5 Steps to Improve your pronunciation, clarity, and confidence in English | American Accent

88,598 views ・ 2019-03-19

Accent's Way English with Hadar


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

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Hey, it's Hadar and this is the Accent's Way.
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Today I'm going to tell you what are the things that you have to do
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if you're looking to improve your accent and clarity in English.
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Now a lot of people think that improving your accent is dealing with
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'luxury problems' and that you have to start working on your accent and pronunciation
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when your English is good enough.
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Now I don't believe this is true.
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I think an accent is one of the core elements of spoken English
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and it should be taught from day one.
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An accent is as one of my smart students defined once
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the performance of English. It's basically how you take everything
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you know about English and your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary
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and the intuition that you've developed along the years
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and you turn it into spoken English. How you execute everything.
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And it's important to work on your accent because this is actually how you hear yourself
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and how you perceive yourself as a
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speaker of English.
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So the first thing you need to work on is your perception or your listening skill.
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You need to start identifying the differences between the sounds that exist in your native tongue
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and the sounds of English
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and also, you need to start hearing the difference
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between the different sounds in English
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even if the differences are very very subtle.
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Because if you can't hear it, you can't make it.
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So first you have to recognize it
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Our brain filters out so much information and a lot of the information that it filters out
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is not necessary because it doesn't exist in your native tongue.
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But it's essential in English because sometimes that's the difference between one word and another
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So let's put it to test. Can you hear the difference between
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'thanks' and 'tanks'.
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Thanks
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tanks
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thanks - TH, TH.
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tanks T,T.
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What about 'reach' and 'rich'.
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reach-rich.
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So the first one is the tense E
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and the second one is the relaxed I.
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So maybe you can hear it but.
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So maybe you can hear it now when I do it slowly in isolation.
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But do you notice the difference between those vowels
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when you listen to people speaking English?
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And yes, maybe it's clear now when I put these two sounds in isolation
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But maybe these are things that you don't notice usually when you hear people speak English
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and you'll have to start noticing it.
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because again when you hear it
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you can make it.
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What about 'cake'
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versus 'cake'?
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It's a little more challenging, right.
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So the first k-sound was a regular k, 'keɪk'.
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The second one was aspirated as you should pronounce it in English.
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'kheɪk'
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So it feels like there is a little H right after the K-sound.
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Listen again.
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Everything else was the same.
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Now you may have not noticed it the first time I said it
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but now if you listen closely you can totally hear it, right?
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'keɪk'
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'kheɪk'
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And I bet you'll start hearing it all the time around you when you hear people speak.
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These are just a few examples of the differences
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that you need to start paying attention to when you listen to English.
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And you shouldn't just listen to words as they come at you as just words, right.
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as they represented in the dictionary.
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No. Words are comprised of consonants and vowels.
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And these consonants or vowels may be different than how you think they should be pronounced.
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And some syllables are longer and stressed and some are reduced and short, okay.
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So you need to think of it as if you're listening to a new language
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that you've never heard before
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and you're trying to recognize those all of these new sounds
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that you are not familiar with.
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The next thing is your pronunciation.
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You need to know
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how to pronounce the sounds that don't exist in your native tongue.
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These are the sounds
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that are going to be a little more challenging for you to pronounce
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because you're not used to them.
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And maybe you're not sure how you're supposed to pronounce them.
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Sounds are consonants, sounds that are stopped or partially stopped
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like p, ch, r.
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Or vowel sounds that are not interrupted like ei, aa , ee and uw.
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Now when it comes to pronunciation there is pretty much one way
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you should pronounce the sound and that's about it.
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So it's very specific, very technical.
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Your tongue needs to be here,
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your lips need to do that
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and your jaw needs to be this open.
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And that's it.
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And when you get it right you get it right.
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Of course, it has to do with tension
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and trying not to let old habits interfere
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which is the pronunciation habits that you have from your native tongue.
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So we need to take all of that into consideration of course
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but the good news is that you always have a clear answer
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when it comes to what you need to do
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with your mouth when pronouncing a certain sound.
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So improving your pronunciation is an important step
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when Improving your accent.
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The third thing is improving your intonation.
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While pronunciation is the building blocks of the language
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intonation is how you put it all together.
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What you stress what you don't stress,
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the melody of the language the attitude that is conveyed.
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Now when we speak English as a second language
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we usually use the intonational patterns from our native tongue
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that means that either the language can be reduced to a very monotone melody
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or it can be very pitchy going up and down
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because this is how it is in your native tongue
