps have what would be called a posh/upper-class accent (Prince Charles’ is even more isolated, as the royal family have a very specific, almost archaic pronunciation). The majority of the actors and entertainers in this video speak RP (received pronunciation), which is what people usually understand as “the Queen’s English” and is what normally is known as an “British accent”, but it has little to do with the upper class.
Kate does speak well. But I think that she has a ‘ thin voice ‘ if you know what I mean . In time she will find ‘ her ‘ correct level of pitch. But at moment just a bit ‘ thin ‘ sounding . ( in the nicest possible way of course ) 😂
Of course I am more than interested in British RP accent. I like the way Brits are talking, since as I'm a South African, the English we use here is very similar to British RP accent
Well, I have to admit as a non-English person I understand everything. I always struggle to understand the pronunciation of other English people but they pronounced every word. Great!
High brow spoken English can, when called upon, be used to imply threat, menace and warning. A useful tool for those who hold certain societal positions. And, of course, the accent is wonderfully expressive for certain artistic descriptions.
![Natanael Cano - Amor Eterno [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EO4prCs6WpM/mqdefault.jpg)
My phone just got colonized.
😂😂😂you're really creative bro
Ya man, Babylon!
I mean... you did click on the vid tho after reading the very clear title. So...it wouldn't have been like the Spanish Inquisition or something. lol
Your phone is already a product of technology given to you by your colonisers. A simple thank you will suffice.
💀💀💀
As a non native English speaker. The upper class man English accent is more understandable than any English accent.
I *think* it's to do with what we call 'clipped tones' - the RP accent is quite brisk and each word deliberate and definite, which helps it to be clear. My accent is northern English so we tend to have a drawl and stretch our words out and sometimes into each other, which distorts the sound a little and may cause confusion if you aren't used to hearing that accent. Rosamund Pike is very well spoken in my opinion, interestingly though if you go up the class system to old Dukes, Prince Charles, etc they can sometimes be difficult to understand as it sounds like they're speaking with a couple of plums in their mouth. I guess upper middle class/RP is the ideal for English language learners, but it is also the accent of colonialism, so I embrace my drawl, and just speed up/move my mouth more/clip my tones slightly, if needed to help someone understand me
@@me0375 accent of colonialism? I didn't know you have those😁 what's important to us is we can understand you. Other than the upper class man accent we also like the Philippine English accent because it's understandable too.
@@stephanielim5544 ha it’s just a reference to a lot of the British in senior posts in the old Empire would all have had the upper class public school accent, and it’s still a thing between the English where that accent indicates success, power, etc and a regional accent is looked down on as part of our class divides ie someone calls me a peasant because of my accent, I call them a colonial oppressor because of theirs... Obviously this is just an exchange between English people when we’re fighting amongst ourselves, and it’s mixed in with class, identity, regional inequality etc. I think things are changing very slowly, but RP is the best accent to learn, and in terms of conversing with non-native speakers then I occasionally channel more Hugh Grant and less Liam Gallagher, same as in the US it’s just more convenient to use the American pronunciation to be get what you need quicker.
I know a couple of Philippine people and yes their accent is lovely, I wonder if it’s down to the standard phonetics taught in their school system perhaps, or maybe that the sounds and mouth shapes of the Phillipine language are harmonious when applied to English words
@@me0375 humans 😁, I didn't even know your accent is connected to your social status. And the Philippine language are more harmonious when applied to English because we pronounce the word as it is, so it's easy for non native English speakers to understand and learn the Philippine English accent.
I totally agree with you
As a non-native English speaker, this is the accent that is clearest and easiest to understand.
you win liao
All foreigners: “oh that’s English”
Most English: “oh those fancy southerners”
“Southern puffs” has literally been on repeat through my head since this started.
We northerners call them southern fairy as in gay.... And they call us Northern monkeys as in poor and dirty. Yeh we can't stand the South Englanders. At all. 😂😂
@@christina7215 I like them much more than the Welsh, Scots and Irish though... at least they are English.
@Samuel Clark “seeing as”
Rose Leslie is from Aberdeenshire! Doesn't sound much like it though...
Everyone: *(speaks in sophistication, class, refined, pristine)*
Mr. Bean: *Teeeeeeddddyyy...(inaudible murmurs and chuckles)*
We all speak like mr bean irl. Every year there is a national holiday where we dress like him and exchange mr bean lore with one another
@@PennyWenny224 that's sounds fun :)
😂😂 funnily enough, Rowan Atkinson who plays Mr. Bean speaks has a very posh English accent too
@@lalruatpuiikhiangte7030 yes :) his duality from *Rowan Atkinson* who is a respected CBE appointed by the Queen to *Mr.Bean* who is so adorable and much loved for his comedy :)
😂😂😂
I don't understand why ordinary English people don't like upper-class posh English. I find it very pleasant to hear and easy to understand.
The reason ordinary or lower class British people don't like upper class or aristocratic English speakers, is that such perfect sounds make those who are blighted with a more vulgar voice feel disadvantaged - and they are. Received pronunciation is the greatest potential leveller available. Listen and learn.
@@puccini4530 Drivel
The accent is often followed by a sense of exceptionalism, entitlement and contempt for "common" people.
@@puccini4530 If this is really so, everyone would learn this since childhood.
@@puccini4530 In my country i was born in a city where it's considered to be the default language accent/dialect whatever it is you call. Everywhere else, most obvious around the borders of the country, where you can hardly understand it, even thought its technically considered native language still. This posh english here i can understand plain as day and there are british accents i need to think for 3 second for each word to get the meaning.
