How to Use Your Voice in ENGLISH to Sound Powerful and Confident

140,322 views ・ 2020-05-12

Accent's Way English with Hadar


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining me. My name is Hadar, and today we are going
0
220
4420
00:04
to talk about your voice in English. Yes, you heard me. Your voice.
1
4640
6710
00:11
If you are a speaker of English as a second language or third language or fourth language,
2
11350
5170
00:16
then you must have had this experience where you wanted to communicate in English, you
3
16520
4140
00:20
wanted to speak up, but your voice was just not there for you. It was a little soft, it
4
20660
5779
00:26
was too low, it was shaky, and you just didn't know what to do. And obviously, it has affected
5
26439
7281
00:33
your confidence and prevented you from communicating powerfully and confidently.
6
33720
5550
00:39
So, in this video, I'm going to give you a few exercises that you can do before you have
7
39270
5990
00:45
to do a Zoom call or before you have a job interview or a public talk that you're a little
8
45260
5870
00:51
nervous about, or just something you can do every day to free up your voice in English,
9
51130
6800
00:57
but also in your native language. But before we go into the exercises, if you
10
57930
3760
01:01
are new to my channel, then welcome, first of all, and second, I want you to know that
11
61690
5330
01:07
this is the place for you to improve your communication skills and boost your confidence
12
67020
5550
01:12
in English, because we are going to make you feel really good about how you communicate
13
72570
6400
01:18
in English. So be sure to subscribe to my channel and also subscribe to get the notifications,
14
78970
5980
01:24
so you know when I release a new video every single week.
15
84950
3740
01:28
Okay. So the first thing you need to know about your voice in English is that when you
16
88690
5109
01:33
hold tension in your body, it will affect your voice. Now, sometimes we hold tension
17
93799
5461
01:39
just because it's a habit. Sometimes we hold tension because we're nervous when communicating,
18
99260
5350
01:44
because there's this whole other aspect of communicating in English that creates tension.
19
104610
4740
01:49
Like, "What if I can't find the right words? What if I get stuck? What are they going to
20
109350
4769
01:54
think about my accent? I don't feel like myself in English because I can't really express
21
114119
4751
01:58
myself?" And all of these thoughts that go through your head when you speak English,
22
118870
5429
02:04
they affect your body and your voice because it creates tension and nervous energy, and
23
124299
6871
02:11
the voice is highly affected by the nervous system.
24
131170
3780
02:14
So if you feel that your voice is stuck and stifled and weak, it's probably first and
25
134950
7110
02:22
foremost because of the tension that you hold in your body and your nervous system. The
26
142060
4830
02:26
second thing I want you to know is that voice is frequencies and vibrations. And our voices
27
146890
6060
02:32
resonate in different places in our body wherever there is space. Okay?
28
152950
6170
02:39
So you can resonate your voice in your chest. You can resonate your voice in your nasal
29
159120
4640
02:43
cavities in your head, right? This is where the voice resonates. So the bigger the resonance
30
163760
6390
02:50
box is, the bigger your voice is. But sometimes the voice quality of your native
31
170150
7390
02:57
language affects your voice quality in English. Because for some languages, you only resonate
32
177540
4960
03:02
your voice in one place. Some languages resonate the voice mostly in the nose and head. Some
33
182500
6750
03:09
languages, my language Hebrew resonates mostly in the throat and chest, so it's a lot more
34
189250
6610
03:15
throaty and usually lower. Ideally, for English, you want your voice
35
195860
4040
03:19
to be somewhere between your chest voice and your head voice. Because when you speak, you
36
199900
4910
03:24
want to have that perfect ring - that's how my voice teacher used to call it when I was
37
204810
5649
03:30
in acting school - that perfect ring that is a blend of the lower frequencies and the
38
210459
7601
03:38
higher frequencies. So you don't want your voice to be stuck up
39
218060
3800
03:41
here and you don't want also your voice to be all the way down here, and without a lot
40
221860
5260
03:47
of breadth supporting it cause then you will fry your voice. This is called the vocal fry.
