Received Pronunciation facts for kids

Received Pronunciation (often called RP or BBC English) is a special accent of English. It's known as the standard way of speaking English in Britain. Many people in the south of England use it, and some people across the whole country speak with this accent. It's also often called Standard English.

Students learning British English from other countries usually learn this accent in school. When you look up how to say words in British dictionaries, they often show the pronunciation for Received Pronunciation. This accent became more common in the 1900s because of radio and television. Before that, people mostly used their local accents, called regional dialects.

In the past, most people didn't go to school for very long. For example, in 1910, many left school at age 12. By 1950, it was 14. Until about 1960, most people in England lived close to where they were born. This meant that local accents in places like the West and North of England were very strong and different.

Received Pronunciation focuses only on how words are spoken. Other names like Standard English, the Queen's English, Oxford English, and BBC English can also include rules about grammar, what words to use (vocabulary), and how to write (style).

What Makes RP Special?

Received Pronunciation is a non-rhotic accent. This means that if a word ends with an 'r' sound, like in car or teacher, the 'r' sound is usually not spoken.

Many words in RP have long vowel sounds. For example, the 'a' sound in words like 'bath' or 'grass' is long, like the 'a' in 'far'. It's not short, like the 'a' in 'cat'.

There are other special features of RP that language experts study. One example is avoiding something called a glottal stop. This is a sound made by briefly closing your throat, like the pause in "uh-oh."

Images for kids

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  A chart showing how vowel sounds have changed in RP over time.

See also

In Spanish: Received Pronunciation para niños