Do you change your voice when you speak English? Here’s why (+ listen to my voice in Hebrew😲)

Hey, there it's Hadar. Thank you for joining me.

And today we are going to talk about why our voice changes when we speak in English.

So have you ever felt like when you start speaking in English your voice all of a sudden changes?

It's not your real voice, the way you're used to yourself in your native tongue

or perhaps you feel like you're lacking the vocal presence in English that you have in

your native tongue.

Or maybe you're just exhausted after speaking in English even though that never happens

to you in your native tongue.

Or perhaps you have an idea about how English should sound

or what is the voice of English

and you just don't know how to get there or you're trying to get there

but along the way you just feel extremely fake

and everything is too tense and stressed and pushed.

So this is what I'm gonna talk about today in this episode

and I'm going to give you some strategies to help you improve and find your own voice in English

and start getting comfortable with your voice in English

because that is, my friend, so incredibly important.

You need to feel like yourself, first and foremost,

and if you stick with us till the end

I'm also going to talk to you about the vocal placement of American English

and show you how my voice is really different when I speak in English and when I speak in Hebrew

which is my native tongue.

Are you ready? I'm so excited about this one!

Let's get started!

Now for those of you who already know me you've probably noticed that we have a new guest

in this video

and that is my new microphone.

The reason why I brought this microphone is one, because for video about voice you want

the voice or the sound to be the best. So that's the best

Two, I've already recorded this video three times before.

This is the fourth time I'm making this video

and for the first three times we had some sound issues, different sound issues each time.

So I decided that I'm not taking any chances and I'm bringing on the big guns.

And three, this is a great opportunity to let you know that I got this microphone for

my up-and-coming podcast!

Yes, I'm launching a new podcast in January of 2020!

So make sure you subscribe to my channel or to my newsletter so you'll find out when that happens.

Okay, let me tell you why I'm making this video about voice.

A few weeks ago I walked out of my school, I teach in Tel Aviv.

As you know I'm not a native English speaker. I speak Hebrew but with my students I only speak in English.

And as we were walking out I said something in Hebrew.

I think I was making a joke or I respond to something really quickly and it just came out in Hebrew.

And my student just looked at me and said: "I thought it was a different person."

And I said: "Yes, I know, my voice in English and my voice in Hebrew are quite different."

And this triggered a whole conversation about vocal placement

but also how we change our voices when we speak a second language

and that got me thinking about my experience working with non-native speakers for over 10 years.

And every time I start helping people get more comfortable with their voice in English

it always comes down to their voices.

Our voice is our true expression it's so intimate, we are so connected to our voice

and if we don't feel comfortable with our voice we simply don't feel comfortable.

We feel fake, we feel like it's someone else and that starts a whole snowball of self-consciousness.

We start being so judgmental and we don't understand why we're so nervous and uncomfortable.

Now why we change our voices?

Well there are a few reasons for that and I'm gonna talk about that in a sec

but you need to know that your voice is a mere reflection of your internal state

and usually when we speak English if we feel insecure.

It's going to come across in your voice unless you become aware of it

because when you feel self-conscious, when you feel confident, when you feel happy,

when you feel sad, when you feel anxious, when you feel scared,

it shows up in your voice.

The frequencies, the vibrations. Your emotions. Everything is expressed in your voice

and that's a true gift.

You'll notice that it's a lot easier for you to connect with someone

who has an expressive voice.

Someone that you can connect, understand what they feel, what they think as you listen to their voices.

It creates trust and the sense of empathy.

It's called rapport. When you have this connection with someone in a conversation

and it's not based on verbal communication but nonverbal communication

and their voice is a huge part of it.

And this is why when you change your voice or manipulate your voice in English

you don't feel like you can establish this connection

and really sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with your vocabulary or grammar or mistakes that you make.

You just don't feel like yourself in English.

So I believe that working from the inside out, really learning how to connect with your voice in English

will significantly help you communicate in English with confidence and with clarity.

So as we said, your voice is an expression of your internal state

and I've come to notice that my students who are insecure about their English

tend to go way below their optimum pitch level when they speak in English.

Optimum? What?

Let me explain.

Optimum pitch level is the ideal vocal placement for your voice.

