Do you think Received Pronunciation of BBC is better than General American of CNN for non-native speakers?

Question

I am a Japanese and have been studying English for 11 years. I've got an general American accent because I often watch CNN news at home. But I will live in London next year and would like to be polite and respect the British culture and society. Do you think I should learn RP instead of General American??
I've read a book ' Does Accent Matter?' and it said ethnic miniorities who speak RP are welcomed and accepted by the British society and I would like socialise with the mainstream in the U.K not other minorities.

Answer 1

The BBC style RP accent died a death a long time ago. There are so few people who ever spoke like that in the first place it was insulting of the BBC to allow it to be broadcast to the rest of us. Old time TV presenters, the best example of which because he is the oldest is Patrick Moore of The Sky at Night, now speak with their own accents. This was simply not allowed by the BBC when Patrick began presenting in the 50's.

The fact is in the UK we are bombarded by US TV constantly and so understand what Americans mean most of the time. If you arrive speaking American English no one would notice. It is easier for the British to understand what is happening when visiting America than the opposite. It is very funny how little Americans know of British culture and the words used.

You would be better learning the different words used in the UK compared to what you learn from Americans.

That way you would know what a sign saying 'Refuse Tip' means. Or, mobile or cell, chips or crisps, boot or trunk, fanny or ****, pissed or upset.

Just watch BBC news from now on and you will be OK. And don't try to talk posh, it will just make you sound dumb.

EXTRA: just to show how Americans can get words wrong is how it has stared out the word 'a r s e' which is not much of a swear word, and left in two British swear words, fanny and pissed, neither of which are swear words in America.

Answer 2

General American Pronunciation

Answer 3

I'd like to preface this with the observation: nothing stops the most highly polished RP accent-owner from being as rude as a mule. However, in asking your question, and in being aware that you are entering a different culture, I suspect that you are already an actively considerate person, and I think you are going to be fine, regardless of the accent you speak with.

What may be a far more important consideration is (im)politeness. By this, I mean that you may need to be very observant to see what it is appropriate to say, where, and when. For instance, hearers will often accept (and take no offence at) unfamiliar accents, grammatical slips and even near-incoherence, especially if they can see that the speaker is trying. Curiously, however, if a speaker fails to utter a 'please', 'thankyou' or 'sorry' at the right moment, those same hearers may view this, not as a failure on a cultural or linguistic level, but as a failure on an interpersonal level. In other words, they may think that you've just knowingly been rude. It isn't fair, but unfortunately, many of us expect everyone else to know our culture as well as we do.

Answer 4

Learn the RP of British English - & discard the American accent & intonation. The British language is infinitely superior to listen to & respected through out the world. American accent & cadence is inferior & unpleasant to listen to.

I say this as An American native who prefers the more polite, pleasant way in which the British speak - from the Queen on downwards to the common laborer.

And I won't change my views, ever. Iam only sorry that I cannot emulate British English to be convincing. If I could learn to speak it then I would gladly.

Answer 5

Very few people in Britain speak with the RP accent these days. If you listen to the BBC news bulletins you will find that most of the newscasters speak with a softened form of their local pronunciation.
If you are a non-native-English speaker living in London it is in many ways better to have an American (or Australian, or New Zealand) accent than a native English one. People who think you are trying to copy 'their' accent are more likely to correct your pronunciation than people who accept your accent is different from theirs but equally valid.
For the same reason an English learner in Boston is probably best served with one of the 'British' accents.
Certainly some British accents are perceived as 'better than' others, but there are lots of 'good' accents (Home-Counties, Southern Scottish, Dublin Irish) and relatively few 'bad' ones.
The chances are that you will find it difficult to unlearn the East Coast American you already use, but that you will pick up traces of other accents from the friends you meet in London.
Most English speakers these days have mongrel accents wherever they were born. The Queen has lived her whole life mainly associating with a tiny group of close friends, and has never moved house to follow either her family or her job. The Queen speaks a very odd and slightly musty sort of English. She is not a bad person for you to imitate - but there are many better ones.

Answer 6

I think that you would be well advised to study RP and, in particular, the differences of vocabulary between American English and the Queen's English for your time in England. Of course, people will understand American English, but they may find it rather quaint and amusing when spoken by someone from Japan and it would help you in your intention of integrating if you spoke more like the people around you. (I say this on the basis of a friend from Malaysia whom I knew when I was a student who spoke like an American and whom we were always teasing because of it!) I greatly applaud your wish to be polite and respect the British culture and society, particularly at a time when the general approach seems to be to force the British to conform to the ways of everyone else's society rather than to the traditions of their own country. I think that you are going to be very popular among the British!

Answer 7

Hi, Londonlife! There's no need to go out of your way to change your accent. If you've been practicing English for eleven years, I'm sure you'll have a reasonably good US accent, and to start again may lead to confusion. In general, someone who's studied American English is best advised to stick with it, and the same for students of British English. But your accent will change anyway as you communicate with people, and will most likely become 'mid-Atlantic', where elements of US and UK English co-exist. That will really be rather good, as it will make your accent neutral. Don't worry about it. Of course, if you'll get pleasure from deliberately changing it, do it - I must admit my Italian accent changed when I went to Sicily from Tuscany :-)

But do try to see where British linguistic habits differ from American. We do have slightly different manners; Americans can seem pushy and rude to many Englishmen, not because they are but because our manners are different to theirs. Watch and see how Englishmen behave and adapt.

Good luck! And try and get out of London when you're over occasionally - London is not England!

Answer 8

I think accents are important and interesting; it's a part of who you are and where you come from. So trying for a particular accent is, in my opinion, not necessary.

The range of accents within the UK is huge (just look at the often-cited example of the difference between Liverpool and Manchester, cities physically close together but with very different accents).

So anyone who accepts someone as a function of their accent is particularly small-minded. Don't worry about it, be yourself.

Answer 9

The moment your looks identify you as a "foreigner" it does not really matter what accent you have, the American will do fine, and you are less likely to slip if you are accustomed to it anyway.
Quite a lot of British people are actually not very comfortable with RP and automatically think you are a pretentious snob if you use it.
In my view it's a bit of "You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't."
Wherever you are, the type of person you attract depends on your personality more than your accent.

Answer 10

absolutely. interior sight audio gadget commonly advance a interior sight accent, and how they communicate to one yet another commonly breaks the guidelines of grammar. i absolutely do it in many circumstances, yet i'm careful to observe grammatical regulations at the same time as writing. A non-interior sight speaker has realized the guidelines and so has a tendency to communicate the way the language has been taught quite than the way the language is totally used through natives. operating example, the following in Lancashire we are saying: "positioned t' kettle on". A non-interior sight would not bypass over out the 'the'.