ANYONE CAN DO THIS | Master the American Accent with Play It, Say It

You've reached a certain level in English. I  mean look at you, you're watching this video in  

English. You understand most of what I'm saying,  maybe with subtitles, maybe without. This is when  

studying English can get really fun. You're adding and you're polishing,  

you're not stuck building the foundation, you've  already done that good work. In my Academy,  

I've had students from all of these countries  working on their American English. Anyone no  

matter what their native language is can speak  American English with absolute confidence and  

fluency. Your tongue can do what my tongue can do.  Your neck, face, jaw, whole body, it can do this. 

I'm not perfect in these languages far from  it. And I'm not accent free in these languages.  

But I do know the time and repetition  out loud that it takes to feel totally  

comfortable with the new sounds rhythms  and placements of a different language. 

Today we're going to go over five American  accent tips for five major language groups.  

If you're native language isn't here, don't  worry. I've worked with hundreds of students  

and all of those have been recorded and all of  those videos are put in Rachel's English Academy. 

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no recurring payments, you pay once, you have  access forever. And you work on it when you  

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it enough. Get instant access to every course.  American vowels, rhythm, conversation practice.  

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

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$5 for your first month of subscription access. Two options: One lifetime payment and one smaller  

subscription payment your first month for just $5. First up, smooth connections between words. I  

work with this with a lot of students  and right now students from China are  

coming to mind. This is not natural for  you if your native language is Chinese. 

No way.

Let's connect it. We don't want ‘no way’,  

we don't want. That that reminds me of Mandarin.  Separate. We don't want that in American English.  

We want no way.

No way. 

Exactly. That's how connected we want everything.  We don't ever want no way. It sounds more free,  

more relaxed. If you had to explain this to  one of your friends who's a Mandarin speaker,  

if you had to say, ‘oh, I was in a class  with Rachel and this is what she told me  

to do with my voice.’ What would you say? I think I would say it's very important to  

thinking of connecting of the words rather  than just the way we speak in Chinese,  

uh which all the words are completely split. Mmhm. I think that's great that's definitely  

true. I also think when you think about that  connection, it might help you find more of  

the this space rather than the this space. I sort  of sense that your neck is more relaxed which is  

what we want, and it might be that connecting  everything also helps this relax more because  

there's not a need to separate to cut things  off start again, no way, it's just all that. 

No way. No way. Now we make sure it's not no way.  

I don't want it to feel cut, no way, ey.

No way. 

Yes, that is better.

So think of connecting  

words and smoothness and this can relax your neck  and throat which can lead to better placement. 

I love this about accent work. Often, when you  work on one part of it, another part gets better. 

Do you feel that, can you tell what  you're doing differently there? 

Uh, I sort of uh, feel Iike sometimes  there’s a tense in my jaw, and mouth muscle. 

And is it that doing that makes the  lower placement or is it that not  

doing that makes the lower placement? Not doing it makes a lower placement. 

Yes. That sounds right to me. That sounds  right to me. You find the tension, you let  

it go and it lowers the placement. Perfect. Now with my Spanish speakers I talk about  

clearer stressed syllables. There are  two things you need: More length to  

your stressed syllable and more pitch change.  Otherwise, it's kind of hard to understand. 

A lot of my Spanish speakers, I'm often  trying to get more contrast from them. 

Oh yeah, I've been working  like on stress a lot lately. 

Yeah, well let's just take that  phrase. I'm going to type it out,  

‘I've been working on stress a lot lately’ is  sort of how you said it. I've been working on. 

Okay, so let's first start at lower. I've been. I've been. 

Work

No, you went I've been, work.  Here's what I want: I've been work. 

I've been work. Yeah, even, even more. We're going to like go  

over the top just to like stretch it okay? Work 

Work 

Yeah. So what you just did sounds normal,  it didn't sound over the top. I've been wor— 

I've been wor— Okay, one other thing. Uhm, a little bit I see,  

I see a mouth position in general that's sort of  like this. I've been wor-- it's like really flat  

not much jaw drop, sort of oriented this way. I've  been work, but what I want is work, I want to feel  

like more freedom this way, I've been wor—

I've been work— 

Yes! Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Okay, so now I'm  just going to say I've been working and I want  

to play it say it and if I change the melody,  then I want you to change the melody to match it. 

Got it.

I've been working 

Uhhuh, now that's a little bit working,  working, work, more jaw drop, more this  

feeling. I've been working.

I've been working. 

Yes, exactly. And does that  feel, does it feel uncomfortably. 

Yeah, it feels it feels super long. Okay, it feels too long you said? 

Yeah. Yes, okay I love that. It's totally  

not and in fact we need that length in order to go  up and down and that up and down scoop is like how  

are our ears hear, yes. When we don't have that,  and my Spanish speakers are often--. It's like  

flat and, and the stress doesn't come out enough,  that can be pretty hard to understand because our  

ears are used to those anchors. Wor-- and if  I don't get any wor, then I'm like whoa wait,  

what is the structure of this  sentence? I've been working. 

I've been working.

Yeah, that is in no  

way too long. And I mean if anything you can  continue to make your pitches more extreme. 

If your native language doesn't have this  kind of syllable length or pitch change,  

it feels weird, it feels too long, it feels  like you're being fake. But you have to speak  

English with the character of English  if you want it to be easy to understand. 