41
227120
6810
03:53
So you want to find the perfect placement for your voice for it to come out naturally.
42
233930
8430
04:02
And here's the thing, sometimes we do change our voices depending on the situation. So
43
242360
4450
04:06
this vocal fry is something that often happens at the end of sentences or when you're really,
44
246810
4860
04:11
really tired. But if you use the deliberately, first of
45
251670
2940
04:14
all, they say it's not that healthy for your voice, but also your voice is not going to
46
254610
4310
04:18
be as expressive. There are less emotion that you can carry over when your voice is down
47
258920
5160
04:24
here, right? So, this is why you want to have the ability
48
264080
4260
04:28
to control your voice, and then you can choose whatever you like most. But the most important
49
268340
4390
04:32
thing. Is that you have the power to control it and the exercise that we're going to do
50
272730
4800
04:37
in a second are going to help you identify the different places.
51
277530
3820
04:41
The last reason why you may not be using your full vocal potential could be cultural. In
52
281350
6660
04:48
some cultures it is considered to be rude, inappropriate, and unacceptable sometimes
53
288010
7219
04:55
to speak at a higher volume. If you grew up hearing around you all of the
54
295229
5071
05:00
time, "You gotta be quiet", "You speak too loudly, shut up", then of course, it's going
55
300300
6410
05:06
to affect the voice that you have as an adult. So the first thing is to be aware of that,
56
306710
5900
05:12
and to know that what you have heard from the surroundings does not mean that it is
57
312610
5960
05:18
true and it is the right thing to do, especially when you need to communicate in English. And
58
318570
6060
05:24
English is a language that is vocally expressive. You express a lot of emotions in English.
59
324630
6210
05:30
And if you want to be a powerful communicator, and if you want for people to hear you, you
60
330840
5720
05:36
got to have those tools to speak up and use your voice fully. So, it's not only a physical
61
336560
7350
05:43
thing, it is also a mental thing. So you want to cut those ties with those ideas that have
62
343910
5849
05:49
led to your fear of using your full voice. And the way I see it, it's not a matter of
63
349759
6780
05:56
being angry at it or resentful or frustrated, it is how it is. There are some beautiful
64
356539
5821
06:02
things about your culture that serve you so well, but some things may not serve you that
65
362360
5480
06:07
well. So as an adult, it's okay to say, "I want
66
367840
2860
06:10
to take this, but I don't want to take that anymore because this has been limiting for
67
370700
4550
06:15
me as my adult self, and I don't want to use that anymore". And with the exercises I'm
68
375250
4830
06:20
going to share in the video, you will be able to find different expressions for your voice.
69
380080
5790
06:25
The first thing we're going to do is to start with a facial warmup. So you want to identify
70
385870
5190
06:31
if you have some stress in your jaw, so maybe around here. And maybe move your jaw with
71
391060
11329
06:42
your hand, slide your fingers down so your jaw dropped. And then you can also release
72
402389
7521
06:49
a sound - 'aaahhh'. Now try to make the sound come out of your gut, of your belly, of your
73
409910
7819
06:57
chest - 'aaahhh', don't lock it and massage your jaw.
74
417729
7761
07:05
The next thing you want to do is to release that tension. So I want you to take your hands
75
425490
3760
07:09
and grab your chin like that. And first of all, see if you can move your chin freely.
76
429250
9990
07:19
If what happens is this - your hands are moving, but your jaw is not moving at all, which is
77
439240
6740
07:25
usually the case, than you, first of all, want to be aware of it, right, and relax a
78
445980
4499
07:30
bit more. And see how you can let go of the control of your jaw. So you want to be very
79
450479
10941
07:41
aware of what's going on there. And then you want to release air. And as you
80
461420
5790
07:47
release air, you want to move the jaw really fast, like this. Let's do it again. So I'm
81
467210
9230
07:56
going to do it from here. Look, take a deep breath, and release air. So again, if this
82
476440
8569
08:05
is what's happening - you are just moving your hands and your elbows, then your jaw
83
485009
8601
08:13
is still locked and you want to relax it. It will really help you with all those open
84
493610
4760
08:18
vowel sounds like 'aa' and 'ei' and 'ow', where you have to open and move your jaw
85
498370
5760
08:24
smoothly. But also it will help you with not holding tension that affects your vocal quality.
