Speaking English: Simple Exercises for a PERFECT American Accent

Having an accent in English has to do not just  with individual sounds like a or AA or AH or the  

rhythm but a lot to do with the overall sound.  This is why you have an accent speaking English.  

It's like how a flute sounds different from  a violin when they're playing the exact same  

note. Different material, different shape. Today, I'll give you exercises to get the  

right shape in your throat to get the  American accent. Have you ever done  

physical therapy and you can't believe how much  these little simple exercises help you get better? 

That happened to me when I blew out my ankle.  I couldn't believe how simple and minimal the  

exercises were to heal and eventually my  ankle got back to 100%. It's the exact  

same thing with speaking American English. We  want to make small changes here that will have  

a big impact overall to the way you sound. Simple exercises for the throat can change  

everything. If you use your throat speaking  English the same way you do speaking your own  

native language, you'll probably never get  an American sound when speaking English. And  

that's okay. No one has to lose their accent  to be welcome here on my channel. But I know  

for a lot of my students the goal is to sound  as native as possible. So let's do some PT.  

That is physical therapy, exercises for your  throat to get you a truly American accent. 

I'm Rachel, I have a background in opera singing  and I've been teaching the American accent to  

non-native speakers for over 20 years. Scan this  QR code or go to Rachelsenglish.com/free to get  

my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master  the American Accent. It will blow your mind,  

it will give you totally new ideas on how  to get the sound you've always wanted. 

Before we get into the exercises, let's look at  what's happening in the throat when we speak. I  

got this clip from a YouTuber who was able to do  what I've always wanted to do. He was able to go  

into an MRI and get a video of the anatomy when  speaking or in his case singing. Tyley Ross is a  

voice teacher living in New York City and I'll  link to his original video and website in the  

video description. It's really worth watching  the full video, it's very cool. He went into  

an MRI and sang the same part of a song in  four styles. So, the sounds were the same,  

the pitches were the same, but the overall sound  the style was different depending on what he did  

with his tongue lips and throat. Listen to this  difference. It's singing the same note the same  

vowel in four different styles. Do you hear  a difference? Let's listen to it on a loop. 

Of course you hear a difference. The sound  is different because of the position of the  

tongue and lips but also the throat. The voice  box or larynx is here. It makes the sound,  

the pitch based on how the  vocal folds or vocal cords  

are stretched when air pushes against  them causing them to flap and vibrate. 

But the position of the larynx can change based  on the muscles around it and this is what changes  

the shape of the throat and changes the  sound. Let's look at the four positions. 

So here, we're comparing the four different sounds  and styles and we can see the changes in the body  

that are making the sounds different. Even though  the vowel is the same and the pitch is the same,  

the larynx is this part here. But look at the  shape that's created. So the shape here for opera,  

that's a different shape than the shape here.  Here this line is very flat. And in opera,  

it sort of got a notch out of it. Also look  at this space here. It's narrower here than  

it is here on the light mix then it is here on  the rock style and here in the forward style. 

So, this part of the body is changed, is moved by  the muscles around it. And changing its position  

and its shape changes the shape of the throat,  the part where the voice is resonating. The  

empty space here in the mouth is also something  that resonates to make the sound. To make what's  

called the overtones of the sound. And that  really affects the overall sound. So tongue  

position matters. Also, look at this in the  opera style. The top lip is doing something  

a little bit differently than it is in the  other styles. There's just a little bit of  

space being created between the front of the  teeth and the inside of the lip. This part is  

called the soft palette. That can also move.  It can hang down, let air through or it can  

be closed up tight preventing air from going up  into the nasal cavity. So the way to change your  

overall sound where in your body the voice is  resonating is through the muscles of the neck,  

throat, the tongue, lifting or lowering the soft  palette. What you do with your lips, everything  

that affects the shape will affect the sound.  So the exercises will go over today will help to  

lower and relax the larynx. That's the placement  that we want for an American English accent. 

N ow let me try to make the EH vowel on the  same pitch but sound different. I'm going to  

be shifting my tongue, larynx, soft palette, I'm  going to do a bunch of different EH sounds. Okay. 

Okay, that was fun and weird. It was all the EH  vowel and the pitch was the same but the sound  

changed completely throughout that. That's  because of how I changed my anatomy. They  

didn't all have the American feel of that vowel  which is EH, EH. I've noticed that almost all of  

my students have the overall feel, that's just a  little different. The throat is a little tighter,  

the larynx higher, it makes the vibrations  seem like they're pressed more in the face  

rather than lower in the chest. In American  English we want a really relaxed throat,  

a lower larynx for that open low American sound. So in this area, in the throat that includes  

the larynx and muscles around it which  move it. This is called the vocal tract. 

I found a voice coach on YouTube  who talks about this really well. When the  

shape of anything changes, then the  sound it makes when vibrating changes. 

Your vocal tract also has a resonant frequency  when struck. But because it can change shape  

and size, the resonant frequency also changes. So, different shape, different core sound. Now,  

we humans have pretty much the same  material as one another. Our blood vessels,  

our mucus and all that that's in there  but the shape we make with our throats  

naturally depends on the native language we grew  up with and the overall sound of that language. 

