- Today, I would like to welcome to the channel
for an interview, Lisa Mojsin.
She has a YouTube channel called Accurate English
And she has over 1 million subscribers.
She teaches international actors in Hollywood.
She's taught English at the college level.
Speaks five languages.
She's been an interpreter, a translator.
She wrote a book called Mastering the American Accent,
and she has an online video course
called the American Accent Course.
Welcome Lisa.
It's great to have you on the channel.
- It's great to be here, Alex.
Thank you for having me.
- So I wanna ask you about this.
I took several Spanish classes in school
and one thing I really struggled with
was where to put the emphasis in my words, in my sentences,
because it could change the meaning
and change how it comes across.
What advice do you have about where people
should put the emphasis when they're speaking English?
- You're absolutely right.
Stressing the correct word or stressing the correct syllable
in a word is so important to know,
especially if English is not your native language.
And each language has their own melody and rhythm.
And in some languages, people always stress the first word.
For example, they would say,
"I agree with you." instead of "I agree with you."
So if we stress agree, which is the keyword, it's the verb,
then that sounds very natural.
You don't have any additional meaning behind it.
But if you say, "I agree with you."
Then that means the other people in the room don't agree
with you but I agree with you.
Or if you say "I agree with you."
That's also a completely different meaning.
It means I agree with you,
but I don't agree with the other people.
So be careful.
Do not stress pronouns.
Pronouns are called function words
and function words don't hold a lot of meaning,
compared to content words.
Content words are generally verbs and nouns.
And those are the key words.
Imagine you're doing a search, like a Google search.
You often just type in the key words, right?
- Exactly. - You don't type.
You don't type in "What are the symptoms of diabetes?"
You might just type in symptoms, diabetes.
Same thing, stress the key words.
Don't stress the function words.
And remember in your language,
it might be that people tend to start really loud
and strong in the beginning of the sentence.
And this is something that native speakers of a language
are not necessarily aware of.
We don't think about the melody of our own language.
We just are born speaking a certain way.
So avoid stressing other words that are not keywords.
And that would mean pronouns prepositions.
So we're not gonna say, I need to talk to you.
We're gonna say, "I need to talk to you."
I need to talk to you.
Open your mouth on the key word, talk.
I need to talk to you.
- That's fantastic advice.
Emphasize the key words in the sentence.
That'll convey the meaning you intend.
You were telling me the other day
that the correct pronunciation can be intimidating.
So what advice would you give to become more confident
about how to pronounce words
when you're doing public speaking.
- It's really important that you can correctly pronounce all
of the words that you regularly use at the workplace.
So I suggest that people make a list of maybe 30 or 40 or 50
of the most common words related to their job.
So an engineer would have words related to engineering.
A doctor would have medical words on that list.
Don't assume that you are pronouncing them correctly.
Sometimes people may not want to tell you
that they don't understand you.
They might just nod their heads.
But in actuality, they're not quite sure they understood.
And if you just fix the pronunciation of those key words,
your accent will change so much.
It's what I find over and over again.
For example, I was working with a doctor
and she said, "Lisa, please help me.
Every time I ask this question to my patients,
they look at me and they don't understand."
And the question is, "Would you like a refill?"
Refill has two syllables.
She stressed the second syllable
and she said something like this, "Would you like a refill?"
Would you like a refill?
And when I explained to her
that we need to stress the first syllable and say refill,
and we prolong that vowel.
Because when we stress a syllable, the vowel is longer
and it's louder and your pitch goes up.
So three elements of stress: louder, longer,
and higher in pitch.
Refill, refill,
Would you like a refill?
And just by changing that,
suddenly people understood her question.
So I suggest make your list of words
that you regularly use at the workplace.
And you can include words like the name of your company
that you work for.
And maybe some coworkers whose names
are difficult for you to pronounce.
And then, you can ask a native speaker
to record those words for you.
