The british have an in built accent detector because from birth we are trained to know someones socio-economic status after a single sentence.

If you're trying to explain to British teenagers what RP is, call it the BBC news accent. They'll immediately know what you mean.

"Why do you sound so posh?" In the most posh accent 🤣

One of the biggest issues ive noticed is that you dont quite use words and phrases that a british person would use. You just try to adjust the vowel sounds to what a british speaker would do.

You sounded quite staccato, that's why some people thought that you might be German.

the funny thing is that even if he spoke in his native canadian accent people would probably assume hes from germany or netherland

As a Brit, it is so funny to see you explain weird speech things that we all do so often XD

That one kid nailed it when he said what city are you from, even RP speakers have regional inflections, if some one is speaking perfect RP they are not a native speaker

Put a lot of effort into mastering that RP, just to develop the Dutch accent - priceless

Paul’s regular Canadian accent sounds a bit German to me. All very clipped and precise. This is maybe why Paul’s RP accent sounds German/Dutch/Swedish.

I think the reason people kept saying Germany or Eastern Europe (and at times I heard bits that sounded *almost* South African) is the clip you had. A lot of it was in the way you carried your speech and some of your consonant sounds. I also feel that some people unintentionally overstress RP - you have to fight the urge to sound like a 1950s housewife. Having said that, you did remarkably well. English accents are much harder to emulate than most would believe. EDIT: I wrote this about 2/3 the way through the video. After that masterclass, the flow of your speech improved *significantly*. There is the occasional lilt in there, but you clearly gained confidence in it. I would suggest thinking about pitch and inflection a bit more to fine-tune it. Again, you did exceptionally well and this was a cool experiment. Thanks for uploading!

When speaking in your standard, Canadian accent, I actually thought you sounded Scottish at first. After learning you’re Canadian, I could definitely pinpoint the Canadian accent, but I feel as if you don’t draw-out the hardest, most distinguishable aspects of the Canadian accent; yet, you very clearly have them. (I know this isn’t a comment on your RP attempt, but still, I just wanted to share something interesting I noticed. I actually speak 3 languages myself and an okay amount of a 4th. My degree is in Speech Communications.)

You actually sound incredibly German- like a very good English speaker who is native to German. Have no idea how you managed that. It’s definitely the the staccato. Seriously uncanny.

When you ask people in the context of a quiz, "where do you think I'm from?" People will assume the answer is not what it seems.

I’m American and I would love to speak that RP accent on a daily basis. People would think I’d lost my mind, but it sounds so good!

The amount of work and effort you have put into this video is amazing! Well done!

I think the first attempt sounded more South African to me 😂

I am from Germany and when I discovered your channel many years I ago thought you were a non-native speaker of English probably Danish or from another Scandinavian country. The way you shorten vowls and the stiff way you pronounce sentences also came through slightly when you were speaking in the RP accent.

Great attempt, I really enjoyed it!

Mate this was brilliant, would love to see another upload of something similar. Going on video chat undercover with a different accent of some kind

As an English person, I can hear a massive difference between day 1 or day 2

As an American studying in the UK, i often pull a decent fake rp accent to avoid extra questions when I'm asking where something is 😂

The accent you used from about halfway through the video in the voiceover until the last chapter actually sounded really good. not necessarily accurate or very british, but soothing and enjoyable for lack of a better way of putting it. for example, 12:06 "imagery" was perfection. you do clip ending consonents though. just a bit later at 12:37 the way you said "accent" wasnt even close to how id imagine another british person saying it.

Well done on this challenge!! As a non-native English speaker myself, definitely is not easy to learn a new accent when your used to your one. But you learned quickly and corrected your mistakes... the only thing that gave you away, as other mentioned, was the flow/stress of the sentences. RP or other English accents not only have different pronunciation of certain words but also the whole "rhythm" of a sentence can vary and sometimes, I agree with those in the video, you sounded like German or Scandinavian. But anyway, well done!!! 😊

Hi Paul, Brit here. I think you did a really good job in terms of pronunciation, I would say it was pretty accurate. What gave you away though I would say are two factors: 1) Sentence rhythm, we tend to 'eat' many of the words such that several words get mashed together like "do you know what I mean" becomes "dyunoewatamin" whereas you were clearly pronouncing individual words. Regional accents do this more but even people with neutral accents do this in the UK, so the way you spoke sounded a bit robotic, like someone learning English as a second language. 2) I actually think throwing in some regional pronunciations would have helped you, so a mostly RP accent with some South-East local accent features. This is because very few people in the UK really speaks in a pure RP, most will have some minor traces of a local accent even if they are middle class/posh. For example I'm from the East Midlands and the way I speak is very close to RP but pronounce certain words differently like 'path' as /paθ/ instead of /pɑːθ/ Overall good job and I look forward to seeing you attempt this accent plus other accents in the future

This was really cool! As a native Englishman the only things giving you away was overpronouncing the T sounds and the overall flow of speaking was slightly unnatural, however it was honestly an amazing attempt that probably would have fooled me at least for a while!

