How I Lost My Accent and Became Fluent in English [5 Tips] | American English

Hey it's Hadar and this is the Accent's Way.

Today I want to talk about the five

elements that helped me become

a confident and fluent speaker.

And I'm going to invite you to join

my challenge that is going to take

you out of your comfort zone and

help you become a fluent

and confident speaker as well.

When I moved to New York when I was 20

I had a fairly strong accent and my level

of English was let's say intermediate.

I could express myself and conduct basic conversations

but I couldn't go into deeper

conversations without feeling

self-conscious or insecure.

And when I'm looking back

I'm trying to detect the few elements that really helped me become a confident speaker

doing what I'm doing right now.

that is teaching American pronunciation, coaching English.

And I discovered five things, five things that were essential in helping me become

who I'm today.

Now the first one was immersion.

I immerse myself in an English speaking environment.

I surrounded myself with English.

Now I know this may not be an option

for many of you.

This is why you need to join my challenge to discover how to do

that when you're not living in an English speaking country.

But for me that was the one thing

that really helped me own it eventually.

I surrounded myself mostly with English.

I watched television, I read books, I read the newspaper,

I had American friends and

I was working in English.

So all I did was

speak English, listen to English.

I lived English.

The second thing is methodology.

The method and the technique

of what I'm doing today and actually

what I'm teaching today.

I learned it myself when I was an acting school

we had speech classes.

In there we broke down

English language into sounds and melodies and elements of speech.

That when you understand

every single one of them separately

it's a lot easier.

And you're so much more in control

when you put it all back together.

So for me it wasn't about what I

learned in school anymore or what I

thought I was hearing.

It was clear and I had an answer

for everything.

And I knew what my weaknesses and

strengths are.

And I knew what to focus on.

And what to let go of.

The third thing was challenging myself.

Every situation that made me feel

uncomfortable, every situation

that I was intimidated by I jumped on it.

I took it.

I took any speaking opportunity,

I took any part that was

challenging.

I mean at the end of my second year

I played Lady Macbeth in a Scottish accent.

So think about it two years before

I had a foreign accent and I was

self-conscious about my English

and there I was getting this offer

to play a role, a Shakespearean role in a Scottish accent.

I was terrified about it.

I freaked out but you know what.

I worked hard.

I challenged myself.

And I was actually really good at it.

The fourth thing is practice.

I practice.

I did the work.

So first I had my assignments from school.

I had top practice sounds

So I would drill the words, repeat words

and phrases and sentences with the same sounds.

I would take my speech book and sit

and read it aloud and record myself

with a tape recorder and play it

and listen to it and play it again.

And repeat it again and again.

Every single day.

I'm lying cuz it wasn't every day

but I was supposed to do it every day.

Don't tell my speech teacher.

Anyway but I did it a lot

and I felt the change and I felt the difference immediately.

And then I leveraged situations

into practice opportunities.

So for example if I watch television

I would speak back to it.

I used to hear people and I would

repeat them right after I would echo them.

I would read aloud whenever I could.

I would memorize texts and monologues

from movie scenes and television series.

And I would just go over it

in my head and I would practice

and practice and practice.

I loved it. I enjoyed it because

every time I did it I felt a little

better than I did before.

And I felt that I'm actually making a change.

Because those small steps

that you take they empower you.

And when you feel empowered you feel

capable and you feel that you can

actually make a change.

And that's the one thing you need to remember

When you know that you can do it

you can do it.

If you feel that you can't do it and it's too difficult

then it's going to be really hard to get to that breakthrough.

The last thing is communication.

I would talk a lot

even if I didn't want to talk, even if I didn't feel comfortable talking

I talked.

I talked with people, I talk to people.

I would take any speaking opportunity that I could.

I used to wait tables so I remember

that the introduction and

talking about the specials was a thing for me.

Because it was an opportunity to practice

and I would make a big deal out of it in a friendly and fun way.

And I saw what worked and what didn't work.

What activated people, what helped people connect to me.

What motivated people to ask questions

and I took all this information and used it

again and again every time I communicated.

And when I moved back to Israel and I had less opportunities

to communicate in English.

I mean there's a certain amount of

tourists that come into the city a year.

Then that's when I started teaching

and let me tell you this

Teaching was also a game changer for me

because that's when I understood everything clearly.

Because to explain something in a clear way you have to be very clear about it

in your head and I think that's what made the difference for me.

And of course, speaking in English and teaching in English

helped me become the speaker that I am today.

So that's it.

These were the five elements

that helped me become a confident

and fluent speaker.

And these are the five elements that

I included in the challenge

that I prepared for you today.

In the challenge which was a free

challenge you'll have access to

LIVE video lessons you'll be able to

interact with me and ask me questions.

You'll receive a daily email with a PDF sheet

with instructions for the next day,

You'll receive tasks and assignments.

You'll make videos of yourselves and

you'll communicate with other people.

We will lay out all the conditions to help you succeed

and help you make a change

towards becoming a fluent and confident speaker.

To join the challenge all you need to do is just click on the link below

and get instructions straight to your email with a link to our private Facebook group.

Look, those five days are going to pass anyway.

Question is what are you going to do in those five days

that we'll help you reach your goals.

Don't miss the opportunity and join us for the challenge.

Also, share this video with your friends If you don't want to do this challenge alone.

Have a wonderful week.

Thank you so much for watching

and I'll see you next week in the next video.

Bye.