Six tips to help you understand Regency Era English Better
Updated: 26 May 2024
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Six tips to help you understand Regency Era English Better
Ever wanted to read Jane Austen or watch a book adaptation? Have a hard time understanding what anyone in these books or films is saying? It does feel like a completely different language. I am by no means an expert on understanding British Regency English, and certainly not perfect at all. But as I continue to read Austen’s books and watch period adaptations, I have picked up a few things that helped me understand better that I want to share with you.
This article is aimed to help give tips and advice to people who just starting on their Jane Austen journey. To help them follow along and enjoy Jane Austen’s books as well as TV and film adaptations.
1. Use a dictionary
You may have notice of terms and vocabulary being used that aren’t well known today but were used frequently during the Prince Regent Era in Britain. I consistently came across more words that were foreign in my personal vocabulary bank. I could not help but open dictionary.com app on my phone to look up some of these words. Which, to my surprise, are words that are easily accessible to look up.
Mr. Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth in Pride & Prejudice (2005) is a good example. He mentions the “propriety” that her family has or lack of. Now I had a good idea of what that meant due to paying attention to the context of events (which I will mention later in this post). But I certainly could not confidently recite or say the definition of that word if someone had asked me. So I looked it up on my phone and found out what it meant. According to Dictionary.com, propriety means “conformity to established standards of good or proper behavior or manners.”
1.1 Dictionary.com
The dictionary is even more accessible than ever today due to the internet and our phones. Dictionary.com has a phone app that makes looking up words incredibly fast and convenient. There is also a helpful feature to voice record a word that you may not know how to spell. This tool has become very helpful to me when watching a period adaptation and hearing a word that I never heard of and have no idea how it is spelled.
1.2 Jane Austen Dictionary
If you would like to save a lot of time, there is a dictionary that was written exactly for Jane Austen fans plus a Regency Era focus.
The Jane Austen Dictionary is the perfect one stop place to help you understand and learn Regency Era words.
2. Web search
Items and objects can be applied in same way, but use a more broad tool, the World Wide Web.
When I read Mansfield Park, I searched on the internet and saw the different kinds of carriages used. It helps bring objects to life, especially when reading with no visual aids beyond written description. Which is at the discretion of the author.
2.1 Purchase Novels with footnotes
Some books have footnotes for objects, food, culture references and phrases used during that time.
For a low cost option Penguin Classics has Pride & Prejudice with some footnotes and an index to help you along as you read.
3. Taking time to understand the context
Period TV and film adaptations will be the main focus with this tip. It can also eventually help with applying it to literary works. Taking your time paying attention to the context of the situation can help by seeing what is going on in the scene and applying it to what the characters are saying. How characters express their feelings and respond to what is happening will help you apply understanding when it comes to trying to figure out what they are saying. It can also help with building your vocabulary or at least a foundation. Similar to what was mentioned before with using a dictionary.
The great thing about it is that there are a lot of film and TV adaptations of Jane Austen’s works that you can choose from, or you can just watch all of them. There may be some contrast from each adaptation, but overall the plot of each film adaptation is similar enough to understand the foundation and core ideas of Jane Austen’s original works.
There is something to note, that Jane Austen’s novels and works have a lot of irony worked into them, so there is extra work on staying keen when relying on context.
4. Watch adaptations with subtitles
Subtitles are considered a pet peeve to most. I personally will have to disagree. I think it helps with understanding any movie. This tip can be used with a combination of my other tips at once. Subtitles can also help better understand what is being said due to some audio challenges in the actual film itself. Some challenges may be how an actor says a word, whether it be an accent or poor enunciation of a word that makes it difficult to hear, or it could be a not-so-great audio recording used in the final edit.
The only downside I have noticed with using subtitles is that depending on the streaming service, the subtitles may not be accurate to what is being said. So unfortunately this is not a foolproof tip, but it is still handy and helpful as a whole.
Don’t know where to start? Check out some of my reviews on period adaptations of popular Jane Austen novels:
4 Reasons to what Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (again)
3 Favorite Scenes from Sense & Sensibility 1995
The Best Pride & Prejudice Adaptation
Thoughts on Sense and Sensibility 2008
5. Listen to audiobooks
I appreciate audiobooks. Listening to people read books helps me digest and remember details a lot more than if I just read in my head. Some people may not have this problem. Which is great, but for those who enjoy and get more out of listening to others, this will help a lot.
It is redundant, but listening to audiobooks will also help with understanding context.
To get you started, check out Audible’s Pride & Prejudice, narrated by Rosamund Pike.
My other favorite Jane Austen recommendations for audiobooks are Sense and Sensibility narrated also by Rosamund Pike, and Mansfield Park narrated by Frances Barber, both on Audible.
6. Repeat
With Jane Austen’s work and book adaptations rereading and watching movies and shows over and over again is important. Any fan of her works, or fans of the tv shows and films don’t just watch or read once and then be done. So it is completely fine if you don’t understand everything the first time around. That is part of the fun to watch and read again and again to pick up new information.
