[LIVE!] Lesson | How to CRUSH These Sounds

I just finished teaching a live class. I'm  here in my office at my desk. I worked with  

two students and we worked on some sounds  that can really help anybody sound natural,  

and so I want to share these  live class lessons with you here. 

Did you know that A, the vowel sounds different  depending on the consonant that comes after. 

When this a vowel comes before  an N, we don't say a, we say æʌ. 

can I hear you just imitate me slowly? æʌ 

Okay. Væʌ. Not putting on  the N, just going into an uh. 

Van Don't do the N. 

Væʌ So it's Væ-uh. Uh like in butter, uh. Væʌ 

Væʌn Yeah, yes. I heard you put on the N at the  

end which is okay, I want to get that uh Væʌn 

Uhuh. Now, let's change it.

Mæʌn

Yes, that was okay. I want more uh. Mæʌ 

We’ll even exaggerate it a little  bit to find that lower openness, 

Mæʌ

Hold on, let me think. Mæʌ 

Do you see how my jaw relaxes even more? Mæʌ 

And you can see my tongue goes down a little  bit because it's a little bit darker in there. 

Mæʌ 

That's what I want. I want the  tongue to lower in the back 

Mæʌ Yes. Do it again. 

Mæʌ Uhuh. Now,  

we're exactly. We're going to bring in the N.

Mæʌn 

Yes. Now we want all of that to be faster of  course, but I don't want to lose the UH part  

of it, otherwise it goes back to man,  van, and we don't want that. We want man,  

van. Let me hear you, let's try to just  speed it up, play it, say it, Mæʌn. 

Mæʌn No, not mæn. Mæ-ʌ-ʌ, mæʌ. 

Mæʌn Yes, better. 

Mæʌn Yes, that's perfect. 

Mæʌn Mhm, love it. Let's just keep doing it ten times,  

settle it in.

Mæʌn 

That last one was a little bit more mæn. Mæʌn. Mæʌn 

Mhm, that's better. So we want to move into  that uh. Let's do it with another word. This is,  

this is the way that this vowel æ like cat is  always pronounced before an N. It's always æ  

and you can see æ. You can see that the tongue  does go down a little bit and that's why you  

see more of the darkness. Okay let's try  hand really slowly, exaggerating UH. Hand. 

Hæʌnd Good. 

Hæʌnd Hmhm. And I'm seeing your mouth get darker,  

I'm seeing the tongue go down in the back. Hæʌnd 

Okay, hold on, hæʌnd. Make sure the tongue is  going down in the back. That's where we want  

the movement.

Hæʌnd 

Yes. That is perfect. The thing that's so  nice about this is it's also making your  

placement lower. Because if we don't  do that it's sort of like hand, man,  

than. Do you hear how the placement there is  sort of pinched up in this part of my face? 

Yeah. Yes and that's  

what we don't ever want in American English. Æ. We want æʌ, æʌ, man, hand. Let's just do a  

little bit more play it, say it with hand.

Hæʌnd 

Yes. Hæʌnd 

I want more UH. Hæʌnd 

Yes, exactly. So when you speed it up, make sure  you're still hitting UH. They should, what you  

just did was absolutely beautiful but when you  make it faster, don't drop one part, just make  

all of the parts faster including the UH.  

Hæʌnd

Okay. There, I'm not hearing UH. I'm hearing  h Hænd. Hæʌn. Let's just drop the end of the  

word. We're doing this: Hæ-ʌ but  we're doing it at a normal speech pace.

Hæʌ 

Exactly. Hæʌ 

It's tricky when we speed it up to get  that movement in. But if we lose it,  

then we go back to that high placement.  So here's the thing, in the academy,  

there's a whole section of this vowel with N  and there's slow motion audio, just do the slow  

motion. Don't mess with the regular pace for one  week, two weeks, get that uh, get that uh feeling,  

get that uh, half of it, and when you've done that  for two weeks, you know, 10 or 20 minutes a day,  

then try the regular pace. Um, but then also this  is kind of lowering your placement, in a way that  

that feeling of UH that you're moving into, hæʌ,  that feeling can be in everything that you say.  

Okay, uhm, and this is you know, it's exactly what  you were saying. You wanted to be able to teach  

was like the vowels, the diphthongs, these sounds.  So æʌ, æʌ, this is just one of those sounds that's  

going to really make a nice difference. Let's take another um, word which changes  

in a different way. Uhm, thanks. 

Exactly. This is one where it changes  to æ, æ, æ. Let's just hear that æ. 

æ Yes 

æ

Thanks 

Yes. Exactly. Your placement  is nice and low there. 

Amazing. Working on a vowel can also lower  placement. Now we'll move into another way  

the a vowel changes, and from there we move  into other sounds like the R. Everything  

is working to improve the overall sound and  create a more natural American English sound. 

