Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video, I'm going to talk about accents, and I'm also
going to talk about something called clear speech. So, a lot of people come up to me
and they ask me, "Emma, how can I change my accent?" Now, that's a really interesting
question. And usually, my first response is, "Why are you changing your accent?" or "Why
do you want to change your accent?" And different people have different answers. So, for some
people, they might want to change the way they speak and maybe change their accent because
they feel other people aren't understanding them. So, when they speak, they feel that
their accent is getting in the way of their communication. For other people, they might
be understood usually, but in certain situations, maybe their accent makes it difficult for
others to understand them.
So, for example, for some people, it might be harder to understand a person with a stronger
accent in a noisy place, like a restaurant. Or maybe older people might not understand
the accent so well, because they're not used to it. Or, other people who have never heard
that accent before might have a harder time understanding it. Or, maybe you have somebody
who has hearing loss, and so accents might a little bit more difficult for them to understand.
Now, it's important to remember this important point, which is that many people have accents
and are understood. And many people with accents do not feel the need to change their accent,
because everybody has an accent. And an accent shows where you're from, it shows your identity,
and so there's nothing wrong with having an accent, okay? We should be proud of our accents.
What this video is about is for people who feel their accent or the way they speak gets
in the way of communication, okay? So, again, many people have accents and are perfectly
understood.
So, if people have trouble understanding you and you think it's because of the way you
speak because of your accent, you may want to learn about clearer speech, and how to
use clearer speech to help people understand you better. So, I'm going to talk to you about
clearer speech and how to help you communicate more efficiently and effectively.
Okay, so how can we make our speech clearer? Well, one thing we can do is we can work on
intonation. So, a lot of people who are learning English have trouble with intonation, which
is the music of English. So, in English, sometimes our voices rise or they go up. And sometimes,
they go down. And this is very important for meaning, because we use different intonation
when we're using different types of questions or different statements. So, it's really helpful
to know your intonation and to use intonation properly. By knowing intonation, your speech
will become clearer.
Another thing that can really help you become clearer in your speech is thinking about timing.
By timing, I mean the duration or the amount of time you say different parts of words,
different syllables. That can really make a difference, especially if you want to work
on accents. So, for example, we have two words here. They're very similar: bet and bed. So,
if I'm talking to somebody, they might not know which one I mean, because they're very
similar sounding. The only difference is this ends in a t, and this ends an a d. They have
different meanings but they sound the same except for the last consonant. Now, which
one do I say longer? Listen carefully: bet, bed. You probably say "bed", and that's correct.
So, it's important to know the length when it comes to how you say things, because that
will help people understand you better. It's the same if you think about the words "duck"
and "dog". One is shorter and one is longer. So, you might want to start paying attention
to this in language.
Same with vowels. A lot of times, people learning English, they have trouble with the short
e sound and the long e sound. So, for example, if I want to say, "sit", that's a short "eh"
sound, sit versus "seat", which is a long sound. Sit, seat. By having different lengths
of times for those vowels, you really - the pronunciation effects which word you're saying,
Another thing you can work on that will help you become a clearer speaker is stress, and
by that I mean loudness, okay? Sometimes, we use loudness to emphasize a part of the
word or a part of the sentence. And this helps people who are listening understand us better.
So, for example, many times with numbers, people have a lot of trouble. Are you saying
thirteen, or are you saying thirty? By saying part of that louder, "thir-TEEN", "THIR-ty",
there's a difference. And that can help the listener understand you clearer. So, if somebody's
not understanding you, you might want to say parts louder than others.
We can also use this in a sentence. Sometimes we say the important part of the sentence
louder than the rest. So, maybe I have a question. I want to know what day class is on. I think
it's on Thursday, so in order for somebody to really know my thoughts, I might say, "Class
is on THURSDAY, right?" Notice "Thursday" was louder, and the reason is because that's
an important thing I'm checking. So, we use loudness to make things more important in
a sentence.
Another thing that can help with clearer speech is thinking about syllables and multisyllable
words. So, those are words that are longer with many parts to them. I have here three
different words. They're all about medicine. We have medicine, medicinal, and medication.
So, these words are different in a way, and that's the pronunciation. We say different
parts of them with more stress or more loudness. So, I've underlined the part we say with stress.
In the first part, we say "MED-icine". The second one is "me-DIC-inal", and the third
part, we say this part louder, "medi-CAT-ion". A lot of people who are learning English,
they don't pay attention to the stress patterns, so when they pronounce things, the listener
doesn't realize which word you're saying, because the stress is on the wrong syllable.
So, learning about stress in multisyllable words can be very helpful.
