Why is it so hard to lose my strong accent in English?

Hey!

How's it going?

Hello!

So, welcome to Go Natural English.

I'm here with a special guest, my friend and colleague, Stephanie.

Hi!

And Stephanie's awesome because, well, we've taught together and I know that she has a

lot of experience, over ten years of experience teaching English.

She has her Masters in teaching English as a second language, as I do as well, and she

has a Masters in African Studies.

Is that right?

Yeah.

She's really smart.

Thank you!

It's true!

No, I'm really excited that she's here with us to help me with some English questions,

like this one that I got recently: Why is it so hard to lose my strong accent?

Yeah, that's a good question.

So, I'm excited to talk about this.

Just before I forget though, I want to tell you that you can come to gonaturalenglish.com/7steps

and get a free training, a free short course to help you with the first seven steps for

learning English.

Okay?

Yeah, it's awesome!

Go check it out.

Thank you!

Okay, so why is it so hard sometimes to lose our accent in English?

Well, not our accent, I mean we're native English speakers.

Right, But when you learn English, sometimes it's

really hard to lose English.

So let's talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, that's a good questions.

Yeah.

So what do you think?

I think the most important thing is to remember when you're learning English is that communication

is what's most important.

Right?

Totally.

As an adult you may live in the United States for the rest of your life and never actually

completely get rid of your accent.

But it's okay Is that a bad thing?

No!

That's okay?

It's totally okay!

I'm being silly.

Yeah.

I think it's totally okay.

Have an accent can be part of your identity.

Yeah, exactly.

It's kind of cool.

Like my husband, he's been here for almost twenty years, twenty-plus years, and he still

sounds very African.

He's from West Africa.

And it's okay.

He's successful, he communicates very well, no problem.

But he still sounds, you know, African.

So, the key is communication.

So, don't obsess over your accent, like, "I must get rid of my accent!"

Communication is key.

Yeah.

Yeah, I totally agree.

So, we were talking about some sounds that are maybe more difficult.

Like you might want to focus on the "th" sound or the "r" sound or the "p" or the "b" sound.

Depending on your first language, these might be more difficult.

So, if you really focus your attention on some specific sounds, it will improve your

accent even more and you'll have easier communication with people.

Right So, we were talking about learning these sounds

as kind of going to the gym, as exercising different muscles.

It's literally like different muscles.

It's literally like new muscles.

You have to train your tongue and your teeth and your cheeks.

Like I see a lot of students who don't make their cheeks go out, like on the work "beach".

So you have to stretch your mouth out to make that "ee" sounds really clear.

If you don't stretch your mouth out, bad things can happen.

Especially on that word.

It might sound like "i" instead of "ee".

And also the "th" sound: make sure you put your tongue out.

So, say "third".

Or "these".

So, there's two sounds there, voiced and voiceless.

But anyway, but making your tongue out a little more and push that air through.

It's a difficult sound to make.

Yes.

It might feel really funny just sticking your tongue out.

Yeah but it helps a lot But we're not joking.

This is not a lie or whatever.

You really have to stick your tongue out.

And one last thing that I want to mention is stress and rhythm-making sure that you

stress nouns, adjective, verbs louder, and then the other little words like articles,

prepositions, helping verbs, those are quick and quiet.

So, you know for example, "It was so fun this weekend".

Was it?

I can't tell.

So, don't say every letter the same stress.

And also, make sure that you sound like it was fun.

"It was so fun this weekend!"

So make sure that your intonation rises and you have a louder stress on the "fun" because

that's a really important word.

Totally.

I think we worry too much about accent, but we should be worried about stress and intonation.

Intonation, yeah.

It's a really good point.

It helps a lot with communication.

Yeah.

Like if you can express your emotion through the words, not just focusing on grammar.

And like the individual sounds, yeah.

Exactly.

So, don't worry so much about your accent.

We love your accent.

We want to hear your accent.

Where you're from.

Where you're from!

It's really interesting and it's actually a part of your identity and maybe people will

be interested in asking you about where you're from.

"Oh, I hear your accent.

Are you German?

Are you?"

You know, whatever.

Exactly.

So, yeah, think more about the stress, the intonation, and work those muscles.

Yeah.

Beach!

"I'm going to go to the beach!"

Cool.

So, let me remind you once more, if you want to get a free training, come to gonaturalenglish.com/7steps.

So ,that's the first place to start with Go Natural English.

Alright.

Thanks for watching.

See you later.

Bye!