Your observation about people who learn authentic pronunciation is very interesting. Cultural immersion vs. observation and such. I'm an English speaker from America, and I learned Spanish in college, but it wasn't until I spent a semester in Spain that I learned to speak it decently well. I was very fascinated by the country around me and felt deeply connected to it. Spanish speakers know immediately that I'm not Spanish, but once in a classroom in America, one of my students from Colombia heard me speak Spanish and commented that I had an accent. As in, my Spanish was different from the Spanish she was used to, not that it was off or lacking. It felt pretty good to hear that. Best wishes to all the language learners out there.

He does sound like a German fella who’s learned British English. I think hanging around Brits helps wonders to pick up the accent.

Was a pleasure to chat with you. Nice video! ❤

The standard relaxed nearly RP is VERY difficult to fake. English is my first language but I found it easier to 'pick up' and switch off the local accent in the region of Spain where I used to live. When I was in London I was instantly conscious of other English as a first language speakers trying to fake it!

I’ve learnt to love my posh accent, it warms my heart to see people try to speak the way I do. ❤

It's a good attempt and I love the video. It took me a few years before I started sounding convincing around my british girlfriend me being from the states. After 10 years I can pull it off like I'm from there but it took a lot of work, it was something I enjoyed and had fun with.

Your pronunciation was accurate, and the occasional Canadian pronunciation was not obvious. But your enunciation was more precise than that of the average speaker of modern RP with clear gaps between the words, perhaps a very short glottal stop at the start of each word, giving your pronunciation the feel of a German who speaks excellent English.

Excellent attempt! For a short time attempting to get it right, it's pretty good! Brits definitely are able to pick up different accents very quickly though, as one person already said because of economic status (lol - that's true) but also because British accents vary so much over short distances so our ears are trained to notice differences much more. There's a few things I noticed: Firstly, you speak with a hard attack, while British people tend to speak with a soft attack. Even RP. I think this is why some people are saying Germany/Eastern Europe too as that's common there. Secondly, it sounds like you're producing a lot of sounds from the front of your mouth, sometimes almost nasally (I don't think I'm describing this perfectly lol, but I believe North American accents typically produce more sounds from the front of the mouth/nose while Brits speak from the middle/back of the mouth) so this is another indicator that your accent isn't native. I remember learning once that because Brits speak more from the back of the mouth & Americans speak from the front, this means that typically it's easier for Brits to fake American accents than it is for Americans to fake British accents as it uses more facial muscles. Next, your vowels are just a touch shorter & not as wide as British & RP accents usually are. For example with the sentence "Go back about a thousand years," your pronunciation sounds like "goh buck abot a thohsund yihs" (I've exagerrated my spelling there because I don't know how to spell it properly phoenetically) whereas in RP it'd be more like "gOw bAck abOWt a thOWsund yIIHs". I suspect this is the Canadian slipping through a tad. Also, your U's are shorter & don't have that "y" sound just preceding in some words, which certain words in RP are pronounced with due to the Norman French influence. For example, with the words "during" & "neutral" your pronunciations are more like "dooring" and "nootral" whereas in RP they'd be pronounced as "dyuring" (or even "jyuring") and "nyootral". Similarly, with "Tuesday" an RP accent would say "Tyoosday" while a more typical Southern accent would say "chyoostday". Lastly, there's a lack of glottals in your speech. Your Ts & Ds sound like they're pronounced with your tongue softly touching just behind your top teeth, whereas in British or RP they'd either be pronounced more hard & clearly with the tongue clearly touching behind your top teeth, or with with the tongue not touching at all & producing a glottal stop in place of a T. These were some of the main things my own ears picked up on! I hope this didn't come off as "lecturey" at all, because I don't mean it to haha! Just identifying the things that I personally noticed & giving my best tips to help you nail it next time round ;) But anyway, great video! Very fun & educational. Thank you 🙏

This video is very good and fun. I'm following you now. I'm from Brazil and trying to learn English haha

Effing epic video. Keep em coming

I think if you did the same challenge in your native accent and then asked people where you're from they would mostly give the same answers thinking it's a trick, assuming you're a foreigner who has learnt English well

You could try "faking" some regional UK accent, so that when you ask the "where do you think I'm from" question, people would more naturally think "where in the UK", since the standard RP does not really have a location to it.

