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How To Pronounce W in a British Accent

There is no such thing as a 'British' accent as there are loads of different accents in the UK.


This post will focus on pronunciation in the standard southern British English accent, which is a variant of what's known as RP, or received pronunciation. It's the accent that you'll see transcribed in the Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries.


Today, you'll learn about how to pronounce W in this British accent.


Here's a video explaining everything, or just keep reading below.




How To Pronounce W: Position Of The Lips


The first important thing is to know what speakers of this accent do with their lips.


  • The lips are rounded and then release.

  • The tongue tip is down behind the bottom teeth.


To help, you might try making the 'oo' sound in a word like 'zoo' or whistling (if you can whistle). Then just relax your lips.


The W sound is also a voiced sound, so make sure you can feel vibration, as you might with sounds like Z.


Avoid Touching The Top Teeth


One common challenge that some speakers face is touching the upper front with the lower lip. Make sure that none of the lower lip is touching the upper teeth, not even the inside of the lower lip.


Here are some W words to practice:


  • what, was, will, when


Unexpected Spellings


You even hear the W sound in 'qu', 'o' and 'cho' spelt words like:


  • queen, quick, once, once, choir


Phonetic Symbols


This is nice a simple because a W sound is written phonetically as /w/.


How To Do A British Accent Course - free


Before I share with you some sentences that you can practice with, it's just worth knowing that I have a free course on the standard southern British English accent.


Here are some practice sentence:


Winter winds whistled through the wild and wide Fenland of the Wash.


Why would anyone want a world where leaders wage war without irrefutable reason?


She is a wise and wilful young woman who won't take no without a fight.


William never wants to come with me to watch a film. He's a bookworm. A wordy type.


How to do a British accent ebook


I also have a comprehensive eBook with 12 hrs of audio, that covers this and every aspect of pronunciation and intonation in a Standard Southern British English accent.




 
Ashley Howard voice coach

Written by...


Ashley Howard MA, a UK voice coach with 18+ years experience, can help you speak the way you've always wanted to speak.


 

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