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him." George Bernard Shaw
Ahh, the Irish certainly have a way with the words - especially when they’re English (the words, not the Irish)...
Yes, Envy is a bastard!!
@@hattiespicer9735 No Jealousy is a bastard it turns people green, sly and nasty. Envy on the otherhand is not a bastard and doesn't turn people green, sly or nasty. Envy makes people strive and want to achieve and do better. It is not the bastard, jealousy is the bastard, the elephant in the room, the destroyer of soul and behaviour and turns people bitter and twisted crippling them.
Thank you thank you thank you, I have been trying to remember who said this for years!!!
@@rjwalker1726 lol you're welcome! It's really annoying, isn't it? Kind of related: there's an advert for a gym on LBC radio where the lyrics are spoken and there's a line which I can't make out and is really annoying me. It sounds like "lift my toddler"!!!
This made me realize that I've never heard Kate talk before. XD
ME TOO
Me too
Same
@03UPLB Ikr?
She's not supposed to. In almost every interview, she speaks after her husband & if she's by herself, she makes a pre-fixed speech. Mostly she laughs in front of the camera especially for the camera stills.
My cat suddenly started pouring her self a glass of red wine while I played this....
*purring?
😂🤣
😂😂😂
Best comment 👌😂😂🐈⬛🍷
Red Wine? Shouldn't it be Earl Grey Tea?
Surprisingly, they all sound very clear and easy to understand. For some reason, I expected that the more upper-class British person is, the less legible and more ostentatious his speech is.
I think it somehow works vice versa 🤭when i watched Misfits, I remember Kelly (Lauren Socha) talking cockney (i think it was cockney) and it was hard to understand sometimes. While people talking posh English are more clear to me.
On the contrary! They actually speak the proper-dictionary-Shakespeare English. Whereas regional accents or lower class like cockney are quite hard to understand for non-natives
I agree with you. That accent is very clear and nice to hear.
Really? I never thought that ever. The more lower class they are, the more slang and jargon there is and the harder it is to understand. I meant look at Cockney or MLE.
Ummm.... I think it’s the opposite. The more high class, the clearer the speech, and the lower the class the more unintelligible the speech. Eg. Cockney.
Fun fact about Tilda Swinton: she belongs to the Swinton Family, which is one of only three that could trace its unbroken land ownership and lineage to before the Norman conquest, making it one of the oldest landed families in Britain.
That's good to know
Thanks!
I'm okay
That is actually quite interesting.
Uuu Thanks!! Interesting
I adore what was called the mid-Atlantic accent. It was supposed to be acquired if you were raised not in England or in the US, but somewhere in between in a mythical land out among the waves. Wonderful examples were English actors who sought work on the New York stage or in Hollywood. Cary Grant and Claude Raines - now those were accents! On the American side we had Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, John Barrymore as well as Groucho’s favorite Margaret Dumont. This sound used to signify sophistication.
My favorite dialect of all time😫so good
@@notgadotit’s spelt differently in different places
You cannot acquire a mid-Atlantic accent, no one has it naturally. It was taught to actors and singers because it travels over radio and speakers better.
@@Currentlyprocrastinating37I believe that was what the original commenter meant. It's not an accent that one develops naturally; but it's acquired by being specifically taught.
I love it too. It's probably my favorite English language accent
Katherine Hepburn had a very pretentious, overly exaggerated New England accent. I had seen every adaptation of Little Women except for hers. The third time she said "MAHHHmee",
I turned off the video.
I’ll be honest, this is probably the first time I’ve actually heard Princess Kate talk
Edit: OKAY I GET IT, SHES NOT PRINCESS KATE. CAN YALL LEAVE ME ALONE NOW. Thanks for the likes btw :)
It's taken her this long to learn.
@@trollop_7 her first speech was in 2012 and her video messages began in 2013
How? She gives speeches a lot
@@HG-zm4qg yup, at least 2-4 a year + video messages
@a user I think the thing with royals is that they are supposed to be heard but they're also supposed to listen first. Like we had Meghan talking all over the place... but on things like how difficult her life was whilst visiting africa
Yes but how do they pronounce the word "penguin" ?
its "pengwinG" XD
They..or Benedict? =)
This made me giggle
🤣🤣🤣🤣
🤣🤣🤣
To be completely fair, these accents may not be as much a product of their social class, but a necessity of the type of positions these people are in. Royals, politicians, actors, etc. are in positions where they need to have very clear and precise diction as a part of their work, and so they may have developed this style of speaking over time
Cumberbatch is way out of line here.
Not really...most of these actors and politicians come from rich/posh families
Besides not all of the accents in this video are 'upper-class'
Wrong. Also a product of their social class.
Exactly.
No they are all from upper class backgrounds in this instance anyway
These accents are fairly different one from another, but by and large they are very close to my own. However, I am in no way upper class, I am just a man of 71 who managed to acquire an excellent education for free from primary school, grammar school and university, when access was the result of passing examinations, not location or wealth. I was very frugal and saved a good deal of my university grant, that I received as a result of the very low income of my parents.
Rule, Britannia!
It is to be said that these accents are not hard to come by, especially when in the face of copying techniques modern say associates with.
One actually speaks more like one's peers than one's parents (think children of Australian parents who live in the UK). Received Pronunciation was/is a major part of schooling.
@@RcsN505 You think they teach RP at Mile End primary?
Don't you just love those crystal clear vowels and consonants.
I still don't understand what they are saying . Because half of the time they don't make sense, even though they are easy to understand.
It is like they are singing poetry.
