- Hi, I'm Lisa.
In this video,
you will learn four tips that will help you
improve your accent fast.
You will listen to me teaching a student from India,
who was able to change his accent,
and he spoke a lot more clearly,
When I taught him these tips.
I was working with Kranthi Kumar Chougoni,
he has a PhD and he's a postdoctoral scholar
in a university here, in Los Angeles.
His work involves clinical research in cancer biology
and cancer therapeutics.
You will see him applying these four tips.
I gave these four tips when I was interviewed
by the communication coach, Alex Lyon,
for his YouTube channel.
I will show you parts of that interview.
After that I will explain each tip
and I will also show you how Kranthi
was able to apply the tip
and improve the sound of his American accent.
I hope that this video will inspire you
to practice the same way.
Let's watch.
- Welcome, Lisa, it's great to have you on the channel.
- It's great to be here, Alex.
Thank you for having me.
- 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 Re-FILL? Would you like a Re-FILL?"
And when I explained to her that we need to stress
the first syllable and say, "RE-fill,"
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.
A lot of my students struggle
with the correct syllable stress of the word, "develop".
Kranthi was stressing the first syllable.
He was saying, "DEvelop,"
instead of the second syllable, "deVELop."
Let's listen to the way he said, "develop,"
and then you will see how we practiced it,
and how he was able to fix it.
- Yeah, I got this thing in my mind
to develop this American accent,
and I think I'm stressing everything.
I'm not natural like.
- That's- - This thing in my mind,
to develop this American accent.
- That's normal.
Okay, so let's talk about stressing the right syllable.
- Mm-mm.
- Develop has three syllables,
you said, "develop," and that's not correct.
Let's stress the second syllable, develop.
- Develop. - Good, develop.
- Develop.
- Now, can we use it in a sentence?
- I'd like to develop some-
- No! You said, "develop," do it again.
- Yeah, I'd like to develop, sorry.
I'd like to develop...
- Try again.
- Develop. - No, it's got develop.
Three syllables, develop.
We're gonna stress the second one.
- Develop. - Develop.
- Develop. - That's right, do it again.
- Develop. - Good.
- Develop.
I would like to develop. I would like to develop.
I would like to develop.
- In the following three words,
Kranthi was stressing the first syllable.
Develop, we need to stress the second syllable.
Combinations, in that case,
the third syllable needs to be stressed.
Pancreatic.
The third syllable should also be stressed in that one.
- I would like to develop some new drug combinations
for treating pancreatic cancer.
- You said, "combination."
- Yeah. - Once again,
just like develop, you stressed the first syllable.
The third one should be stressed, combination.
Let's reduce the C O M,
- Mm-mm. - so it's not com,
- Yeah. - it's combination.
- Combination. - Excellent.
- Mm-mm. - Pancreatic.
A, open your mouth for the a.
- Pancreatic. - Good, pancreatic.
- Pancreatic.
- Pancrea, ea, pancreatic.
- Pancreatic.
- That's beautiful, do it again?
- My goal is to develop new combinations
to treat pancreatic cancer.
- That sounds really good.
- My goal is to develop new combinations
to treat pancreatic cancer.
My goal is to develop new combinations
to treat pancreatic cancer.
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, on video when, - Absolutely.
- 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 followed 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 we're 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 consonant 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 "v" to the "m".
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 speech.
- Well, that's excellent advice,
professional speech is clear speech.
I couldn't agree more.
- Kranthi was also skipping the R sounds in cancer,
and in therapeutics.
Let's listen to how Kranthi improved his accent,
by slowing down.
His speech became clearer,
when he pronounced all of the consonants.
- I work on cancer biology and cancer therapeutics.
Mainly I try to understand how cancer cells
signal with each other,
and identify the ways to target or kill them.
- So let's say, "cancer."
We wanna hear the R.
Cancer therapeutic. Let's say that clearly.
- Cancer therapeutic.
- I didn't hear the R.
- Cancer therapeutics.
- No, I didn't hear the R in therapeutic, slow down.
- Okay, I got it.
Cancer therapeutics.
- thera, thera.
- Thera. - Cancer therapeutics.
- Cancer therapeutics.
- Good, now say the whole sentence again.
But pay attention to the R.
- And therapeutics,
has four syllables.
We're gonna make sure
- that you pronounce them clearly.
- I work on cancer biology and cancer therapeutics.
- That's perfect.
- That sounds really good.
- Mm-mm. - Let's say it again.
So if I asked you, what do you work on?
Let's say naturally and clearly, one more time.
- I work on cancer biology and cancer therapeutics.
- Good.
- 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 know, 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'd often just type in the key words,
- Exactly. - right?
- You don't type, yeah, 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.
I gave the tip about not stressing function words,
such as pronouns and prepositions.
Those words are usually reduced.
But Kranthi had a habit of stressing
the first word of the sentence the most.
He stressed the pronouns, I and my,
but he was able to fix that.
- My name is Kranthi Kumar Chougoni,
I'm a post doctoral scholar here in Los Angeles.
- Introduce yourself again,
without stressing the pronouns.
My name is Kranthi Kumar Chougoni,
I'm a postdoctoral fellow, here at Los Angeles.
Okay. - Say that sentence again,
I'm a postdoctoral student in Los Angeles,
without stressing the first word.
You still stressed, I'm, a little bit too much.
- Mm, oh, okay, I got it.
I'm a postdoctoral scholar in Los Angeles.
- That sounds really good.
- 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 am 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 kind of fear or paranoia,
"Oh, 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,
'cause people will sometimes say,
"Oh, I don't understand you when you say that."
Or, "Your accent is strong."
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, I don't know,
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.
Keep working on improving your accent,
because clear, understandable speech, is very important,
especially in professional situations.
Meanwhile, don't allow your insecurity
about your accent to paralyze you.
Slow down and use a strong voice.
You have something important to say,
so say it with confidence.
Thanks for watching and keep practicing your English.
To get the two courses,
The American Accent Course,
and the 400 Advanced Words You MUST Know for Fluent English,
go to AccurateEnglish.com.