Do I Need to Sound Like A Native English Speaker? | Interview with Hadar from Accent's Way

It doesn't matter if you only have a limited number of words, the moment you are able to

communicate and express your feelings, your thoughts, your emotions, then this is your

language too.

Welcome to Beyond Borders, RealLife English's new talk show!

So today I have a very special guest joining us from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Pronunciation and accent expert Hadar, from Accents Way.

Hadar, welcome to the show!

Thank you very much, I'm so happy to be here.

And if you are new here, I want to invite you to join our global community by hitting

that Subscribe button and the Bell down below so that way we can help you to understand

fast speaking natives, to be understood by anyone and to connect to the world.

Just like Gregorz, who says that thanks to our lessons he is the only one in his English

class who doesn't sound like a robot.

I think the industry does not help with a certain ideal that is drawn, you know, whether

it's "fluent in three months" or "speak like a native" or working on nuances that no one

knows no one can hear and then it just makes the person feel incompetent.

I think this is not helping and creates that sense of perfectionism, "if you master this

you will succeed."

And I think that our job as educators and people who really deal with the language,

you know, you deal with Spanish as a second language.

And you know what it's like, and you know that unless you welcome those mistakes, those

vulnerable parts, that would be the only way for you to really feel courageous in the language.

And I've also seen it with with my students because in the first few years I still had

that mindset of "let's, you know- it has to be perfect, it has to be like that exact sound."

I would be very picky and I wouldn't talk about this whole mindset aspect and freedom.

And the results that I used to get for my students were not as powerful as when you

do go deep, allow this freedom and help them change their mindset about what is the end

goal, and what are we really trying to achieve.

So it's really like starting with that purpose, right?

You're starting, like, even from a deeper place of, you know, "why am I learning the

language?" and everything, rather than focusing first of all on "what are all my mistakes?"

and stuff, "what am I doing wrong?"

So focusing instead on "why am I doing this," right?

Exactly, our brain is anyway biased towards all the negative things, so if we focus on

that, in the language I mean, it really takes up a lot of brain space and then how will

the words be available anyway, like how would you be able to come up with the right structure?

So you have to know what your motivation is, and it's not even- You know I find that it's

not even about becoming fluent.

It's really like your self-identity, it's your self-worth, your self-esteem, how you're

being respected by others.

It's that one achievement that you owe to yourself.

And people struggle with that for years.

I know you've seen that.

That it's always more that they want to achieve.

It's not just the language, it's just that English is a reflection of the things that

we achieve for ourselves in life.

And it's a personal achievement more than it's a language achievement when we feel free

and fluent.

So many of you from our community have told me that our lessons help you a lot with your

listening, your vocabulary and even your pronunciation.

But that you are still frustrated because you do not have many opportunities to practice

speaking English.

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One thing that I really love about like your method, I think it really sets you apart,

and it really impressed me like last time that we talked and you kind of were just getting

at this is that I feel like a lot of teachers out there, a lot of YouTube channels, podcasts

and everything, they make this kind of click bait content, saying like, you know, "sound

like a native."

Like you said "fluent in three months," or you know sound like a native.

So many English schools promise this as well and on the other hand I feel like you go to

your channel and the thing that I think really shines is that you're empowering learners

to own their own individuality, their own voice, I know I've heard you say a lot "speak

like yourself."

And I think in our research something we even quote from you that I really loved is, you've

said: "every voice needs to be heard and my work is to help eliminate all stereotypes,

beliefs and conventions that prevent speakers from feeling like they belong in a language

that they weren't born into."

So could you tell me more about that?

It's a conscious choice to not promote "Native speakerism," which is this assumption that

you know there is a sense of superiority based on where you're born and it's not just, well

what language you speak.

People who are native speakers are more superior and they have a better ability to teach the

language and sometimes when it comes to applying for jobs, people look for only for native

speakers.

So this is something that we need to uproot and to discuss because everything that makes

the non-native speakers sound like less, than we need to recognize and eliminate, because

there is nothing wrong about saying "very" and there is nothing wrong about saying "thank

you," right?

And it keeps generating that those trends or those teachings, it keeps generating this

notion that what you're doing is not enough and, as we talked about before, I think it

really inhibits people and it overwhelms them.

They think "okay, so there is so much for me to learn!

I will never be able to do this!" and I'm like "No!

As long as you can communicate your message, English belongs to you and you belong in English."

And it doesn't matter if, you know, your parents spoke to you in that language or not.

It doesn't matter if you only have a limited number of words.