@@LittleKittyCat don’t watch then
@@maiholden5278 He is just expressing his opinion in the comment section
and you have to watch someone in order for you to find it annoying or exaggerated. In your logic you will never watch something annoying because you have to know beforehand that it is annoying and therefore not watch it
@Edo Fluit coulda expressed himself in his own original comment like I did with mine 🤷♂️
The articulation, carefully chosen vocabularies and sentence structure… this is music to the ears
This is boring as hell to listen to LOL I'd rather hear a Cockney or Belfast accent any day 😂
@@mary-catherinecroshaw6369 these two comments reflect my two main moods 😅
@@mary-catherinecroshaw6369 ok commie
To me, it sound absurdly fake
it's called haughtiness.
As a non native English teacher in a non English speaking country, how these people speak would actually be more understandable for my students 😂
This is more in line with RP (Received Pronunciation), hence much easier to be understood compared to most other region-based dialects/accents. BTW, I wonder why it's being called the "Posh accent" by some of the native English speakers, because, rather ironically too, I find it to be a much more modest, less animated/showy and neutral way of speech compared to most other dialects/accents spoken by them. I think the proper term has to be "Modern RP", in order to denote the slight deviations noticeable in certain cases from its more conventional form "RP" (or "Conventional RP") ....
Same here too
That's exactly true, but they're not normal people. As foreign language learners and instructors we have to learn and teach how *normal* native speakers of a language speak.
@@noorykorky5056 But I think this is more in line with the Received Pronunciation (RP) which is the standard for pronunciation used for the purposes of learning and teaching in most other countries. I feel that the other region-based dialects/accents used by most normal native speakers can still be much more confusing at times to others coming from different backgrounds/regions. So I think most people who're using English as their second language, despite how fluent they are, may still prefer RP.
So, why do you not use that kind of English for your students? I have always tried to teach my students high-class English, just as I have always oriented myself towards upper-class English.
The received accent aka Oxford English, Queen's English was manufactured in the private boarding schools in the 19th century.
When we say upperclass "british" we always think english but i'd love to hear some upperclass scottish, welsh, and irish examples
Edit: UK accents not British as I realise northern Ireland is not in the island of Britain
Upperclass Scottish, Welsh and Irish people speak like these examples
- not with regional accents.
@@AnnabelleJARankin Do they speak in english accents? Coz I remember when I lived in Wales when i was in primary school the "posh" families still had a welsh accent but it was more enunciated
I mean there are wealthy Scots and Welsh who speak with the regional accent but it's no different from the lower class people. The aristocracy in Scotland all speak upper class English. Rose Leslie was brought up in Scotland
Rose Leslie is upper class Scots. Her father is Chief of the Clan Leslie. Upper class Scots ,Welsh, and Irish all sound like the people in the clip above because they went to the same sort of Boarding Schools (private fee-paying schools) such as Eton and Harrow and the huge variety of other private schools (known as Public Schools) in the UK.
@@AnnabelleJARankin upper class dublin accents are embarassing. Look up "Blackrock greatest horseplay of all time"
would be nice if you put other "low class" accents just to compare
Ewww, why would we want to hear that?? jkjk
@@Bathala7Khan why not?
@@invalidavatar they said jk
I think there is just one upper class accent, but each area has its own lower class accent.
@@cobaltmc7742 oop..
Want to speak upper class?
A) How to speak
Speak like you have a hot egg in your mouth.
B) Use the correct vocabulary, for example:
Say Lavatory (not Toilet)
Say Alcohol (not Booze)
Say Film (not Movie)
Say I'm finished (not I'm done)
Say May I have (not Can I get)
C) Position
You sound better if you stand up (that's why singers usually stand up when they sing)
D) Speed
Speak slowly, but not too slowly. Never speak fast, not even in an emergency
E) Interupt others
Never
No you say loo not lavatory
No you say loo not lavatory in the UK.
Everything I get but the hot egg... can't do it. lol
Whoa, I can speak British
@@christinet6336 While living in Germany I was told that English sounds as if we're talking with a hot potato in our mouths. Any English - regardless of where you're from, so you are probably already doing the hot egg thing :-)
As an Indian I could hardly tell whose accent was classier, but one definitely melted in my ears and that was of Tom Hiddleston.......what a voice and perhaps what an accent !!! 😍😍😍
What an actor! 😍😘
airhead
you guys have got the worst accents 💀
Phoebe waller bridge and Michelle dockery is amazing accent too
Sir Jacob-Reese Mogg.....reminds me of my grandfather's English.
I remember that we had ellocution lessons on Our Lion of Zion.
Nowadays teachers accept essays that read like mobile rubbish eg: B4 for before etc ...unbelievable 😝
As a non native I wish all english natives could speak as clearly as them.
Yuppp
Yes
It's subjective.
South Africans sound just as clear. Our accent is slightly different but very clean and clear.
No.
Tom Hiddleston, Emma Watson and Rosie Leslie speak in RP as do several others here. The only upper class ones were Prince Charles, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Sumpton. There's a noticeable difference, for an English person like me, between upper class English and Received Pronunciation
For a non English speaker living in a non English country, they are all very difficult to understand, compared to, let´s say, American English. British E. is almost impossible without subtitles at least for me. Let alone recognize the posh ones from the non-posh, although the first ones are a little worse in terms of clarity, maybe bc the speakers seem to have a potato in their mouths.
