English in Regional Accent Voice Recordings

Working with translation and production companies

Adding audio visual services to your mix will create many new sales opportunities for your team.

Matinée has over 40 years of experience as a voice over agency working alongside translation and production companies. So you can be confident our project managers are fully at home with the technical process of supervising and delivering localised material, in a professional and timely manner. We can add translation, voice over and subtitling to your company’s offering, which will appear seamless to your clients and yet mesh easily with the processes in your own departments.

If you are a translation company, we will send you some helpful guidelines when providing us with copy or scripts, and we can either work from your translations or handle the whole project for you, including translation. If you are a production company, we will provide translations or subtitles in your preferred format; whether that’s subtitle-ready files (XML or PNG), or burnt in as fully-subtitled videos. Voice over recordings can be supplied as edited files, or we can remix with the original music and effects and provide a finished video, ready to go.

Working seamlessly with your team, we can take on all or part of the process, according to your needs, and help widen your service offering.

Everything you never needed to know about Regional British Accents

There’s lots of them
The English have 40 different dialects. The most well-known are Scottish, Irish, Scouse, Yorkshire, Brummie and Black country, Welsh, Cockney and West Country and of course the difference between north and south of England.

There is a difference between north and south
There’s a noticeable difference in the way people speak when they from the north or the south of England. One of the most noticeable differences is in their pronunciation of words like castle, grass and bath. People from the south use a longer vowel sound so the beginnings of the words seem to have an r in them even when they don’t. So, Castle sounds like carstle. People from the north use a short vowel sound which makes the a in these words like the a in cat, so the word castle sounds like castle.

Scotland’s not all the same
Scotland’s language is Scottish, but they have many regional accents. For example, the Scottish spoken in Edinburgh isn’t the same as the Scottish spoken in Glasgow or in the Highlands. Sometimes new English learners can find Scottish accents hard to understand. Scottish people also tend to speak very quickly too. Famous Scottish people include Billy Connelly, Sean Connery, and Andy Murray.

Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland have distinct accents
Southern Ireland has more of an Irish influence. Northern Irish on the other hand has been influenced by English and Scottish. Famous Northern Irish people are Jamie Dornan, Liam Neeson and Eamonn Holmes. Famous people from southern Ireland include Bono from the band U2, Colin Farrell and Sinead O’Connor.

Scousers from Liverpool
Scousers are people from Liverpool and Merseyside and their accent is scouse. It is very distinctive, especially as they are one of the few regional English accents to roll their Rs. Famous scousers are The Beatles, Wayne Rooney, and Cilla Black.

Aye Up
Aye Up is a famous Yorkshire expression for hello or good morning. The Yorkshire accent is influenced by Old Norse. Emily Bronte based her book Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire and some of the content is written using the Yorkshire dialogue. Famous people from Yorkshire include Michael Palin, Ed Sheeren and Jeremy Clarke.

Brummies’ from Birmingham
The Brummie accent can be heard mainly in Birmingham, but you’ll also hear a very similar accent in the surrounding areas of the black country like Dudley and Walsall. Brummies’ pronounce words like castle and bath the same as someone from the north of England. Famous people with a brummie accents include Lenny Henry, Noddy Holder and Julie Walters.

Bore da from Wales (Good Morning)
You’ll hear Welsh spoken in Wales. It is instantly recognisable because when they speak they pitch their voices up and down so the accent has a sing-song quality. In a word like helicopter the English only have one stress whereas the Welsh accent gives it two. Famous Welsh people include Tom Jones, Rob Brydon, and Gareth Bale.

Cockney
It is said that you are only a true cockney if you were born within the sound of Bow Bells which belong to the church of St Mary Le Bow in Cheapside, London. But of course, you will hear versions of the cockney accent in London and the surrounding area. You can tell a cockney accent if the speaker is changing th words like think to the letter F so Think become Fink.
Cockneys also have their own language. It’s called cockney rhyming slang and it originated from the East End of London. Sayings in cockney rhyming slang include apples and pears for the word stairs and would you ‘Adam and Eve it’ for would you believe it.
Famous Cockneys are Michael Caine, Danny Dyer, and Martine McCutcheon.

Down in the West Country
You’ll hear west country accents spoken by people who live in the South West of England in places like Somerset, Dorset and Bristol. A typical example of the accent is looking at the word Warm. In the west country accent the a sound will be changes to an o sound so that the word sounds like worm instead of warm.
Famous west Country personalities are Pam Ayres, Dawn French and Harry Enfield.

A round up of the most common English accents

The United Kingdom is a place with a huge number of different accents. Some come from Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but in England alone there are hundreds. Here are just some of England’s regional accents.

BBC English
Before the advent of Coronation Street on Granada TV, the only accents that were heard on TV and radio were BBC English. It is actually called Received Pronunciation and is a very clearly spoken, easy to understand accent. You can still hear it on the TV and radio. Listen to actresses Joanna Lumley and Judy Dench for an idea of how it sounds.

Scouse
Scouse is another name for the Liverpool accent, but it actually refers to a meat dish that poor Liverpool people used to eat called scouse and that the people who ate it were called ‘scousers’. You can hear the Liverpool accent spoken by famous comedian John Bishop and actor, Ricky Tomlinson.

Cockney
Cockney comes from the East End of London and shouldn’t be confused with cockney rhyming slang, which is entirely different. True cockneys are said to have been born within hearing distance of the bells at the church of St Mary-le-Bow, but it really applies to all Londoners who speak with this accent. It was traditionally seen as a working class accent, but those of you who enjoy the apprentice know that this isn’t always the case. Just listen to Lord Sugar. A good way to hear cockney accents is to watch the BBC series, EastEnders.

South Eastern English
This is the English spoken by the people in the South East, which includes places such as Sussex, Essex, Kent and Hampshire. It isn’t an accent with a strong tone, but you can hear regional differences. For example, the Essex accent is very like Cockney and the Hampshire accent is very clearly spoken like BBC English.

Midlands
The Midlands can be divided up between East and West. East Midlands covers places like Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. The accent isn’t as pronounced as West Midland accents, which include ‘Brummie’ – If you listen to comedian Jasper Carrot talking you can hear a soft Brummie accent, or listen to Singer Noddy Holder’s Wolverhampton accent, which is stronger. Birmingham and Wolverhampton are only 8 miles apart.

West Country
People from the South West of England speak with a West Country accent, although some regions have stronger accents than others. The Wiltshire accent doesn’t sound as broad as the Devon accent, which sounds different from the Cornish accent. Those of you who like watching the series Doc Martin can hear the actors speaking with Cornish accents and the BBC series, The Coroner, has actors speaking with a Devon accent.

Geordie
Geordie is spoken by people living in and around the area of Newcastle Upon Tyne and Durham. It is a distinctive accent, which is sometimes hard for people to understand. The TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet featured Geordie actors, Jimmy Nail, Kevin Whatley and Tim Healy. You can see some episodes on You Tube.

Northern English
As the name suggests, Northern English is spoken by people who live in the North and this includes Scouse and Geordie. It also includes however, the Lancashire accent, the Yorkshire accent and the Northumberland accent. Some accents are more pronounced than others; for example, the Bury and the Manchester accent (Mancunian) sound different from Yorkshire or Northumberland voices. The ITV series, Coronation Street is the perfect example of people speaking in a Northern accent, especially as a lot of the actors come from Manchester or Bury.