And then, you can practice saying them over and over again.
And when you know that you are pronouncing them correctly,
you will feel a lot more confident
about your communication skills.
- That's excellent.
I love it.
You don't have to know everything,
but if you focus just on those
- Right. - lists of keywords,
then your overall pronunciation
will come across much more smooth.
So, - Absolutely.
- on video and when I do public speaking,
I am always mindful about my pace
because I tend to get excited and I speak too quickly.
So what advice would you have for non-native speakers
about their speed when they're giving a presentation?
- The number one tip I would give is slow down.
Most people speak too quickly without realizing it.
And sometimes non-native speakers
want to sound like they're fluent in English.
And so they decide to speak more quickly because they say,
"Well, native speakers of English speak really fast
and I want to appear more like a native speaker."
Yes, native speakers speak quickly,
but they follow the rules of stress and reduction.
They follow these rules unconsciously.
For example, when we say
"I should not have done that."
We don't say "I should not have done that."
We say, "I shouldn't have done that."
"I shouldn't have done that."
So that's pretty quick,
but we're following rules.
We're still stressing that key word
and reducing other words.
So my advice is you can speak as quickly as you want to,
as long as you're following the rules
of English word stress.
And as long as,
you're pronouncing the consonants sounds clearly.
But when we speak quickly,
our consonants often are not clear.
That's the problem.
And that's why you need to slow down.
So for example,
do we say, "Five minutes?"
or do we say, "Five minutes?
It takes time to move your lips from the "va"
to the "ma" five minutes.
Do we say, "In general?"
Or do we say, "In general?"
In general.
My tongue has to move a lot of times
to say the word in general.
So slow down because you will speak more clearly.
And professional speech is clear speed.
- Oh, that's excellent advice.
Professional speech is clear speech.
I couldn't agree more.
I'm an American and I have lived all over the country.
I'm used to talking to and working with non-native speakers.
I don't focus too much on their accent when I'm listening.
Given that, what advice do you have about the mindset
of non-native speakers, about how they sound?
- That's a really good point.
Non-native speakers often overanalyze the fact
that they have an accent,
They overthink it
and they almost develop this fear or paranoia of
"People will judge me on my accent."
People in general, don't care about your accent.
As long as you're speaking clearly.
And remember you are speaking
because you are an expert in your field.
Or because you got hired for that job
because you deserve to be there.
And if someone made a negative comment,
because people will sometimes say,
"Oh, I don't understand you when you say that."
Or, "Your accent is strong."
That's probably one person in a hundred or in a thousand.
Don't let that stay in your memory.
Don't let that traumatize you.
That's just one person.
And sometimes people can say things out of jealousy
or for all sorts of other ulterior reasons.
So I would say, ignore the negative comments.
You will sometimes get them
because people are just that way, unfortunately.
They like to say negative things.
But in general,
I would say almost everybody is on your side
and people enjoy hearing other accents.
So if people ask you, "Where are you from?"
It doesn't mean they're making a judgment.
They just really are curious about you as a person.
So I would say,
remember your accent is not as strong as you think it is.
And also practice those words
that you're gonna use regularly,
and that will give you a lot more confidence
And then, walk in the room with confidence.
Remember you are there because you deserve to be there.
And it doesn't matter
that you don't have a native sounding accent.
- Thank you for being with me here on the channel. Lisa.
What can our viewers do as a next step?
What video, for example,
should they check out on your channel?
- I suggest that they watched the video,
21 English Expressions That You Should Know.
I interview a professional
and then, we analyze the way the person is speaking.
And also I have a course called The American Accent Course.
That's available on my website, AccurateEnglish.com.
And that course consists of seven hours of video instruction
that will teach you all the rules that you need to know
for a good, clear standard American accent.
- Thanks for being with us, Lisa, today.
I really appreciate your time.
Go ahead and check out the links in the description below
to Lisa's video and her website.
Take care everybody.