Learning Curve for Modern RP
Learning the modern RP accent has been quite a journey; one that I’d go on again any time. To introduce myself as a learner, I initially spent around 3 years learning Standard BE on my own, during my university studies for teaching English. While I used textbooks explaining general pronunciation rules of, mainly, individual sounds, the recordings I followed were of more traditional RP speakers, whereas my goal was to learn modern RP. Then after my post-graduate studies I had a ‘gap’ period of about 5 years following which I resumed teaching English again about a year ago. At that time, I felt my English accent needed, well, a lot of improving, since I had an accent that combined the more traditional RP features with a Czech voice placement and stress structure (imagine how I sounded). That’s why I contacted Lindsey.
Stress timed vs Syllable timed languages – some challenges
Speaking from the perspective of a Czech native speaker (whose language is syllable-timed AND synthetic), the English language in general, and the modern RP accent in particular, was a whole new world for me. And it still is the very essence of my mother tongue that continues to be the main challenge to my learning process. Since we Czechs pronounce every syllable with the same strength and length (unless it’s a tonic syllable), the main area that requires daily working on in British RP is stress timing and rhythm, as English, being a stress timed language, has much more unequal syllable lengths than Czech. Also along with the stress-timing challenges come connected-speech processes, such as learning to use ‘weak forms’, assimilation, word linking, and elision (the leaving out of certain sounds). It is especially elision and weak forms that are problematic for a Czech learner, since we don’t drop our consonants and we pronounce all vowels ‘as they are’ and don’t use the ‘schwa’ syllable at all.
English Speech Rhythm – further challenges
As speech rhythm starts with syllable and word stress, then continues into sentence stress and intonation, more and more challenges come into play. Us Czechs tend to put the main stress in a phrase (the tone unit) to let people know that this is the new information, or that it is the information that needs to be emphasized for contextual reasons. However, finding the right tone unit boundaries in an English sentence and learning about the ‘grammatical. hierarchy’ in choosing which word to stress (such as noun, verb, adjective etc) in a ‘new information’ phrase, (when all information communicated is news to the listener) these areas are completely new to a Czech. For example, the fact that nouns tend to take priority over verbs in a new information phrase. Regarding intonation, since I have a musical background, the intonation tones themselves are not a problem, although they may be for other Czech learners, since the intonation of Czech is relatively ‘flat’ and less ‘dramatic’ or ‘expressive’.
Beyond Phonetics – Learning a new Voice Placement
Another considerable challenge is that of voice placement, (the oral posture of an accent) Again, the Czech language couldn’t be any more distinct from English in terms of where we resonate the sound when speaking. The voice placement of modern RP is very fronted whereas ours is much further back in pharynx, therefore this area needs very extensive practice. The techniques I’ve personally learned to use to eliminate the Czech influence are finding the right triggers so that your muscles are immediately set up to produce the right sounds and to send/ resonate them in the right direction. The first step for me is listening to a few-minutes long recording with a modern RP speaker. Secondly, I read several sentences with the yawning (or long a: /ɑː/) feeling, pretending I lightly hold a pin between my teeth. And the third and most important, I read those words that are the most triggering for my brain so that I can’t read them any other way than with the modern RP accent. For me, it’s the word ‘caterpillar’, for instance. Just saying that one word out loud a couple of times makes me sound like a native. The two schwas in ‘caterpillar’ /’kætəpɪlə/ immediately alert the muscles to create a sound that is not in Czech, and that is so revealing about where you are from. Also, we don’t have an open /æ/ in Czech, so that also helps to warm up. Add the aspiration on the initial /k/sound in ‘caterpillar’ /’kætəpɪlə/, and the clear /l/ sound, which we also don’t have in Czech, and it all just triggers the muscles to produce what follows, with the clarity and fronted voice placement that is so unique to modern RP.
With lots of practice old habits do start to die!
So, as the subtitle suggests, not all old habits die hard. Even though at first it seems utterly impossible to change the speech habits you’re used to, the mother-tongue influence does gradually disappear with continuous effort and work. I recommend starting your individual accent practice with one of the sounds that you find harder to pronounce. For Czech learners these are /w/, open /æ/, and the th-sounds /θ, ð/ to warm-up the articulators. Then move to a voice-placement exercise which will help you set up your mouth for the modern RP resonance. Following this, continue with a stress-timing exercise, which will be a bit of ‘gymnastics’ for your tongue and, at the same time, it will help get that ‘stress-timed feeling’ into your speech rhythm. Finally, finish with some intonation exercises, such as an intonation quiz, imitation and repetition, or others.
Remember, you also need to LISTEN to modern-RP natives a lot. Be prepared to IMMERSE yourself with regular listening so that you can more easily recognise and feel connected to what you are learning.
SO… PRACTISE, LISTEN, REPEAT,PRACTISE, LISTEN, REPEAT and you’ll see that even something so innate as your own accent really can be changed. 🙂
by Veronika Drbolavová
