You know I started this youtube channel almost by accident I just wanted to make a couple of videos
to demonstrate our teaching style for potential customers at our language school LetThemTalk
in Paris and then I made another and I made another and I made another and the whole thing
kind of snowballed and I never imagined that I'd be here five years later having made
about 170 videos and when I began I thought, well, I'm an English teacher,
I'm British, in spite of what people say in the comment section,
and I know grammar I know the idioms the expression so I'll show you how to speak
as I do and in earlier videos I used to say things like ‘say this to sound more British’ or
‘use this phrase it sounds more native’. ‘Sounds more native’? that doesn't even make sense
but I've been, shall we say I've been reflecting lately and you know what
to all English learners out there I owe you an apology. I was wrong, I gave you bad advice.
Don't speak like a native. I started thinking about this a while ago and it coincided
with a comment on an old video of mine and the video was entitled I don't remember exactly
something like how to speak English like a native or 10 points to speak like a native I
can't remember exactly and somebody wrote in the comments “why would I want to do that?”
And you know what? Yeah he was right. Now let me explain something I teach English and,
of course, I'm going to do that to the best of my ability. I want to show you idiomatic English
the way we speak on the streets of London because I'm a Londoner and not
the way you learn in the books of course that's what English teachers do on youtube and
perhaps I'll give you a sneak peek into British culture that much is true and it's OK to say
something like native speakers will often use this expression and not this one. So for example,
most English speakers in the UK will say it's chucking it down rather than it's raining cats and
dogs which is an expression you no doubt learnt at school but in my part of the world we never
say that. We have a video about that by the way up here . However, and this is the point, however,
what I don't think is OK is to suggest that because you're a non-native speaker and I'm
a native speaker your objective is to speak like me OK and I am along with my compatriots
somehow one of the guardians of the English language and we hold the key to entering the
promised land where only those who sound like native speakers reside, where you breath the
rarified native air and drink from the fountain of youth… not the fountain of youth that's probably
not a good metaphor... drink from the fountain of….
something. Sorry, I'm not inspired today.
All this thing about ‘speak English like a native’ just feeds anxiety and is bad advice. Don't speak
like a native instead speak like yourself. become the best version of yourself. Improve your skills,
learn grammar, learn vocabulary, speak idiomatic English. Improve your pronunciation certainly
all of these things are OK and I'm here to help you do that but don't fall into
to the mindset that if you somehow don't speak like a cast member of Downton Abbey you've somehow
failed: mama has sent me down to welcome you and to ask you to dine with us tonight
unless you're too tired we would be delighted good to come come at 8. Let's look at the two
main aspects of learning English because they're quite different. OK the language
and the pronunciation first of all the language, the words and expressions you use. Your objective
should be to become the best communicator you can possibly be. Communication is not
based solely on correct grammar and correct pronunciation and correct syntax. Yes, I
do encourage you to learn that stuff but grammar is just a tool to help you craft your speaking
and writing skills albeit a useful one and of course we have many grammar videos on this channel
you should watch such as this one up here. Check it out. If I say that the end of your journey
as a student of English is somehow to pass the English language equivalent of the turing test,
that is if I close my eyes and you speak I can't tell the difference whether you are English or
foreign if it's like that then if you pass that test then that's it that's the end you can stop
learning put up your feet order pizza and beer and play video games for the next 20 years but
that doesn't make any sense Firstly, why should you limit yourself to speaking like a native?
Your objective should be, if anything, to speak better than that. Lots of non-native speakers
are extremely articulate of course and lots of native speakers are inarticulate. If you're
educated and I don't know you've read 10,000 difficult books in your own language and you are
eloquent in your mother tongue, if you are able to discuss the burning issues of the day,
if you are able to express complex ideas and abstract emotions in your own language then,
once you've reached a certain level, you can do it in English too. Eloquence is a transferable
skill if you've achieved in your own language then once you've got to grips with English you're going
to speak better than the vast majority of native speakers so don't cut yourself short don't aim to
speak like a native aim higher or, rather I'll put it another way, at a certain point native
or non-native becomes irrelevant a native speaker who's never read a book is never going to have
the skills and the wherewithal to shape the opinions of others. Provenance counts for nothing.