For people who want to change their accent or to modify their accent, in English, vowels
are very important. A lot of people think about consonants, and those are important
too. But not a lot of people work on changing vowels. In different countries and in different
languages, vowels sound very different. And so, if you want a more typically - a more
typical accent of, you know, an English-speaking country, you might focus on vowels as a starting
point. Learn the different vowels, learn how they're produced by using your tongue and
your mouth. The key here is working on vowels like A, E, I, O, U, and there are a lot more
than that, but these are the ways we spell vowels. Working on vowels can really help
in terms of modifying your accent.
So now, let's look at some other tips on how to speak clearer and, if you're interested,
how to modify your accent.
Okay, so what's another way you can make your speech clearer? Well, it's really important
when you're talking to somebody not to cover your mouth. When you cover your mouth, it
makes it a lot more difficult for somebody to understand what you're saying. And so,
if you have an accent, this can be even more difficult for people. It's difficult even
without an accent. So, try not to cover your mouth.
Also, it's important to face the listener, so they can see what your mouth is doing.
It's way easier to understand somebody when you're looking at each other's faces. This
is why, when people talk on the phone, it can be really hard for language learners to
understand what other people are saying. It's because it's easier to understand when we
look at each other's faces.
This is a really good tip for - to make clearer speech. And that is overenunciate. So, overenunciate,
what do I mean by that? Well, it means when you speak, you slow down. You exaggerate,
so you exaggerate your - what your mouth is doing, what your tongue is doing. You speak
very slowly and very clearly. And you use a lot of effort, okay? So, I don't think people
should overenunciate all the time, because it's tiring and it does not sound natural.
But, if you're somebody who people aren't understanding, it might be an idea to overenunciate,
especially when you're in a noisy place like a restaurant, or when you're on the phone.
Overenunciating can really help you.
So, one tip is when you're in these situations, pretend you're talking to somebody who is
100 years old and they have hearing loss. They can't hear you, okay? What would you
do? You would slow down your speech and you would talk very carefully, very clearly, okay?
And slowing down can really help somebody understand what you're saying, because it
gives the other person more time to - for their brain to process. So, slowing down is
a good idea and using these exaggerations is a really good idea, too. But again, this
is exhausting. It's very tiring, so only do this when people really aren't understanding
you.
My next tip is, everyone knows practice makes perfect. And that's true when you're either
trying to speak clearer or if you're trying to modify your accent. It's very important
to practice. It's also important how we practice, okay? A lot of people, they want to change
their accent overnight, or they want to speak clearer overnight. But that's often not possible.
It takes a lot of practice, and a lot of time and effort. Another thing people do is they
have - they try something that's way too hard for them at the beginning, and then they get
really frustrated because they're not making progress. So, what do you do? Well, you do
things in steps, or stages. So, you might start by choosing, you know, a sound in English
you really want to get good at producing. Maybe, for example, you always say "e" when
you really want to say "eh". So, instead of saying "seat", maybe you say "sit", because
you can't - you've having trouble with your vowels. So, you might just work on a sound
first, and then you might work on a short word, and then you might work on a longer
word. Then you might work on a word with multiple syllables; then you might work on sentences.
Then, you might work on answering specific questions. And finally, you might practice
using clearer speech or changing your accent in conversation. So, the main point is - it
takes time to build these skills and you have to do it in steps. So, when it comes to modifying
an accent, you know, it would be very hard to start at a conversation level, okay? Where
you're just trying to change everything at the same time. It's better to work on a small
part of the language at a time and go in stages.
It's also important to know that it's good to have somebody who can correct you if you're
making a mistake. Because if you're making the same mistake over and over and over again,
then your brain might start learning a bad habit, and it might be harder in the future
to change. So, I recommend either getting an English teacher or a Speech Language Pathologist
or somebody who is an expert in language who can help you with accent modification or speaking
clearer.
My final tip is practicing in the same context will really help you as well. So, for example,
for some of my students, I tell them, "I want you to practice overenunciating at breakfast
every day. Two minutes at breakfast time, and then you can take a break, and then you
can try this again at dinnertime." So that way, you're not always using your brain. It
takes time to build up where you're using it, you know, whenever you want. But it's
good to practice in a specific time, in a specific context. So that way, it becomes
a habit.
So, we've covered a lot of information in this video. Again, there's a lot of work if
you want to modify your accent, it's important to know that. For many people, they don't
have trouble being understood anyway, so they don't see a reason to change their accent,
and that's great. For other people, they might want to change their accent in certain situations.
For others, they just might want to speak clearer. They might not mind their accent,
they love their accent, but they just want clearer English. So, these tips will work
for any of those situations.
I want to thank you for watching this video, and I also want to invite you to check out
our website at www.engvid.com . There, you can actually do a quiz on what we've covered
in this video. I also would invite you to subscribe to my channel, where you can find
a lot of different resources on pronunciation, on intonation, on vowels, on a lot of what
we covered here but in more detail. So, please check that out. And when you subscribe, make
sure to ring the bell to make sure you get up to date notifications when my new videos
come out.
So, thank you again for watching, and until next time, take care.