- How to speak English without an accent.
(whooshing)
(sizzling)
(whooshing)
- Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening.
I'm Julian Northbrook from doingenglish.com.
Very, very common question:
how can I speak English without an accent.
The simple answer to this question is you can't.
Now, I'll say right off the bat,
I am purposely taking this question too literally.
Bear with me.
It's impossible to speak without an accent.
And the problem here is that people
misunderstand what an accent actually is.
An accent is simply the way that you sound
when you speak English.
If you are American, you sound like an American.
If you are British, you sound like a British person.
If you're Australian, you sound like an Australian person.
If you're Japanese, Italian, Polish,
whatever country you come from, well that's how you sound.
You can't speak without an accent, because the accent
is the way that you sound when you speak.
And since you can't speak without making sound,
your always gonna have an accent.
Now, a very illustrative example
of how people think about accents.
When I interviewed Amy Walker of 21 Accents
for the Extraordinary English Speakers group,
members can find that interview on the website,
I did quite of research about her and her work.
And I found some very interesting videos online,
where she was interviewing people on the street,
people who were speaking
with a very strong Southern American accent.
And me, as a Brit, I could barely understand
what they were saying, their accent was so strong.
But when she asked them "Do you speak with an accent?"
they were like "No!
"Me?!
"I don't have an accent at all!
"I don't know anybody in this part
"of the country who has an accent.
The point is to them, their strong Southern drawl
of an accent had become totally invisible.
It's not that they didn't speak with an accent,
it's that they were not aware of their own accents
because it was totally and utterly familiar to them.
The point is it's not about not speaking with an accent,
it's about making the way that you speak so clear
and smooth-sounding that your accent seems to disappear.
It's not about speaking with an American accent.
It's not about speaking with a British accent
or an Australian accent.
If you want to learn those accents, do it, go for it.
There's no reason not to.
And if you don't know how, check out my book,
Awesome Accent: The Quick and Dirty Secrets
to Speaking With an Amazing English accent,
which we'll show you step by simple step
how to learn any accent or accents
that you want wicked fast, awesomeaccentbook.com,
or click on the link in the description.
It's not about what accent you speak with,
it's about how developed your voice is.
Whether you are speaking in a way
that is clear and easy to understand,
expressive, that uses the right intonation,
rhythm, tone, and has a quality
that is eaasy and pleasurable to listen to,
that you're not speaking in monotone,
that you're not pronouncing thins
in a really bizarre way that is hard to understand.
If you get all of these things right,
it doesn't actually matter what accent your speaking.
You can speak in your own native accent.
You can be Japanese and you can sound
like a Japanese person, you could be Polish
and you can sound like a Polish person.
And that is not only great,
sometimes it is preferrable.
Of course, you know, it depends on the situation.
Sometimes it's preferable to sound like a Brit.
But, I mean, hey, I would much rather
listen to a girl speaking in a sexy Eastern European accent,
then I would a girl speaking in a Geordie accent,
which is a native English speaker accent
but ooh, not so pleasant to my ears.
Sorry, Geordies.
So don't aske "How can I get rid of my accent?"
Ask how I can speak with an awesome accent,
which, again, is the title of my new book,
Awesome Accent: The Quick and Dirty Secrets
to speaking with an amazing English accent.
Awesomeaccentbook.com or link in the description.
I realise I'm being somewhat pedantic here
and I'm taking a question that is not meant
in the literal sense of the words.
I understand that people don't say
"How can I speak without an accent?"
meaning speak with no accent.
They mean how can I change my accent.
But the point is, and the point
that I'm trying to really, really impress upon you,
is that it's not about changing your accent,
it's not about losing an accent.
That isn't what is gonna make you sound awesome.
Anyway, that's it from me for another video.
This is me, Julian Northbrook, signing out for today.
Take care. (upbeat rock music)
Don't get caught doing anything that I wouldn't do,
and I'll see you in the next video.
Buh-bye.