Good morning, good afternoon and good tidings to all men! Welcome to Smashing English's 12
Days of Christmas! Yes, in the lead-up to Christmas we are giving you 12 videos and
live streams all about Christmas. We know that not everyone celebrates Christmas but
it's a huge tradition around the world so if you are learning English it's
really good to know how to talk about it and understand some grammar associated with it.
So what are we doing in today's day of Christmas? Well a big big tradition in the UK is that on
Christmas Day the Monarch will give a speech. And obviously for the last 70 something years it has
been a speech from Her Majesty the Queen. So I grew up on Christmas Day, you have your Christmas
dinner, you sit down and you watch the speech from the Queen. However, as we know this year,
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II sadly passed away so this year it will be The King's Speech, which
is really weird to get my head around! But what I thought we could do today is I will watch one
of the Queen's many speeches and we can talk about her accent and also some of the words and phrases
that she uses so that we can learn as much as we can from that speech. Now, her accent was very,
very unique! So it's very interesting to listen to so, so heightened. So Posh! Don't try to copy
it if you want to have an RP British accent. This is not the accent to copy because no one
speaks like that it's something just on its own. But it's very interesting to listen to. Okay,
so we're going to look at her Christmas message from 2012 because that was quite an interesting
year for London. that was the year that we had the Olympic Games so I think she might speak a
little bit about that. Let's watch it! "This past year has been one of great celebration for many.
The enthusiasm which greeted the Diamond Jubilee was of course especially memorable for me and
my family". Okay, already can you hear those completely different vowels? Okay so she says past
instead of past. Which is a trait of RP. So if you speak in an RP British accent you will say past,
grass, half. Whereas if you're from somewhere like Liverpool you will say past, grass. So in the UK
you will hear both of those sounds but of course the Queen says past because it's more proper.
She also says celebration for many. Instead of many with an EH she lifts it up to her nose and
goes Minnie. Her vowels are much more up here. So things go to the news a bit more so she goes many.
Just listen to how she says "many"one more time. "This past year has been one of great celebration
for many". And also notice how she doesn't say many people. Don't feel that you have to always
say many people because we know she's not talking about animals or anything crazy. She says it's a
great celebration for many, you don't need people on the end. Let's carry on! "It was humbling that
so many chose to mark the anniversary of a duty which passed to me 60 years ago".
Ceremony, so, so many. We, nowadays people in the UK just go so, so. Where she goes
so. It's- everything's lifted into this part of the mouth here. It's all very tight and up here.
Almost like she's smiling all the way through. Whereas most normal people talk a lot more down
here. A bit less proper up there. "But perhaps most striking of all was to witness the strength
of fellowship and friendship among those who would gather together on these occasions".
Again, "those" starts on a smile, "those" rather than those,
those. Oh, hello!
There's a joke that if you want to say "oh hello" like the queen you go air, like air in the sky.
hell air, air. That's like how she says things up here with a smile. "Prince Phillip and I
we're joined by our family on the River Thames". Family feh. Now it's much more common nowadays to
hear in Britain, ah family, wide ah ah ah. Where she goes family almost like it's an e. Family.
They might say cat instead of cat. So things go wider with normal people it's almost like she
was trained to not move her mouth so much because that would be unladylike. You know? If the queen
was talking like that, it's very crazy. So she's supposed to be very controlled and elegant, so she
talks without moving her mouth almost at all and so you get things like family, fear, rather than
family. So everything's tighter. But if you were learning English and you want to be understood
make sure you don't say things like family, cat. Make sure you say family, cat. Make that a nice
wide AH sound. "As we pay tribute to those who shaped the United Kingdom's past and future as
a maritime nation-". Paid tribute. That's a nice phrase. To pay tribute you might also hear give a
tribute, but it's most commonly to pay a tribute. So when you respect someone for something they've
done you might give a sign of respect to those people because they've done something great ,we
pay them a tribute. "And welcome a wonderful array of craft large and small from across
the Commonwealth". Listen to how she says large. Now, this is common in a lot of places in the UK
we don't do our R's like an ER. We wouldn't say large unless maybe you're in the west country or
Northern Ireland but in a lot of places in the UK definitely for RP, if that's what you want, you
don't want to do large. What you do do is you act like you've gone to the doctor and they say "okay,
open. Say ah". You go ahhhhh and then just put a GE on the end. Large. Large. No UR there. "There
were people who had taken their places to cheer through the mist and daunted by the rain".
That's British people! Undaunted by the rain, yes. If you are daunted by something you are
scared of it you are worrying about it but if you are undaunted you're not scared of it,
that's fine, it'll be okay! "that same spirit was also in evidence from the moment the Olympic
flame arrived on these shores". Again, same thing with the R. Shores it's not shores.You
know? If you want that RP thing you've got to keep your R's nice and open ooooooh.
Shores like that. That was cool, the Olympics opening ceremony was very cool. I remember
watching that. I remember when James Bond flew in, amazing. "We were reminded too, that the success
of these great festivals depended to an enormous degree upon the dedication and effort of an army
of volunteers". That's interesting she said it depended upon. This I'm sure is what we used to
say very commonly. You know? I depended upon him for support. But now more commonly in modern days,
we've dropped that up so we don't say depend upon as often, we say depend on. So I depended on him
for trust and support. But I'm guessing correct grammatically correctly and in Elizabeth's time
it was more common to say depend upon and you still might hear this but it's nowhere near as
common as depend on. "But for others service will come first". Now, she doesn't link her R's. So she
says but for others. For others. She says no R's in that sentence however a lot of modern speakers
even in RP we will say four others. Rothers. We take that R, we carry it over. Because when we
link things technically that R is coming before a vowel and when an R comes before a vowel we
say it like road, sorry, borrow. So with this, for others, if we link it.. oh! The R is in front of
a vowel. So we say for others. So if you want to work on your linking, if you want to sound fluent.
if you want to sound like you speak English all the time practice your R linking! For others.
"Those serving in our Armed Forces". Oh! She did it then. In our Armed Forces. Our Armed Forces.
Even the Queen does it! "I wish you all a very Happy Christmas!". Very. Very happy. So very,
she does a slight tapped r. Very happy. Not happy. She goes Happy Christmas. Lovely! How
sweet! And there you go! I hope you learned a little something from this video. If you
did give this video a like and I will see you next time for the next day of Christmas! Ta-ta!