You mean estuary not RP, practically nobody has an RP accent anymore not even the queen. I guess you could classify it as non regional standard English, with rising inflection. It greatly varies from case to case though
@@lugm1034 bruh try Scottish English. They're lovely people but I couldn't understand shit without subtitle lmao
1,000,000% agree with op these are all beautiful accents but they are a mix of upper class, southern, and received pronunciation (RP)
@@jeanpierrecarabas5508 too bad he's an evil monster of a human being
Only Prince Charles and Lord Sumption have proper "upper class" accents. The rest are standard RP. You can tell the difference by how they pronounce certain vowels.
I would say Tilda Swinton and Rose Leslie also. The Duchess of Cambridge has very middle class vowel sounds.
@@Missfrankiecat If George VI had heard the Duchess of Cambridge's voice he'd have wondered why she was speaking Cockney.
thAnk you, for some reason this really bugged me
Yeah this video is slightly misleading.
Lord Sumption speaks classic RP as do most, if not all, sitting judges of the UK Supreme Court and the Bar. Lawyers are communicators first and foremost and RP has been the lingua franca of the legal profession throughout the latter half of the 20th-century till now. Notable exceptions include the late Lord Elwyn-Jones, a Welsh speaker, and Lord Mackay, a Scot, both of whom spoke/speak beautiful English with a faint Welsh lilt and a more pronounced Scottish accent respectively. Mr Justice Mars-Jones was a Welsh speaker who spoke classic RP without a trace of his Welsh roots. He had a beautiful bass-baritone voice which he would use to admonish Counsel in open court if they dared to mispronounce a Welsh city, town or village. The town of Tonypandy caught out most members of the Bar who had crossed the Severn Bridge to attend Assizes and Quarter Sessions in the Principality. Mr Justice Mars-Jones waited patiently on the bench, ready to pounce...
Lovely to listen to, clear and warm.
Tom's accent has bewitched me since Crimson Peak movie.
Same☺
@@bananiadhikari7116 His accent is put on. It's fake.
@@deb7412 I think he went to RADA, so I'd call it 'enhanced' rather than fake, as I think he's also from a fancy family, went to Eton etc
He was excellent in The Night Manager
@@deb7412 why do you think so?
In defense of accents. It’s not necessarily that they’re speaking clearly, but more of, that the English taught is more like how they speak than everyone else. It’s the literature we read and study because the upper class recorded their language for everyone, but the isolated groups did not.
Not really though, upper class people just speak exactly as words are pronounced, your argument that we all get taught their English doesn’t work because we all take shortcuts etc when talking and use slang
@@sampowell1649 But the thing is, language evolves and things like pronunciation, grammar, and spelling change to reflect that. You can even see that with how standard english slightly varies between the different English speaking countries. A standard is only kept so long as a majority decides it to be that way. So as long as the majority decides the aforementioned work the way they do, then everything else becomes irregular and informal.
This is also why there are regular conversations in academics that decide what is acceptable in writing because language is not perfectly static or uniform.
I’d like to know. Is that how they speak at home? Or do they have a home accent and that’s just how they talk in public?
@@betmowinmo1292 That is how we speak at home too.
Really? Last time I checked Scots Dialect has been recorded in books and poetry for thousands of years! And still is today. An Robert Burns has his own day to celebrate his written works in Scots.
You can even read writings in the old Yorkshire dialect so NOT TRUE!
But the issue is PR is taught in School which can be confusing for child who start school and have a regional accent. Trust me I know, that happened to me, the first time I saw RP written was at school at 5 years old, I was so confused!
One of the most interesting pronunciations of these examples is Kate Middleton's "parrents and carrers" (i.e. "parents and carers") - this is a quintessentially extreme upper class affectation that you won't hear from anyone below the very highest level of British aristocracy. It's definitely testament to people's inclination to acquire accents that confer social status even in the upper social strata - her own "parrents" pronunciation is certainly not that rarefied!
Her accent is a bit mixed. It’s classic middle class Home Counties for the most part, then, as you say, ‘parents and carers’.
first of the examples NOT to sound upper class
I thought "parrots and carrots" when I heard it. It was confusing at first but when I look at the comment section it makes my confusing brain shut down 😅.
i dont agree i think she had a more human democratic inflection, more gentle intonation than the other speakers
She sounds as if she's trying a bit too hard
I think I fell in love with Jacob Rees-Mogg accent. it's gorgeous and so aristocratic for my ears!
Posh accent may sounds snobby to native English speakers, but to a non-native spear like me it sounds absolutely beautiful.
I can recognize Boris' voice with my eyes closed
actually he's not british, to begin with.
@@drugaddicter he is African
@@billcipher8447 no he isn't😂 he was born in new York
recognize his accent or recognize his voice?
@@ryanireland2201 still British. Place of birth doesn't determine nationality in Europe.
Not all British people speak like this, I know, but Now I envy people who speak the way they do. And it's not only the accent, but how eloquent their words are. 😚
Those who are from South , they definitely do sound like these people above.
Rose Leslie is Scottish and if you have ever heard local Scottish accent , you know how difficult it is to understand.
N.A,
I agree.
It is not only pronunciation, but a far better vocabulary.
Another point of interest : no " You know " and " I mean " !
Me too. Haha but it's a difficult accent to imitate, I must say it.
@@JonSnow-pi6jb I think Tilda is Scottish too. And Tom is half-scottish.
Oh come on, there is nothing wrong with speaking with an accent, it's what makes the British Isles so unique and interesting. I would hate it if everybody spoke posh
1:00 Too bad Boris Johnson's upper-class accent didn't come with an upper-class haircut.
Too Bad it didn't come with any Moral Code of Conduct too !!