86
504130
9800
08:33
And now I want you to add voice to it like we did at the beginning when we massaged the
87
513930
4919
08:38
jaw. You hear that funny voice that comes out? Yeah, you can laugh, it's okay.
88
518849
10261
08:49
Now I want you to relax everything and release everything with <Lip trill>. Now, you want
89
529110
8980
08:58
to go up and down to explore the entire range of your voice. <Lip trill>
90
538090
7429
09:05
Now you may feel tickles like I'm feeling right now. You can do the same with a tongue
91
545519
5721
09:11
trill - <rrr> - like an R in some languages. <R trill>
92
551240
7659
09:18
And now you want to exaggerate chewing a big piece of bubble gum. Exaggerate it, like you're
93
558899
9951
09:28
overdoing it. Like you're a three-year-old and you just got a big piece of bubblegum,
94
568850
3239
09:32
and it's hard for you to break it down. And you can hum. And then close your lips and
95
572089
11290
09:43
keep on chewing. Good. The next thing you want to do is to loosen
96
583379
9041
09:52
up your body and to feel a bit more powerful and in control. Because if you hold tension,
97
592420
5979
09:58
it will show up in your voice, but also in your confidence. Because when you feel that
98
598399
4440
10:02
you've all fired up, of course it's going to affect the way you communicate in a second
99
602839
5791
10:08
language. So, what I want you to do now is to dance.
100
608630
4939
10:13
Yes! Dancing is so incredibly powerful. So stand up, we're going to do it together. I'm
101
613569
5950
10:19
going to play my favorite song, but you are going to play your favorite song when it's
102
619519
4170
10:23
time. A song that kinda like gets you all grooving and enjoying it. Are you ready? Let's
103
623689
7381
10:31
do this. Yes, yes, even you that you're sitting right
104
631070
2680
10:33
now watching me? Now I want you to stand up and tell everyone in the house to go to the
105
633750
5209
10:38
kitchen or something and dance with me. Are you ready? Let's do this.
106
638959
8161
10:47
That felt good. Let's move on. After you got done with your dancing and you
107
647120
13430
11:00
had a glass of water, I want you to explore your voice. What does that mean? You want
108
660550
4560
11:05
to find the different places of resonance in your body.
109
665110
4789
11:09
So first of all, start with just releasing sound. Good. Now do it again, and as you do
110
669899
10430
11:20
it, just tap on your chest. Try to kind of like release that voice that
111
680329
4700
11:25
is locked in here. And when you do it, hold your palms like this and, thankfully, I don't
112
685029
12331
11:37
have a neck mic. And try to release it and to bring the voice to all those weird places
113
697360
7349
11:44
that you never thought your voice should resonate in.
114
704709
8050
11:52
And go a little lower. So if your voice is going to be here <high voice> - I mean, it's
115
712759
5642
11:58
still okay, but it's not going to find that natural place of resonance, which is in the
116
718401
5028
12:03
chest. The chest likes lower tones, lower frequencies, like to resonate in a larger
117
723429
6741
12:10
space in the chest. So let's do it again. Good.
