ANYONE CAN DO THIS | Master the American Accent

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Video Transcript:

You’ve reached a certain level in English. I mean look at you, you’re watching this video in English. You understand most of what I’m saying, maybe with subtitles, maybe without. This is when studying English can get really fun.

You’re adding and you’re polishing, you’re not stuck building the foundation, you’ve already done that good work. In my Academy, I’ve had students from all of these countries working on their American English. Anyone no matter what their native language is can speak American English with absolute confidence and fluency. Your tongue can do what my tongue can do. Your neck, face, jaw, whole body, it can do this.

I’m not perfect in these languages far from it. And I’m not accent free in these languages. But I do know the time and repetition out loud that it takes to feel totally comfortable with the new sounds rhythms and placements of a different language.

Today we’re going to go over five American accent tips for five major language groups. If you’re native language isn’t here, don’t worry. I’ve worked with hundreds of students and all of those have been recorded and all of those videos are put in Rachel’s English Academy.

For the first time ever I’m offering a lifetime option for purchasing the Academy no subscription, no recurring payments, you pay once, you have access forever. And you work on it when you can. No stress over keeping a schedule and wondering every month if you’re really using it enough. Get instant access to every course. American vowels, rhythm, conversation practice. We have 23 courses. Subscriptions also come with access to our community where you can meet online with our teachers and get personal feedback at no additional cost. It’s all included.

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First up, smooth connections between words. I work with this with a lot of students and right now students from China are coming to mind. This is not natural for you if your native language is Chinese.

No way.

Let’s connect it. We don’t want ‘no way’, we don’t want. That that reminds me of Mandarin. Separate. We don’t want that in American English. We want no way.

No way.

Exactly. That’s how connected we want everything. We don’t ever want no way. It sounds more free, more relaxed. If you had to explain this to one of your friends who’s a Mandarin speaker, if you had to say, ‘oh, I was in a class with Rachel and this is what she told me to do with my voice.’ What would you say?

I think I would say it’s very important to thinking of connecting of the words rather than just the way we speak in Chinese, uh which all the words are completely split.

Mmhm. I think that’s great that’s definitely true. I also think when you think about that connection, it might help you find more of the this space rather than the this space. I sort of sense that your neck is more relaxed which is what we want, and it might be that connecting everything also helps this relax more because there’s not a need to separate to cut things off start again, no way, it’s just all that.

No way.

No way. Now we make sure it’s not no way. I don’t want it to feel cut, no way, ey.

No way.

Yes, that is better.

So think of connecting words and smoothness and this can relax your neck and throat which can lead to better placement.

I love this about accent work. Often, when you work on one part of it, another part gets better.

Do you feel that, can you tell what you’re doing differently there?

Uh, I sort of uh, feel Iike sometimes there’s a tense in my jaw, and mouth muscle.

And is it that doing that makes the lower placement or is it that not doing that makes the lower placement?

Not doing it makes a lower placement.

Yes. That sounds right to me. That sounds right to me. You find the tension, you let it go and it lowers the placement. Perfect.

Now with my Spanish speakers I talk about clearer stressed syllables. There are two things you need: More length to your stressed syllable and more pitch change. Otherwise, it’s kind of hard to understand.

A lot of my Spanish speakers, I’m often trying to get more contrast from them.

Oh yeah, I’ve been working like on stress a lot lately.

Yeah, well let’s just take that phrase. I’m going to type it out, ‘I’ve been working on stress a lot lately’ is sort of how you said it. I’ve been working on.

Okay, so let’s first start at lower. I’ve been.

I’ve been.

Work

Work

No, you went I’ve been, work. Here’s what I want: I’ve been work.

I’ve been work.

Yeah, even, even more. We’re going to like go over the top just to like stretch it okay?

Work

Yeah. So what you just did sounds normal, it didn’t sound over the top. I’ve been wor—

I’ve been wor—

Okay, one other thing. Uhm, a little bit I see, I see a mouth position in general that’s sort of like this. I’ve been wor– it’s like really flat not much jaw drop, sort of oriented this way. I’ve been work, but what I want is work, I want to feel like more freedom this way, I’ve been wor—

I’ve been work—

Yes! Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Okay, so now I’m just going to say I’ve been working and I want to play it say it and if I change the melody, then I want you to change the melody to match it.

Got it.

I’ve been working

Uhhuh, now that’s a little bit working, working, work, more jaw drop, more this feeling. I’ve been working.

I’ve been working.

Yes, exactly. And does that feel, does it feel uncomfortably.

Yeah, it feels it feels super long.

Okay, it feels too long you said?

Yeah.

Yes, okay I love that. It’s totally not and in fact we need that length in order to go up and down and that up and down scoop is like how are our ears hear, yes. When we don’t have that, and my Spanish speakers are often–. It’s like flat and, and the stress doesn’t come out enough, that can be pretty hard to understand because our ears are used to those anchors. Wor– and if I don’t get any wor, then I’m like whoa wait, what is the structure of this sentence? I’ve been working.

I’ve been working.

Yeah, that is in no way too long. And I mean if anything you can continue to make your pitches more extreme.

If your native language doesn’t have this kind of syllable length or pitch change, it feels weird, it feels too long, it feels like you’re being fake. But you have to speak English with the character of English if you want it to be easy to understand.

