UK ENGLISH
Received Pronunciation
A Wikipedia article explaining the term you will hear quite often. A useful technical introduction to regional and class variations of English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
THE LISTENING PROJECT
Huge variety of English Class and Region, downloadable for listening to at leisure. Ordinary people talking to each other about “everyday” life events important to them. Also a valuable resource of the life experience of others and how they handle sometimes emotional issues.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-listening-project
The British Library link to their part of “The Listening Project”
Ordinary people record their own stories and upload them to the BBC. The challenge is to note where in the UK the people originate from, usually stated in the introduction on screen. Also very often a useful window for Actors looking for clues as to how “ordinary people” deal with life-changing experience.
http://www.bl.uk/listeningproject/
RADIO MANCHESTER’s link to their part in “The Listening Project”
Useful in that it includes links to stories sorted by regional radio stations, which helps in identifying the origin of the speakers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-listening-project/listen/network/bbc_radio_manchester/sort/date
The British Library Site
For more targeted accent / Dialect research. The disadvantage is that the files generally cannot be downloaded, but have to be played on-line. Tech-savvy students will find a way around that!
http://sounds.bl.uk/
http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects
http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects
Sounds Familiar?
A relatively small selection from the whole project, but his is valuable mainly because of simple explanations and short examples of differences of Accent and Dialect.
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/
BBC Sounds
BBC Sounds – UK Radio station index page
MarkerLinks to all the UK National live web radio stations and schedules. Each station is aimed at a particular niche in the increasingly “Multicultural” United Kingdom population. The really useful part of this page is at the bottom, which links to the dozens of very specific Regional radio stations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/stations
BBC Radio 4 Podcasts
My favourite station for “recreational listening” . BBC Radio 4 is a treasure trove of fairly “Neutral” English which also addresses one of the major problems I’ve noticed about South African actors: lack of wide general knowledge. The files are fairly compact in mp3 format, so can be transferred to most portable devices, including cellphones, for listening “on-the-go”. The topical programmes range from 9 minutes to 45 minutes, presented in a variety of “ordinary” English accents. The challenge is to identify the Class & Region of any variations that may occur. Radio Four also has a Drama thread, most of which can not be downloaded but must be listened to on-line. This is world-class Radio such as you will never hear in South Africa. Use the “Search” facility from the BBC Sounds Home page.
AMERICAN ENGLISH
I was struck by how few American academic resources appear in searches – possibly because they are simply swamped by the thousands of “Fast Buck” commercial sites, so beware. You could possibly try to enter the name of an American University with a known reputation for language courses…
WikiPedia
Overview article, which contains links to other entries. It may seem very “academic”, but it is very useful in that it provides a basic technical understanding of how the accent originated. It also deals with regional variations across America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English
Google
Entering “American accent training” or “Learn American accent” in Google will produce thousands of links, some of which are either free or include free samplers which will get you started. Of course, the quality of the teaching will vary widely!
Amy Walker
(Also recommended by Judy Phillips – ex-Cape Town based American Dialogue Coach)
http://www.21accents.com/
Extremely popular commercial on-line accent training site. Dollar pricing may be beyond most South Africans budget.
Amy Walker’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@21Accents/videos