Informative even for a Brit ;) Hadn't noticed we only pronounce 'R' before a vowel. You have learnt British pronunciation extremely well (I would be rubbish at any Canadian accent). As you say, though, your vowels are clipped. I believe RP draws the vowels out even longer than a 'normal' southern accent. In terms of "...achieved my first partial success..." at 16:06 mark: 'ie' in 'achieved' can be lengthened dramatically, said with a smile, turning the corners of the mouth up (funny example, lots of people in many countries on mainland Europe struggle with a 'piece' of paper or a 'sheet' of paper...) 'ar' in 'partial' can be more rounded, lowering of the jaw, and longer duration. It's this 'ar' sound that lends RP its distinctive socio-economic status the most, I would say. Hats off to you for the work and hours you put in. It has truly paid off. May I suggest, to get the last 1%, practice exaggerating the sounds to make them more rounded - even reassuring, and letting them linger a while to make them less clipped and more convincing. One final thought - imagine spreading warm gravy on a soft carpet with a ladle whilst sitting in a leather wingback armchair. Dunno, might work ;)

Dude this is a great video, when I started watching the video until timestamp 9:05 I've notice that you were moving your mouth like an American, more precisely like a midwestern speaking with a fake accent lol. Then the boy at 9:08 told you that you sounded so "Posh" and then he told you to speak with a deeper voice. British people tend to be more expressive with their mouth when they speak English whereas Americans barely move their lips and are more nasal. Also 10:50 you said Molly coached you on individual sounds and also focus on helping you on relax your jaw and create more space in your mouth. Excellent video man, I love it; keep up the good work.

I am a Francophone Canadian who lived in France for a few years in the 70's. I did my best to speak with the best international French accent I knew. At first many correctly identified me as Canadian quite quickly, though quite a few asked me if I was Belgian or Swiss. None doubted that I was a native French speaker, but many just couldn't place me. After a year in France, I had people guessing I was French, but from maybe Vendée or Normandy - I by then sounded to them French, but regional . By that time when I told people I was Canadian, I often got the reaction: `Mais vous n'avez pas l`accent`. (I then had to explain that I was not Québecois but Franco-Ontarian, because they thought Francophone Canadians were all Québecois, but that's another story). Loved this video.

Ironically the guy who asked you why are you speaking so posh sounds very posh 😂

I enjoyed your efforts. I actually think that some Canadian and USA accents are very similar to our English accents naturally, we watch and listen to a lot of your media and so don't differ very much. I learned the alphabet from watching Seasame Street for example! Great effort

Keep going, you're clearly improving towards the end of the video

You’ve clearly put in so much work. The reason why people were guessing you were German is because of two features (a) your vowel reduction in unstressed syllables syllables is not as extreme as native speakers tend to have; and (b) there is a lot of hard attack at the start of words with an initial vowel. To sound more natural, there should be more liaison and less attack. But really impressive results!!!

Here are a few more factors to consider, Paul: 1) When one asks people where are we from, it is usually implied we're from somewhere else. Therefore, people will start trying to identify foreign accents. Or else, if the accent is ambiguous enough, they'll try to establish where else in the same country you might be from. 2) You have your own peculiar way of speaking, superimposed on your native Canadian accent. I think you do have a particularly distinct way of speaking, which must be contributing to your sounding foreign. Your way of speaking is such (to my non-native English speaker ears), that even if you asked Canadians where are you from, you seem likely to get same sort of answers (i.e. originally German or Swedish, etc.). 3) The way you speak is kind of terse (or "dry" as we would say in Catalan), plus you were slightly tense due to the effort you were putting in, all of which suggested some foreign ingredient. 4) Who are often perceived, portrayed, or imagined to be terse, and/or have a language that sounds terse? Germans, Fins, Swedes, etc. I guess, which might be why more than one person answered "German". 5) You also have body language to consider. How do you look and how your anatomy might even account for some features in your speech. Your mouth opening, your lips and jawbone are rather wide and flat. If native English speakers already seem to open their mouth very little to speak, you seem to do it even less. It seems as if you learned to speak in this particular way for some reason, to correct or compensate for something as a young boy. Did you have any speech issue as an infant? Anyway, I wanted to thank you for all your videos, which I enjoy so much. They are very interesting and well done, and you are very talented! Congrats and keep it up! Oh, this reminds me something else, regarding the guy commenting on your posh accent, and the language coach commenting on some heightened features of it, also regarding your mouth and prosody: 6) Remember the expression about having or keeping a stiff upper lip? You might be coming across as literally keeping it stiff. 😉 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/matxasZ42bu4nWQ.html

