6 Ways To Change Your English Accent Fix Speak Clearly
Oh hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish.
If you’re a regular mmmEnglish student
you know that I don’t prioritise perfection.
I’m more focused on building confidence and self-belief
and regular English practice.
So when it comes to your accent,
let’s focus on clear communication, not the perfect
English accent but clear communication that makes it
easy to understand you, to help you feel more confident
when you’re speaking to others and to fit in.
So if reducing your accent and speaking clearly
is something that you’re interested in doing, then stick
around because I’ve got six tips to help you do that.
One of the coolest things about accents is that there are
so many of them and
and one of the best ways that you can meet English
speakers with different accents
from all around the world is to be part
of an online language school like Lingoda.
And with the next Lingoda Language Sprint
right around the corner,
well not only is this a great opportunity
for you to improve your speaking and your listening
skills in just three months
but Lingoda are also offering a chance to get a one
hundred per cent refund as well.
Now if you haven’t heard me talk about it before,
the Lingoda Language Sprint is a challenge.
Lingoda are inspiring their students to level up
their knowledge, their speaking skills
and their grammar awareness in just ninety days.
Now I participated in the Sprint when it was
called a marathon last year and it was one of the best
things that I ever did. I was taking Spanish classes.
So there are two ways to join.
You’ve got the choice to sign up for the Super Sprint
which is thirty classes a month for three months
and if you complete the Super Sprint, you’re going to get
a one hundred per cent refund.
But alternatively, you can also join the Regular Sprint,
which is just fifteen classes a month for three months.
Now if you complete that you’re gonna get
a fifty per cent refund.
To find out more about how the Sprint works
then check out this video that I made up here.
I’m also going to talk about if it’s really possible
to get that refund.
So to join the next Sprint, make sure you use the link
in the description below. Sign up by June 15th,
pay the deposit, secure your spot.
Plus if you use that code down there, you’ll get
a ten euro discount off your deposit. Good luck!
So what’s so bad about an accent?
Absolutely nothing.
If you can communicate your message clearly,
then there is no reason to change it.
Your accent helps to create character
and intrigue and you know it helps to tell your story.
However, if your accent is a barrier to someone
understanding you or it stops you from creating
a meaningful connection with someone
well, we’ve got a problem right?
So reducing or limiting your accent is probably
going to help you to feel more successful
during conversations and to help you
to get more confidence and to speak more
which is important. That’s the most important thing.
So to help you to improve your accent
and speak more clearly, I’ve got some tips
that I’m sharing with you right now.
The first one is to choose your accent.
Now usually my advice is to listen to as many different
English speakers as you can,
both native and non-native English speakers.
This is essential to help you develop really strong
listening and comprehension skills.
However when it comes to changing your accent
and practising your pronunciation,
with this type of practice you know, it’s
better to choose a specific accent to focus on
so that you can really pick out the most unique
features of that accent and try and copy them.
And the simplest way to do this is to choose an English
speaker who you like the sound of when they speak,
you like listening to.
So find out where their accent is from
and learn some of the key features of that particular
English accent.
So if you want to learn an Australian accent like mine,
then you would focus on pronunciation features like
the flap T sound,
you know when a T is between two vowels
and it ends up sounding more like a D
like in water, bottle, little.
You might also look at schwa endings, you know
in words that end in -ER but the
sound is not pronounced like mother and weather.
And also I just want to take a moment to say that
in no way does this have to be a native English speaker
who you’re copying.
If there’s someone who you admire
who’s a native of your first language
but when they speak English,
they speak clearly and confidently, by all means
copy their English accents.
The reason why it’s important to choose one English
accent to focus on is so that you can get the repetition
that you need you know,
to keep hearing those sounds again, to emulate them
and to copy them and produce those sounds yourself.
So ideally you’ll find someone or even a couple of
people with a similar accent that you have
regular access to,
a regular access to their voice you know.
Maybe they have a podcast, maybe they have a YouTube
channel. Whatever it is, as long as they’ve got
lots of content and that it’s interesting content
that you like listening to, you may as well make your
pronunciation practice enjoyable right?
If you’re still wondering how to choose the right English
accent, the one that’s right for you,
well think about your personality,
you know, are you quite serious and quite professional?
Or do you want to sound really cool and chilled out
and approachable?
All of these things influence the accent
that’s right for you but also the people that you are
listening to and that you are trying to copy right?
So I’m curious,
which English accent do you like the most?
Which one would you most like to use yourself or
which English speaker would you most like
to sound like? Is there someone
who you listen to regularly or you know
someone that you watch on YouTube that you would
like to sound like? Let me know in the comments.
So you want to watch and listen to that accent
as much as you can.
Like I said, find a person that you admire,
that you’ve got lots of access to so that you can
copy them. It’s just like you learnt your own accent
from your parents. If you surround yourself with regular
sounds, you will naturally start to
use them yourself when you speak in English.
I taught kids when I was in Vietnam and
some of them could bust out the most
amazing American accent and slang words
and expressions all because they spent so much time
watching cartoons and movies
with American accents in them.
This is exactly the same concept.
Another really great option is listening to audiobooks
which are read by an author
who has an accent that you like.
So Stephen Fry is awesome for received
pronunciation, for sort of formal British pronunciation.
