today we've got a really really special episode because we've been invited to
the house of Anna English yes you have welcome thank you very much
pleasure to be here thank you so much for having us it's gonna be a really
lovely day because we're going to interview her and get to know the real Anna uhoh
yeah spicy so stick around we're also gonna do another couple of videos over
on Anna's channel so make sure once you've watched all the probing questions you pop over to my
channel to see what I get up to with these boys
before we get going with the video
we just want to tell you really quickly about an online language learning platform
that me and Charlie love we've been using for years and they're called
italki italki italki italki's amazing not only because we're on there but
because they have thousands of native and non-native teachers so you can learn with a
native speaker like me or you can learn with someone that talks
your language on italki you can be assured that you'll find a teacher who
meets your needs you'll find a teacher who meets your needs because there are
teachers who specialize in pronunciation in IELTS preparation in conversation or
simply in functional English it's affordable there are teachers as cheap
as ten dollars on there and it's convenient convenient it's easy to use
it's easy to use just download skype sign up for your lesson and you're done and
because we are now partners with italki they've given us a discount to
give to you guys so click the link in the description box of this video sign
up for your first lesson and then italki will give you $10 of italki
credits to spend on your next lesson you can even book a lesson with me on
Charlie if you want because we're on there I hope you enjoy that guy's and
make sure you leave a comment and tell us how you first lesson was
anna is a really interesting teacher because she is from the north of England
originally but she has managed to speak with a southern British accent because
she's a very talented actress thank you very much
so Harry is going to be asking her questions and Anna is going to respond
if you will in your northern dialect so northern in this direction yes and when
I ask you a question like what's your name
I say Anna Anna my name's Anna yes really nice that's beautiful very good and
when charlie asks a question my name's Anna to you yes okay so you're
gonna get listening practice for two dialects so Anna where are you from
I'm from a little town called Southport which is near Liverpool but then spent most of
my childhood growing up in like Manchester I'm sure most of you would have
heard of Manchester's it's like a place where Coronation Street is based in Manchester in Weatherfield
I love Coronation Street I grew up watching Corrie with my family right and
big fan who was your favourite Coronation Street character Vera Duckworth I think
Vera Vera and Jack yes so going on with soaps have you got a favourite soap I went
through phases when I was in the north I did spend most of my time watching
Coronation Street as you should as a proper northerner I also enjoyed
Hollyoaks and then as I got a little older I moved over to EastEnders okay bit of drama I had a few friends that
appeared in EastEnders so I always like to keep up with what they were doing but
these days I don't really watch much TV a bit of Netflix every now and again
Netflix and chill not quite what do you do for fun where do you get your
pleasure in life your kicks yeah where do you get your kicks well I'm very
outdoorsy I do like to be active I like to do a bit of tumbling also a bit of bars
and beam what's tumbling tumbling is where you're on the floor and you're
doing like flips and somersaults and there's no
apparatus it's just you jumping around right
that sounds playful but like I said outdoorsy as well so I go up mountains I
like to explore I do a lot of traveling I do have another YouTube channel that's
like specifically for all the outdoor adventures that I have because I find it
very motivating to go out and try new things and see new places what's it
called its called Anna's big adventure and what's the best video for you on
your other channel the Anna's big adventure oh that's easy my best video
is definitely the video when I was doing the national gymnastics championships so
it was the British Championships now I'd only been doing gymnastics for about
three years for three years with eye contact
but my coach came to me and he said we need you on the team we're doing a
competition will you be on the team for this for this gymnastics competition and
I said yes sure whatever you need and I started training and I you know I was
going for it and then someone said to me you need to fill out a form and it
read at the top British Championships the national championships for
gymnastics and I came forth and I made a video about my whole journey through
training and through the actual competition and it's a very inspiring
story yeah I bet it sounds amazing why did you start doing YouTube and all the teaching
um so initially I had my Anna's big adventure channel because I'm a trained
actress that's my background okay and so you had to have a place to put a showreel
which is like your audition reel or your CV as an actor okay a bit like a portfolio exactly so if
someone's interested in working with you they ask to see your showreel so I
needed a place to host it okay so I put it on YouTube and if I did short films
or anything I put them on YouTube and said to people go on watch me short
films so it's all about acting it was never about business
well it was about acting business but not about YouTube business
and then it's so good I hope you're noticing the difference and then I was teaching a lot privately and one of the things I would
teach was singing and my students would never bring a dictaphone to record their
lessons and if you want to be good singer you have to exercise on a
regular basis and I said to my students bring a dictaphone record the lesson and
practice at home and they never did so one day totally frustrated I got my
camera out I didn't even introduce it because it wasn't about teaching anyone
but my students and I'm like right let's go and I'm doing the exercises and it's
about 15 minutes long of six singing exercises I don't explain anything and
and I put that on YouTube and I said to my students go and watch it and then
about six months later I start getting little payments through from Google I thought
where's this money coming from it wasn't much anyway not a millionaire I traced it back to
this video that had had hundreds of thousands of views I was like that's not my
students and realised lots of people had found the video found it extremely helpful
and I thought well if this makes a little bit of money if I made quite a
few of them it could be part of my job I could make it part of what I do right
and people find it helpful so I really quite like imparting something that
