hey guys what's up Stefanie the English Coach here
from EnglishFullTime.com
Today I have something very special for you.
I am doing an interview with Hadar, from
TheAccentsWay.com
So, hey Hadar, how are you?
hey, how are you? I'm great
I'm doing fantastic. I'm so excited to be interviewing you right now because
I quite honestly never thought I will ever be interviewing you and
this is, I have to tell you a funny story, quickly, ok?
because I'm a bit of a fangirl over here, I saw one of
your youtube videos, like maybe six or seven
works both ways, I'm your fan too so
Really? oh my gosh this is so exciting
Absolutly. You know I'm thrilled to be here, super excited
yeah, well, I think this is great, and I just wanna say
I saw one of your videos like
six or seven months ago, and at first...
...And I'm sure you get this reaction a lot. I was like "oh, you know,
another native English speaker teacher teaching English online, how cool"
and then I was like "Wait! She is NOT
a native English speaker. Oh my gosh!"
And then I like freaked out and you were in this video
you were talking about...mmm...being in New York or something
and wanting to learn how to speak English like a native speaker
so right there in there, I was
super impressed with your accomplishments
And you know I've kind of been following your journey ever since
So I'ld love for us..for you to tell us more about yourself
and you know, how you got to where you are
and accomplish this with having fenomenal English
Okay, wow, thank you so much
so..
I'm blushing, I don't know if you can see it
okay, so, yes
I'm not a native English speaker. I was born in Israel
I'm a Hebrew speaker
And I moved to New York when I was 20
and I wanted to pursue my acting dream
I wanted to become an actress. Actually I first moved to New York just to...
It was my dream to move to the "Big Apple"
you know and just... like
change my life and all that
And then I started to study acting
And there I had English pronunciation classes
And in general I started with pretty good English, like
I never had...growing up I was always passionate about
different languages and I was always really curious
and always listened to different people, but I had an
accent, and some people might say that I even had a thick
accent and my English was not perfect, and I remember struggling
to express myself, and to explain what I wanted to say, and
and you know, I'm so
expressive and sharp in
my own languange, in my native tongue you know
and I felt like it will never get to the same level
and you know this feeling probably
yeah, you know people really wannna be able to
express their personalities, like who they are
in one language, they wanna be that same person in the other
and we've talked about this because I've learned Spanish and that was one of my
obstacles too. It's not feeling like myself when
I would speak the language, and that really frustrated me
It's like this feeling of always being a little artificial
and not true to myself. And who am I
in English and all that
and that was back then when I was 20
20 to 25, 5 years in New York
but then in my acting studies
I worked on my accents, 'cause I had to work on my accents because
I didn't wanna get casted only as foreigner 1, 2 or 3 you know
or the terrorist
so I did,
I worked really hard on
pursuing "American accent"
and at first it was just for, you know, for acting
reasons, you know I just wanted
to have a variaty of roles that
I could..
I could work on
But then at some point I actually fell in love with
you know I fell in love with the ability to
change the small nuances in your speech
and the ability to control
how we speak and what you say just by understanding it
and practicing and owning it
and of course the musicality of the language and then we worked
on different dialects. And then I realised that you can
modify your accent just by understanding
the set of sounds for each dialect
and it was amazing
like it was mind blowing to me and it had an immediate
impact on my English. So
it wasn't just that, I became more confident
I started to speak clear
people stopped asking me where you are from
It's always amazing when that happens
I know, immediatly my confidence drops
when I hear it, or when I used to hear it
and then, when
I'm less confident then obviusly then the words
are not that accesible, and I get stuck more
yeah, it's crazy how confidence has a direct influence on pronunciation
and I have a question for you about that
a little bit later, because that was..
that has been my struggle too, even up to this present day, so
so basically, you know, you went to New York
you were studying accents there, or sorry
acting, you were studying acting
and accents, yeah
and accents, and that promted you to really work on your own accent
and then, now you are an accents coach, right?
right
so how did you make that transition?
