Do you prefer the sound of British English or American English?

If you said British English, we're sure many of you are thinking of a particular kind of accent called Received Pronunciation.

Also known as RP or the Queen's English, it is the kind of accent traditionally used by BBC presenters, hence its other name: BBC English.

But these days it is no longer the only kind of English you hear in BBC broadcasts, and in fact RP is spoken by only around 2% of all British people.

Listen to the Queen speaking RP in this programme

So what's going on?

And if you want to listen to RP, where's the best place?

In this programme we listen to recordings of people speaking RP through the decades.

You can hear how even the Queen's RP is changing.

And as always, we suggest that you listen to as wide a variety of pronunciations as possible, not just RP, in order to help your listening comprehension.

Let us know which BBC Learning English presenter you would like to copy.