And I think your pitch came down a little  bit too which is exactly what we want. Okay,  

so think about that lower pitch, that lower  placement like æ they thanks and tell me  

what time it is there in a sentence. Uh, sorry, could you repeat I didn't.. 

Yes, just tell me what time it is where you are. Uh, 22:49. 

Okay, but I want it here. Twenty-two forty-nine. 

Good. Now hold on. Twenty-two forty-nine.  Twenty-two, twenty-two. See if we can bring it  

down. Twenty-two is what you said. Twenty-two, uh,  uh is what I want. A little bit lower. Twenty-two. 

Twenty-two forty-nine. Yes, right. Now, let's try forty  

with the flap T. Forty. Forty. 

Okay. I do think I want to work on that R a  little bit, sort of like in learn as well.  

It's a little bit for, ur, ur. I wanted  to feel a little bit more focused here  

maybe creating just a little bit of space  here, ur will help bring the focus forward. 

Ur Yeah, that's better. Tell  

me if you hear the difference. Ur 

Right. One is further back, kind of trapped  in the mouth, that's not the one we want. In  

American English, we want the one that's sort of  shooting out the front and you can think of just  

moving the lip away from the gum, ur, just  a little bit it helps bring that sound out. 

Ur Yeah.Ur, even more space here. 

Ur Uhhuh, better. Bring the corners in a little bit. 

Ur I don't see your corners moving  

in at all. Ur. Let's exaggerate it. Ur 

Uhhuh, that's better. Now bring that, can you  bring the tongue forward a little bit? Same  

position but a little more forward. Ur 

Yes, that's better. So we think of the tongue  being back for the R which it is, but it's not  

nearly as far back as we sometimes make it. It's  just a little further back than other sounds but  

it's still pretty far forward. Ur, and that helps  bring this sound really focused and out. Ur. So  

wait, what was the word we were doing? Oh, we were saying twenty, twenty-four or  

something? What was the time you were saying? It was twenty-two fifty-two now. 

Okay. So we were probably saying forty. So let's  just take that word four and think of that R with  

a little more space here, for. Forty. 

Okay, hold on. Another thing, we don't want  to lose the vowel. We don't want to go for,  

we want to go for, first the vowel for. For 

Yeah, yes. Now, we're going to tweak the E  vowel and the schwa and we'll talk about rhythm. 

Correct rhythm makes such a huge difference in the  American accent. And that's exactly what I want.  

You know that makes your placement better too.

Chicken. Muffin. 

Yeah, yes. So, it's less here. Chicken. Eat  chicken, and you're really bringing it down and I  

want you to think about trying to make everything  you say coming from this place down here. This is  

recorded and it will go in the academy and you  can watch it in a couple of weeks. Really think  

about that. Think about we sort of found like an  opening in a lower place. You're also bringing  

your pitch down some, but yeah go to that a plus  n section because I think finding that UH within  

that is also helping to lower your placement in a  way that sounds really nice. But I think that you  

sound great and I think that your students are  going to learn so much good English from you,  

and it's so nice when they learn it right the  first time. They don't have to be adults working  

so hard to change their accent to understandable. Yeah, and this is my main aim to be here. 

Yeah, yeah. Well, you sound you sound great. Keep  it up and keep posting in the community so you can  

keep getting that feedback from the teachers. Sure, sure. 

Okay. Soheila, thank you so much. You're welcome 

I appreciate it. You're welcome. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye. 

The thing I loved about working with this student  is we get to see how changing one thing like a  

vowel or Rhythm can have an impact on another part  of the accent like placement. All the pieces are  

working together to create a really natural sound. The next student shares with me why she joined  

Rachel's English Academy. I'm sure this  is something a lot of you can relate to. 

I also participated in other speaking projects  and I noticed lack of improvement. And it was a  

bit of frustrating for me because in general I  use a lot of English mostly uh written and um,  

I also write because I am a scientist working in  medicine but my speaking is a bit of you know,  

I have a lot of struggles with it. Not in  speaking in general but with my placement  

which I wasn't totally aware of before  joining the academy and I suppose with  

intonation and with rhythm which is a  bit of choppy in some moments. And this  

the biggest motivation to be more active in this. Okay, great. 

And I think I still struggle with placement.  It's without my conscious control. 

Yes, I think it's something we can work on  I'm also noticing one other thing that I think  

is one habit that we can work to change  that will make a big difference with the  

smoothness and that is I'm not really hearing  flap T. I'm hearing true T, true T, true T. 

With her, we'll work on placement and  smoothness you'll see how working on  

one improves the other. Also the flap T is  so important for the character of how you  

sound for the smoothness of how you sound. And that tt,tt,tt makes it a little choppy.  

So I've just written down four words from what  you've said that I want to go over. This is one  

of them. Actually, let's take off the Ed ending  just to simplify it and make it present tense.  