So many of my students need help  with the UR vowel, like in Earth,  

learn first. I'm sure for many of you out there,  girl, world, and squirrel are some of the hardest  

words to say. They all have that UR vowel. A lot of my students from India have studied  

British English, and if they want  to switch over to American English,  

changing this vowel will be a big part of that. It's my first time to be on a live video chat.  

No, no. I'm just , You're learning how to sing. 

Yeah, of course. One of the main sounds  

that I've noticing is this is a very strong  carryover from British English, is that,  

have you studied some British English or um, Yeah, last year. No, last year,  

I was learning from an online channel.   

Mmhm. So if you want to sound more American,

one of the main ways that you can do it is  with the vowel that we use in bird, learning,  

first. When you said it was more like first,  learning, it's got more of a British sound,  

we definitely put more R into that first, first. Earth sound, right? 

Yes. Let me hear you say ‘first’. First. 

That's perfect! Let me hear  you say ‘in the first place’. 

first place Yes. Let me hear you say ‘I'm learning’. 

I'm learning. Yeah. Let me see hear you say ‘that hurts’. 

That hurts. Okay, so your sound is perfect, you just have to  

do it. I wouldn't change anything about the sound. Actually I'm learning um, I've been  

practicing sounds for like, Not learning, not learning. 

It's learning, yeah. Yes. 

I get it. Learning. Yes. 

Uh, I've been learning all the time you  know like for the last couple of months. 

One of the things I love about AJ is by the time  we worked together, he'd already been in the  

Academy for a year. He'd been working with those  materials over and over and he knew that vowel,  

he totally nailed it. UR, first, learn, hurt.  The sound was perfect and he found that perfect  

sound in his body by doing repetition. All  he has to do now is integrate it into his  

habit and I have some recording exercise that I  have my students do to help this happen faster. 

If you sign up for the Academy you can learn  about these recording exercises I call them The  

Bridge. It's the bridge to go from practicing  your accent to actually using everything  

you've learned effortlessly in conversation. Our next student, native language, Portuguese.  

I worked with her on reductions. That is these  little words in American English that are said  

so fast, you won't believe how short they are.  But when you say them this quickly, it actually  

makes you easier to understand. Here we're  working on the phrase ‘moved from’, moved from. 

I moved from Homosassa. From. Moved from. 

Hmhm. Moved from. Let me hear from, from. From 

Not from. From. From. 

Right. From.

From. 

Faster half as long. From.

From 

That's perfect. If you can believe it that is  the word. That is how it's pronounced in that  

sentence. It’s from.

From 

From Homosassa. Not from. From. 

From Homosassa. Yeah, even faster. From,  

from Homosassa. From Homosassa. 

Yes that is it, from. From Homosassa. 

Exactly. From Homosassa. 

Many of the most common words in  American English are reductions  

and we have soundboards for each of  them in the Academy so you can work  

with that audio repetitiously to help you  get your reductions really, really short. 

Let's try a little bit with the ‘for’  reduction from the soundboard from the Academy. 

Repeat each time you hear.

We'll be there for 3 weeks. 

For

There for 

there for three

We'll be there for 3 weeks. 

The UH vowel along with UR is one of the  hardest ones to get. Think of the word pair cop,  

cup. I had a Russian student once who couldn't  hear the difference in these two vowels. She  

worked on them in the Academy for a month and  after that she sounded native on both vowels. 

Here, I'm working with a Russian student  who realizes she doesn't need as much  

space back here to make the UH vowel. So when you said the word studying it  

was a little bit sta, studying, sta, instead of  stu, stu, so it's a little bit of placement and  

also just the tongue position the vowel  itself. So can I hear you say study. 

Study. Where is the time it’s supposed to be? 

Okay, that's a good question so I'm actually going  to change it to just a one syllable word because  

why bother with more than one syllable right  now? So let's just go to um, let's go to fun.  

Let me hear you say that. Fun 

Uhuh. Uh, okay so the tongue is the  tip is forward it's wide and it's very,  

very relaxed. And I hear like just now when you  said fun it was, it was kind of partway between  

uh and a. And so for the a the back of the tongue  is pressing down a little bit, um, fun, fun, fun  

or fun. Ah, ah, uh, uh. So there can  be a little bit less space back here,  

uh. I mean sometimes I tell students like okay  one time, I was playing basketball with my mom  

and she threw the ball at me and I wasn't  ready for it and it hit me in the face and  

I was like uh, and just I sometimes think about  that feeling uh, uh is like what you kind of want  

to have in your face to get the full relaxation  for that uh vowel. So let's just try that uh. 

Uh

Fun 

And I'm going to do like I did  with Bo-Kai, just some word parts. 

tuh

duh 

stuh

muh 

Yeah. The first one it was a little  bit more like the ah vowel again,  

muh, but that was good. Do you know were you  just doing play it say it or did you think of  

something to change the second time you did that? I was thinking of my tongue and the placement of  

it and I do realize when it's like back  forward like back there so little bit. 

So you're your whole tongue is maybe shifted back  a little bit more than it should to get the vowel  

quality want. Okay, that's great. I always love  it when students can articulate that because  

other students watching will be like, oh okay,  my whole tongue forward. Okay, that sounds great. 

My Academy brings students from all over the  world together to get real results, solid  

results of a natural and comfortable American  English sound. Many of them are in Healthcare,  

doctors and nurses living in the US. Many of  them work in business and finance across the  

globe and they use English for work every day.  We have students in school, college professors,  

stay-at-home parents. Everyone has their  own reason for doing this. What's yours?