That's so funny because I never thought that
this is what, what I'm gonna do
like, when I move back to my home or
but at some point, after I moved back to Israel
(I decided to move back home to be closer to my family)
and it was of course more difficult there because I was alone
and then I realised that no one teaches that here and
I remembered how passionate I was about it
and I just wanted to explore it a little bit more
so I studied linguistics at the university
and you know I was obsessed with
phonology classes and phonetics and
then I just started teaching it out of, you know, I just needed
the extra cash, in the beggining, to be honest. You know
I was good at it, let's try it and then
I realised that I'm actually really good at it
yeah right, and then word of mouth, people
start telling other people "hey, I have this fenomenal coach"
and then you probably built your client base and boom!
exactly, and like, word of mouth
and within a year or so, like that's all I did
I quit my other job and
I started doing just that, and I think that's when
I became for five, six years
I really invested a lot of time and energy into teaching
but also into learning, I kept on learning
I was exploring everything, the online sphere has to offer
so I would learn from people
I would learn at the university, I would listen, I was obsessed
with like listening to different dialects so I kept on
analysing everything, and then it was easier
for me to... I became a better coach
and I think working with people and understanding what their
fears are, and obstacles
like every time you learn, you teach someone,
you learn form him or her
and then you bring it on to the next student
yeah
and I think that's, that's what happened
awesome, so...
I have to ask because I think eveybody is gonna be wondering
this, but seriously, like what's your secret?
because I feel like there are people out
there that have been studying English for years, maybe even
decades, and they still, you know
have a thick accent in English or something like that, so
what is it? are you special, do you have some secret
that you could share with us about how to accomplish that
No! oh my god, no
you know people ask me
"let me hear you do a Scottish accent, or a southern accent"
And I'm like I can't do that,
I'm not that talented, you know, pulling off an accent. I can learn it
and then I can master it, but I'm not that
talented or gifted. But I was very commited
I did the work
I wasn't a perfect student, like my speech coach used to tell me
"you have to sit for 2 hours every day"
and I'ld sit for 15 minutes and I'll be like ok I'm bored
two hours???
I know, I didn't do it
so I sat there for like 15 minutes and that, that worked for me
you know
but I think that the thing
that really made the difference
is understanding that is not just about ok, now
I'm practicing my English and then...it's
taking everything around you and turning it into
a practice opportunity, or
taking the passive learning, 'cause we all hear
English all the time, when we listen to it, listen to music
and we watch television, and youtube videos
but it's...we read and write
a lot of people correspond in English, just
in English, but then when they have to speak they
they can't talk, the words don't come out
so I just turned every passive
opportunity, or passive learning of English into active learning
how so?
so for example if I had to read a book I would read it out loud
or if I was listening to...
I was watching television, I would repeat
what people said. Pause and repeat
sometimes I really enjoyed it
I remeber myself walking behind people
listening to them and then repeating what they're saying, like ecoing them
silently
so they don't think you're a crazy person
right? exactly but in New York you can be a crazy person
like if you don't speak to yourself
then you seem like a crazy person
I've been there, yeah, people are definitely crazy
so you have permission
now you can put your earset you know and then just pretend like you're on the phone
yeah, I think that's actually, you know
it's a good point, beause that's what I tell people too, I'm like look,
at the end of the day, there are no secrets
I mean, we ask the question because we wish
there was some magical secret or something but it always
comes down to practice, that's what it always comes down to
and I think that we tend to stay in our comfort zones
as humans, and you know
it's so easy to do passive learning
to listen to a podcast or to watch a tv show and say
"oh yeah, I'm practicing my English, because I'm listening"
and it's like "well no, you're not" because you probably at that point
I mean if your listening skill are great you probably understand everything
so you're inputting a lot of English and then you need to output it
you need to speak it so I like the strategies
that you gave, and I think that
that's really gonna challenge people, because now we know what we have to do
are we gonna do it? you know
right, exactly, and
and again, it just, first of all,
it has to be interesting, 'cause people are so busy nowadays
no one has time for anything, practically
maybe not to practice, so it has to be part of your daily routine
daily life, you know. So if you are listening to a podcast
then repeat it in your car as you're driving
to work, you know, so you don't have to devote time
and also like I always feel like
it's something that needs to be concise and short
during the day, 'cause again if you are planning to practice
an hour every day it's gonna last for a week
and then you're gonna be, I mean, it's gonna be a burden
and so it has to be fun and engaging
yeah, it's really hard to build habits and it's the same thing that happens when
people get all excited about going to the gym and they go for a week
exactly
and then stop, so it's like, we need to just take that
into account, that building habits is hard, so if you can find a way
to already incorporate it into your daily routine
and not overwhelmmed yourself or
overwhelmmed your schedule, you know, and be like this is impossible
I have another question for you, and I actually think that...