I've never deliberately trained myself to speak a different dialect of English, but I lived in the north of England for many years and unconsciously picked up some Yorkshire dialect traits over time. For example, reducing 'the' to 't' or omitting it altogether; dropping initial 'h's on words like 'happy' or 'house'; using 'right' to mean 'very' and using 'were' instead of 'was' for third person singular: "That were right 'ard." As for the other question, I would say that I've achieved near-native pronunciation in Catalan, again after living in Catalonia for many years and it becoming one of the main languages in which I live my life. I think, at least in a short interaction, most people wouldn't notice that I wasn't from here. Over an extended conversation I think people do still tend to sense that there's something up with the way I speak. There's always something that gives you away whether it's phonetic, an expression that's just not quite the way a native would say it, or just a silly grammatical or vocabulary mistake.

Hi @Langfocus. Great video and very interesting. I'm a native British English speaker from the south of England and also trained as an ESL teacher. My advice to you would be to also focus on the intonation and rhythm of the way English is spoken in England and compare and notice the difference to how you naturally speak. If you actively listen out for the differences, I think it will help you to implement a more natural England English accent too. Would love to see a part 2 of this video.

This was a great video, and I think your attempt at an RP accent was a really good one! One thing that I think makes your accent stand out, even without placing you as a non British speaker, is the lack of elision in your speech. You've got a lot of the sounds correct, but the diction is too formal to sound genuine. It comes across like you're reading from a script rather than talking comfortably. Conversational English in Britain, even amongst the poshest RP speakers, sees a lot of words run together, and sounds change based on the adjacent words. Looking forward to hearing how far you can take this accent!

Nothing wrong with sounding Dutch! 😂 (it wasn't a Dutch accent at all though 😂)

Brilliantly done in number 7, you sounded spot on quite a lot

I like incorporating words and phrases from my native Black Country dialect, even though, having lived in Shropshire since I was 3, I don't carry that accent except in a few words. It helps me feel more connected to my roots and my family. I've also been learning Welsh for the past few years and my tutor says I have a nice accent, one of my classmates thought I lived deep in a Welsh speaking community and practice regularly, whereas I live in England and rarely practice with native speakers, which was very pleasant to learnt.

You would love Dr Geoff Lindsay’s series on this very topic

Paul, you don’t even sound Canadian. You have always sounded like you are not a native English speaker - I always thought you were Eastern European or something

great video, I think I can make of the amount of effort exerted to do what you did. pronunciation is absolutely stand-alone and complex topic in language learning. the problem is that our brains aren't the same as they used to be in the childhood, when we could stay in the "learning mode" all the time with a brain absorbing and chiseling into itself literally everything we were doing including an accent. that's why for an adult must pay conscious attention to every single move they make to get it done right.