The moment you are able to communicate and express your feelings, your thoughts, your

emotions, then this is your language too.

And constantly comparing yourself to others creates the sense of inferiority, and when

you operate from there then it's not only that, you won't be able to reach your fluency

goals, it would also put you in a position of constantly not-being-good-enough and anyway

as human beings we experience that fear of not being good enough, "the Imposter Syndrome"

and perfectionis,m because we want to please other people, and how do people see us.

And I think that the whole conversation around it, and the lingo, and the marketing, is just

perpetuating that.

Educators need to be conscious of that and not to take part in it.

Even though it might be worthwhile, or it might help you get seen more.

And also the same thing with schools that only hire native speakers.

Why, right?

Like we can't support that as a community, as teachers, because there is no reason why

native speakers would be considered as better teachers than non-native speakers.

I'm a non-native speaker teacher, so does does that mean that I'm not qualified to teach

in any one of those schools?

I have a community of teachers, of language teachers, and they're remarkable teachers,

and 80% of them because they're non-native speakers won't be able to apply for certain

jobs.

So I think that this movement of stopping-- of changing how things work is so incredibly

important, and I think we are all responsible to take part in it.

It's not just about how you think about yourself, and it's not about what content you consume,

it's also who you choose to learn from.

Because I think that when you only follow the big names on YouTube, for example, then

you can definitely see that there is a dominant sound, and a dominant color, and that does

not represent English, that does not represent how varied English is.

And then you go out to the real world and you come across all these different accents,

some of them are native, some of them are non-native accents, and then you're like "Wait,

is this incorrect?

Because I don't know this" or "I don't even know how to listen to this because I was never

exposed to it."

So I think that as learners we have the responsibility of recognizing that English has different

sounds, different colors and we definitely want to explore that as learners as well,

because when you-- because there is so much freedom to the language, and I'm afraid that

sometimes when English is taught, we don't have the same freedom.

Does that make sense or is it a little-- yeah.

No-- there's, like, so many different ways that we could go, on the different things

that you commented there.

So, kind of opened up "Pandora's box" in some sense, but I find this absolutely fascinating

too because I think that we can place the blame, obviously, on schools and stuff, that

only hire natives, but in the end they're kind of providing what the market wants, right?

And I think, obviously, a big thing that we have to re-educate, and I love what you said,

kind of about responsibility as content producers, as I guess public figures in the ESL world,

I think part of our responsibility is to kind of break this myth of the native speaker,

because you can have a wonderful native speaking teacher, you can have a native speaking teacher

that doesn't know anything.

It's like in school, we learn some of the grammar and stuff, but if you go to the United

States or you go to the UK and you ask someone on the street "You know why do you say this

in such and such way?"

most people are going to have no idea, they just know that it's said that way.

So if you hire a native teacher depending if they don't have a lot of experience that

could be what you're getting and, maybe that's good if you just need conversation practice,

maybe that's enough, but do know that like native speaker doesn't always mean better.

Because you can have a non-native teacher who they really know their --.

I mean they love English, they've been learning it if they speak the same language, as you

too.

I mean if someone from Israel wanted to learn, for example, it's like-- You've been through

that same journey of going from Hebrew as a native language to having to learn English,

so it's like you can probably explain the pronunciation really well, like how you figured

out the pronunciation.

You can explain, you know, why the grammar is different or something from how you would

say it in Hebrew and how you would say it in English, so I think that this is really

undervalued and it has to come from learners too.

That maybe it depends- you have to reflect a little bit on what do you need right now

as an English learner and maybe a non-native English teacher will be much better for helping

you to kind of get what you need right now.

So you should definitely consider that and you shouldn't overlook that.

And I think too there needs to be like certain regulations, maybe that don't allow schools

to discriminate against non-native teachers, I mean it needs to come down to "Does this

person are they passionate about teaching and do they know how to teach," you know?

Going back to something else that you were saying, you were kind of mentioning this English

in the real world in some sense of what you're going to encounter when you go out there.

Isn't necessarily just American English or it's not just British English.

I think most people-- I'm especially-- I'm coming from the European perspective, where

we're kind of a boiling pot of different cultures and languages and stuff, but in general if

you're working in any business that's a global business you're not going to just be speaking

English with Americans.

You're going to be speaking English with people in Israel, in Germany, in China, in Thailand

and stuff, and so if you have only practiced speaking with Americans and you're watching

all these videos like "don't say thank you," "don't say sorry," kind of like you were mentioning

and stuff, and you're trying to use all these fancy alternatives, then those people might

not understand you and you might not be prepared to really understand them.

And, you know, I think that's becoming more and more important is that you are able to

participate in global English, not just American English or British English or whatever the

kind of standard or native English that you're learning is.

Yeah, in fact, and I recently read an article about it, usually generally native speakers

are often misunderstood or are having a harder time communicating in a global setting, right?

So it's the native speakers who need to change to be more understood, without using all those

sports idioms and expressions and once in a blue moon, where it's great to know right?

Definitely great to know, it's great to be able to use those but I think that when it

comes to global communication we have a certain set of rules which requires people to be better

listeners, native and non-native speakers, so you need to train your ears to hear different

voices.

So going back to what you said: yes, English doesn't have one sound.

Open yourself up to different Englishes and also, you know yes, you need to modify your

speech a little bit to be better understood, and again I think that's the job of the native

speaker but also that gives freedom for non-native speakers, who would have the freedom of just

using basic vocabulary, you know, not going too fancy, not using expressions and doing

really well.

And I think it's something that is definitely important to remember.

Dare to show up the more we normalize different sounds and different voices, and then when

there is more representation then people dare more.

Because right now a child that grows up and watches Hollywood movies and Netflix then

the majority is like the sound of them.

most of the people who speak is very very distinct and like it doesn't sound like them.

And I think that then they would be afraid to speak up in public or make videos because

it doesn't sound right, like English is supposed to sound, and I think that the more we normalize

foreign accents, non-native accents, I think we would have more representation, more people

would dare, more people would show up, you know, it's not a coincidence that I'm one

of the only-- Um, I wouldn't say only but there aren't a lot of non-native speaking

teachers teaching in English on YouTube.

There is a lot of criticism, and a lot of crap that non-native teachers need to deal

with when they speak in English.

And that is a problem, right, like it's the comments that we receive about our accents

and our grammar and our typos, comments that native speakers usually don't have to deal

with.

I'm sure they deal with it as well but it hits differently, because if someone would

respond or comment on my Hebrew it wouldn't feel the same as when someone comments on

my English, especially when I'm an authority in the industry, in the field, right?

Like I'm teaching.

I'm a teacher.

So I need to-- I am an authority so I think it's not a coincidence, because people are

afraid.

People are afraid of criticism, people are afraid that if they have an accent they wouldn't

be considered as an authority, so I think that we want to see and we want to encourage

more new speakers, non-native speakers of English, to show up on YouTube and teach in

English.

And I love what you're saying that you guys are starting to show that as a model because

yes, this is exactly what we need to do.

That's the way to do it and you know YouTube has an algorithm and if you follow a few people

you'll keep seeing the same type of videos and the same type of people that you follow.

And again, you need to be conscious of that.

So going back to what we said at the beginning, make sure you diversify your feed, make sure

you follow different teachers, people of color, that have different accents, who are native

speakers as well to recognize that this is-- You know a lot of times I feel like "Oh they

don't sound proper."

What's proper, right?

Like really, an accent that is not standard white American is "not proper."

That's English, so you have to deal with your biases.

And it starts with how you consume your content and who you follow.

It's really, like, language is power, right?

When you know more languages you're absolutely more powerful.

I love that.

I couldn't agree more.

It's definitely-- there's something special, there's a quote that's, I think it's from

Nelson Mandela, that's like you know, "When you speak to a man in a language that

he understands, that goes to his head.

When you speak to him in his language that goes to his heart."

And obviously, English is the global language and stuff, and that's not to say that we can't

all communicate in English and be able connect to each other's hearts and stuff, but I as

a language learner and someone who's had a lot of opportunities to travel, which I'm

very grateful for, I definitely notice a big difference.

It's, like, any time I go to a country-- Like a lot of countries that I never would have

thought I wanted to learn the language it's like I'm always drawn to at least wanting

to learn some words, because it makes me feel like I can connect more to the people there,

so absolutely love that.

I really felt like this conversation with Hadar was the bee's knees.

So if you have enjoyed it too then I want to remind you that today's lesson is just

an excerpt from our new Beyond Borders Talk Show.

Now in each episode I guide you outside of the classroom and into the real world with

insights from some of the world's best teachers language learners innovators and global citizens,

just like Hadar, helping you to reach your highest potential in your English and in your

life.

Now does that sound like something that you want to do?

Then all you have to do is download the full interview with Hadar for FREE in the description

below.

And now it's time to go beyond the classroom and live your English.

Aww yeah!!