Apparently he had his awful haircut on purpose, to make his appearance the butt of jokes instead of his awful governance and lack of ethics
Phoebe Waller-Bridge sounds like a lot of middle class people from southern England. I pretty much sound like that and I'm definitely not upper class! The aristocracy accent that the first few people had is different
What is "upper-class" is the accent, not the person. Meaning that the accent is mostly associated with the upper-class, but is most definitely not exclusive to them.
My former husband is from the Wiltshire area. He has a wonderful accent. a lot like some of these. Articulate and easy to understand.
I was surprised when I heard Harry speak recently. He doesn't have the same aristocratic accent that Charles does.
Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have deliberately cultivated old-style accents as part of their personal brands.
That's what I was thinking.......alot of these examples sound like a middle-class, south-east England accent ( maybe Kent or surrey).
That's why I love listening to Tom Hiddleston, he speaks audibly good
Im a simple girl, i see Benedict and Tom i click.
This is haraaam in Islam you are being too promiscuous
@@antiracistbaby1085 using internet is haram , please disconnect and go to a cave
@@antiracistbaby1085 maybe she's not Muslim
@@antiracistbaby1085 Ikr, that kinda language belongs on pornhub
Facts
Fun fact: Rose Leslie was raised at Lickleyhead *CASTLE* in Aberdeenshire, her family's 15th-century ancestral seat, where she lived until the age of 10. Her father, Sebastian Arbuthnot-Leslie, is the Aberdeenshire Chieftain of *Clan Leslie*
Her castle looks like a normal house these days, tbf.
@@umartdagnir Yes. But, that castle has a lot of history.
@@umartdagnir Okay but what do you imagine Scottish castles look like lol... Very few castles in the world look like something from fantasy. They can't all be like Karlstejn Castle in Bohemia. Most of the time all that remains of the original castle is buried under additions and updates by subsequent generations.
@@woudgy The National Trust ensures that any new additions must correlate with what went before.
@@matthewjamison hahaha, the National Trust was only created at the end of the 19th century. Are you a North American?
When Boris Johnson speaks he does these pauses every 3 words or so that sound as if he's out of breath all the time.
It takes him a little longer than most to read and speak
Kinda annoying
Heavy set fellow
He's rather chubby. And corona probably didn't improve his breathing either...
Believe it or not, that's part of the accent.
Benedict Cumberbatch's voice is my favorite male voice, he relax me so much uwu
I think Tom Hiddleston's is more relaxing.
Wtf
His pronunciation of "telly" was a giveaway.
Pengwing
I also find baritonal voices more reassuring. Tenor voices make me nervous for some reason.
As an Indian, this is the most understandable accent to me💯
Sometime i laughs when i heard indian speaking english with their indian accent... I find it comedic. As for singaporean speaking english, its nasty it hurts my ears.
@@eduardadhi110 the stereotypical indian accent is indeed very funny lol🤣👍🏻
I’m an American; I rather like the Standard Indian English accent. I think it’s deserving of a lot more respect and prestige than what it’s usually given. I love that English is a pluricentric language.
It's the same here in Sri Lanka. When the Brits colonised us South Asians, they sent their high class people here and the colonised people learnt English from them. That's why Received Pronunciation is the desired accent in South Asia.
@@eduardadhi110 cry
It really boggles the mind how unstable the pronunciation of vowels is in any number of languages, but English takes the cake.
I'm still amazed by the fact that in Shakespearean times spelling/orthography actually had a purpose and the words were spoken much closer to the way they were written. Realizing that the spelling of the English words is an actual historical record of how they were spoken some 3 or 4 centuries ago is fascinating.
Totally true. The great vowel shift made a mess
Old English was essentially Old German with some foreign elements in it. While German remained fairly stable and unchanged in its facilities and inner workings, English was fucked up by the influx of so many Latin and French words, and later losing most of its Indogermanic grammar.
@@bobbwc7011 english still has more german effect in it
@@bobbwc7011 Before 1066 English was essentially Dutch now
Only Prince Charles' is upper class (aristocratic). The others are what the British call Received Pronunciation. It is an accent that was refined during the television era for clarity and ease of understanding. It is most commonly found amongst the middle / upper middle classes, predominately in theatre and in politics.
I have heard that Charles speak with a pure RP accent not the modern RP. I guess most of them on the list speak with modern RP
yes but anyway trying hard)
Thank you for defining them. I wondered when and how that happened.
And the upper class accent - otherwise known as 'Queen's English' or 'King's English' - actually has its roots in Germany. It's often attributed to Prince Albert - legend has it that it was actually how he spoke English with his heavy German accent, so Victoria, out of loyalty, adjusted some of her speech patterns to not make his accent stand out so much in public, and it gradually became associated as being the 'Royal' accent. However, there were German Royals on the English throne as far back as the Hanoverian family (i.e. the multiple Georges,) so it could have had its roots as far back as then.
Kate, as lovely as she sounds, doesn't actually have an upper class accent. She is more middle class.
You're quite right, very middle class. Mind you, accents change. Try watching news reports from the '40's, 50's and 60's.
Well of course. It's Kate Middleton, not Upperton
@@coolbeans5911: Cool comment, cool beans! 😀
@@coolbeans5911 I laughed so much at this!
@@coolbeans5911 you witty genious!
Lord Sumption's accent is just sublime.
I'm a native of Japan although just recently became a American citizen. I've been speaking
English for over 50 years now and considered bi-lingual.
To me the posh English is the easiest to understand as it is spoken crisp and each word can be easily separated and defined for a non native ears.
Don't get me wrong but I can hear many different accents of English speakers although some
are quite unique and need some adjusting time before I start understanding the speaker.