You are definitely getting there. I could hear a bit of an accent similar to maybe a posh south african accent in there.i think you would have a better success in a different regional accent rather than rp. Rp is such a specific accent, and although there are a demographic of peopke brought up with that accent (such as posh rich people, some royals etc) there are also a large number of British people that take on that accent after achieving success and maybe moving to an area, or just associating more with people, who use that accent. Movie and tv stars often come from areas where they will have a regional accent, but some will, in their everyday speaking for interviews etc or even roles, adopt an rp accent. Maybe just for clarity when talking so a larger audience can understand them better. But an rp accent is easier to spot the mistakes with, or when there is something off about it, because everyone in the UK knows an rp accent when they hear it, but they dont necessarily know other regional accents. So, this means a regional accent will be far better for hiding crimes and mistakes, making them less noticeable and more forgiving. Also, it's a lot more fun to learn a regional accent than an rp one. Aswell as the accents, you need to learn the matching mannerisms that the people with that accent may use, but also the mouth shape when they speak certain words, and also things like eye movements, hand movements etc also the intensity of the words used by certain accents - also you need to learn regional words that may only be used in certain areas, for exampke, take the word "mardy" - meaning to be sulkng and in a bad mood. Mostly used in the North and some areas towards the Midlands of England, but not in every place there, also it is used within a small area in the south of England, a few towns aound the south of Kent use that word, but not really in the rest of the South of England. So if you were to use this word using an accent not associated with it, it could give the game away, but if you were to use it with the correct accent, it can help to sell the accent you are trying to do. So make an effort to not just get the accent correct but the general dialects vocabulary correct for that accent too. The biggest and best way you will learn is by exposure. If you spend a lot of tme around a certain accent, you will pick it up. It is after all, how we all learn to speak not only our native language, but to speak it in the accent we do. All through exposure. Tv and movies will get you so far and help, but you would need to be visiting an area with the accent you want on a regular basis, and maybe make friends with a few people from that area people you can keep in contact with, who you can video call and have chats with on a regular basis, and you can ask them ti point out any mistakes that you might be making. Also you can find that even in a small town with inky abiut 70,000 people, there may be more than ine accent within that town, they may be similar to each other, but a nearby town that is closer to the north of that town than the south, may have their own accent that bleeds in to your town, resulting in a variation of your towns accent. You can nirmalky drive 20 miles either side of where you kive in the UK and find a different accent to your iwn in every direction. We kiteralky have hubdreds here. And a lot of them might sound the sane to someone with an untrained ear, but the locals will know. Sometimes the difference is big, sometimes subtle, but if you are trying to get the accent fir an area soot in you need to learn the difference. It can be something as simple as pronouncing a certain word differently, or just using an emphasis on certain part if a word different. All little nuances that you will pick up over time. I think you will get there. Sorry for droning on. Ive written eniugh to release it in paperback! This was a great video. Good look with your pursuit!

To be honest, I always thought you had a scandinavian accent (or other european accents) even when you spoke in your own Canadian way. It's pretty cool actually! I think the way you pronounced certain consonants made me think that

As an English person who's grown up around posh RP speakers, cockneys, and people from all over the country and the rest of the world, your RP attempt definitely sounds like someone from North/Western Europe who has learned to speak British English really well. But honestly, even your native accent from Canada sounds a bit unfamiliar, although I'm less familiar with the various regional accents around Canada than the US or my home country they UK! The best way to pick up the accent would be to come and live here for a few years and really listen closely. Thing is nobody's going to correct you because it's incredibly rude and perhaps even bigoted to "correct" an accent unless asked to. Anyways keep it up Paul, great video as always, been watching your stuff for years at this point :) Cheers

there are 7000 languages in the world. "Damn, i only speak English." LMAO

I've listened to a lot of langfocus videos, and I always assumed Paul was a native German speaker! I certainly did not have him down as a native English speaker at all! A good few of the interviewees had the same impression.

Hey I've moved to the UK for uni and I've got to say -- you've given yourself a much bigger challenge than you might think! When he said you sounded "posh," he meant upper class (possibly an accent instilled by private education -- he was asking you to be throatier to inhabit that). And when the person said he was trying to figure out what part of the UK, that person meant that he wasn't noticing any regionalisations that would add authenticity. I'd pick a specific British accent to learn and have another go!

Spanish native here, I speak english and portuguese on a native level, people never believe i'm not american/brazilian. I'm amazed you never used the word "cadence" in this video, I think it's the most important part of trying to actually achieve a regional accent.

Hey Paul, would you do a Quiche (K'iche') Language overview? I'm planning a trip to Guatemala, and your overviews have always been SUPER helpful Much love 🫶

First video I've seen of yours - that was very cool and a good effort! As a British person, what you said at the end about calling BS on your accent - most of us wouldn't do that as it'd be considered very rude :) if I hear someone speaking with an accent, the last thing I want to do is make them self conscious. I'll check out some more videos of yours, as languages are fun! Cheers.

There's another thing that I'm not sure anyone has mentioned yet, but for English people specifically (and probably people from other UK countries) we would rarely describe ourselves as being "from the UK", especially when talking to someone else from here. I would say "I'm English" more than "I'm from England", and I'd hardly ever say I was from the UK.

I definitively noticed a huge improvement after your session with the accent coach!

