If you mean "How does one imitate or acquire an English accent," then you will first have to decide which style you want to affect. Just as there accents in the U.S.A. that reflect regions and educational levels (so-called "language communities"), there are such varieties of speech in the UK.
Here are some suggestions from our WikiReaders:
- Associate with people who speak with your chosen accent. Even if you do not conciously attempt to mimic them, you will probably pick up a bit of their manner of speech. I once assumed a young lady to be Australian but found she had never lived anyplace except Wichita, Kansas. She had just been married to a native-born Aussie for several years. I would imagine if he were to go back to Australia, his mates would think he had a Midwestern accent.
- Britain covers England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. Each of these has a distinctive regional accent and within that there are many variations. Best is to watch British films and listen to how they sound and start follow them. Ref: neutralaccent.com
- You just try and watch and listen to TV programmes, or Radio stations from England, and mimic the accent. If you can put on a French accent, after watching something french, im sure you can do the same with the English Accent. But you must understand that there is no "English accent" that is solely said to be the actual English accent. There are many different sounding accents, just like every where else in the world. In England the most well known accents are 'Cockney' from London, 'Brummie' from Birmingham, 'Scousse' from Liverpool, 'Glaswegian' from Glasgow, and 'Potters' from Stoke on Trent. The one you are most likely referring to is the Posh English accent. Which is not so common in England as many people else where think. (I am English, so i know.)
- Listen to music in English Watch English TV Listen to English radio Get a CD or DVD or something that helps to improve your british accent Have conversations with british people Go to Britain Listen to people speaking with a British accent on something such as Youtube Watch British films
- The first step would be to immerse yourself as much as possible in the English accent, either by living in the U.K., or if that's not possible, devoting a lot of your free time listenining to recordings, television and radio programs, and movies in which the singers and characters are using an English accent. Then you must devote lots more free time to practicing pronouncing the words as they do. If you are an American, perhaps this hint would help: compared to U.S. speech, people speaking the Queen's English sound as if they are pronouncing their words very carefully and precisely. Every sound is pronounced, and I mean every. Americans tend to cut off the ends of words, or run words together, slurring the ending sounds. When speaking the Queen's English, you don't do that. Try listening and imitating recordings of British actors reciting Shakespeare, and you'll hear what I mean.