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.