I love the way you are so passionate about languages and accents. Just like me. 🎉

My advice would be to include the glottal stop more often on the Ts and at the end of words because its more authentic, and to pick a regional accent because some of us dont pronounce h's and pronounce the "er" suffix differently. Brits can not only tell an authentic accent, but exactly where that accent is from within britain, and even their social class.

You mentioned this at the beginning but, sorry to say, I think you made it almost impossible by choosing RP. The problem is not many people speak that way in the UK and so British would struggle to place you in a city or region unless it is perfect. I'd love to see you try a more distinctive regional accent like Geordie or Cockney. These are so recognisable to a Brit that I think they would hear the key sounds and overlook any small faults. Actually, you could try a Devon/Somerset accent because it's rhotic like your native accent. I believe it was actually the "RP/Standard/Posh" accent of it's time! Which is crazy because it's now the UK's "country" accent, far from posh.

it make so much sense thinking about it that you came across as german/dutch/swedish, because those people tend to learn uk english over american english. so hearing someone who has learned an rp accent would usually mean those groups. very interesting.

Nice video, subscribed. First time I've seen this channel, you've got a really engaging way about you. I actually thought your accent was pretty good on a technical level, but it's just that you have - and I mean this as a compliment, not a criticism - a very unique, clipped way of talking, even in your native Canadian voice. In fact, when you were introducing the video I was trying to place your accent there, and it wasn't until you confirmed you were Canadian that I heard it. As others have said, the question "Where do you think I'm from?" will automatically get people thinking it's not the UK by the nature of the question. But there's also the physiology. Although the UK is very diverse with lots of different-looking people, you do have more of a Germanic look than someone from England. Could also be mouth placement as well - if I see a commercial from the US that's been dubbed into English I can IMMEDIATELY tell by the mouth movements. I know the US isn't Canada, but that's just a side example. If you check the video, most of the people you speak to have their mouths opening slightly wider than yours. (the US is the reverse - they tend to open their mouths MUCH wider than people from the UK). Really though, it's a good accent, I think at least 70% of the reason why people didn't believe is your natural staccato way of speaking. I did learn basic level Polish (very basic level) and one time entered a Polish shop saying "good morning" (in Polish) as I put my items on the counter to pay. The lady serving spoke to me at length in Polish, forcing me to apologise and say I didn't understand her as I didn't know that much Polish - so I must have somehow convinced her that I was a native speaker. Only a one off, though, possibly it was the noise of the shop.

Mate you did amazing!

As someone from England you did a pretty good job aiming at the RP accent, however I can't say I've ever ran into many people with an RP accent in real life so maybe not the best accent to aim for.

I'm from western Canada and, when I first found your channel, I thought English was your second language and that you spoke it very well. It surprised me to learn you also are from Canada, and in the west.

One of my favourite videos Paul! Next, try Australian English. :)

I speak with RP and it’s so interesting hearing you explain things that I never consciously noticed because I just do it automatically, like the fact that there’s no ‘r’ sound in ‘far’ when you say ‘far from’, but there is when you say ‘far away’. A lot of what you said didn’t sound quite right to me, but you gave it a good shot. Can’t say I’d be able to do a convincing Canadian accent.

Great video, thanks. As a non native speaker of Portuguese and living in Portugal for 22 years, I’m always happy when people ask me where in Portugal I come from (not from which country). Keep the great work. I appreciate it for years.

Fascinating as ever, Paul. My natural dialect is traditional RP, but as a child I slipped in and out of "Sahf London" as the situation required. I learned German as an adult and, surprisingly, I am accent-free - only the sometimes wobbly grammar gives me away. My approach to accent in either English and German is completely different from the deconstructive and analytical approach you take. I just reflect what I hear. If I want to imitate a regional accent in either English or German, I just think of a speaker I know well and imitate their speech. I have no idea how I do this. Keep up the good work! John

As someone with a standard middle-class southern English accent, I think you did very well indeed. I've known native English speakers who spoke with that very precise, but slightly halting, clipped English accent. The good old BBC version of RP is almost extinct- well, certainly on the BBC itself, where they seem to delight in employing newsreaders who can scarcely pronounce English at all, let alone the RP version.

