Foreign visitors to the UK might be disappointed when they learn that not everyone there speaks like Harry Potter and his friends. Usually, there's an assumption by many non-Brits that everyone in Britain speaks with an accent known as Received Pronunciation (RP, 标 准 发 音 ), also called the "Queen's English" . However, while many people do talk this way, most Britons speak with their own regional accents.
Scouse, Glaswegian and Black Country dialect—from Liverpool, Glasgow and the West Midlands—are just three of the countless non-RP accents that British people speak with. There are even differences in accents between towns or cities just 30 kilometers apart. What is even more disappointing is that not speaking with the RP accent may mean a British person is judged and even treated differently in their everyday life.
In a 2015 study by the University of South Wales, videos of a group of people reading a passage with three different UK accents were shown to a second group of people. The second group then rated how intelligent they thought the readers sounded. The lowest-rated accent was Brummie, spoken by people in Birmingham, a city whose accent is considered working-class.
However, there is no need to be disappointed though you are not speaking with the RP accent. In fact, doing the opposite may even give you strengths.
Kong Seong-jae is an Internet celebrity from Seoul. After studying in the UK, he picked up several regional accents. He's now famous for his online videos, where he shows off the various accents he's learnt. "British people usually get really excited when I use some of their local dialect words, and they become much friendlier. I think it makes a bond between local people and foreigners to speak with their local accent," he said.
So if you're working on perfecting your British accent, try to speak like someone from Liverpool, Glasgow or Birmingham. You may not sound like Harry Potter, but you are likely to make more friends.
