Oh yeah! What's up everybody? I'm Ollie! Your RealLife English fluency coach.
So, this lesson is about why you don’t need to speak like a native to be a confident,
fluent English speaker.
But, before we get into that,
ask yourself this very important question: “Is it even possible to speak LIKE a native?”
Well, in my humble opinion, yes you can get to a level that’s pretty close
to that of a native speaker, but it requires a lot of hard work and dedication!
So, it’s largely dependent on whether or not you can or want to put in that work. But,
let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll cover that in a little bit.
This lesson is pretty straight-forward and it has two sections:
First I’ll answer the question (in more detail than what I just did)
“Is it possible to speak like a native?” And then I will tell you why it is okay
if you DON’T sound like a native or if you don’t WANT to sound like a native.
So, this lesson is for you if you…
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Is it possible to speak like a native? For me there are 3 factors that determine
whether or not you can achieve a proficiency level that’s just like a native English speaker.
But, what is a native English speaker? You might be asking yourselves. Well, I'm a
native english speaker, Ethan is a native English speaker, Andrea is a native English speaker.
We all come from different countries so there’s always the idea that: okay,
you want to sound like a native speaker, but a native speaker from where? Anyway,
these 3 factors are: Exposure, dedication, age.
Age? What do you mean? People say that you can learn anything no matter what age you are?!
That’s true, but let’s consider that in relation to the other
2 factors at play. We’re going to use this diagram here to help illustrate these ideas.
Let’s invent a character. Let’s call him Lucas. Let’s say Lucas is here at age 0, in other words
he’s a new-born. And on exposure, let’s put him at the right-hand end of the spectrum here: he
lives in an English-speaking country. Here, the other factor, dedication, is out of the picture.
We could set him at “none” here and he would still learn English. He’s going to be a native
English speaker because he was born in an English-speaking country. That’s me. I was
born in Australia. I never made an effort to learn English I just learned it naturally.
Now that we’ve established that case, let’s focus on the other hypothetical cases in
which Lucas is actually a learner of English as a second language.
Let’s now increase Lucas’ age. He's 9. And he’s just gone from here,
no exposure, all the way to here, living in an English-speaking country.
What this basically means is that Lucas has moved to an English speaking country.
He’s still quite young, so even if he doesn’t make a big effort to learn the language,
he will probably still be able to learn it to the level of a native and be bilingual.
That means that he will still have, practically speaking, native English level.
And through life, even if he never moves back to where he was born,
he will still be a native speaker of his mother tongue. By definition this is a bilingual speaker.
Of course, this is still a generalization, because who knows how many factors could
be at play in someone’s life, but for discussion’s sake, we’ll leave it at that.
By the way, the reason why I put 9 here at the middle of the spectrum
is because this is the age (give or take, it might be ... 11,
maybe even 12)... Where it becomes more and more difficult to acquire a native-like accent.
It is not impossible though. We have interviewed Hadar and Anna on our Talk
Show Beyond Borders with Ethan, where they told us how they achieved their incredible accents!
Anyway, Let's say now… another character, Zoey. She started learning English somewhere between
15 and 22. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t move nor has the opportunity to visit an English-speaking
country. But she tries her best to make up for that by watching a lot of TV in English,
reading books, etc. Her dedication is extremely high. What level can she achieve? She could land
anywhere along the right-hand end of this line. C2 is a very advanced English level. You might
not be a native English speaker, but English won’t be an impediment for almost anything.
Like Zoey, you can also get exposed to the English language with our exclusive RealLife
Native Immersion Course. Over 41 weeks, we will take you on a journey of the English language.
You will learn about culture, why and how natives speak so fast, and lots more. And I want you to
try it for free today with our three-part power learning series. To sign up and get started,
you can click up here and I will also leave the link down in the description below.
What are you waiting for?
Now, imagine if someone is like Zoey, but instead of starting to learn English in their early 20s,
they start when they are 40. And, in my opinion,
this person wouldn't be at a disadvantage because they're older.
You know, I'm talking about this idea that the older you get the less ability you have to learn
something. Right? I hate this all the time and, quite frankly, I don't believe in that.
However, someone at this age, as a full-grown adult, is going to have a very different life than
most people in their early 20s. They might have a job that obviously demands a lot out of them, they
might have kids to raise, and all sorts of other responsibilities. So age can have an impact on
your ability to dedicate yourself to your learning and to how much exposure you can actually get.
Now, assuming that you're older than 9, which would be totally safe to assume, right?! Let's
change the question can you speak like a native to just "how proficient or fluent can you get
in English?" The answer is it will depend on how much exposure and dedication you can have.
Let's move on to the second part of this lesson.
Why you don’t Need to Sound like a Native! So, there’s a reason why I said “sound like
a native” and not “speak like a native”. The idea behind “sounding like a native” implies
modifying your accent so it’s closer to that of a native from a specific place, while “speaking like
a native” implies the broader idea of fluency, and it might not so much be so focused on accent.
