hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
today in this video I want to talk to you guys about the idea of speaking like
a native speaker what this means and should you do it right now some people
think that they should lose their accent completely and other people feel like no
my accent is part of my identity I don't want to lose it so share your
thoughts in the comments I want to know what you guys think what my audience
thinks right I want to know if you guys are leaning more toward no I want to
retain my accent because it's part of my identity or I want to lose it completely
and I'm gonna talk to you guys about my viewpoint on this subject okay so first
of all I think that when people say speak like a native they're not
necessarily saying I want to sound exactly like a native speaker now with
this said there are some people who do mean that and then there are other
people who say like a native as in I want to speak fluently and clearly and I
want to be understood and I want to be able to connect my speech and I want to
feel as good in English as I feel in my native language okay so the definition
there is no consensus I guess as to what the definition of like a native is so
there's a lot of contention around this phrase right like people get really
upset about it some people don't care about it so yeah we're gonna keep
talking about this we're gonna dissect it a little bit today so the meaning of
like a native for some people it means sounding and speaking exactly like a
native speaker and for other people it just means no feeling comfortable in the
language like as comfortable as you feel in your native language now let's talk
about accent should you lose your accent and try to sound exactly like a native
speaker or should you retain your accent I'm gonna speak here from personal
experience I believe that the goal should be communicating clearly and
confidently and that's it the rest is like a cherry on top right if you sound
almost exactly like a native speaker congratulations that's awesome
but that doesn't mean that if someone doesn't sound like a native speaker that
their English is any less or anything like that okay so my opinion on this has
evolved over the last decade now let me tell you guys something that's pretty
personal okay and this could be something that you guys some of you are
going through and it caused a lot of turmoil in my life wow we are doing good
with the vocabulary today I just need to myself a little pat on the back for that
one okay no but seriously when I first started learning Spanish okay for those
of you who don't know my story in a nutshell is that my parents are from
Argentina and they immigrated to the US okay now it's a little more complicated
than that because my grandparents three of them were immigrants from Europe so
essentially I come from a long line of immigrants that's what I tell people and
I've had like not I've had I used to have an identity crisis over this
because my dad came from a German family but my parents were born in Argentina my
dad was raised in Argentina and in the USA I was born in the USA but I never
learned Spanish so I had this whole identity crisis over who I was right I
didn't know who I was I felt like I didn't belong to any group of people and
people are always seeking to belong right thankfully now I don't care about
any of that I Know Who I am I'm secure in my identity and all of that is my
past right but before I didn't I didn't know what my identity was and so I
wanted to learn Spanish and that was like my number-one desire I was fourteen
years old and I decided I want to get fluent in this language this is the
language of my family and I fantasized about this idea of getting super fluent
and speaking like a native speaker and I fantasized about people mistaking me for
a native English are a native Spanish speaker and the idea was just so
romantic and romanticized in my head and I imagine that I was just this I
don't know like mysterious person like people would look at me and be like wow
like she knows a foreign language
super embarrassing admitting that now but it's also funny and I bet some
people can relate so I'm glad I can talk about this confidently now cuz I think
it can help some people but essentially I created this whole thing in my head
this like a complex essentially I created my own complex because I wasn't
a native Spanish speaker I will never be a native Spanish speaker Spanish will
never be my mother tongue okay but I was in some kind of denial like I really
wanted that like I wanted people to think that I was a native Spanish
speaker and so what did that do that caused me to obsess over every mistake
it caused me to obsess over my pronunciation over grammar everything
and beyond obsess about all of this it caused me to not be able to speak
because I was so afraid I was living in fear I was afraid of making mistakes I
was afraid of people finding out my real identity which is I'm a native English
speaker and I was afraid of people discovering this because I wanted to
create this illusion that I was somebody that I wasn't this is so dangerous you
guys anytime you try to pretend that you're somebody that you're not it's
just not good okay it's not good for your stress levels it's not good for
your psyche it's not good for you it's not good for your happiness I didn't
know this and I was a teenager okay and I had nobody to help me through this
whole identity crisis thing it made learning the language very difficult for
me because when you're too afraid to speak you can't practice if you don't
practice you don't improve and if you don't make mistakes you don't improve we
need to make mistakes because that's how we learn it's like all of this is super
logical now but before I didn't get it I did
know what I was doing right and this is also now why I'm the English coach
because I've learned so many of these things through my experiences and
through the experiences of my students it's like I can look back and tell you
where I've been and etcetera etc okay that's off topic what coming back coming
full circle okay so I have this huge identity crisis but the good thing is
since I was so obsessed with sounding exactly like a native speaker I
developed a really good accent okay I really listened I imitated I really