To be honest, i wouldn't have guessed your regular accent is Canadian either. I'd expect something far more drawling. Having said that, the advice you got, both from the professional and the "civilians", was spot on, and your accent noticeably improved. Speaking as a brown Briton with a fairly neutral accent and academic diction, who nevertheless would still get asked "Where are you from?", I'd like to stress that the "Guess Where I'm From?" experiment doesn't really work if they can see you, because they'll focus too much on visual cues. Lastly, I'd like to thank you for this video, which has given me some ideas about how to go about forming an accent in Japanese, which I'm currently learning. (Which, which, which...😅)

From Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire,🇬🇧 You are getting on really well Keep it up my man All the very best Over and out ❤

Very interesting video, thanks. As an RP speaker myself, my impression is that you did do very well, but I could also tell even without seeing the process of what you were doing that it "wasn't quite right". As an aside, your own native accent is interesting, because it doesn't sound like most Canadian accents that I've heard, it must be something regional I'm not too familiar with. You are giving off with your "fake RP" accent, a kind of German-who-has-lived-in-the-UK-a-long-time vibe, in that it's _almost_ perfect, but perhaps a bit too clipped or staccato for RP (in the way that German is quite a staccato language). Whilst RP is also clipped in the end consonants in particular, it also _flows_ and is actually fairly slow, so your river analogy perhaps works on that level. Your accent coach I think definitely helped you, but one thing I noticed from the clips of the videos that you showed in your prep work before that - and I do appreciate that those were probably just a small sample - is that most or all of the clips you showed were of _female_ RP speakers. Bear in mind is that men and women speak differently in subtle ways, even disregarding the amount of bass that gender difference on average brings. That might be why you didn't quite have that resonance that one of the listeners was looking for. As a man, listening to male RP speakers more will I think help you. One thing I noticed is that most of your British listeners were (a) very young (teenagers and early 20s) and (b) non-RP speakers themselves. RP is actually getting quite rare in the UK nowadays, especially in younger generations; I'm in my forties and went to a private (public) school, which helped solidify the RP, as that was the standard there. Most "Gen Z" youngsters will not know it's called "RP" (or that RP stands for Received Pronounciation), the Queen to whom it is also attributed passed away over a year ago and even the BBC consciously tends to use more regional accents now for its presenters. You might try calling it "James Bond English" (by which I mean the James Bonds after Sean Connery!) if people are struggling to understand what you mean by RP. It's why they sometimes reach for "posh" when trying to describe how you talk. We also have to remove some of the unconscious bias that perhaps was introduced by your question: "Based on how I'm speaking, where do you think I'm from?" immediately subconciously introduces the concept to the listener than you might not be what you are portraying yourself to be, then they might subconsciously look for other cues - including how you look. If I had not known you are Canadian, based on your look, I would have said German or Scandinavian - and I don't know perhaps that is in your heritage somewhere. Perhaps you would have scored better if this has been audio interviews rather than video.

Thanks- really interesting video. I agree with the comments that you sound quite German or Northern European, actually. I think you did a great job and as a native English, with a South West, regional accent- I would have picked up that you weren't native, but I think you do a great job of near assuming it! It's very close. I would add that if the aim is purely to trick English people- it would have been better to pick a regional accent as RP feels like more of a rarity in modern Britain and a risky gamble to convince people. However for the purposes of study, assuming RP was the best option and your work ethic is great. Really interesting- many thanks and God bless!

This is so interesting. Funnily enough I would never have guessed you were Canadian. Even I thought your natural English speaking accent had a European flair, for instance Swedish or German.

The thing that speakers of American English just can’t ever get right is phonemic vowel length. Length is so important in English that it really needs to be considered the main differentiator amongst pairs of similar vowels, with timbre being secondary (but also important). You only really make timbre distinctions, with length varying allophonically. So, when you try to say ‘off’ properly, it ends up sounding as if it were ‘orf’. Edit: I’ve just got to the bit where you introduce Molly, and I literally only understood because her name was on screen. It wouldn’t otherwise have been comprehensible, as what you said would have to be spelt ‘morley’ or something. It sounds like a plausible surname, but has no resemblance to the name Molly. You might as well say Polly. Basically, it’s like when English speakers try to speak languages with long consonants, but make no distinction between _pero_ and _perro,_ and don’t understand why they’re not understood. It’s a completely different phoneme for natives.

Hey Paul, I have followed you about 10 years and this was one of the most interesting videos you've made. Accents are very interesting thing. My native language is Finnish and our language has many accents or maybe they can be called as dialects. They are very strong that way that a person can live in another part of the country than they are originated, and even after decades it is often hearable where they originate. I am quite fluent in English but of course I have foreign accent. Sometimes foreign people have told me that I and other Finns sound "slightly American". At school we are taught "plain Oxford English", but in our country tv series, movies etc. are not dubbed but have subtitles and we hear the original speech. And because of that we Finns have heard a lot more American English than British in our lives. Of course that is the case with the internet too. I am sure it has a strong effect.