We’ll talk more about accent in a second, but for me what’s most important is the question of
whether someone's proficiency in a second language allows them to have the same type of opportunities
that they would in their native language. That is, despite it being a second language,
you've learned it so well that you can excel in an environment where that English is spoken
or be in a relatively level playing field among those who speak it as a first/native language.
Now, when it comes to accent it might come as no surprise that there are many
English learners who do want to be exposed to a "native speaker" accent
and will make an effort to sound as closely as possible to a native English speaker.
Some people say that that is a good goal because if you set a very ambitious goal for yourself
and you make a big effort to attain it, even if you don’t,
you’re going to have a very high level. The famous quote by Oscar Wilde goes
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”
We recently had the pleasure of speaking to Hadar Shemesh from Accent's Way English with
Hadar in our brand-new Talk Show Beyond Borders with Ethan. She was kind enough to share with us
her process of achieving an INCREDIBLE American accent
and she also talked about how she had to deal with perfectionism.
I do have the privilege of sounding
like a native speaker, for the most part. And as a result, you know,
I do have access to things that people with an accent don't have.
I do have access to people who don't sound like an American, who don't have a
standard accent don't have. So I recognize that. And I think that
the result like what we see now is the result of you know, the
first few years of me dealing with English being perfectionate
and being a perfectionist. And recognising that it has changed
my, the way I speak, but it also created a lot of insecurities
because at some point I, you know, my English level, I
sounded like a native, but my English was not an native
English. So I constantly felt insecure
again, like an impostor people are gonna hear those mistakes,
and they're gonna be like, what? Uh, we thought that you're a
native. So I think that that created a lot of insecurities
for me. And I have gone through this emotional and mindset
transformation around my English and around how I present my
English, so I'm now left with a result of the first few years of
my journey. But I know the impact that it had and I how I
could easily fall into that rabbit hole of, you know,
constantly feeling like I need to keep on improving my English.
But I still think that the internal process is what counts.
You can watch the full interview by clicking up here or down in the description below.
Other people, however, will say that “instead of trying to sound like a native,
why don’t you try to sound like yourself?"
This might connect with a deeper, more psychological question. We recently had
Rachel from Rachel’s English as a guest in our podcast, and this is what she had to say:
You know, I don't, I don't ever want to criticize someone's goal,
but let's, let's do talk about that as a goal. In my experience,
students who have that as a goal tend to be less happy with where they are.
And I think that that perspective, well, definitely slows down progress.
Again, if you want to listen to this podcast episode, I'll link it down in
the description so you can also find it on the RealLife app. You can download
the app from the Apple App or Google Play Stores. Just search for RealLife English.
Going back to what I said earlier. There are many learners who do want to strive to sound like or
almost like a native. However, very frequently lots of other want to retain their own accent
when they speak a foreign language because they feel that it is part of their identity.
I personally feel the same when I speak Portuguese. I find it quite
a compliment when a taxi driver asks where I am from. Because I am a proud Australian.
English as a second language speakers who have strong accents have at some point
made the conscious or unconscious decision that they would not try to pursue a foreign accent,
whether it be American, British or otherwise. In other cases, some speakers are very vague
about it. So, while someone might have a specific model of English as their goal,
others just don’t think too much about it.
We believe that most learners still desire to improve their accent,
but in a context where some might have their reasons for keeping their own accent,
intelligibility has gotne to be considered the prime goal of pronunciation.
Now, back to our conversation with Hadar,
she had a message that we would like to emphasize at RealLife English.
And I think that the more people with accents, I mean, everyone has an
accent, but let's say with an international or, or a non
American s..standard accent, uh, dare to show up, the more we
normalize different sounds and different voices. And then when
there is more representation, then people dare more, because
right now a child that grows up and watches Hollywood movies and
Netflix, then the majority is like the sound of them, the...
most of the people who speak is very,
very distinct, and it doesn't sound like them.
And I think that then they would be afraid to speak up in public or
make videos because it doesn't sound right like English is supposed
to sound. And I think that the more we normalize foreign accents,
umm non-native accents, I think we would have more representation,
more people would dare, more people would show up.
That leads to some lessons we have done on Learn English with TV with Sofia Vergara
and Deepika Padukone. You can think of other actors as well, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Penelope Cruz. They all have stupendous English but they speak with an accent.
If you ask me about it, this is what makes them unique, interesting and exotic!
So in the end, it is up to you whether or not you want to pursue a native accent in English.
What I advise my students to do, is to put their focus on clear pronunciation, so even though they
might have an accent, which makes them interesting and exotic, is that they are easy to understand.
I hope today's lesson was insightful for you.
Don't forget we have new lessons every Monday and Friday. Ah yeah!