So in your optimum pitch level, your voice is at a level where you combine all the resonators in your body.

Resonators? Can you just speak English?

Vocal resonators are the areas in your body where your voice resonates.

Your voice is frequencies, vibrations and for you to be able to hear something the

voice needs to resonate, to hit a certain wall of something,

a certain container and bounce around for you to hear it.

Think of it like a musical instrument.

Let's think of drums. If you have a small drum it's going to have

a different sound than a large drum, right.

Usually a larger instrument with a larger resonance box will generate a sound

that is deeper, stronger, right.

Versus a small drum or if you think of a guitar like a ukulele where the sound is thin and

usually higher and softer, right.

And the same goes for our vocal resonators.

So the chest is a vocal resonator and it's relatively big.

So that's the best place for the voice to resonate.

Because you have a lot of space here.

But your mouth is also a resonator, your nasal cavities, your sinuses, right.

All the spaces inside your mouth are resonators. The smaller the space is the thinner the voices

or the higher the lighter.

And there is a difference between a voice that resonates in the chest

where you can hear and feel those vibrations and when the voice resonates only in the head

or the nose, right.

That changes the, that's how we change the vocal placement.

We just resonate it in different places in the body.

Now I'm going to talk about the vocal placement of English and vocal placements in general in a different video

but I just want you to be familiar with those terms.

So the optimum pitch level is basically an ideal placement

where you combine all your vocal resonators.

Now this is the ideal we want to get there. It doesn't need to be perfect, remember.

And we always want to observe our voice in relation to that ideal voice.

Now going back to what I said when people feel insecure they tend to go a little lower

in pitch than their optimum pitch level.

So I'm going to show you how that might sound.

For example, right now I'm going below my optimum pitch level.

You can still hear me but I feel like I really need to force my voice to be heard.

My voice is a little softer and it rings differently.

It doesn't have that nice ring that I have when I speak here.

Now this is effortless for me. This I don't need to strain anything. I didn't need to work hard.

I feel like my voice is carried through the room and bounces off the walls

and I don't have a lot of furniture here yet

so you can maybe hear the echo.

But when I go here my voice doesn't resonate as well and I feel like I'm straining my throat

to speak and to be heard.

And this is something that happens to a lot of the students.

So if that happens to you I want you to ask yourself why that happens?

Is it a habit? Do you do it in your native tongue as well?

And maybe it's because there is something about speaking in English that scares you?

And in a way you just don't want to be heard? And you hide your voice, you stifle your voice,

you push it down.

You don't want to be noticed. Sometimes that's the reason.

You want to stay in the back and your voice stays in the back too.

The result you are not being heard. Your voice is not carrying through.

You are not expressing your emotions, you are not speaking and you feel exhausted after speaking.

So you feel mm "this is just not for me" or you feel like you're not yourself.

And then you're like "English is just not for me".

No, you are doing something that is preventing you from being yourself,

from feeling comfortable, okay.

So let's try a little something to see if that is the case for you.

I want you to start by just saying a sentence something like:

"Hey, it's really nice to meet you!"

Just say it.

"Hey, it's really nice to meet you!"

You now don't try to imitate me or my voice or how I say it.

Say it like you'd normally say it if you were to approach someone.

"Hey, it's really nice to meet you!"

Say it again.

And again.

Now I want you to hum.

mm

Don't think about it. Don't try to imitate my hum.

Just try to hum. Close your lips.

mm

Good.

Now hum again and then say the sentence:

mm

"Hey, it's really nice to meet you!"

Do it again.

mm

"Hey, it's really nice to meet you!"

Now I want to ask you when you started your hum and when you're started your sentence

Did you start on the same note? Was your voice in the same place?

Or did you do something like this?

mm hey it's really nice to meet you

mm hey it's really nice to meet you

Because if you did you shifted from your optimum pitch level.

Because your hum if you don't manipulate it

and if you don't try to make it sound like someone else's hum

Your initial hum, your organic hum without thinking about it is usually your optimum pitch level.

So it's an indication where your voice is most comfortable at

and if this is quite different from the sentence that you said,

the way where your voice was when you said that sentence

then you want to look at this gap and ask yourself

why that happens and see if you can do something about it.

