From EF Education:
If you’re learning English in the UK you might think you’ll come home with a perfect British accent that sounds like you got English lessons from the Queen herself.
In reality, there are almost 40 different dialects in the UK that sound totally different from each other, and in many cases use different spellings and word structure. In fact, there’s pretty much one accent per county.
Here are 10 British dialects you need to know:
1. Scottish
Let’s start in the North, with the accent that universally symbolises glassy lochs (lakes), snowy mountains, tartan, and… shortbread? The Scottish accent as we know it now developed as late as the 1700s, but existed in different forms before that.
It was heavily influenced by the Gaelic language, which was (and still sometimes is) spoken in certain areas of Scotland, as well as Norse languages from Viking invaders. Scots would say Scotland as ‘SKORT-lond’ instead of the Standard English ‘SKOTT-lund’.
Take a trip to cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow to hear the Scottish accent.
2. Geordie
People from Newcastle speak a dialect called Geordie, which is one of the strongest and most distinctive accents in England.
Geordie changes all the rules of Standard English, so nothing is pronounced as you’d expect it to be: the word button would be pronounced BOT-tdan instead of BUH-tun, with a ‘ooh’ sound on the letter U and a rolled T. Yeah, best to Youtube it, folks.
3. Scouse
People from Liverpool are called Scousers or Liverpudlians, and their dialect (which, like Geordie, is very strong and instantly recognisable) is called Scouse.
Liverpudlians would say woss dtha? instead of what’s that? with a lot of emphasis on the letters A and Y in words. They also roll their Rs, making it hard to tell if they’re saying L or R. Bless them!
Places you can visit to learn Scouse include Liverpool and nearby Manchester.
4. Yorkshire
One of the biggest counties in England, Yorkshire has a distinctive accent where one of the biggest pronunciation differences is on the letter U, which is spoken as ooo rather than uh – so cut is pronounced coht and blood is pronounced blohd.
Apparently it’s seen as one of the nicest and most trustworthy dialects by other people in the UK, but personally I’ve never met a trustworthy Yorkshire person (just kidding, they’re lovely).
You’ll hear the Yorkshire dialect in cities like York, Leeds and Sheffield.
5. Welsh
Officially a different country, Wales has a culture and language of its own that’s spoken by half a million people. They have brilliantly long and complicated words like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is the name of a Welsh village (and the second longest place name in the world).
When Welsh people speak English, their accent is instantly recognisable – they pronounce words like ‘Wales’ as WEE-alss unlike the English, who pronounce it WAY-ells.
You’ll learn the Welsh dialect if you visit Cardiff or nearby cities like Bristol.
6. Brummie
Possibly the cutest name on our list, this accent is actually one of the most ridiculed in the UK – which is quite mean, because clearly people from Essex have never heard themselves speak.
The name is derived from Brummagem and Bromwichham, both historical alternate names for the large city of Birmingham, where people speak this dialect.
People with a Brummie accent would say the word ‘hello’ as heh-LOUW instead of HEH-low, although there are lots of variations of the accent across the city (it’s the third-largest city in England).
Link to the rest at EF Education