Aw yeah, ladies and gentlemen! What's up?
So, a common topic in the world of second language learning
is whether or not you should try to acquire a native accent in the language
that you're learning. And there's several different questions
that often come up when we talk about this topic, such as:
is it even possible to have a native accent in
another language that's not your mother tongue?
Does it even matter if you have a native accent?
And should you really care about having a native accent? Is that the right goal?
Is that can help push you forward? So, kind of talking about this topic,
in case you don't know her, Sofia Vergara is a Colombian actress, who is probably
most famous for her role in a TV series I absolutely love,
called Modern Family, where she plays Gloria, who is a Colombian immigrant,
who's married to an older American man.
So it seems like Sofia Vergara has become a prime example
of someone who is a successful, very proficient,
non-native English speaker, despite having a
very strong foreign accent. So in today's lesson
we're going to answer all of these questions that I talked about before
and we're going to have a lot of fun doing it with Sofía Vergara.
But before we get into today's lesson I want to quickly let you know that,
if you're new here, every week we make fun lessons like this one,
so that you can understand fast speaking natives,
without getting lost, without missing the jokes and without subtitles.
Like Razi, who says that our lessons are the best way that she's found
to understand fast native speech. So we're going to help you a lot
with your English learning goals too. It's really simple, just hit that
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So here Sofía explains why she decided
to stop pursuing an American accent, and really it makes perfect sense.
Now, you as an English learner may or may not relate to Sofía in this case.
English as a second language expert suggests that there are some
students who expose themselves as much as possible
to native English and who want to sound as close as they can to a native English speaker.
But others, on the other hand, don't really care about sounding anything like
an "Inner Circle" speaker. Now you're probably asking what is
this Inner Circle. Now, that is definitely part of a much
broader discussion, so we're not going to dive too deeply into it but it is worth mentioning.
Now, in a world where there are three
times more non-native English speakers than native English speakers it's kind
of worth reconsidering the authority that we give to certain countries
over the type of English that people should want to learn and teach.
So English is spoken all across the
world, obviously, and there's actually been an expression of
this by three different circles. So, on the innermost circle we have the
native speakers, from countries like the US, the UK, and Australia.
Then we have an outer circle where
English is spoken as a second language, this is countries like India and the
Philippines and then finally we have the most outer circle
which has countries where English is taught as a foreign language
so this is countries like Brazil and Russia, France, etc.
So more and more there are students who actually
want to keep their accent because they kind of feel like it's a part of their
identity, it shows where they come from.
And Sofía Vergara certainly could be seen as a representative
of this type of thinking on a global scale and this is probably exactly why
there's been a lot of attention given recently
to an interview that Sofía gave on The Ellen Show and people raising the
question of whether or not it's okay to make fun of someone else's accent.
Especially when you don't speak any other languages yourself.
So, Sofía is extremely fluent and rarely
makes any vocabulary or grammar mistakes. Now on the clip with Ellen she brought
up the word "discombobulated." Now, this is a pretty rare word that you
probably won't hear in everyday English, so it doesn't really
reflect sophia's abilities to communicate in everyday language.
We believe that most learners still want to improve their accent,
but in a context where some prefer to
kind of maintain their native accent, for whatever reason,
really intelligibility becomes the key goal of pronunciation.
So, in other words, really you have to focus on correct pronunciation and clarity.
Because otherwise people might not understand you.
And you don't want it to keep you from communicating effectively
so just to give you an example say you go to a restaurant and you want to order soup.
But instead of saying soup you say soap.
Not only is this going to create kind of a confusing situation
but it might also cause some embarrassment for you
so another really great way to improve your pronunciation
and be able to understand fast speaking natives is with our Fluent with Friends course.
Now, in this 48-week course, we will teach
you the principles of native American connected speech.
So you can try it for FREE with our 3-Part Masterclass, which you'll find
by clicking up here or down description below.
Now, a while back we taught a lesson with a hilarious scene from Modern Family,
which I highly recommend that you watch because it is perfectly relevant to this issue.
Now, I should mention that you're seeing
the character Gloria, who unlike Sofía Vergara herself,
does make mistakes which get in the way of communication.
Now this is of course for humor, but before you watch the scene there's
actually a couple expressions which will be very useful to understand
so that you will understand the jokes here.
Now the expression "It's a dog-eat-dog world"
is used to describe a situation in which
people will do anything to be successful even if that thing harms other people.
So, for example, we could say that hollywood is a place
where it's a dog-eat-dog world.
Now when we say that something "is a blessing in disguise"
we're saying that although that thing seems
bad or unfortunate in reality it's something that really leads to great things.
So for example. let's say that you just lost your job,
but then, next week you get offered the job of your dreams
like the best job that you could ever imagine
and we would say losing your first job would have been a "blessing in disguise."
So if you want to learn more with Sofía
in a fun way like this, I want to let you know that we have an
exclusive lesson with her over on our Instagram.
I highly recommend that you check that out after you finish this video and
while you're there be sure to follow us because you'll get new inspiration,
tips, lessons, and more every single day. Now at the beginning this lesson we
posed some common questions that I hear all the time,
and no, you do not need to have a native accent in order to be fluent in English.
In fact, your accent can be a calling card for you.
A part of your identity that makes you unique,
as is the case of Sofia Vergara and other actors I'm sure you know,
like Deepika Padukone, who we actually did a recent lesson on,
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Penelope Cruz. And of course it's not just actors who
can be successful even while keeping their native accent.
American businesswoman, Ariana Huffington, very similarly to Sofía,
took accent reduction classes to try to get rid of her Greek accent.
But in the end she actually decided that she would rather maintain it
because it's part of her heritage. For her, she says that the focus is on
speaking and sharing her message.
So, of course, in the end it's up to you whether or not you want to do the hard
work that goes into trying to achieve a native accent when speaking English.
But personally, what I recommend to my students
is that, instead, they put their focus on having clear pronunciation.
So even though they'll have an accent, which I personally believe
makes them sound more interesting and exotic, they're easy to understand.
And of course, I don't condone laughing at other people's accents, specially if
you only speak one language. But one of the most
admirable things that we can learn from Sofía Vergara,
is that she doesn't really care when people laugh at hers,
she is part of the humor, she's part of the joke,
and really what we can learn from her is that she is proud of where she comes from.
She's comfortable with who she is and she's confident.
I speak several different languages myself,
and I know for me when someone laughs at the way that I say something
I try not to take that too personally
Instead I actually look at that as something that's kind of guiding me
towards where I need to still improve. It's kind of showing me
where my pronunciation still needs some work.
So, I want to hear from you. Let me know down in the comments below,
Do you want to have a native accent? Why or why not?
Now, thanks so much for joining me today
and now it's time to go beyond the classroom
and live your English! Aww yeah!!