听一下,看看你能听出几种?

在英国，英语的口音众多：伯明翰口音、利物浦口音和格拉斯哥口音等。有的地方甚至还有自己的语言，比如威尔士。在距离伦敦不过两个小时车程的 Bangor，街头的路牌竟然是双语的：上一排是威尔士语，下一排是英语。不过，英国从来没有明文规定过任何一种语音是"标准音"。而中国学生在国内学习的标准"英音"其实指的是英国国家广播公司BBC播音员采用的英国东南部口音。这只不过是因为英国的东南部一向比较发达和富裕，文化上也长期处于强势，语音流传比较广罢了。

英国口音的特点，就是阴阳顿挫，几乎每个音节都发的清清楚楚，长韵母音和短韵母音有十分明显的区别。而美式英语里面则有点含糊不清，大部分的长韵母音都被截短。比如说Class中的a音，属于长韵母音，英国人一般都发得比较完整。而美国人往往读成短音，听上去和bad里面的a音差不多。又如"Aunt"，美国人几乎无一例外发成"ant"，让人搞不清楚他们到底是说自己的阿姨，还是家门口的蚂蚁。英国口音往往对位于弱音节上的清辅音发得十分清晰，美国人则经常把清辅音读成浊辅音。比如"Battery"，美国人读来就如同"Baddery"。事实上我国中小学英语课上使用的英语发音，都是基于英国标准的。中央电视台的英语频道，以及外交部发言人对外国记者的谈话，也基本上都是英国式的英语。国外媒体当中，BBC是公认的英国式英语的典范.

有比较权威的统计说，在英国，英语的口音多达上千种，英国人可以依据一个人的口音迅速辨认出对方的成长地，甚至社会阶层。果然，没过多久我便发现，伦敦人什么口音都有。

Language is never fixed. It changes over time as people try to express themselves in different ways to different people. And English, although broadly the same language, is spoken in lots of different ways by lots of different people. Normally this is because people live far apart. However, even in Britain, a relatively small place, there are huge variations in the way people speak English. And that is not to forget the large numbers of people who speak other languages as their first language - people who have migrated to Britain from abroad, as well as the significant 25% of Welsh speakers who still speak Welsh in their local communities.

Written English is much more fixed, and changes much less quickly, than spoken English. People across Britain speak English using not only different accents, but different expressions. For example, people of different ages and from different parts of Britain may greet you with as many different words as; dear, love, darling, chuck, mate, guv, son, sir, madam, miss, fella, and many, many more. As people migrate into Britain, and as people move around Britain more freely, accents change more quickly. However, most British people can guess where another British person is from because of their accent.

One of the most obvious differences in accents in Britain is shown by the pronunciation of the word 'bath'. Broadly speaking people in the north pronounce the 'a' as if they were saying 'at', and people in the south pronounce it as if they were saying 'are'. The same distinction is true of lots of words which have a similar sound - like 'laugh', 'ask' and 'dance'. There are other vowels that are pronounceddifferently in the north and south - including the vowel sounds in 'cup', 'rose', and 'bird'. These differences are harder to explain than the 'bath' example. However, although different accents may sound difficult at first, they shouldn't be too hard to understand once you get used to them! .

The same can't be said for different areas which use completely different words. For example, the 'Cockney' speech, which describes a small area of east London, is nearly impossible to understand for anyone else. This is not because of the accent, but because they often use rhymes to describe things instead of the words themselves. This originally started in the 19th Century as an attempt to make sure that the police could not understand what they were saying if they were doing something criminal, though it is not the same now!

I'll leave you with a few fun examples of Cockney:

'Adam and Eve' (meaning: believe) - E.g. 'I don't Adam and Eve it', means 'I don't believe it'.

'Bacon and Eggs' (meaning: legs) - E.g. 'Move your bacon and eggs', means 'move your legs'.

'Pork pies' (meaning: lies) - E.g. 'He's telling pork pies', means 'he's telling lies'.