How to HACK the AMERICAN ACCENT

I've worked with speech recognition software when  it comes to Accent training. It can help you with  

maybe half of your issues if you're struggling to  speak English with full confidence. Is that good  

enough? Is half good enough? What would it mean  to you to have a trained American accent teacher  

coach you on your English? Think how quickly  you'd improve and how much more confidence  

you'd have to know you were doing it right. Not  an app, not AI, a person at the top of their field  

giving you easy to understand focused feedback. Okay, but apps and AI are a lot less expensive  

than real people than the time of experts. True,  but when you do most of the training on your own  

with the right method, then you come to your  coach for 5 minutes of intense focused personal  

feedback, then, you're hacking the system.  You're getting an expert's advice but you're  

not paying for an hour of an expert's time. I've  set up Rachel's English Academy for this exactly.  

It's expert accent training but for a fraction  of the price of private sessions with a coach.  

It comes with coach time but more importantly. It  gives you all the materials to work with between  

checking in with your coaches so you can nail it,  get that sound, get that rhythm into your body. 

We even offer a lifetime option for joining the  Academy. No subscription, no recurring payments,  

you pay once, you have access forever and  you work on it when you can. No stress over  

keeping a schedule and wondering every month  if you're really using it enough. Get instant  

access to every course. American vowels,  rhythm, conversation practice. We have 23  

courses subscriptions also come with access  to our community where you can meet online  

with our teachers and get personal feedback  at no additional cost. It's all included. 

The Rachel's English Academy Black  Friday sale is happening now. Visit  

Rachelsenglishacademy.com to get access to  our courses our teachers and our community.  

50 to 60% off at rachelsenglishacademy.com. Probably the most special thing about Rachel's  

English Academy is the exclusive community that  comes with it. You can post to the community and  

get feedback from one of our teachers. Watch  this. This is Josh helping a student find a  

great R sound after listening to a recording  of him practicing. He makes a video and the  

student can watch it over and over again.  He shares about the R sound and how to feel  

that in the chest instead of the mouth. Hey, how's it going? Nice job here with  

the last practice. Our consonant sound is a  really deep inside the body sound so you can  

really tell what's happening with a person's  placement by the way that sound. So if we  

listen to this here uh, these first couple of  sentences here, let's check out this R sound. 

I've not been here before. Alright, so if you listen here, here,  

here, you can hear that's a mouth sound, right?  It's not here, here, rr, rrr, right? I don't hear  

that chest resonance uh, you know, as much as you  probably would expect for most native speakers. 

It makes such a difference to see and hear  a teacher imitating you and going back and  

forth between what they hear and what sounds  more natural. And this community comes with  

your Academy subscription at no extra charge.  Now the student can go to the R soundboard  

in the academy and use the Play it, Say it  method to make that a habit and really anchor  

the sound in the body so it becomes effortless. Here, let me show you. We go to the right course,  

we find the chapter and we have our choice of  lessons. I can use the soundboard to practice each  

word 10 times in a row with our repetition method. Across 

Some students do even more. This is the same  method used for adults in speech therapy when  

they suffer a stroke and need to relearn how  to speak English. Or if it works better for  

me I can download the soundboard audio in a  single file with the repetition built in. I  

can practice in the car, I can practice anywhere.  We need to make it super easy to practice speaking  

out loud because that's what's going to change  your habit. So, as you move through the daily  

plan you'll see each module has a focus.  You'll work on it, you'll watch the video,  

you'll work with the audio, and at the end,  you'll post a challenge for teacher feedback.  

This way you're able to get really focused  feedback on each aspect of the American accent. 

Sometimes people just want general advice on what  to focus on. Our teacher Rachel Stokes gave great  

advice recently to a new student from Iran. Hi Muhammad, welcome to the Academy. Thank  

you for taking time to introduce yourself. So, my  big piece of advice to everyone who's new in the  

academy is to take advantage of the slow motion  on the soundboards. So when you go to practice,  

start with Play it, Say it in slow motion. Not  the regular speed. Start at half speed because  

you're wanting to train your ears in a new  way. You want to change the way that you're  

perceiving and hearing the sounds of English. So,  if you're going to repeat five or 10 times play  

it every time before you say it in slow motion,  you will do that and each repetition will bring  

you closer and closer to your target, then you can  go to the regular speed with more play it say it,  

but try this method, let us know how it works  for you and I hope that you'll post again soon.  

Every bit of feedback you'll get from a  teacher, you'll know where to go to find  

those lessons. You'll go to the module or find  the course, get the lesson and everything is  

there for you. Everything you could ever need. All of our audio also has a slow motion version  

so you can get it into your body more easily if  the sounds are tricky for you at the beginning. 

Had you met her before? I don't know. 