Having said that - when I hear Irish and northern Irish people talk - they sometimes sound like Scandinavian people speaking English to me too. There’s definitely similarities - after all, vikings did invade Ireland too!

You did a good job with this. I genuinely think that if you actually take on a relatively strong accent rather than RP you can mask your own accent better. Even within RP there a difference that give you clues as to where someone is from eg: someone from Surrey sounds different from someone from Hampshire. Maybe you need to decide where you want to be ‘from’? The most convincing I’ve ever heard is probably when Dutch people pick up a Geordie or Liverpudlian accent and it can fool you for a good minute.

This was a great video. You also have a distinct voice, so I was somewhat surprised that the quality of your voice changed so much when putting on the RP accent. And it was interesting to see how much of an accent is more than just the sounds themselves, but the vowel lengths and how relaxed your mouth is (pause).

This was a fun experiment! This was a brilliant idea to step away from just explaining languages, and doing something different and absolutely fun props to you !!!

i think you sounded really good by the end! I think you should try a regional accent next like Geordie :D

this was a helluva video phonetically and linguistically as a whole. it all comes down to how you feel and how good you want to be at pronunciation as far as nonnatives are concerned. i mean we can mock but mostly it isnt the real thing and it doent need to be. you can be yourself with a native or nonnative accent. thanks a bunch

Amazing video. Thank you for making this. As an English man, it's quite interesting seeing a Canadian put so much effort into imitating an RP accent. You did a very good job, but obviously as a native British person I could very clearly hear the inadequacies. I would love to see you try a more colloquial accent, such as a northern accent (Manchester or Yorkshire). Not many people actually speak with the accent you were trying to emulate.

I think one of the biggest differences in dialects is the rhythm. Every lenguaje has a different rhythm, also there is the presence of a vowel sound that is use more, another thing is the "thinking vowel", some languages use the "a" sound, other the "e" sound and so on. You can sound more natural and local if you get the right rhythm and entonation, even if you are saying the word wrong is gona feel right, for example for me now, with the danish language, even if a say something wrong, because I aim the entonation and this other small details, sometimes they think I have a accent from a small island or a corner in denmark. I feel like in your case, the dominant vocals in Canada are the "a" and "e", but for the British accent is more like "o" and "u", also they have a tendency to lengthen vowels like in "sound" "pound", they sound for me more like "soouund" "pooouund", but in your case are shorter, more like a strike, is the same in how you end the words, you cut the word when ends, but they have the tendency to make the vowels longer.

Oh damn, I tried the same thing with a Scottish, Irish and Australian accent/dialect! Who would have thought that my favorite Lingo-KZfaqr had the same idea!!! :D

A fascinating subject to follow. I am interested in British accents and dialects, as to why they developed the way they have ? another fascinating subject and theory. And of course the American/Canadian accents, how they changed the English language over the years. I would say that initially your RP accent did have a touch of Netherlands/Dutch to it a stiffness in your pronunciation ?

I'm just glad the Brits can handle the basic trivia questions. Keep up the good work lads.

As I'm sure has been pointed out already, your starting point is one in which you speak with impeccable, almost robotic enunciation. That is very helpful for all your videos where you try to explain linguistic concepts to us. But it's likely a big part of what your test subjects were picking up on and describing as less colloquial or too formal.

I actually try to learn the other six dialects of my native language, Tyap, by listening to their music and studying the dynamics in pronunciation. But not having someone to speak them with often makes them dormant in my brain. You actually did well in your British accent quest. 🎉

As a German native speaker and former student of English studies, I picked up the RP-pronunciation to a nearly perfect level after years of practicing. What plays a big role in picking up the British accent is mastering the intonation correctly. That’s even more difficult than learning how to pronounce in RP properly. As for instance, which vowel in a word is stressed shorter and which one is stressed longer. Also, stressing the consonants, low or mid or high pitch sound etc. In addition to that, depending on the length of a sentence, the rules can change quickly. What helped me the most was just keep on listening to British radio presenters on a daily basis for many years. Still, the reaction of BE native speakers is interesting since they get distracted by the fact that I don’t speak a particular local British accent but in RP.