The United Kingdom is famous for the range of regional accents we have relative to our size. It’s possible for travel even a few miles and find the accent has completely changed.

The Geordie accent is spoken by people in the Newcastle area. Watch this clip with comedian Sarah Millican. First watch it without subtitles then watch it again with the transcript I have provided for you.

What differences do you notice between her accent and Standard British? Are there any words she’s using differently? (Hint: yes!) Let me know in the comments.

To help you out, I’ve provided a transcription for you. I’ve transcribed this myself rather than use YouTube subtitles and it’s definitely correct even if it does differ from YouTube a little bit.

Transcription from 30 seconds in to the clip:

Yeah cos there’s something really arrogant about writing an autobiography. It’s like, oh I bet you all wanna know about my life. They’re like, er no not really. So in order to kind of like square the circle I thought I’ll put some- cos I’m quite practical when things happen to me I think well I’ll try and fix it and make myself feel better and I thought maybe those tips might help other people so that’s why it’s called How to be Champion because it’s about sort of being alright, not everything has to be perfect all the time.

What kind of tips?

Er so a good one, so if you er broke up with somebody for example I suggest that you change their name in your phone to like swearing. So mine was swearing I’ll not say what mine was but my friend changed hers to DNR for Do Not Resucitate

In my monthly membership, Time to Talk, we meet a native British English speaker with a strong regional accent. Members can ask questions, develop listening skills and really develop their confidence with unfamiliar accents. Let me know if you’d like more details, or follow this link.