118
730170
9570
12:19
Now you want to do the same thing with your voice, cause some people tend to go too low
119
739740
4749
12:24
and kind of like their voices locked here. So for those of you who feel that this is
120
744489
5450
12:29
where your voice is, I want you to bring it up here. And kind of like tap on the nasal
121
749939
9630
12:39
cavities here. Maybe go to the nose and deliberately create
122
759569
6360
12:45
sound in the nose. Just to identify how you can control your voice and move it between
123
765929
8821
12:54
different places in your body. So nose. You can kind of like hold it and feel the vibrations
124
774750
7449
13:02
here. And then move it to your cheeks. And maybe feel it in your throat. And bring it
125
782199
9990
13:12
to your chest. And also tap on all your organs just to wake it up, wake up your body. It's
126
792189
13880
13:26
good. Okay. Roll your shoulders back. And now we're
127
806069
4000
13:30
going to work on expanding your chest to allow more space here. So kinda like roll your shoulders
128
810069
5911
13:35
back and expand your chest. Good. And you can release sound as well. And give yourself
129
815980
8709
13:44
permission to feel that, to make a sound. Okay, good. The next thing we're going to
130
824689
10870
13:55
do is to explore the versatility of your voice. So I want you to take one sentence and use
131
835559
5311
14:00
it in all of the different voices that you have. I want you to experiment with it. And
132
840870
5429
14:06
really don't judge yourself, and don't do it around people that might ridicule you because
133
846299
5210
14:11
this is not helpful. And anyway you want to give them a piece of
134
851509
3911
14:15
your mind if they make fun of you. Because they are the ones sitting and watching other
135
855420
4979
14:20
people doing the work. And you are doing the work. Just saying.
136
860399
4740
14:25
So let's take this one phrase, one simple phrase. Let's try "What do you want?" And
137
865139
4630
14:29
say it in your normal voice - "What do you want?" And then I want you to explore it with
138
869769
4290
14:34
different emotions, different attitudes, and different placements in your body. "What do
139
874059
4770
14:38
you want?" "What do you want?" "What do you want?" "What do you want?" "What do you want?"
140
878829
5600
14:44
So try different voices too. "What do you want?" "What do you want?" "What do you want?"
141
884429
4140
14:48
"What do you want?" "What do you want?" "What do you want?" Okay. So you are exploring and
142
888569
6380
14:54
showing yourself that you do have different voices. And if this is hard for you, you got
143
894949
4750
14:59
to practice it because your voice is capable of having this variety.
144
899699
4940
15:04
And if you feel that you only have one voice is just because you haven't explored it yet.
145
904639
4591
15:09
But if you are a human, you should have a very, very wide range of sounds that you can
146
909230
6750
15:15
create. Because we all have the same spaces in our bodies, and we also have the same muscle
147
915980
5889
15:21
here, the vocal chords that create the voice. Another thing you could do is to take a piece
148
921869
5060
15:26
of text. It could be an email you just received, or it could be a story or an article or a
149
926929
7070
15:33
transcript of a TED talk. And you want to say it as if you were telling it to a little
150
933999
5310
15:39
child, and make it very animated and exaggerated just for you to explore the different placements
151
939309
6130
15:45
of your voice. For example. "It pains me to offend you, but
152
945439
5750
15:51
amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at
153
951189
7101
15:58
this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to have conducted
154
958290
8549
16:06
yourself so as to avoid any share of the like censure, is praise no less generally bestowed
155
966839
8261
16:15
on you..." You see where I'm going. So you want to exaggerate it as if you are
156
975100
4159
16:19
a really, really bad narrator, and you're reading this book with overly pathos. But
157
979259
7151
16:26
again, when you exaggerate something and you find versatility, you find variety, and then
158
986410
5909
16:32
it's a lot easier to tone it down. When I teach pronunciation, I always say it's
159
992319
4130
16:36
okay to exaggerate. When you go into speaking, you tone it down anyway. So you might as well
160
996449
5500
16:41
practice it in an exaggerated fashion. So when you tone it down, it probably would still
161
1001949
5291
16:47
be a little less than what you should express, but at least it's closer.
162
1007240
5009
16:52
Now, one of the first thing you should also think about is your breath. Your voice is
163
1012249
4390
16:56
connected to your breath. And if your breath is short, if you're not breathing deeply,
164
1016639
4570
17:01
then it's going to affect your voice. So I want you to now breathe into your belly.