helps people so that started me on the educating on YouTube
taking that more seriously how did you end up speaking with a standard southern
British accent it literally was all the training I did at drama school I think
the best way to really adjust your accent is to understand the sounds that
you have and so I knew about me northern vowel so like I'd say Bath and past
with this short 'ae' sound whereas with a standard British accent you have to have
a long vowel 'a:' bath past yeah and and so once you understand what you have
and what you need for whatever it is you want making those adjustments is is
relatively easy the only difficult thing is is being conscious of it yeah so I
when I was in my classes I could think about and I could do it and it's the
same when I teach elocution my students are fantastic and then when they leave
the lesson they forget they slip back into the Manchester accent because when
you you've been speaking on your life right so it's your habit
it's your habitual pattern of speech so it's really hard to break a habit of a
lifetime and so it took me about three years actually yeah to every week I'd
have one sound that I'd think this sound I'm going to be conscious of all week and by
adjusting one sound at a time then I managed to that's a good tip what was your your
biggest role for your singing your acting one of my biggest claims to fame as a singer was I got to perform
on the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Elton John that was a massive thing for me that's incredible yeah
so Anna yeah what's your current situation at the moment personally personally relationship wise
relationship wise.. sat between two.. well I don't have any rings on my finger so I oh I do have a
ring on my finger you're lying you're lying to us all I forgot I had that on but that's okay
I'm not married and I'm not engaged but I am
in a serious relationship oh so you don't have fun oh no we do have
fun just with each other exclusively okay
it's exclusive fun yes exclusive fun and it's not complicated in any way we're just not
married which some people frown upon in other cultures but in our culture it's
it's pretty standard these days weddings cost around £35,000 on
average and I don't have that kind of money so we're not gunna get married
maybe you should start a patron funding for your wedding please help us to get married
or a new YouTube channel yeah about it yeah no so what we've done is we've taken one
step ahead we've kind of skipped out the getting married but we're having a baby
amazing [Harry squeals] so you're having a baby having a baby did you plan to have a baby did you
try to have a baby oop sorry playing footsie over here um yes
she's having a baby back off she's got baggage now
ahh great
and lovely feet it was it was planned because I am a lady in my
mid 30s and and as I'm sure everyone knows that biological clock starts to
tick quite loudly when you're in your mid-30s so we decided it was time to
make a little mini-me lovely and do you know how far gone are you I am nearly I'm nearly
that's it 11 weeks okay and when do you find out the sex of the baby you find out around 20
weeks if it is a boy and you had to choose between the names Charlie and
Harry which one would you go for and why well I have to say the name Harry the
name Harry is already on the list I do like the name Charlie thank you but we
we recently watched the crown and Charles yes he can be a bit of a nasty piece of work but
the Charles' of the world are a different ballpark to Charlie's of the world I just
keep thinking of 'Charlie bit me finger' yeah I mean he's have you checked up with him recently
no he's doing well he's got his own YouTube channel no yeah he goes around biting people's fingers
YouTube...oh oh you're fooling me I'm so gullible
we actually do have a favourite for a boys name yeah
Reagan we always get this reaction it grows on you no like Logan but
Reagan have you ever gotten to this point with another man in your past where you wanted to
settle down yeah I was actually once engaged oh wow shock horror
and I was engaged once but I've never I think having babies is the biggest
commitment of your life I would agree and I have never felt 100% happy and
convinced that I was with the right person to have babies with before right
so apart from being engaged to someone I shouldn't have been engaged to yes I've never been this far before
what about your YouTube channel what's different
about your YouTube channel your English YouTube channel and why should people
become an English Like A Native subscriber sell it sell it sell it do I have to do this in Northern yes you do
alright no no you can do it half and half 50/50 oh gosh right so
English Like A Native of course I think like with every
English Channel it's all about teaching you English specifically British English
but I would say that what is unique about my channel is that I have a range
of formats there's different levels of interaction with my videos I try to do
things that are completely unique that no other English Channel has ever done
before and so it's I'm always just trying to do what's best by you guys
I can attest to that it's an amazing channel it's very varied and Anna teachers with real passion
and keeps you watching and of course she's beautiful aww making me blush and we have done a video for my
channel which you guys should definitely check
out and hopefully that video will bring some new viewers over here absolutely so get all
those t-shirts at the ready yeah yeah yeah we will we'll get in the print
shop soon thank you so much for joining us today I hope you've enjoyed that and
that you've learned some new vocabulary and that you've enjoyed getting to know
Anna as much as me and Charlie yeah have it's been a pleasure one more quick question
are you gonna breastfeed yes absolutely why not I've got them I may as well go for it yeah
use them use what you have yeah I would if I had them I would
thanks very much see you later ciao for now bye
so there we have two British English accents do give us a
thumbs up and tell us in the comment section what other accents and dialects
interest you most when it comes to the English language now if you feel like
you are passively watching English a lot and not getting enough active practice
then we now have group classes available where you can meet us and other
like-minded students on private video calls and on top of that you get your
hands on hours and hours of bonus classes Harry and I have done over the
last year or so so click on the patreon link to find out more you can of course
come and live with us on one of our immersion courses you can put yourself
onto one through our website and finally the beautiful Anna from English Like A
Native has just dropped another video of us on her channel which you can check
out by clicking here alrighty see you next time on REWRT that stands for Real
English With Real Teachers bye for now