Some of us are brilliant but some of us are just cattle wearing clothes. If you can talk about,
I don't know, non-Euclidean mathematics in your own language then with a little training you
can do it in English too. Not me I have no idea what that's all about but maybe you can in short
anything a native speaker can talk about perhaps you can do better and if not today then one day
soon it depends on your skills you have as an individual native or non-native it's the same. My
job as an English teacher is to help you with the grammar and show you idiomatic English but what
I won't be saying anymore is speak like this to sound more British, use this phrase it sounds more
native, then give you a list of vogue words and expressions du jour which will probably sound
old-fashioned in a couple of years anyway. I want to move on to pronunciation you might notice that
I don't do that many pronunciation videos I do a few but not that many on this channel
and here's why. What I believe is that the first 90% of pronunciation is important,
very important, you need to speak clearly, you need to be understood and not
misunderstood listeners should not be unsure whether you are hungry or angry or whether
you are walking or working you should pronounce words like sew - s e w and borough correctly.
You should also be aware of many important things in pronunciation such as weak forms informal
contractions like gonna, wanna, gotta, betcha all of these things are super important . However,
I would say that for the vast majority of people once you've got the fundamentals right
that's enough an approximation of how native English speakers speak is
sufficient with pronunciation it's the law of diminishing returns the first
90% is relatively easy and takes shall we say this much time. The next nine percent,
don't ask me where I get the statistics from, it's just to give you an idea, the next nine percent
takes can you see that takes this much time just for a little improvement if you say comfortable
instead of comfortable if you say culture instead of culture nobody really cares but we obsess over
it there are exceptions here. Some people love taking that path, spending loads of time on
phonetics and the minute nuances of pronunciation and if you are one of those people then that's OK.
I say go ahead I encourage you. However, for most learners what I don't want you to
think is that if you have a slight accent you are somehow inadequate that your English is wanting.
No it isn't, there are lots of famous non-native speakers who become successful here
in spite of, or maybe because, they have a foreign accent so Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan,
Penelope Cruz just to name three from the top of my head. Has an accent impeded their career
well let's think about it; Terminator - a fast-paced, dystopian, action thriller
and a brilliant and provocative satire on Reagan's America but it was ruined by the fact that Arnold
Schwarzenegger says bach and not back it's I'll be back not I'll be buck, idiot. Two stars:
Vanilla Sky - A phantasmagoric tour de force alas, sadly a failure because Penelope Cruz
was unable to pronounce her schwas in words like breakfast. It's breakfast not breakfust two stars.
Jackie Chan in Rush Hour may have superlative kung fu moves but his Chinese accent and his egregious
non-standard pronunciation caused me to walk out of the cinema. One star.
Come on guys a slight foreign accent doesn't matter frankly nobody *** cares. In fact the
opposite is true. It's nice to have variety in English and as I said I realize there are a few
exceptions. Some people love learning the details of pronunciation. It's a passion that's fine,
go for it but for most learners I say don't lose any sleep if you don't sound like a
Londoner or a New Yorker or a Sydnerian Sydneyarian. I'm not sure which is correct,
put that in the comments please. For most of you I'd say focus on the 90%
so we understand you 100% but then frankly after that it's not that important in fact a moderate
foreign accent is quite charming we like it so don't speak like a native that should not be your
objective I almost forgot I've talked about the 99% of pronunciation but what about the last 1%?
That sliver that will get you from speaking close to sounding like a native speaker to passing that
linguistic Turing test. It's virtually impossible for an adult who has an accent, a foreign accent,
to lose their accent so completely that they sound exactly like a native speaker there are probably
more people who've been in space than have achieved that and I don't mean that in a nasty way
because as I said it's not that important it's not just English of course. I've learned French and I
hope one day I'll speak it really well but I know that even if I live to be 100 billion years old
I will never sound French as soon as I open my mouth, as soon as the first syllable comes out of
bonjour they know I'm a foreigner, I'm English or some kind of foreigner
uh yeah bonjour, bonjour, bonjour the French know I'm a foreigner but I'm OK with that I'm happy
having an English accent perhaps I could reduce it a little but I don't want to sound French I just
want to be understood I don't want to spend hours and hours on on the phonetics of French. Sorry,
sorry French people. So my advice is to learn idiomatic English learn the grammar idioms,
enrich your vocabulary but then be natural and follow your own path. The most powerful thing
of all is when you take control and you use your own words and play to your own strengths
you are unique don't try and be a carbon copy of that British or American or Australian speaker
you can do better than that you can speak like yourself. My name's Gideon thank you
for watching LetThemTalkTv have a great day and see you in the next video bye