I’m listening to Michelle Obama read her book
Becoming on Audible at the moment
and that’s also a lovely accent to emulate.
Trevor Noah is also a good one
if you quite like jokes and humour.
So I’ve added links to books narrated
by those people in the description below.
You can listen to the samples of audiobooks
on Audible. Find an accent that you like
and grab that book for free.
It’s a really great resource for finding the accent
that you want to copy yourself.
So the idea is you watch and you listen to as much
of that person as you can or that accent as you can.
And the great thing is you’re going to be learning
new words, new slang, humour.
All of this is really, really helpful, right?
But you’ll also be training your brain to recognise
and associate those sounds with words
as you hear them
so that you can start using them yourself as you speak.
Up next, of course, it’s practise imitation.
So English has a rhythm
right it follows a stress and tonal patterns that
are probably quite different to those used
in your native language and this can have a huge impact
on your communication in English.
If you’re speaking English and you’re applying the
stress and the rhythm from your native language,
it can be pretty distracting for other English speakers
who are trying to listen to you.
So softening that a little is a really, really good idea
and this relates to syllable stress in individual words,
it relates to sentence stress, to tone, to pause.
So becoming familiar with all of these things by
imitating a native speaker as they speak,
it’s going to help you to learn and understand
and experience the rhythm of English
and help you to use it more yourself.
And if there are words that you use in your native
language that are also used in English as well,
then pay close attention to the English pronunciation
of those words because it’s probably
a little different to what you’re used to you know.
Words like burger or other foods especially.
Words with common endings like action
or community, countries and city names
you know, they can be pretty similar between languages
but it would be a good idea to practise
the correct English pronunciation
especially names that you are using often yourself
right? Say everything out loud.
The more that you actually say,
the better because you can read about English
pronunciation, you can listen to English speakers
as much as you like.
I mean you can listen to me talking in this video
as much as you like but if you can’t get the muscles
in your mouth moving and working
in the way that you need them to.
It’s pointless
you know and you don’t even need someone to speak
with to do this, you can do it yourself,
you can talk to yourself in the mirror and the shower.
It literally doesn’t matter but if you build a habit around
moving and working those muscles,
it’s gonna have an impact. The more that you practise
saying English words, the better.
So reading out loud is a really good daily practice,
singing songs is awesome as well.
Simply just getting your mouth muscles moving
and comfortable and doing all of the things that they
need to do to make English sounds correctly, right?
Just do it as much as you can. And as a hint,
just make sure that you’re going back to that podcast
or back to that YouTube channel or that audiobook
re-listening to the accent so that you can make your
own adjustments to your pronunciation if you need to.
Right my fifth tip is to take
every opportunity that you have to talk,
you know, you don’t improve your accent
by thinking about it.
So what opportunities do you have to actually
put it into practice in real live situations?
If you go ahead with the Lingoda Sprint,
then you’re going to be getting regular speaking
practice every day.
But what other opportunities do you have?
Take them. Use them to practise.
And I say this especially if you are shy
and you’re uncomfortable about speaking in English,
you know maybe you hesitate before you speak
and sometimes you miss those opportunities.
So try and speak up, take every opportunity
that comes your way.
Don’t just go to class, you know, ask questions,
be the first person to put up your hand and answer.
Don’t sit in silence.
Students who take those opportunities to improve
are going to do it the fastest right?
So try to put your fears and your
worries and your doubts aside and speak.
Get into the habit of practising.
And lastly record yourself
and listen critically.
I’ve talked about the importance of choosing a single
accent that you would like and to listen to it
and then to take every opportunity to speak out loud
either yourself or when you’re talking to people,
get those muscles working and practise speaking
but how do you know if you’re actually improving
or how do you know if your accent is changing?
Or how can you tell what you need to improve
or get better at?
You record yourself.
Now it’s possibly one of the most awkward,
uncomfortable things that you’ll ever have to do.
Listen to yourself speaking in a second language
on a recording.
Never mind I promise you, you’ll get over it
and improving your accent is way more important.
Now remember way back in step number one,
I talked about paying attention to the unique
features of the accent that you want to use. Well
can you hear those features in your own recording?
If you compare the recording to the accent that you’re
trying to copy, what sounds different?
You know and what do you need to change to
make it sound more natural or more like that accent?
Changing your accent is not
something that you can do overnight.
Alright it takes practice and it takes repetition.
So making it part of your daily practice,
ten or fifteen minutes a day
is going to produce some significant results
if you create that habit and you do it for six months
or for a year.
In fact, keep a recording of you now
at the start of this journey
and then record again at six months and twelve months
and track the progress that you’re making.
Track the change over time,
you know, it’s something that you’ve got to commit to
just a little bit every day over time and I promise you
that if you get to the end of that period of time
and you compare a recording
to one that you took twelve months earlier,
you’ll be blown away by the progress that you’ve made.
You won’t notice this change from one day to the next
but you’re definitely going to surprise yourself if you
compare
that recording to one that you took a year earlier.
So my friend that is it for today,
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this lesson.
Now you’ve probably been practising with one of my
imitation lessons before. They are a really great way
to practise my pronunciation and natural expression
but it’s also going to teach you a method that you can
use if you want to imitate and copy someone else.
So check it out if you haven’t already
and hit that subscribe button.
I will see you in the next lesson. Bye for now!