So there are two things that make  up the sound of your speaking voice. 

The pitch. That is the note that my vocal cords  also called vocal folds make. You know what? Let's  

play with some pitches. I'm going to play a middle  C here on the keyboard that I have pulled up. 

So, I'm matching that pitch, my vocal cords I  don't really know what they're doing, I'm not  

telling them how to stretch but I hear something  and I'm matching it. Let's play another pitch. 

So again, I didn't tell my throat how to change  its shape. I just did it based on what I hear  

and almost anybody can do this unless you're  tone deaf, you can hear a pitch and you can  

match it. So that pitch of my voice, that  is the pitch of the vocal cords vibrating.  

However, there's another thing that makes up  the sound of our voice besides just the pitch. 

When you speak, you actually have two sound waves  working together you have the sound wave from your  

vibrating vocal folds and you have the resonant  frequency of your vocal tract. When two waves meet  

you get what's called wave superposition.  Basically, the waves interfere either  

constructively or destructively to create a third  new wave and this is the sound of your voice. 

The sound of your beautiful voice. Okay, that  was a lot of detail to try to convince you that  

the shape of your throat does matter. Now  let's jump into some exercises to get you a  

more relaxed shape which will give you a more  American sound. The first one is super simple  

and just like the PT I did on my ankle it seems  too simple to actually do anything but it does. 

I want to credit these exercises, they were  passed on to me by someone on my staff, a  

Rachel's English teacher, Ms. Stokes who's getting  a degree in order to become a speech language  

pathologist. Shout out to Ms. Stokes, she's been  teaching with Rachel's English for years and she's  

a fantastic teacher. In her studies, she came  across a speech therapist named Shirley Tennyson  

who developed the exercises from the teaching  of three others. I'll put a link to the book  

with these exercises in the video description. The first exercise is simply massaging with a  

circular motion. You start high  up by the jaw, this is the jaw,  

and you just work your way down. That feels  nice. And you do both sides, couple times,  

get your neck muscles in the front to release. Now we're going to massage this part here. So  

you put your fingers there where the  base of your tongue is and you spread  

them apart. Feels good. Got to say. We all  probably hold more tension than we know we  

do. So do that several times without talking. Now this one's going to feel weird. So you know  

your larynx is here. We're going to pinch above  it, and just pull it down the tiniest amount,  

it's not a big forced thing. Do that several times  and then do it also from the side. Nothing harsh.  

Just gentle. This next one is one I used to do  a lot when I was singing opera to just sort of  

relax and release these muscles. You  take your fingers on either side of  

the larynx and you push it side to side and  it will probably crackle. Mine always does. 

Do that for a while. Maybe  10 times back and forth. 

For the next one we're going  to take our thumb and press up  

here into the tongue and you just press  there and hold it. Pressing up into the  

back of your tongue. Hold it for 20 seconds  maybe even up to a minute without talking. 

And release it. Feels good. You can feel it sink  down. The pressure was firm, you let go it sinks  

down. That also helps release tension. Now you're going to play with actually  

pulling down your Larynx so gently,  while you're making sound and you'll  

see that there's a subtle change in sound. Depending on where your larynx is naturally,  

the sound change will be different. But you want to see what it feels like to have  

it be relaxed open and low because there's  a real chance that in your native language  

the muscles of the neck and throat are tensed a  little bit that lifts everything up a little bit  

and puts the sound here. Ah. And in American  English we want the sound here. Ah, Ah, Ah,  

and we do that by relaxing everything letting the  larynx lower. I want to show what effect this can  

have on the voice. This is Shawn, a student  of Rachel's English Academy who could tell  

that his overall sound which I call placement  where the voice resonates here, ah or here,  

ah. I call that placement. He knew that his sound  was preventing him from sounding natural speaking  

English. This is an introduction he made to the  Rachel's English Academy Community early on and  

then we'll play another introduction that he did  after several weeks of work on his placement. 

Hello everybody, my name is Shawn. So  today I'd like to make a free talk video  

by using the random question generator. He did a lot of neck, tongue and throat  

relaxation exercises to help him find that  shape of the lower resonance. I'll play  

the two examples again side by side.

Hello everybody, my name is Shawn. 

So, just to recap, what did we learn today?  The shape of our throat of our vocal tract  

changes our sound and in American English, we  want a relaxed open throat with a larynx that  

is able to drop down in a relaxed way, that  shape of the throat will make your voice feel  

like it's vibrating here more so than here. And that's what we want. That's the core  

sound of American English. What do you think of this?  

Are you willing to try this PT, this  physical therapy for your American accent? 

Or maybe you think this whole thing is ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. 

Don't forget to head over to  Rachelsenglish.com/free to get my free  

course, the Top Three Ways to Master the American  Accent. Do these PT exercises very gently first,  

then try working with audio in the course and  see how your sound changes. Keep your learning  

going now with this video and don't forget to  subscribe with notifications on, I absolutely  

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