I do love hearing these different accents though, I must add.
yeah i can understand everyone in this video way more than some of the irish people ive listened too. im a native american english speaker out of the midwest.
🇯🇵🇺🇸🍷
BARILOCHE
VILLA LA ANGOSTURA
SAN MARTIN DE LOS ANDES
USHUAIA
A R G E N T I N A
@@rarecandy3445
CHILE ARGENTINA
THE SKANDINAVIA OF SOUTH AMERICA
As an Indian Idk why they call it Upperclass English accent
Its the Most Understandable English...
and thats how means of communication should be , ie a language should be
The Duchess of Cambridge isn't upper class, she's from a wealthy middle class family but married into an upper class one. I've noticed Americans often equate class with money and how you speak, and those are components, but ultimately your class stems from your family background and upbringing. For example, you can be middle class, or upper middle class and be struggling financially, but your educational background, upbringing and outlook will still be very much in evidence.
So in other words “new money”? I think of Kate as high class as would many Americans.
That's what class means, socially, in North America though. Not wrong, just different. You can be a different class than your parents here, higher or lower. Yet a third definition of economic class, the Marxist definition, is your relationship to the means of production and whether you primarily make money for others or for yourself; whether or not you are selling your labour to someone else. In this definition there is no middle class, only working class and capitalist class.
her mother was a cabin crew and her father a catering manager is that not upper class?
@@damocles2240 I thought they owned some party business?
@@mary-catherinecroshaw6369 That's largely a correct characterization of Marx's class analysis, but he also characterized a third group: artisans who are entirely self-employed and who do not exploit the labour power of others to generate surplus value.
I could listen to tilda swinton talk all day. That woman's voice is liquid silk ♥️
This entire video sounds fantastic. My ears are so happy after hearind this.
Cheese burger
Only 20% of british people speak this eloquently these days.
@@ryanhuntrajput474 In my experience in professional situation we talk like that but it's a complete other story when we are on our own XD it also just develops when we get older
No we don't. We Americans read British literature, watch British tv and movies, listen to British audio books and at the very least have seen My Fair Lady and know that there are a multitude of British accents. Please don't add to the canard that Americans are all rubes.
@@ryanhuntrajput474 isnt it called posh
@@braemtes23 where you born in America or somewhere else
I find the way Jacob,Tilda,Benedict and rose speaks so amusing. It's not just their accent, but also the voice and intonation
Rose is so frickin posh, her accent in GoT was pretty decent though to be fair
Music to my ears, so clear and easy to understand
I love that accent ❤️❤️ something so classy about it and very easy for me to understand
I’ve been driving my husband crazy speaking in this accent since binge watching The Crown. It drives him absolutely mad. (In my English accent. 😂 I’m from New Jersey btw 😆)
I am from Philadelphia and people think I have an accent.....lol
Don't stop
🤣
@@donnabittner69 🤣🤣🤣
Now I desperately want to hear what someone from New Jersey speaking in a posh British accent is like
One of the funniest days in my life was on my first trip to London, I decided to stop into a hair salon to get an "everyday taste of life" as lived by the people-of-color (mainly black) British. All the ladies were very friendly, lovely, curious about this (me) American black girl who strolled into their salon. The funny part? After speaking with them for several minutes, one finally had the nerve to say aloud what all of them had been thinking...and with a very polite giggle, she said (in a very polished British accent): "You have such a phony accent!" THEY thought my midwestern American accent was PHONY!!! Can you imagine that? Well, of course, we all laugh about it, and continued our very fine "getting to know you" afternoon. I laugh about it 'till this day....and that was some 40 years ago.
I would have been pissed!! LOL
@@nkwari LOL! But hey, it's a big world...full of piss and sugar. Gotta take each in workable doses, so the glory and wonder of it all can be truly appreciated.
Could it be that they have said “funny” instead? Just asking.
@@jiula Well, given my possibly flawed hearing of the British accent....you might very well have a point. I 'spose the midwestern American accent is kinda funny...but loveable. LOL!
Ahh, in British English, we definitely don't say the word "phony" they probably said "funny" and meant it in a way of meaning different! Anyway, yes can imagine it was a thing to have a laugh over either way! x
Prince Charles has the best posh accent periodt. He has such a crispy voice 😂
0:40 this man lastname its literally rizz-mogg omg
Lmaooo 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Perfectly clear, absolutely elegant, sounds like music.
I love Tom Hiddleston’s voice.
Same….. it truly does things to me 😂🤣😂
I'm amazed how Lord Sumption has a good diction despite he seems to be full of nerves
His accent is very much RP and not snobbish at all.
Take away the ‘tion’ out of diction
@@mysillyusername his is the most pleasant to listen to. So unaffected.
I could listen to Rose Leslie all day. I love her voice.
I'm Scottish and have spent my adult life working around the world. Just by virtue of having to ensure I'm enunciating words clearly in order to be understood, I've pretty much lost my accent and am constantly asked where I'm from when home (as well as accused of being 'posh' haha).
Yes but I bet you still drink Special Brew for breakfast.
@@simonb2109 Never tried it. Love a can of piña colada from Morrisons, though.
Yes, because it can be damned hard to understand a Scot, though I absolutely love hearing them speak.
I ran management training for more than 30 years. In one programme we had a Scotsman with lovely English, but the Europeans in the group had a lot of trouble understanding him. I told him it wasn't his fault, but other people in the group had little or no experience with the Scottish accent.