learned how to imitate natives and how to sound native like okay and now when I
speak Spanish and I do have a video in Spanish I'll link it up here okay now
when I speak Spanish a lot of people say that I sound like a native speakers so I
basically I achieved my dream I achieved what I wanted right a lot of people say
that I sound like a native Spanish speaker and depending on how good my
Spanish is that day because if time goes by and I don't speak Spanish for a long
time I do get a little rusty and this is normal this and we can talk about this
in another video it happens to people even when you're fluent but yeah
depending on how good my Spanish is maybe I've gone a week and I've only
spoken Spanish so my Spanish is lit all right it's on fire it's amazing then
yeah people go oh my gosh like this is a native Spanish speaker that I'm talking
to or maybe they think I'm a native Spanish speaker but from a different
spanish-speaking country either way like I achieved my dream but at what cost
there was a huge cost and if I could go back in time and do things differently I
absolutely would I think this obsession with sounding
exactly like a native and not just sounding like a native but passing for a
native okay passing that's what I think is very unhealthy when you have this
obsession with the desire to pass as a native because that means that you are
not okay with your identity you are not a native English speaker okay
and that's okay you don't have to be and I wish somebody would have told me that
I wish when I was in high school and I was insecure I wish somebody would say
there's nothing wrong with not being a native speaker there's nothing wrong
with that you can learn languages embrace languages speak fluently engine
and enjoy who you are right and I didn't have that and it really makes me sad and
almost angry like at the amount of years that I wasted being afraid of speaking
because people would realize that I wasn't a native Spanish speaker okay so
I created this huge complex in my mind that still affects me occasionally to
this day I'm still trying to undo that but now let me tell you guys how I am
when it comes to speaking other languages because now I'm at a place
where I just I love languages I love listening to music in other languages I
love watching TV shows and other languages and I'm passively absorbing a
few different languages okay so I'm learning Portuguese I'm learning Italian
and I'm learning French all right so now here's how I am with these languages do
I care about passing as a native speaker no I don't care at all I don't want
people to think I'm a native Italian speaker or a native Spanish speaker or a
native French speaker okay I don't care that is not my goal however I love
accents I love imitating native speakers I love sounding like a native I love
working on my pronunciation I love learning new sounds I love training my
mouth so when I practice these languages I am going for authentic pronunciation
okay I want to sound like a native I don't want to just be lazy and use
English pronunciation in foreign languages because that's hard for other
people to understand and it's no fun at all I really really like learning new
sounds and saying words that sound completely foreign to me until they
sound natural to me I love that I love the whole transformation so that's how I
see it now and I think that that's a very healthy way to view languages and I
encourage you to view English in the same
way you don't have to pass as a native speaker but there's nothing wrong with
obsessing over pronunciation and intonation and you trying to sound as
native like as possible just because you love it there's nothing wrong with that
and this also extends beyond pronunciation sounding like a native can
also have to do with the way you put your sentences together I really really
like sounding like a native in other languages and putting sentences together
and phrases the the way a native speaker would but sometimes it's like I just I
get I get lazy and I don't remember how to say it the way a native speaker would
so I just you know translate directly even though I don't do this very often
once in a while it's kind of like a tool in the toolbox if you need it you grab
it and you use it if I don't know how to say something the way a native speaker
would say it I say it however I want to say it translating the idea from English
into that language and it usually works out and that makes me feel amazing
because it makes me feel like yeah I learned these languages and I can use
them however I want and nobody can tell me how to use it or how not to use it or
how I should sound and not that nobody can tell me but that I don't have to let
my own brain or my own ego there we go because it's not my brain it's my ego I
don't let I don't have to let my ego control me and tell me that my language
skills aren't good enough right I can use it how I want to use it and feel
confident doing it alright so who I hope that this was helpful you guys like
seriously again there's nothing wrong with wanting to sound like a native
working on your pronunciation sounding as authentic as possible working on your
accent but don't let your ego drive you crazy by making you believe that you
have to pass as a native speaker when you're not a native speaker embrace your
identity who you are where you're from the language that you speak the culture
that you're from there's so much history there there's so many beautiful things
there and no one is better than anybody else ok so let's just end on that note
and if you are interested working on your pronunciation with me
then I want to invite you to join my complete pronunciation course use the
link in the description and sign up below right now we are creating the
course and testing it with students we're going to launch a beta version
very soon so if you want to get more information about that just sign up for
it and we'll let you know when it's ready all right you guys that's it
please let me know your thoughts in the comments I hope you enjoyed the video I
hope it was helpful give it a thumbs up if it was helpful if you are not a
subscriber but you watch my videos and you enjoy them then go ahead and hit
that subscribe button okay that's it you guys and I'll see you in the next video
bye