165
1021209
4610
17:05
Put your palm on your belly and breathe into your palm. A lot of times we just breathe
166
1025819
6401
17:12
into the chest and then our breath is very limited. There's a lot more space in the chest.
167
1032220
3979
17:16
I know you might think it's different, but when you breathe through your belly, you drop
168
1036199
4191
17:20
the diaphragm and more air enters your body. So you want to breathe, it's like yoga breathing.
169
1040390
6379
17:26
You want to breathe into your belly, and when you release the sound, you want to release
170
1046769
4551
17:31
it on your breath. And when you run out of breath, you got to take another breath, and
171
1051320
6060
17:37
then to speak on your breath. I'm probably going to make a different video
172
1057380
3889
17:41
about breath, but I just wanted to mention that. So that if you feel that your breath
173
1061269
6061
17:47
is a little shallow, you want to work on that, especially, it also calms you down when you
174
1067330
4751
17:52
breathe in and when you fill up your body with oxygen. Of course, it's going to. Help
175
1072081
5678
17:57
your nerves to calm down. Ahhh, okay, good. If you feel that it's hard for you to connect
176
1077759
10741
18:08
with your core and with your lower voice, and you feel that your voice is really soft
177
1088500
7940
18:16
or stuck up here. Or maybe it is down below, but it's stifled like you feel it doesn't
178
1096440
6190
18:22
resonate, you don't have that ring, ring of a voice that is fully expressed. You don't
179
1102630
5860
18:28
hear the voice bounced back to you from the walls of your home, then another great tactic
180
1108490
5730
18:34
is to laugh and to speak. What does that mean? When you laugh, it's
181
1114220
5491
18:39
primal, right? You're activating your core muscles. Let's try it out, it's a lot of fun.
182
1119711
5919
18:45
Let's try to force ourselves to laugh. <Laughing> It's real. So, and it's contagious, I know.
183
1125630
27970
19:13
So when you do that, you feel that your voice is expressed a little differently when you
184
1153600
4721
19:18
speak. So you want to force yourself to laugh and then say something. 'That is so true.
185
1158321
10519
19:28
So funny. You are so stupid'. And then you want to speak and say something.
186
1168840
12980
19:41
'I am so awesome'. Right? And you say it as you're connected with your deep voice. And
187
1181830
7640
19:49
it usually happens spontaneously when you laugh. Ah, okay. That was fun.
188
1189470
6240
19:55
The last thing you want to talk about is the power speech. Now, hear me out all the way
189
1195710
5320
20:01
to the end because if there is one thing I want you to take from this video, it is this.
190
1201030
6109
20:07
Because I have done this with my students for the past two years and the results are
191
1207139
4081
20:11
pretty incredible. This exercise will help you feel more confident,
192
1211220
4709
20:15
free, and powerful in English. And here's how it works. Choose a monologue from a TV
193
1215929
6141
20:22
show or a movie that is very powerful. That the person is like really upset or excited
194
1222070
7599
20:29
or angry, and they speak out their mind. And you want to take that part and memorize it.
195
1229669
7831
20:37
And it's very important. Don't skip that part and don't just read it from the page. I mean,
196
1237500
3970
20:41
that's also great, but that freedom that you have to use the words freely without having
197
1241470
5839
20:47
to analyze it as you read it, having to focus on the letters, having to focus on, "Wait,
198
1247309
5411
20:52
what comes next?" Or, unlike speaking freely, where you have
199
1252720
3669
20:56
to kind of like retrieve the words, and 'how do I put it?', nd then there's all this judgment.
200
1256389
4941
21:01
When you memorize a text, it really helps you to feel super expressive and that the
201
1261330
4729
21:06
words flow out easily. And I know that because as an actress I had to memorize many different
202
1266059
5830
21:11
speeches, and I know it had an immense impact on my English and my fluency. Okay?