As a person living in a country where we have TOEFL tests, for me personally I love the British English accent more than the American, cause they are more articulate in the words. American English use more drag in the sounds of their words and sometimes it can be hard. I grew up learning American English and I wanted to change it into British English but its so hard to do cause everyone around me uses American English rather than British :")
Same here! And then I feel super weird when trying to practice my British accent in front of people :(
@@hadasm5033 I know! They always ask why do I talk like that :")
I did a full 180 in the middle of my second year in university. My accent was a mixture of American and British English. When one of my professors criticized me, i decided to switch to british because everybody was doing American. At first, i was laughed at and made fun of in the class. To the point that i didn't want to speak or read anything. It was as if my classmates were waiting for me to speak.
Later, in about two months, i got praises from my professors, one of them even thought i had lived in England before. when he realized i had been practicing for a few months, he was impressed, i even got a job offer from him at my last year.
I had classmates whom i wasn't close with text or talk to me in the class about how i had learnt the accent which resulted in friendships. In shared classes with other majors, i had people turning around to look at me ( mind you, English is a foreign language in my country and my level of proficiency is very rare).
What I'm trying to say is, it made me stand out. It did initially had its down falls but, slowly things got better.
So, if you like the accent, dive head first and have fun.
Objectively: American English is more comprehensible because overall they have fewer dialects, fewer variations, and AE is a lot less melodic and more monotonous than British English, especially the so-called "Network English" of the news channels. Yes, British English is more fun and more elegant, but not as easy to understand since Brits use so much more modulation, pitch changes etc. than Muricans.
I'm more familiar with the British accent than the American accent cause we were colonised by the Brits.
Prince charles nails it. He's like the final boss, the kind old guide, the senior healer all in one
Jacob Rees-Mogg's accent was the most satisfyign tbh, and Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge and Emma Watson too!! love emma so much
Me to the pizza lady when I first arrived in the UK : Can I have a slice of that one, to go, please.
The pizza lady : To go where?
Go home. We don't want you here
@@christina7215 . Should not start first . This is karma!
I'm a german and when my friend from England posted an image of the english football team, stating they are all working class people, i was like "WAIT A SECOND!!! how can they be working class, earning millions" thats when i got to know that, unlike in Germany, where you actual current status determs what you are, in England it's more like "you are born working class, so you will remain working class, even if you earn millions now and live in a big villa, driving a ferrari"
Well, they still earn millions. So does it matter which class they are?
Whats the point of categorization if thats the case
@@meiris-ma it's just a different approach in our societies. As my friend from England said. In England you are born into a class, in germany you're class is determined by what you earn, your influence or power. Basicly what lifestyle you can afford. FOR EXAMPLE, if a person was born into a poor household but now earn millions, most poor people will say "he is non of us anymore, he reached a higher social status"
@@JustAToeBee aw
I do not understand how it works. Is it kind of like social discrimination? Is that really matter in your daily life? I have never heard of this. Can you kindly explain more?
@@tomuraharashi3387 no not really, but if you earn million it doesn't matter if you are born into a poor household, if you won the jackpot in the lottery, if you are a native german or have migrant background. You are a millionaire now, nobody will care anymore about your social upbringing. OFCOURSE it's also true other way around. If you are born very wealthy but you lose all your money and become homeless, you are not in that social class anymore.
Damn watching that second clip of british politics, makes the state of the current US government look like it’s being run by the World Wrestling Federation.
🤣🤣🤣
@ tune into our politics now. It’s people yelling hyperbole and dangerous wording that is constantly heard by crazy people who then act on them. I’d prefer some nice slow boring british style politicking thanks lol
@Anacott Steel I’m an actual American. Saying stupid shit does not equal effective political moves. It gives us trump. Now that he’s out, we have to deal with the fallout of dumbass trump republicans who are peddling crazy conspiracy theories such as, the opposite party eats baby’s. And no I’m not making that up
This is because you were looking at the House of Lords. Trust me, the British parliament is FARRRRR worse.
@@olbiomoiros Nah, the british parliament is quite admirable compared to the american or other countries’ political arenas.
Only the first three individuals were examples of upper-class British accents -- King (formerly Prince) Charles, Lord Sumption and Jacob Rees-Mogg. It is a pleasure to hear English spoken that way. The remaining, including the Duchess of Wales (formerly Cambridge) -- who sounds as if she went to a grammar school and not a public school -- may be posh, but are not upper class.
What "class" are we talking about? England is very much a third world country, Great Britain is a country that never was and just plundered its way around other developing countries? It has accents perhaps but certainly not class.
Rose Leslie's dad is a clan chieftain and she's a descendent of King Charles II. She grew up in a castle in Scotland. She's absolutely upper class. Her family tree is full of people with titles.
I‘m not a native English speaker and personally I think THIS is by far the prettiest English accent out of all😍 it sounds so nice
Emma Watson's accent is everything to me.
You can keep that bit of her then.
@@trollop_7 Trying ....
I would say actresses Gemma Chan and Cate Blanchett also have quite nice upper class-esque accents. I think it also has to do with the natural pitch of their voice which is deeper and richer that adds to the appeal of hearing them speak. So even though it may not be textbook upper class, those factors contribute to them sounding so.
Cate Blanchett is actually Australian but def agree about Gemma Chan 😊
Cate Blanchett sounds like a posh Aussie (she has the cultivated Aussie accent), but in no way is she a Brit.
@@notgadotCatherine Zeta Jones has a Welsh accent
@@thomsboys77 wonderful. I saw her crying when the queen died.
Jacob Rees-Mogg .... the mellow richness of his voice, and the rhythm and cadence of the King's English as it flowed from his lips, greatly impressed me.
Just a shame that for the most part he spouts absolute vitriol and is so spectacularly out of touch with the normal Briton that he is unbearable.
