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Have you ever wondered what people 
mean when they say someone sounds POSH?

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If you do know what it means, do you wish 
to add some poshness to your English?

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Or do you want to better differentiate between  

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Posh English and standard English 
so that you don’t mix them up?

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If you identify with any of these questions, 
watch this lesson until the end so that you  

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understand (and maybe use) the Posh 
English that some British people use.

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Before we get into the lesson, in case 
you’re new here, I want to let you know  

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that every week we bring you 3 free new lessons 
to help you understand fast speaking natives,  

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without getting lost, without missing the 
jokes and without subtitles! Just like Swati  

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So, here’s some general information.

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More than just a feature of language, 
posh is associated with the upper class,  

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related to having or spending money. Posh 
people in Britain use words that maybe  

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the general population would not normally 
use and their pronunciation also changes.

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Take a look at these sentences with the word 
Posh that a user of Urban Dictionary shared.  

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This will give you an idea of the 
cultural significance of this word.

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In this lesson, we’ll focus on words that 
will make you sound POSH and also help you  

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understand posh English. So if you 
want to boost your language level,  

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then this lesson is definitely for you!

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We’re using clips from Bridgerton,  

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Downton Abbey and The Crown to give 
you real examples with these words.

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You may want to sound posh in 
certain situations at work,  

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university or social gatherings, but 
even if you don’t want to speak this way,  

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you might want to understand it as it’s part of 
British culture. For example, you could hear an  

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English person speak POSH as a joke! We do 
love to experiment with different accents!

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Besides that, it’s always good to have an idea 
of the difference between posh English and casual  

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English so that you don’t say something posh 
if you’re hanging out with friends for example.

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So, imagine you’re going to 
Surrey as an exchange student,  

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and your host family are the Spencers, 
a classic posh, upper class family.

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A few things you might notice in conversing 
with the members of this upper crust family  

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is they’d use very, so, and really 
less frequently. Instead you’ll hear:

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Rather, as in for example

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“It’s a rather difficult question”

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or as in “to rather like something.”

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You could also hear this word at 
the end of a sentence to correct  

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a misstatement or emphasize a point.

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Other words that are used to emphasize an idea 
are quite, fairly, utterly, awfully, and jolly.

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Notice that even though “awful” generally has a 
negative meaning, when you say it as “awfully”,  

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to add emphasis, it generally has a 
positive meaning. In the following example,  

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both utterly and awfully are used. Another rather 
Posh sounding word in this example is indeed.

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In our FwF course, we’ll teach you important 
vocabulary, just like this, to help you  

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avoid making mistakes. Of course in addition to 
learning thousands of the words we really use in  

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our everyday speech, understanding how natives 
really speak, using correct pronunciation and  

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laughing along with all the jokes. So you can try 
that absolutely free with our 3 part masterclass.  

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You can learn more and sign up by clicking 
up here or in the description below.

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Let’s move on to some of the adjectives that 
posh people like to use. Imagine it’s 5 pm,  

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you’re still at the Spencer house in 
Surrey and Mrs. Spencer asks you “Darling,  

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do you fancy a cup of tea?” Can you guess what 
would be an appropriate posh reply to that?

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Splendid is a typical posh adjective. You 
could say “That’s a splendid idea!” or  

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simply say “Splendid!” if you 
like what someone else said).

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Posh people also love the adjective marvellous,  

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so after you’ve had dinner with the Spencers 
you could say: “Dinner was marvellous.”

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Take a look at this example from Downton Abbey,  

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where they use a couple of 
adjectives common in posh talk.

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In this clip we just saw, there’s another common  

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feature of posh talk, which is adding 
do before a verb. So, they’ll say:

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Back to some adjectives, as you’re 
still hanging out with the Spencers,  

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you might be invited to a ball.

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Actually, a ball, which is a large social occasion 
where people dance, are more a thing of the past.  

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However, if you do get invited to a ball, you 
can say afterwards: The ball was stupendous!

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Let’s now move on to some posh slang. These 
are words that you can use in more informal  

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situations when you’re around posh people.
The first one is jolly. We mentioned this  

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one as a synonym of very, but also if you’re 
jolly you’re happy and enjoying yourself.

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When something is nonsense, meaning ideas, 
opinions, statements etc that are not true  

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or that seem very stupid, you may 
use a funny slang word: poppycock.

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The next slang word is bugger. 
This is an offensive word for  

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someone who is very annoying or unpleasant.

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You can bugger it! when you are annoyed 
or angry or tell someone to bugger off,  

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which means to go away or leave a place.

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This is a slightly less offensive way 
of telling someone to leave you alone  

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without using a strong curse word.
You've probably heard this one in  

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many famous British films such as 
Love Actually and Notting Hill. 

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Our next lang word is golly which 
people use to show surprise.

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And, because British people love to 
talk about the weather, you can say  

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something like What ghastly weather!, 
which means “What terrible weather!”

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When you're in Surrey you might make 
friends with a group of chaps or you might  

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date a nice chap. Chap is another way to say man.

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Twit is an insult which means stupid.

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So, to recap what you've learned in this lesson.

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British poshness is associated with the upper 
class. For that reason, it’s not the most likely  

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English you’ll hear when visiting the UK but 
this is language that people do like to use. 

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I also taught you these 
posh words that you can use,  

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not only with the intention to sound 
posh, but sometimes even when you want  

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to sound a bit more sophisticated 
or if you're in a formal situation. 

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With many hit series like The Crown, 
Downton Abbey and Bridgerton, to name a few,  

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that depict the upper class, you’ll be able 
to understand the language they use better! 

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So if you liked this lesson, make sure you give 
it a thumbs up and if you’d like a lesson on one  

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of these series we haven’t yet featured, 
let us know in the comments down below!