Let me hear that.

Notice 

Right, that's what I want. Notice is sort of how  I heard it first and that true T makes it feel a  

little separate. Notice 

Right, notice. Notice 

Yeah, notice. Notice 

I'm going to change the pitch a little bit.

Notice 

Hold on. I want to make sure that you  were not missing the beginning. I'm  

getting a little bit nou, but I want, I want  there to be a little bit up before the down.

Notice Right. 

Notice Yeah, do your hand with it. 

Notice Hmhm. So we're getting the  

up and the down. If I was going to slow it down,  it would be notice but I'm doing it notice, fast. 

Notice That's pretty good and  

it's definitely smoother and I think also it helps  your placement be lower. At first it was notice,  

notice, so your o diphthong was more like oh,  and your true T was tt, kind of sharp, your  

syllables were similar in length. None of that is  really the characteristic of American English. The  

characteristic of American English is short and  long, connected together, and when you're doing  

that, I think your placement is automatically  going to lower, your higher placement is linked to  

other characteristics of your habit I think. And  if you change those other habits like true Ts to  

into flap Ts, smoothing your speech, shortening  unstressed syllables, I think all of that will  

probably bring the placement down without having  to consciously thinking so much about lowering  

the placement, I would start focusing on those  things in order to get lower placement rather  

than trying to somehow force lower placement.  I think that things like the flap T, this is  

a more concrete thing that we can focus on and  really work and immediately understand and know  

the difference. So, let me grab another couple  words. Um, you actually said restarted but I'm  

just going to say started to make it more simple.  So this is a flap T. Started. So let's hear it. 

Started Hmhm. And now let's do it with  

an up down shape of stress. Started 

Right. And you notice that we changed the rhythm  so that the last one was very short which is what  

we want. Started 

Hmhm. And now, we'll speed it up. Started 

And now, let's just, to make it a little bit  more complicated, let's see what it's like  

if we put restarted. So we put the prefix  re-, re- re- but I want the lengthen star. 

Restarted Exactly, exactly. 

Restarted Hmhm. Okay, I'm getting a little bit re,  

re and I went ri, ri, ri, ri. Restarted 

Yes, exactly. Restarted 

Uhuh. I'm going to maybe work on your R in a  second, but for now I want to do one more word  

of the flap T. I'm going to do a shortened version  of what you said and then we'll do the version of  

what you said. Okay, can you say this word for me. Total 

Okay, to- exactly. You knew right away, total,  that that's how you did it and you corrected  

it because that's never what we want, we never  want dada, equal length, as you noticed without  

me having to say anything so that's great.  And then you fixed it and you said total,  

which is what we want. Exactly, total. We want  long, short, in this case we want that flap T just  

bouncing quickly. When you had said it earlier you  said this word, and it was more like totally. But  

it's of course totally. Totally 

Right. Totally 

Hmhm. And we can say this like if I want to say  what you're doing is correct, I can say ‘totally’  

because that means right, totally. You're doing  it totally, totally correctly. Exactly. So now,  

your placement feels lower, certainly we've got  less choppiness and more smoothness, it's partly  

that flap T, but it's also partly just changing  your rhythm of it. Uhm, and I just want to point  

out again that you knew it right away. I didn't  stop you and say dunt, dunt, you notice it. Okay,  

here's one other thing I want to work on now.  Think about it again. What's my stress going  

to be, how am I going to shape that which is  going to be long which is going to be short. 

Biggest Right,  

exactly. When you said it earlier it was sort of  biggist, big, so I wanted to work on that vowel,  

that's why I wrote it down. But it was also kind  of dada, dada-dada instead of da-da. Let me just  

hear you do that on da. Da-da 

Exactly. That's very good. I know that some  people get really hung up with repeating on da,  

and it feels sort of choppy and difficult,  and so they skip it, and then I say no no,  

if it's choppy and difficult we need to work to  smooth that out because that's what we're going to  

bring into every other word we ever practice. Biggest 

Exactly. You know what?  Your vowel even got better. 

Because before— When I'm speaking more spontaneously, 

yeah I had to keep everything that, 

Yeah. That’s fair. Think it's easier because you know,  

listen repeat, listen repeat. But speaking just  from my head is, I didn't achieve this level. 

