How to Speak the RP English Accent

Drop and relax your jaw.

Ease tightness in your jaw and lower your tongue. Accents tend to have a sort of default mouth position, and for the RP accent, this involves releasing the tension in your jaw and allowing it to hang loose. Lower your tongue as well, so that it sits along the bottom of your mouth, behind your bottom teeth. 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.

Round your lips to make the "ah" sound.

Produce a full, rounded sound from the back of your mouth. Keep your tongue low and press it back slightly when saying words such as "on" or "not." The resulting sound is relatively short, not drawn out as it would be with an American English accent. This is known as the "broad A" sound, which you'll hear in words with a short "o" or "a" (as in "on" or "father"). 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.

Add a "y" sound before a long "u."

This is called "yod retention" and affects the long "u" sound. Other English accents, particularly American English, often drop this sound. However, the RP English accent keeps it. Any time you see a long "u" in a word, pronounce it like "yew." 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."

Leave off the "r" at the ends of words.

Use the "uh" sound for the last syllable of words that end with "r." Regardless of the vowel in the last syllable, if it ends in an "r," the RP accent typically drops the "r" sound and pronounces the last syllable as "uh"—a vowel sound known as the "schwa." While the schwa sound is used often in British English, mastering it in this particular context will make your RP accent stronger. 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.

Pronounce the "y" at the end of a word as "eh."

Replace the "y" at the end of a word with a schwa. In American English, you would pronounce the "y" at the end of the word to rhyme with the word "bee." Not so with the RP accent, which makes the syllable weaker, almost quieter sounding, and gives it an "eh" sound. 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.

Only pronounce the letter "r" when it's followed by a vowel.

Replace the "r" with an "eh" unless it's followed by a vowel sound. In words such as "rat" or "irate," the "r" is followed by a vowel sound, so you pronounce it as you would in any other English accent. However, if it's followed by a consonant, as in "the RP English accent replaces it with an "uh" sound. 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.

Pronounce an "r" in the middle of a word like "d."

Flick the tip of your tongue against your teeth. When you have an "r" in the middle of a word that is followed by a vowel, RP English replaces it with a quick tap, rather like the "d" sound in American English. Even if the "r" is doubled, the sound is still quick, not drawn out. 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.

Add an "r" between vowels.

Use the "intrusive r" to create a bridge between 2 vowels. In an RP English accent, if a word ends in a vowel sound and is followed by another word that starts with a vowel sound, you'll slide an "r" in between to make the 2 words easier to pronounce. You might also hear some RP speakers ending a word with an "r" even if it isn't followed by another word at all. 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!"

Always fully pronounce the letter "t."

Produce the same sound for "t" regardless of where it appears in a word. In the American English accent, a "t" is typically "tapped" if it occurs between vowels so that it sounds more like a "d." But with RP, always pronounce "t" the same way you would in words like "tip" or "tank," even if it appears in the middle of a word. 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.

Raise your pitch to peak at the end of the sentence.

Make declarative statements the same way you might ask a question. If you're familiar with an American English accent, you likely associate a rising pitch or tone of voice with asking a question. RP English speakers do the same thing when making statements that, in writing, would end with a period. While you wouldn't want to do this with every sentence you speak, it does help give your speech a lilt and make you sound more fluent. 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.

Listen to RP speakers and mimic them.

Watch programs on the BBC to hear more RP. Your RP accent will get better if you become more familiar with it. Watching and listening to people speak the accent, you'll also pick up on various nuances of speech that you wouldn't know otherwise. BBC newscasts are a good source of RP, as is the TV show "Fawlty Towers." 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.