203
1271889
6961
21:18
So memorize a really powerful speech. And we're going to put a link to a bunch of different
204
1278850
5700
21:24
scripts that you can choose from. And just go ahead and do it, we did all the work for
205
1284550
5239
21:29
you. So you can select one and memorize that speech. And then every single day, or before
206
1289789
6350
21:36
an important meeting, I want you to stand in front of the mirror and do it full out
207
1296139
5641
21:41
- with all the anger and passion and fear, or whatever is happening to that character.
208
1301780
6500
21:48
I want you to try and embody it and, you know, choose something that will feel fierce to
209
1308280
7950
21:56
you, that will make you get out of your own skin. Okay? That would, that it's not something
210
1316230
6439
22:02
that you usually do. I have had students telling me that they've
211
1322669
4571
22:07
discovered a voice that they've never knew that they even had. Because these are not
212
1327240
5549
22:12
your words, and this is not a real situation, you give yourself a lot more permission to
213
1332789
5850
22:18
speak up. And this is why I want you to do. And this is something that I have done myself.
214
1338639
4311
22:22
Because when I was in school, I played lady Macbeth. And lady Macbeth is a very powerful
215
1342950
4429
22:27
character. And there is one thing in particular when she kind of grabs her husband and she's
216
1347379
4941
22:32
like going full out at him. And I used to take that one monologue and
217
1352320
5430
22:37
do it again and again and at home, as I was like alone, and with myself when I wanted
218
1357750
5270
22:43
to feel a little better about myself. Or when I would be really, really angry and I didn't
219
1363020
4289
22:47
know how to express my emotions. So I would go into that monologue and say
220
1367309
5021
22:52
it, and I felt like I'm expressing my emotions through the words of a different characters.
221
1372330
5360
22:57
These are words that I would never say. And also I had to do it in a Scottish accent,
222
1377690
5469
23:03
which was kind of crazy in and of itself, but that was my experience. And I felt that
223
1383159
5591
23:08
it like, after that I felt, "Okay, I'm ready to take on the world! How about you?" Okay?
224
1388750
7559
23:16
So this is what I want you to feel. So pick your favorite fierce monologue, a powerful
225
1396309
6591
23:22
speech, memorize it and do it full out. "You can't handle the truth". To wrap it up, I'm
226
1402900
7450
23:30
going to do that part of the monologue for you. Just so you see that if I can do it,
227
1410350
5650
23:36
you can do it too. And remember, do it in front of the mirror and use your imagination.
228
1416000
6010
23:42
"What beast was't then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it,
229
1422010
6210
23:48
then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.
230
1428220
5840
23:55
Nor time nor place did then adhere, you would make both!"
231
1435360
4120
23:59
"They have made themselves! And that their fitness now does unmake you. I have given
232
1439900
7540
24:07
suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was
233
1447440
6390
24:13
smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out!
234
1453830
5750
24:20
Had I so sworn as you have done to this".
235
1460400
2335
24:22
Okay, so this is my power speech. I hope you
236
1462735
2505
24:25
enjoyed it. And I hope these exercises helped you understand how you can own your voice
237
1465250
6639
24:31
in English, and in your native language as well.
238
1471889
3160
24:35
If you like this video, click "Like" and share it with your friends so they can speak up
239
1475049
5620
24:40
as well. Don't forget that in the description below, there is a list of powerful speeches
240
1480669
4551
24:45
that you can use. And if you want to tell me what you think,
241
1485220
4720
24:49
what you felt, and if you want to share with me what speech you chose - come on over and
242
1489940
4109
24:54
send me a DM on Instagram. You can find me at @hadar.accentsway. I would love to hear
243
1494049
5460
24:59
what you think. Okay. That's it. Thank you so much for watching.
244
1499509
2981
25:02
And remember, the most important thing is that you speak up - with an accent, with mistakes,
245
1502490
5480
25:07
with getting stuck. Because what matters is what you have to say. Okay? Take good care
246
1507970
5579
25:13
of yourself, stay healthy, stay safe, and I'll see you next week in the next video.
247
1513549
4311
25:18
Bye.
248
1518260
880
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7