Yes, that's okay. There are ways to get there. So,  the first one of course is you're doing, the play  

it say it repetition practice which is exactly  what you should do. You hear me say ‘biggest’  

and then you say ‘biggest’ and it's lower your  placement and everything then, at the end of  

the day, um, record yourself just speaking for  maybe 10-15 seconds. It doesn't have to be very  

long at all, just saying what you did today. This is one of the main things I hear from  

my students. I can practice with the method  and get more comfortable with certain words,  

but when it comes to conversation, I can't use the  accent I want. In the academy we have lessons to  

help students take their practice into real life,  basically it has to do with recording yourself in  

a certain way each day. And this is sort of  what I say can be a really good bridge into  

all of it being there for you when you're  speaking. Now it will take a long time you  

know you're doing your exercises but I would add  this, it's maybe like a five-minute exercise to  

do every day as well if you can and that will  really take help you bridge that practice time  

into your just spontaneous speaking time. But you know where you're at is sometimes  

the most frustrating place for people because  they say well I know the things I'm doing the  

work but it's not my habit yet and then that's  just frustrating like I notice them more than  

I used to, and now I like my own accent less  than I used to. So it's a really frustrating  

place to be when you started the work and you  start to understand it but the habit hasn't  

caught up with you yet. But definitely, recording  yourself doesn't have to be a video it can just  

be an audio. It’s a great way for your brain to  just start taking in your voice in spontaneous  

conversation, and of course the end goal is  that you're doing zero thinking about it. Um,  

but yeah, it's a great, it's a  great, great way to bridge the gap. 

Um okay, I said I wanted to work on the R so I'm  going to come back to that. What was the word? It  

was start. That was the word I was working on. Um  it was sort of like what I was working on earlier  

with Soheila which was the R is a little bit R,  is a little bit farther back than I want it. Um,  

let's just forget the T and just use the  word ‘star’, and now we'll circle back to the R.

Star 

Do you know the difference between ah like  in father and ah like in law like physically? 

Yes. Okay. I want more of an AH, just like the  

cheeks may be coming in a little bit, I think it  could help bring the sound out a little bit more. 

Star Uhhuh, yeah. The first  

one was a little bit star, it was a, I'm not,  I'm not imitating you right at all. It was kind  

of like stuck in your mouth like it wasn't really  coming out that much and I wanted that energy to  

feel and the placement to feel like coming out  of the body, I'm not stuck in here. Ah, star. 

Star Uh-huh. 

Star Yes. That was pretty good.  

And the thing to think about is we want, we wanted  to feel like there's this thing coming out of us,  

I sometimes say it's like a tube of toothpaste,  you know you just squeeze it and it just keeps  

coming, and we want all of our sounds to fit  in that. A little bit before it was like ah,  

and then R. But I want the R to fit right into  that same tube, right into that same shape of  

what's coming out. Star. So the whole time it's  like connected to the abdomen and it's coming out,  

there's no like stopping, holding, less energy  it's always ‘star’, just let's do that really  

slowly and think about that star. Star. 

Right. Exactly. The sound never stopped, the sound  never pulled back. It's like you have to take the  

sound and shape the R around it, rather than stop  the sound to shape the R. The r has to catch on  

to what's coming.

Star 

Hmhm. Now, let's try a little bit faster. Star 

Yeah. Started 

Okay, now one thing I want to try is not to have  you do that. Star, started. Try not to move,  

I mean I know you're doing a single word, you want  to stress it naturally with your head and neck a  

little bit, let's try not to do that.

Star 

Yes. So here's what you did: You started star and  then you shaped your lips a little bit more, star,  

and the sound opened up. It's like you heard  that it wasn't quite the sound that you wanted,  

your mouth made a change whether you knew it or  not and it really clarified the sound. This is one  

thing that's really advantageous about holding  out the sounds is our ears can sometimes know  

that's not quite the sound I want and then make an  adjustment and that's exactly what your body did. 

Star

Hmhm. And that R  

is feeling more forward, it's feeling a little  bit more free, do you feel like it feels any  

different as far as how you're producing it? In general, yes because when I produce it,  

it's more backward. Yeah, we really don't want that.

We really want it to be tip not touching  anything, not so far forward that it's touching,  

but we want the general feel of it to still  be pretty far forward, and part of that can be  

just thinking oh, the sound's coming straight  out I just got to get the r right in on that  

rather than stopping, holding, putting it in. Okay, awesome. Um, let's keep going. Why don't  

you, is there anything you want to work on  outside of what we're already working on? 

Uh, yes. I thought about placement. Okay, yes. Well, let's try some where we're just  

working on placement then and we're not talking  about it in terms of rhythm or sounds. So,  

in order to do that I would love to have  you just free talk a sentence or two maybe  

you can tell me where you live or  a little bit more about your work. 

Okay, I can tell you a bit of  about my work. Like I mentioned, 

That was a good enough sentence. I can tell  you a little bit about my work. Let's do that. 

It's such a pleasure to work with my students  every month in the academy. When they learn  

how to change their sound and change their  habits, they know it's going to take a lot  

of time and consistency but that they will  get there, they will reach their goals. 

I teach live in the academy once a month, you can  join and learn more at Rachelenglishacademy.com. 

Keep your learning going now with this video and  don't forget to subscribe with notifications on.  

I just love being your English teacher. That's  it and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.