Many RP English sounds are produced simply by moving your lips to a different position while keeping your jaw relaxed and your tongue lowered. Mistakes in pronunciation will be less noticeable if you maintain the correct mouth position. Beyond that, if you’re able to maintain that mouth position consistently, you’ll find that you make fewer mistakes in the first place because the correct sounds will become more natural to pronounce.
If you’re starting with an American English accent, think about how you’d pronounce a word with a long “o,” such as “bow. " Keep your mouth, particularly your lips, in the same position as you would when pronouncing the long “o,” but make the “ah” sound instead. Think of the sound as deeper and not at all nasally. In contrast, the American English equivalent sound is produced higher in the mouth and can sometimes sound more nasal.
For example, in the word “enthusiasm” the second syllable would be pronounced “thyew” rather than “thoo. " Similarly, the word “tune” is pronounced “tyewn” rather than “toon” and the word “student” sounds like “styewdent” rather than “stoodent. " If there’s a consonant before a “u,” yod retention might affect how that consonant sounds. For example, the “t” in “tune” sounds more like a “ch” than a “t. "
For example, instead of pronouncing the “r” at the end of the word “doctor” you would say “dock-tuh. " The schwa sound is perhaps the most used vowel sound in British English, so make sure you can produce it properly. Relax your jaw and mouth and produce the “uh” sound close to your lips.
For example, instead of pronouncing the last syllable of the word “gracefully” with an “ee” sound, you’d pronounce it “GRACE-full-eh. " Make sure your emphasis is on the first syllable and let your voice gradually trail off as you reach the final syllable.
This principle also applies to words such as “there” and “share. " Although the “r” is followed by a vowel, since the “e” is silent, the “r” isn’t followed by a vowel sound.
You can hear this sound in a word like “married,” which in RP sounds more like “meh-ddied. " Another good word to practice is “very,” which in RP sounds more like “veh-deh. " Note that if the word also ends in “y” (as with “very”), the long “e” sound of the “y” is replaced with a schwa sound. [10] X Research source
For example, if you say the phrase “law and order” with an RP accent, it will typically come out sounding like “lawr and order” or “law rand order” due to the intrusive “r. " As another example, if you were saying the sentence “Although I haven’t seen it, I have an idea of it,” it might sound like “Although I haven’t seen it, I have an idear of it,” in RP. Some RP speakers might say “idear” even if the word occurs at the end of their thought and isn’t followed by another word, such as “That’s the idear!”
If you’re starting with an American English accent, this can take some getting used to, especially with words like “better,” which likely sound more like “bedder” when you say them. Getting rid of this habit will instantly make your speech sound more British.
Typically, the highest pitch is on the final syllable of the sentence (the “terminal” syllable). The next sentence starts again with a lower pitch rather than continuing at the same high pitch.
RP English uses different stress patterns than American English for some words, such as “advertisement” (AD-ver-TISE-ment in American English but ad-VERT-is-ment in RP). You’ll hear these by listening to RP speakers as well. Pay attention to the mouth shape and facial expressions of people speaking with an RP accent as well. If you try to copy their mouth shapes, you’ll come closer to producing the correct sound.
