Hi, students, hope you're well.
In this video, I want to share some personal experience
with you about how my life has changed since removing my South
London accent.
And what have I achieved now?
I'd say a standard British accent,
maybe with a few more glottal stops than I would like,
a smattering of them.
And this worked to improve my accent to something
that I have been doing for probably
about 20 years, whether I realized it or not
at the beginning.
Because at the beginning, changing my accent
was based on the people around me, the kind of social circles
that I moved in, the experiences I was having.
And then later it became a conscious effort
to change my accent.
And the thing that spurred that, I would say
is, this YouTube channel, because back in the early years
of it, I used to get some negative and snobbish comments
about my South London accent.
And at the time, to my own ears, I
thought I spoke well, let's say.
Difficult label to give it, but I
wasn't aware, to the extent to other people's ears,
I did sound like I had a strong South London
accent, cockney influence and estuary accent,
whatever you want to say.
I wasn't aware of it until it was pointed out
to me in the comments.
And my reaction at first, was to be triggered by that, be angry.
And then I realized that at a certain part of me,
I agreed with what those people were saying, that I thought,
oh, hold on, if I'm teaching people English
or sometimes teaching them things about accent,
shouldn't I be a good model for them?
And that spurred me to improve my accent.
And then later on, it became more
of a philosophical decision that because I
love the English language so much, I love words,
that I just wanted to speak it in its ideal form,
or as close to that as I can reach it.
So let's talk now, about the more
sensitive and controversial side of accent training,
because people get really upset about it,
and they feel like their identity is being attacked.
When I hear someone speaking with a South London
accent, people in my family, I feel at ease with that
because I grew up with that, and I
accept the accent of all of those people
that I know in my life, because that's where I came from.
I don't spend any time in my life comparing me to them
or thinking it should change, or trying
to change the way others speak.
This is how I decide to speak and the accents that I have
is just completely up to me.
But I will say there is a part--
if you're not speaking like those people anymore,
you do lose a sense of identity, of being a part of that.
And that was OK for me.
I am a sort of person who doesn't really fit in anywhere.
But at least speaking with a more standard accent,
it seems like, it feels like or it is, that more doors are open
now in my life.
Maybe I want to do this or I want to do this
or I want to do this.
Accent isn't a barrier.
And if you had asked me the same question years ago,
before I'd gone very far in my accent training,
I would have maybe sounded like I had a chip on my shoulder
because I would say, oh, I'm excluded
from that because of the way I speak or I can't do this,
I can't do that, it's not fair.
And comparing to now, I don't feel limited in my life.
I reasonably understand that not everything and every door
in life is going to be open to me,
I'm not going to be perfectly accepted wherever I go,
but I've got a broader range now of things I can
do and feel comfortable about.
And if I want to go the other way,
I can relax my accent when I want--
if I'm in a cab, if I'm with my family,
I don't put in any effort into speaking.
So those are the main changes that have come in my life.
And I had a reason for making this video as well,
is that I often hear teachers say in their videos,
it doesn't matter what accent you have
and that they're all equal.
And then I always think that there
is some kind of hypocrisy in these videos,
because the teacher in question perhaps
has a standard modern British accent, posh
English or something like that.
And they're telling other people essentially, don't
change your accent, it's fine.
Why would you be making these videos if it didn't matter?
I think at a more reasonable and honest level, all of us
know that the accent we speak with
does have some impact on our lives.
But I would also say it's up to each individual person what
they want to do about that, or do nothing about it.
That's fine, too.
But if you do nothing about it, you
can't necessarily complain about the impact in your life.
So take this as an example of someone that had,
let's call it a strong accent, something
that would be described as a bad accent
or an undesirable accent, one that grates on the ears.
There's someone who changed the way they speak and now
experiences in life more opportunities
and being less bothered about, I can do this,
I can do that, I don't think about it as much.
So yeah, that's all I wanted to share with you today.
Thank you for watching this video, bye.