well, 2 question, but I'm kind of gonna put them together
because we've been talking about it
but I'ld love for you to go a little bit deeper into this
so, we've all seen videos on youtube
about singers that are able to impersonate
famous singers, like Beyonce, Ariana Grande
or Shakira
and it's fenomenal, because it can be maybe one girl
that's able to impersonate 15 to 20 other
singers, and she sounds exactly like every single one of them
and then we see movies where our favorite actors
you know, in one movie they're doing an Irish accent, and the next
movie they're doing a British accent and
and then there's us. Like the regular people, right?
the pedestrians, yes
right? exactly, and it's like with this whole accent
thing, because, again, what you've accomplised it's fenomenal
and we know that it's about practice, but beyond
practice, because I bet that some people do practice
and they still don't achieve it, right?
so what else is envolved? is it the mechanics
of your throath and your moth
and learning how to use it? Is it your confidence
and getting out of your comfort zone and actually being able to make
sounds that are totally unfamiliar to you
because at the end of the day each language has separate sounds
right? so, like, so what is it?
what helps people speak the way that you speak in English
as being a non native English speaker
so that's a great question
and it's something that I ask myself everyday. Like how to improve it
how to better it, how to
figure out what it is, what's the secret sauce
but here is, so far this is what I've discovered
so it's a few things, first of all, no, you don't have..
a lot of people tell me "I don't have a musical ear"
"I can't do it" "I can't do this intonation thing"
"I don't know how to go higher in pitch"
well, my answer would be
do you know how to sing a simple song?
like, i don't, "mary had a little lamb"?
If you can, then you know how to go lower in pitch and then higher in pitch
so you know how to do that, you don't
need to have a musical ear to be able to imitate
someone or to understand how to go down
in pitch or high in pitch
Also of course that it's easier for some people
okay? it's going to be a little easier
but the thing is, is that
first of all, you have to learn to listen
someone who is only engaged in themselves
like only thinking of how
I sound, or always going inside my head
not being attentive to the other person, not really hearing
then it's going to be hard to work on the accent
and this is in my experience from working with many
many different people. People who are more tuned into
the other person's thoughts
and even needs, like
someone who is more emphatetic
their ability to work on their accent is a little higher
that's interesting, I've never herad that before, but it makes sense
because if you can emphatise and feel what someone else feels
it's like you can also
imitate sound, in a way, I mean I never made that connection before
you notice nuances, you notice, you are listening
and you're not just, you know, "when am I gonna talk?, what am I gonna say?
and then you're not hearing those nuances, and if you can't hear it
you can't make it. That's the thing
it's all about perception first of all
so if you can't hear the differences between the sheep and ship
then obviously you won't be able to make it, and some people
like, some of my students come to me and
and it's the first time they hear the difference
between certain vowels, and some people
already know this differences, they just need to know
what to do, and for them is always gonna be easier to work
so my tip for you is
Start listening, really listening, noticing things
you don't usually notice. And you know, sometimes it's not just about
being inconsiderate or
self-centered, right? sometimes it's
our brain filters a lot of information
so for example, if you don't have a certain distinction
let's say that in English you need to raise
your pitch to stress a word, okay?
and you prolong a word in order to stress it
other languages don't do that, ok? you don't need to prolong
a word or to say it higher in pitch, you might
just say it a little louder or sometimes is just about where its positioned
in the sentence. So if you don't need
this information, then your brain is gonna filter this extra
information. So you won't notice it
it's going to be a lot harder to notice it
and therefore you need to make the special
effort
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