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if you speak a tonal language, for example.
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So again, we need to be aware of that
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we need to be aware of the differences
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between how you play the music in your language and
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how you play the music in English because
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your message can be compromised if you're stressing too many words
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or if you're stressing the wrong words
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because that's how you do it in your native tongue.
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Intonation is also the rhythm of the language the internal feel.
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The long versus short,
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the times where you go fast and when you slow down.
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So all of these things are really important when you're speaking
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and help you to convey strong message
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Now if you're looking to improve your intonation even more
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I will put the links to the videos where I teach intonation right below
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in the description.
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The next thing is effective practice.
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It's one thing to learn it and to understand it
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and be able to pronounce it clearly
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or to get the right melody
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It's another thing to make it your own to turn it into a habit
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to overcome the old pronounciation habits
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or old intonational habits
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and actually start using it in real life without thinking about it.
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because when you're practicing
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you want to develop muscle memory.
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And one more thing, when you practice you train the muscles
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Your muscles need to be in good shape
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just like when you workout or when you play an instrument.
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You've got to practice every single day
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to get the right muscle tone
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to be able to round your lips really tight for the U-sound or for the R.
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And to be able to shift from the S to the TH,
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this tricky transition, really quickly.
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So your tongue needs to be fast and quick and in control.
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The only way to do it is with effective practice,
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drilling the words in a certain way
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and then applying it in words phrases and sentences.
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Now look this is not hard work.
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It's not something that you have to do every day for 5 hours a day.
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No! You can invest only 15 or 20 minutes a day
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but it has to be effective and you have to see results.
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So if you've been practicing for a while and you're still not happy with the result
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then maybe your practice was not effective enough.
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Maybe you were practicing wrong,
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maybe you were repeating the same mistakes
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and ultimately just wasting time.
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So this is why accurate practice,
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an effective practice is another key component
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in improving your accent and clarity.
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The last thing you want to take into consideration
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when improving your accent is
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whatever your practicing is not going to show up immediately in conversation,
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okay.
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and that's totally natural.
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The idea is that you develop the muscle memory
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until your tongue remembers the right placement
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and you start working on the intonation
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until your body feels it and you start using it without thinking about it.
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Right. So there is a lot of room for Intuition
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and there's a lot of room for just the work to show up as you speak.
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So but that takes time.
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But what you could do in order to integrate everything that you're learning
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into your day-to-day speech
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is to start having those conscious conversations.
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Conversations that are not too demanding.
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So it shouldn't be a job interview or an important meeting
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but a conversation where you can start thinking
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or being very aware of the sounds that you're currently practicing.
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So, for example, if you're practicing your sheep-ship vowel pair, okay
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and you're trying to make that distinction
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and you've been drilling the sounds
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and you've been reading a lot of sentences,
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analyzing texts and doing all of the work.
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So you might want to start using it more consciously when you speak.
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Now ultimately if you do the work and if you practice
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it will show up, it will, believe me!
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I've done it and did the work I practice
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and now I don't think about the sounds when I speak.
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Okay, so I'm telling you from my own experience.
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But if you want to expedite the process
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then start using these sounds consciously when you speak
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and that way first you create a lot of awareness
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and second you really start using it on a day-to-day basis
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and when you hear yourself using it and you become confident about it
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then it gives you also the confidence to keep on doing it
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and to improve.
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And that's what we're looking for!
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Progress, not perfection!
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So these were the 5 things
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that you need to start doing in order to improve
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your clarity and your accent.
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And If you haven't started thinking about it,
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about improving your accent
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maybe you should
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because you will be surprised that it opens doors.
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It opens your English door.
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It opens the channel of free communication and fluency.
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Now if you like this video I have more to share with you
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I have a brand new master class
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coming up in just a few days that I think you won't want to miss.
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The name of this master class is
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"The 5 secrets to speaking English like a natural."
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And I'm going to take everything that I talked about here
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and dive even deeper
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and we're even gonna have time for a live Q&A at the end.
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So if you want to join me and I really hope you do
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go to my website
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theaccentsway.com/webinar/ and register.
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So again, it's theaccentsway. Don't forget the S.
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theaccentsway.com/webinar/
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Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you next week in the next video. Bye.
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