@@annonymous9439 My dear Ann, as for Jacob Rees-Mogg, again, a most genteel figure, a graceful noble air, a harmonious voice, an elegancy of style, and a strength of emphasis, conspired to make him the most affecting, persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever heard.
Interesting- some differ from others very subtly, some less subtly, but I found it hard all the same to differentiate most. Emma Watson's accent has always struck me as much more 'posh' than that of her co stars, even Daniel Radcliffe, but her accent has more edge to it than that of some of the other female performers here. Rose Leslie I have never heard speak without a performance accent, so that was interesting. I expected more Scottish, but I think I heard some.
Emma speaks in RP which is different from an upper class accent. Her parents are well off but she wouldn't be considered upper class by the true meaning of that term in the UK (which is different than North America; she was definitely raised upper class by our standards). This is probably not the accent she had as a child either but it's somewhat refined for public speaking.
Daniel's dad is from Northern Ireland so he didn't have a hope in hell of coming out with a posh English accent and honestly we love that for him.
@@mary-catherinecroshaw6369 I laughed at the last bit about Daniel Radcliffe.
@@forgoogletotrack7181 jungle man
When Lord Sumption speaks I felt like I was immediately transported into a historical film.
i found their English easy to understand n comprehend. also they don't rush.. calm n composed.. poised..
I'll say the first 3 are genuine upper class accents.
I wish you would have included Joanna Lumley, love her voice such a nice relaxing tone!
Sounds forced.
So, tom hiddleston come from upper class society..i loved the way he talk.
He's more middle class but he went to Eton, Cambridge and RADA, so yeah, he sounds quite posh. But what is really extraordinary about him is not so much his accent, it is his voice. Clearly one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard.
@@aramis5301
Yeah ! 😅😂
Yes, Tom has a mellifluous voice like warm honey. Tom, whatever his roots, is certainly now an erudite, sophisticated individual, as evidenced by the fact that he speaks MANY languages well. (There is a RUclips video of him speaking different languages.)
I love clear English accents. Every one featured is beautiful.
I'm almost 89. I grew up in England from the age of 4 and came to the US in 1962. I learned to speak English as a young child and once I lost my Austrian accent spoke what was known as BBC English and I still do.
my mother came from Austria and spoke very correctly . when young she was sent to a convent In england to learn to speak. nobody knew she wasn't english.
Upper class people sounds like they have potatoes stuffed into their mouths 😂 but they somehow sound much clearer
Prince Charles accent is my favourite one. Also, I love Tilda Swinton and everything about her.
I love Jacob's voice and diction because he sounds like my late grandfather.
Aptly called: BBC, RP, Oxford English.
I wish the whole of the country spoke this way. It’s quite lovely and pleasant. Some of the rubbish that spews from mouths is an affront to my ears.
In my opinion, what makes un upper class language is not the accent but the clarity in the spoken speech (accent included). Upper class characters use a similar structural patterns of the written language (lenth of sentences, where does an idea start and when does it end, summarizing strategy....). The use they make of the language is, somehow, influenced by their large experience in "using elaborated speech" and "communicative strategies".
Lower class language use it to convey simple meaning in ordinary everyday's situations... unlike "higher class" that uses language as a "work tool" (arguing, convencing, debating lows, diplomatic négociations..etc.).
*summariSing
@@notgadot both are correct
As a non native english speaker, yes they are more understandable but it's very hard to replicate that accent. When I was a teenager, it was a real problem, because I was learning to speak english and it was a struggle. You can even develop a sort of complex, until i realized people of Liverpool, Newcastle, in fact most people of UK didn't speak like that. Since then, I understood accent is not an issue, to be understandable is the real goal.
The first 2-3 old chaps have what would be called a posh/upper-class accent (Prince Charles’ is even more isolated, as the royal family have a very specific, almost archaic pronunciation). The majority of the actors and entertainers in this video speak RP (received pronunciation), which is what people usually understand as “the Queen’s English” and is what normally is known as an “British accent”, but it has little to do with the upper class.
JRM has the poshest accent of all including HRH. Bit like the Queen v Thatcher
So elegant and clear !! Without « you know » in the midle of each sentence !!
I had no clue Kate Middleton sounded like that. I knew she went to fancy schools but didn’t expect her voice to sound like that.
I think she got posher when she joined the RF.
She was rich from the start
@@yt-wx5bw You mean her parents were rich? Lol
Kate does speak well.
But I think that she has a ‘ thin voice ‘ if you know what I mean .
In time she will find ‘ her ‘ correct level of pitch.
But at moment just a bit ‘ thin ‘ sounding .
( in the nicest possible way of course ) 😂
Yeah this is the first time I've actually heard her voice lol😂😂😂
Lord Sumption has that soothing accent that you hear in every narrated kids book
I missed Hugh Grant in this. I find his as the best posh accent, not least because he doesn’t seem to give a toss about it :)
Of course I am more than interested in British RP accent. I like the way Brits are talking, since as I'm a South African, the English we use here is very similar to British RP accent
Well, I have to admit as a non-English person I understand everything. I always struggle to understand the pronunciation of other English people but they pronounced every word. Great!
High brow spoken English can, when called upon, be used to imply threat, menace and warning. A useful tool for those who hold certain societal positions. And, of course, the accent is wonderfully expressive for certain artistic descriptions.
Haha touché
Yes that's right! Some of us Brits find that fairly amusing!@ladyprudence6
Thank you so much for the excellent and helpful video! We love British accents!
Charles has a beautiful timbre and voice
From an American point of view, this is the most understandable accent.