I don't know. I hope you're seeing how  

much our teachers care about our students. Each  teacher you'll see in this video has been on my  

team for years, they care about you. This isn't  amazing you get personalized video feedback from  

a teacher but what if you want to actually talk  with a teacher live? Get live feedback on the  

particularly tricky word or sound in the moment.  We have drop in hours throughout the month where  

you can join one of our teachers in our online  classroom and ask your questions directly in real  

time. Get coaching and feedback in the moment.  For example, here a student is struggling with uh,  

a very open and relaxed American vowel in  English. This is the uh as in the word cup,  

cup, cop. And I know these two vowel sounds  distinguishing them is so tricky. Getting a  

clear uh helps you sound more natural and here  our teacher Laura helps the student find it. 

And I think you can use a little more breath. Uh 

Yeah. And make sure it's not tightening.  Make sure it still feels soft and natural. 

Uh That's the sound! That's it.  

You found it. That's the sound that we're looking  for that's really American sounding accent there. 

Here, the students confused about  these two words, hear and here. 

Can I hear you try it? I'm I would start with  the E so with the with the lips softly open,  

tongue wide in the middle of the mouth. He, he.  And then I move into the R, so my tongue will  

lift for that R. here 

That's it. Here. Mhm. Alright, so what's the difference  

with the word hear like to hear something? It's the same sound, it's just spelled  

differently. H-e-a-r versus h-e-r-e  like I hear a sound here in my room. 

Oh, alright. Yeah. So, it will,  

there also, we were talking about homophones  earlier. Words that sound the same name but  

are spelled differently, and have different  meaning and this is another example of those. 

Alright, thank you. Yep. Hear and here.  

It's a good one, it's a good one to know. I also love how students connect with other  

students in the community. They find practice  partners to work with on their own speaking  

English and practicing their conversation  skills. They also come to our conversation  

meetups which are led by teachers. We  practice by doing. Here, another one of  

our teachers has listened to a student and is  giving feedback. This is our teacher Katie. 

Hey Victor it's Katie here with some  feedback for you. Awesome job working on  

this conversation and overall I'm really hearing  that linking it sounds smooth and connected, the  

placement is also sounding low so fantastic work  overall. I want to talk a little bit about um,  

stress and intonation. I feel like there could  be a little bit more pitch variety um so on those  

stressed words I feel like the pitch could go  a little bit even higher, let's take a listen. 

First of all I don't appreciate your stomping in-- Yeah, so like first of all I don't appreciate,  

appreciate. I feel like the pitch could go  a little bit higher on that stress syllable,  

appreciate, appreciate. Um, just to get a  little bit more of that stress contrast. 

Okay, this student has just gotten some  valuable detailed feedback, they can go  

to our courses and find a lesson where they  can put this feedback into their own practice. 

I don't appreciate you stomping into my office. Lean into the stress syllables.  

Even more pitch variation. As valuable as our teachers are,  

I don't want to undersell the audio training. Over  10 years ago, I was working with a student from  

China who couldn't hear the difference between IH,  sit and EE, seat. I recorded some audio for her  

comparing a lot of similar words, these are called  minimal pairs. She listens to it several times a  

day for a week and the next week not only could  she hear the difference but she sounded native on  

both sounds just by working with the materials.  No feedback from me. The listening practice then  

the speaking practice works. It makes the sounds  that are hard effortless. But when you've done the  

practice and you're still not sure that's where  this community is invaluable. Here's one of our  

teachers Alicia helping a student with UH and AH.  She's just listened to the student she turns on  

her camera and right away, she's giving feedback  that that student can watch over and over. 

Above, cousin, done. So you're close what I'm hearing  

is just a little different. You're saying above,  cousin, done versus above, cousin, done. Ah,  

Uh. UH is further forward and you can find it by  doing an mmm with a gentle press downwards, mmm,  

and you can also try won with a w, w-o-n, bring  the lips forward and that will set up your tongue  

for the UH as in butter. Won 

Above, cousin, done. That will bring your sound  to the front of the mouth and help you find that  

UH and butter sound. Block, doctor, hop. 

Really nice UH and butter  sound in all three words. 

We've already helped over 35,000 students  reach their goals. They're just like you.  

They had a goal they knew that working towards  it with the right materials and method would  

get them there. I know it's hard to actually  get to know how a program works until you're  

in there actually doing it. So I'm happy to offer  a 30-day moneyback guarantee. You get in there,  

you see how the academy is laid out, you do  the work with the support of our teachers. If  

you feel the method isn't right for you, just  let us know, just request a refund within the  

first 30 days and you're set. I can't tell you  how much I love working with students and how  

much I love discovering a new sound in someone.  I love watching change happen. It's an honor to  

teach you head. to Rachelsenglishacademy.com  to sign up today to get 50% off before we  

close the doors to new signups. That's it and  thanks so much for using Rachel's English.