Because if you're doing something like:

mm hey it's really nice to meet you

Your voice is not in the ideal place and that causes all of the things that we discussed.

So try to start with a hum again

mm

and just from there move on to a word like 'hey'.

mm mm-hey

Try to be on the same note and from there go to the sentence:

mmm hey it's really nice to meet you Hey it's really nice to meet you.

Now just check in with yourself and see that you're not pushing your voice,

you're not working too hard. You always want to feel like when you speak in English

you kind of lean back with a glass of wine or with a cocktail or with club soda

and you're just like "all good, I'm chilling in the sun", okay.

That's the quality of your voice or that's the quality that you want your voice to have.

mm hey it's really nice to meet you.

Starting with a hum can help you get there, okay.

Now sometimes people go above their optimum pitch level.

So sometimes you may hear someone doing something like this:

mm hey it's really nice to meet you!

Okay.

Raise your hand if that's you.

mm hey

Straining your voice pushing your voice, pushing it up, right,

using only your head voice and that's not good for your voice either.

Cuz that kind of tension creates tension in your voice

and tension in your voice creates tension in your body

and tension in your body creates tension in your heart.

And you know speaking a second language is stressful enough you don't need extra tension here. Okay.

So shake it off, start again and if you tend to go higher in pitch

then I want you to go back to the hum and do the very same thing here:

mm hey hey

No! Bring it down. mm hey

Hey, it's really nice to meet you.

I actually want you to visualize, like your voice has a color and you want that color

to carry throughout the room:

mm hey, It's really nice to meet you

or

mm hey, my name is Hadar.

Don't say Hadar, say your name.

mm Hey, my name is so-and-so.

Okay.

And this is how I want you to start exploring your voice

and see if you can play with a placement of your voice.

Now what I'm gonna say might seem a little controversial.

You know when I say bring it back to your voice it probably means

that you need to bring it back to the voice that you use in your native tongue.

Now different languages have different vocal placements

and a lot of times people teach you how to find the vocal placement of English

and I'm going to talk about that at the end and in another video as well.

Now I want you to remember this. Before trying to manipulate your voice to fit a certain criterion

and to fit the expectation of what your voice in English should sound

you need to know that you first need to sound like yourself.

You first need to get comfortable with who you are in English.

And to do that it has to go through your own voice

even if it doesn't serve English that well it serves you.

There are enough American voices out there in the world but there is only one you.

So before trying to get somewhere else understand where you are at right now

and only after you get comfortable with speaking English in your own voice

and then starting to play with the different resonators and placements.

I mean it's always great to improve your vocal presence even for native speakers

that's when you can start shifting it to where you want to be

but when you're in control. It doesn't happened to you. You make it happen. Right.

I have changed my voice and I speak differently in English because I gradually found that placement

while I was getting comfortable with my own voice.

So this was not always my voice in English but I got there and now this is my voice.

My voice. I just happen to speak in English. It's different than my voice in Hebrew

You wanna hear? Okay? So I'm gonna say the whole thing in Hebrew now

and you will see how different that is.

So as you can see my voice in Hebrew is a lot lower than my voice in English

and if I were to switch my voices between the languages it would feel extremely uncomfortable.

And I would feel like I have to strain my voice to do that.

Can't explain it. But as I said I haven't had this vocal placement when I first started

speaking in English, right. My voice was closer to Hebrew

but I was able to gradually shift it with exercises, with awareness and just by speaking.

And it feels like English just took over a different place in my.. in my body

and I loved it. I loved it and I don't wanna change it.

But I had to go through a bunch of different steps before getting here.

But do not go and do that (!) before getting familiar with your vocal needs in a way and what serves you best.

Okay.

That's it. I want you to let me know in the comments below what is the one thing that

resonated the most with you in this video?

Notice how I use the word resonated in a video about voice.

After you're done with your comment be sure to subscribe to my Youtube Channel and come

on over to my website to check it out because there's a lot of great stuff waiting

for you there for free!

Like an Accent Crash Course or a List of the most mispronounced words in English by non-native

speakers and more.

Thank you so much for being here have a beautiful day full of vocal vibrations

and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye!