Today I'm going to share how I got a British accent and also some tips on how
to lose your native accent if you want to sound more like a native speaker of
an English language a couple of months ago I did a video on how I became fluent
in English and also sharing my top 10 tips for speaking English as a foreign
language I am originally from Brazil and I'm just a regular English student like
all of you out there learning English but I thought I would come today and
share with you some more English speaking tips because you seem to have
light my previous video if you're more advanced with your English you're
probably starting to think about accents and thinking about what accents you like
the most and what accent you would like to have a lot of people don't have much
choice because they end up learning the accent that their teachers have but I
will show you that it's possible to reverse that accent and actually end up
with an accent that you want to have I learned American English because all of
my teachers back in Brazil were American or had American accents but then I moved
to the UK and I ended up with a British accent because of lots of different
factors together there one of them which I think is probably the most important
is the fact that it I ended up marrying a British guy and I kind of ended up
with the same or similar accent to his and his family so my husband is Welsh
and his whole family is Welsh and I ended up with kind of like a Welsh
accent a lot of people here in the UK do think that I'm Welsh they identify my
accent has been more similar to Welsh and very very rarely I get people saying
that I'm Brazilian because of my accent so I think I've been quite successful in
losing the Brazilian accent one when I speak English I'm not saying that that's
what everybody wants a lot of people want to keep their native accents whilst
they're speaking English and that's totally fine so this video is not for
you but if you want to lose and sound more like a native speaker of English if
you want to lose your native accent then I hope these tips will be helpful for
you so starting on how I got a British accent for a very very long time I had
the strong American accent then I came to the UK on
holiday and I fell in love with the country with the culture and most
importantly with the accent and I literally made my life goal to sound
like that because I wanted to sound like that when
I spoke English so when I went back home instead of focusing on all of the things
I was focusing with American accents I kind of switched my focus to British
accent so I would watch more British TV series I would listen to more British
music and try to get myself familiar with the sounds of the British people
with how the different accents in the British language sounded and that's how
it started but I would say that my British accent didn't become what it is
now until I moved to the UK and probably for about six months or so I'd say six
months to a year into living in the UK my accent was still a mixture of
American accent and British accent it was only when I moved to the UK and I
was dating who is now my husband but at the time was my boyfriend and obviously
we were spending a lot of time together and I was kind of absorbed in his accent
even words from the most basic things that I had to do every day like work my
American accent was telling me to say that work but then I had to train my
brain to say work now I don't even have to think about it that's just how my
brain processes when I see that word written on a piece of paper and if I
want to say it in American accent I actually have to try and think about it
logically and know how it's going to sound so it's quite like a bizarre thing
that happened to me the fact that I've been able to change completely from an
American accent to a British accent now I'm going to share a few tips that helps
me get rid of my native accent when I'm speaking in English obviously I still
have my native accent when I speak in Portuguese but I think now that I've
been living in the UK for gosh coming up to seven years now I can safely say that
I don't think I have a Brazilian accent or at least are not very easy to detect
accent if anything a lot of people are cut quite confused and they do
really they can't really place where I'm from which I think it's a good sign
because it shows that my accent my native accent doesn't come through quite
as strong as some other people so hopefully this will be helpful to you I
have a mini list here of things that I want to talk about so I don't forget my
first tip is to copy copy copy copy don't be afraid to copy people who have
the accent that you want in this case we're talking about a British accent so
don't be afraid to copy other British accents that you hear you're not going
to get a British accent or any other accent for that matter just by thinking
about it if you have a foreign accent or if you have your native language in your
brain and that's the only language you know naturally you're going to end up
talking in that same pattern in the same rhythm as your natural native language
and every language has a different rhythm every language has a different
pattern and ways in which words linked together sound the best way to do that
is either with friends that have that accent that British accent or listening
to music or TV programmes or on YouTube there are lots of people on YouTube with
British accents that are very easy to listen and all you have to do is just
listen to them maybe pause and then practice yourself and then press play
and carry on and just do this regularly you don't have to do it every day but
just make sure you keep up my second tip is to forget how the words sound in your
native language that is a big trap and that's the best way to not sound like a
native speaker of English at all because it's very tempting so some words are
quite similar to lots of different languages and I find that Portuguese
Spanish Italian English all have very similar construction of words and that
kind of like makes you feel a false sense of security you think that you
know how that words going to sound but then in a different language it sounds
different for example I just something that came to mind the word president in
English in Portuguese it's spelt very similarly just within here at the
and but it sounds quite different in Portuguese it sounds like Presidente and
in English it sounds like president so look at the words and understand the
meaning of them may be linked into your native language but don't try and copy
how that word sounds in your native language into English if you're not sure
always look that word up the best tool that you could possibly
have is free and it's on Google it's called Google Translate you just put a
word in there and there's a little sound button that you can click to hear how
that word sounds it's just good to have handy my third tip is to create your own
British environment what I mean is if you're not in Britain then you can still
get immersed in that British language wherever you are the easiest way to do
that is to have something playing on the background either music or a TV show or
people talking in British English YouTube has lots and lots and lots of
content you could have a playlist going on for hours on end
and you don't have necessarily to be sitting down and paying attention to
everything that's going on but I'm sure some words will enter your brain just by
default just by listening to it every day you could be doing your ironing you
could be doing your laundry you could be doing maybe some tidying or whatever you
could be doing that so boring tasks just have something playing on the background
that makes you feel like you're surrounded by British people the same
way that you would feel as if you were here in the UK where I am walking down
the street or going into a shop and hearing people speak British English all
the time that's how much easier it is to learn the language in the country it's
because you're surrounded by it so create your own little British
environment wherever you are and try to listen to that accent as much as
possible in a way that's how children learn accents from birth because they
are living in the house or in an environment where their parents their
grandparents uncles aunties all speak the same language and children take a
long time to start speaking but they're absorbing that all of that language from
the day available and they carry on and then they start
saying these words so it's quite a simple way but it's something that's
proven to be effective it's to kind of surround yourself with the language and
if even if you can't be in a place where there are people speaking around you
then create that place wherever you are my fourth tip is to practice the tricky
sounds and that could be anything depending on what your native language
is but I just know that the most common ones are the th sounds like mouths
birthday the all of these seem to be quite commonly difficult for people of
all backgrounds or languages to speak so make sure you practice those sounds more
than you would practice any other sounds and also remember that in the British
language the letter R doesn't usually make a rotating sound like a and I know
that a lot of languages including Portuguese have that sound it's very
hard to not say it if I were to say the word hard with a Brazilian accent using
them I'd have to say hard and that would make immediately me sound foreign for
the th sound my main tip is that it doesn't sound like an F so it's not
birthday it's birthday and the way that you distinguish that by saying is that
the th sound your tongue goes in between your teeth and your mouth is quite
closed so it's quite small so you go and with the F sound you're literally just
blowing air through your mouth and your tongue is not between your teeth so
you're just going which is very different too so just practice that
sounds that sound and or other sounds that are as tricky as the th sound and
that will make your English flow a lot better my fifth tip is to group similar
words that sound the same and learn them all in a bundle I know it can be quite
overwhelming because vocabulary in the English language is huge and you're
never going to learn all of the words and even native speakers of English
don't know all of the words so just group words that look
and they'll probably sound the same there will be exceptions here and there
but most of the times you'll get it right things like hand will sound
similar to band and will sound similar to land so you know just try and group
these lands these words together and it will reduce the amount of vocabulary
that you have to learn in terms of pronunciation my sixth tip is to find
your inspiration find who you want to sound like and I know that sounds a bit
silly and sound a bit like you know a fangirl kind of thing but it's not it
really is useful to find someone that you want to sound like and try to copy
your goes back to my first tip and imitate how that person sounds some
people want to have a London accent other people want to have a Welsh accent
others won't have a northern accent others wants to have the Queen's accent
so they're all very different and although they all come under the same
British accent label and they're very different so find what accent do you
want to have and try to find people that have that accent and copy them your
brain will get quite confused if you're listening to people that have very
different accents because words will sound different depending on where
you're from in in Britain so try to focus on one particular accent it's not
always easy I have to say I find the Scottish accent particularly harder to
understand even after living here for seven odd years and even knowing that I
can understand most people that I meet I still struggle to understand the
Scottish accent and yes so for me I've always wanted to have an accent so that
was quite mainstream English and I ended up with a Welsh accent which is
completely fine by me and I love it the reason why I really like the Welsh
accent especially for people who are not native speakers of English is that it's
very pronounced and it's very kind of easy to understand from my experience I
think the Welsh tend to linger a bit more in each syllable so that
makes it the well that it makes a Welsh accent a little bit slower which in
turns makes it easier for people who are not native speakers of English to
understand so that's my favorite accent is the Welsh accent but I also like the
Queen's accent but that's um I don't think that's something I'll ever ever
achieve because it's just very posh my seventh tip is try to figure out why
you're not sounding like a native speaker and that can be more complicated
than it sounds because basically what you're going to be doing is listening to
separate words or individual words and seeing how it sounds when you say it and
how it sounds when a native speakers say it and then seeing where you're going
wrong not necessarily that speaking with an accent is going wrong but if you're
trying trying to correct that then maybe see where that is making you
different to the accent that you're trying to achieve a lot of the times
will be because you're relying on the way that your brain remembers your
native language and some of the times will be because you've heard that word
said with a different accent now you're trying to learn British accent for
example and it doesn't quite match so try and figure out what is it that is
not quite matching with the accent you want to achieve and keep trying and
copying until you get it perfectly right my eighth tip is that not every word
will sound like what they look like when they're written and that can create a
big false sense of security for a lot of foreign speakers you can see something
written on a piece of paper and think that you know how to say that but you
might not so don't just assume that that word is gonna sound how it looks always
make sure you double check if you're not sure one thing that I always remember is
my husband and he's very good at kind of teaching me without making me feel like
I've made a mistake or making me feel embarrassed and he used to teach me how
to say the word of which is basically the letters O and F and to me that would
instinctively sound like off and many times we'd be in the middle of a
conversation and I would be saying the word off wrongly
and he would find the best in the most appropriate moment to kind of correct me
and then my brain stink tively started to pick up whenever I had that word
coming up in the sentence I would immediately stink t'v li think it's not
off its off and then when other people were talking and I could hear that of
being said I take notice of it now and I kind of register every time of of so
words like that don't necessarily sound like they look like another word that I
can think of oh is the word southern and I wouldn't necessarily say that southern
would sound like it sounds I'd say that it would be if I were to read it and
kind of try and say it's the way that I see it I try and say southern because
it's South and then earn that's something to be aware of and if you're
trying to speak like a native speaker don't just assume that the words on
paper will sound exactly like they do I know that that makes life much harder
but that's just one of those things my ninth tip is that listening is more
important than anything when you're trying to perfect an accent even more
important than speaking because if you're not listening you will not speak
with the accents that you want if you're not paying attention to how something
sounds you're not going to get to the level of fluency or maybe not get to the
accent that you want so always make sure that you do a lot more less listening
than reading than anything when you're trying to perfect an accent in my last
tip is that you don't have to spend a lot of money to perfect the accents that
you want I know you've probably spent a lot of money getting to the point where
you have a good level of fluency in English because you have English lessons
and then that goes on for years and using ears sometimes but nowadays
there's so many resources that are free online and YouTube literally is your
best friend I will leave a playlist below that you can just go and watch on
repeat or have it handy when you need and that playlist consists of lots and
lots of lessons or maybe just general tips and tricks from people who are
native speakers and that can just give you a place to start if you
learn a British accent or if you want to get rid of your native accent so
hopefully that playlist will be useful to you but even if you don't find it on
YouTube there are lots of places on the internet lots of websites that do free
lessons just make sure that you're listening that you're paying attention
and that you're practicing don't just be a passive learner be an active learner
don't just listen but actually say the words because you'll never know how you
sound like until you say the words out loud that in itself can be quite a big
problem if you're not too confident with your English speaking but that's the
first step to becoming fluent and to having the accent that you want is
getting rid of that confidence block getting rid of that fear of being mocked
and misunderstood and slowly getting there I'm not saying you're gonna get
from 0 to 100 from from today to tomorrow but you'll definitely get there
if you're dedicated and if you make sure that you're putting your priorities
right so if your priority is to learn English and get that good accent then
try and put your shyness to the back of your mind and go you know what I'm going
to do this start in your bedroom then move on to your living room where a few
more people can hear you then move on to maybe your classroom
then go out in the real world and speak for all to hear and you'll be absolutely
fine trust me no one really cares that much how many mistakes you make in
English they might care for a second but they won't care for more than that so
just remember that if you're trying to learn English oh if you're starting to
learn English and perfecting your accent I hope these tips were helpful if you're
trying to learn British English if you enjoyed this video and if you found it
useful make sure to give it a big thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to my
channel so that you can see more videos from me if there are any other videos
that you would like to see on the topic of English speaking please leave your
comments below in your suggestions I'd love to do more of these videos I'm just
not really sure how much more I can be of use because I'm only a student like
you guys I'm not a teacher I'm not qualified I just want to be able to help
from my experience so if there's anything that you think you could you'd
find helpful then let me know and I'll make sure to do a video for you
I hope you're having a lovely day and I'll see you very soon bye