So many of my students need help with the UR vowel, like in Earth, learn first. I’m sure for many of you out there, girl, world, and squirrel are some of the hardest words to say. They all have that UR vowel.

A lot of my students from India have studied British English, and if they want to switch over to American English, changing this vowel will be a big part of that.

It’s my first time to be on a live video chat. No, no. I’m just ,

You’re learning how to sing.

Yeah, of course.

One of the main sounds that I’ve noticing is this is a very strong carryover from British English, is that, have you studied some British English or um,

Yeah, last year. No, last year I was learning from an online channel.

Mmhm. So if you want to sound more American, one of the main ways that you can do it is with the vowel that we use in bird, learning, first. When you said it was more like first, learning, it’s got more of a British sound, we definitely put more R into that first, first.

Earth sound, right?

Yes. Let me hear you say ‘first’.

First.

That’s perfect! Let me hear you say ‘in the first place’.

first place

Yes. Let me hear you say ‘I’m learning’.

I’m learning.

Yeah. Let me see hear you say ‘that hurts’.

That hurts.

Okay, so your sound is perfect, you just have to do it. I wouldn’t change anything about the sound.

Actually I’m learning um, I’ve been practicing sounds for like,

Not learning, not learning.

It’s learning, yeah.

Yes.

I get it. Learning.

Yes.

Uh, I’ve been learning all the time you know like for the last couple of months.

One of the things I love about AJ is by the time we worked together, he’d already been in the Academy for a year. He’d been working with those materials over and over and he knew that vowel, he totally nailed it. UR, first, learn, hurt. The sound was perfect and he found that perfect sound in his body by doing repetition. All he has to do now is integrate it into his habit and I have some recording exercise that I have my students do to help this happen faster.

If you sign up for the Academy you can learn about these recording exercises I call them The Bridge. It’s the bridge to go from practicing your accent to actually using everything you’ve learned effortlessly in conversation.

Our next student, native language, Portuguese. I worked with her on reductions. That is these little words in American English that are said so fast, you won’t believe how short they are. But when you say them this quickly, it actually makes you easier to understand. Here we’re working on the phrase ‘moved from’, moved from.

I moved from Homosassa. From.

Moved from.

Hmhm. Moved from. Let me hear from, from.

From

Not from. From.

From.

Right. From.

From.

Faster half as long. From.

From

That’s perfect. If you can believe it that is the word. That is how it’s pronounced in that sentence. It’s from.

From

From Homosassa.

Not from. From.

From Homosassa.

Yeah, even faster. From, from Homosassa.

From Homosassa.

Yes that is it, from.

From Homosassa.

Exactly.

From Homosassa.

Many of the most common words in American English are reductions and we have soundboards for each of them in the Academy so you can work with that audio repetitiously to help you get your reductions really, really short.

Let’s try a little bit with the ‘for’ reduction from the soundboard from the Academy.

Repeat each time you hear.

We’ll be there for 3 weeks.

For

There for

there for three

We’ll be there for 3 weeks.

The UH vowel along with UR is one of the hardest ones to get. Think of the word pair cop, cup. I had a Russian student once who couldn’t hear the difference in these two vowels. She worked on them in the Academy for a month and after that she sounded native on both vowels.

Here, I’m working with a Russian student who realizes she doesn’t need as much space back here to make the UH vowel.

So when you said the word studying it was a little bit sta, studying, sta, instead of stu, stu, so it’s a little bit of placement and also just the tongue position the vowel itself. So can I hear you say study.

Study.

Where is the time it’s supposed to be?

Okay, that’s a good question so I’m actually going to change it to just a one syllable word because why bother with more than one syllable right now? So let’s just go to um, let’s go to fun. Let me hear you say that.

Fun

Uhuh. Uh, okay so the tongue is the tip is forward it’s wide and it’s very, very relaxed. And I hear like just now when you said fun it was, it was kind of partway between uh and a. And so for the a the back of the tongue is pressing down a little bit, um, fun, fun, fun or fun. Ah, ah, uh, uh. So there can be a little bit less space back here, uh. I mean sometimes I tell students like okay one time, I was playing basketball with my mom and she threw the ball at me and I wasn’t ready for it and it hit me in the face and I was like uh, and just I sometimes think about that feeling uh, uh is like what you kind of want to have in your face to get the full relaxation for that uh vowel. So let’s just try that uh.

Uh

Fun

And I’m going to do like I did with Bo-Kai, just some word parts.

tuh

duh

stuh

muh

Yeah. The first one it was a little bit more like the ah vowel again, muh, but that was good. Do you know were you just doing play it say it or did you think of something to change the second time you did that?

I was thinking of my tongue and the placement of it and I do realize when it’s like back forward like back there so little bit.

So you’re your whole tongue is maybe shifted back a little bit more than it should to get the vowel quality want. Okay, that’s great. I always love it when students can articulate that because other students watching will be like, oh okay, my whole tongue forward. Okay, that sounds great.

My Academy brings students from all over the world together to get real results, solid results of a natural and comfortable American English sound. Many of them are in Healthcare, doctors and nurses living in the US. Many of them work in business and finance across the globe and they use English for work every day. We have students in school, college professors, stay-at-home parents. Everyone has their own reason for doing this. What’s yours?

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