Aw yeah, ladies and gentlemen!
What's up?
So, a common topic in the world of second
language learning
is whether or not you should try to
acquire a native accent in the language
that you're learning.
And there's several different questions
that often come up when we talk
about this topic, such as:
is it even possible to have a
native accent in
another language that's not
your mother tongue?
Does it even matter if you have
a native accent?
And should you really care about having a
native accent? Is that the right goal?
Is that can help push you forward?
So, kind of talking about this topic,
in case you don't know her, Sofia Vergara
is a Colombian actress, who is probably
most famous for her role in a TV series
I absolutely love,
called Modern Family, where she plays
Gloria, who is a Colombian immigrant,
who's married to an older American man.
So it seems like Sofia Vergara
has become a prime example
of someone who is a successful,
very proficient,
non-native English speaker,
despite having a
very strong foreign accent.
So in today's lesson
we're going to answer all of these
questions that I talked about before
and we're going to have a lot of fun
doing it with Sofía Vergara.
But before we get into today's lesson I
want to quickly let you know that,
if you're new here, every week we make
 fun lessons like this one,
so that you can understand
fast speaking natives,
without getting lost, without missing
the jokes and without subtitles.
Like Razi, who says that our lessons are
the best way that she's found
to understand fast native speech.
So we're going to help you a lot
with your English learning goals too.
It's really simple, just hit that
Subscribe button and the Bell down below,
so you don't miss any of our new lessons.
So here Sofía explains why she decided
to stop pursuing an American accent,
and really it makes perfect sense.
Now, you as an English learner may
or may not relate to Sofía in this case.
English as a second language
expert suggests that there are some
students who expose themselves as much
as possible
to native English and who want to sound
as close as they can to a native English speaker.
But others, on the other hand, don't
really care about sounding anything like
an "Inner Circle" speaker.
Now you're probably asking what is
this Inner Circle.
Now, that is definitely part of a much
broader discussion, so we're not going to
dive too deeply into it but it is worth mentioning.
Now, in a world where there are three
times more non-native English speakers
than native English speakers it's kind
of worth reconsidering the authority
that we give to certain countries
over the type of English that people
should want to learn and teach.
So English is spoken all across the
world, obviously, and there's
actually been an expression of
this by three different circles.
So, on the innermost circle we have the
native speakers, from countries
like the US, the UK, and Australia.
Then we have an outer circle where
English is spoken as a second language,
this is countries like India and the
Philippines and then
finally we have the most outer circle
which has countries where English is
taught as a foreign language
so this is countries like Brazil and
Russia, France, etc.
So more and more there are students
who actually
want to keep their accent because they
kind of feel like it's a part of their
identity, it shows where
they come from.
And Sofía Vergara certainly could
be seen as a representative
of this type of thinking on a global
scale and this is probably exactly why
there's been a lot of attention
given recently
to an interview that Sofía gave on
The Ellen Show and people raising the
question of whether or not it's okay
to make fun of someone else's accent.
Especially when you don't speak
any other languages yourself.
So, Sofía is extremely
fluent and rarely
makes any vocabulary or grammar mistakes.
Now on the clip with Ellen she brought
up the word "discombobulated."
Now, this is a pretty rare word that you
probably won't hear in everyday English,
so it doesn't really
reflect sophia's abilities to
communicate in everyday language.
We believe that most learners
still want to improve their accent,
but in a context where
some prefer to
kind of maintain their native accent,
for whatever reason,
really intelligibility becomes the key
goal of pronunciation.
So, in other words, really you have to
focus on correct pronunciation and clarity.
Because otherwise people
might not understand you.
And you don't want it to
keep you from communicating effectively
so just to give you an example say you
go to a restaurant and you want to order soup.
But instead of saying soup
you say soap.
Not only is this going to create kind of
a confusing situation
but it might also cause some
embarrassment for you
so another really great way to improve
your pronunciation
and be able to understand fast speaking
natives is with our Fluent with Friends course.
Now, in this 48-week course, we will teach
you the principles of native
American connected speech.
So you can try it for FREE with our
3-Part Masterclass, which you'll find
by clicking up here or down
description below.
Now, a while back we taught a lesson with
a hilarious scene from Modern Family,
which I highly recommend that you watch
because it is perfectly relevant to this issue.
Now, I should mention that
you're seeing
the character Gloria, who unlike Sofía
Vergara herself,
does make mistakes which get
in the way of communication.
Now this is of course for humor, but
before you watch the scene there's
actually a couple expressions which will
be very useful to understand
so that you will understand
the jokes here.
Now the expression "It's a dog-eat-dog world"
is used to describe a situation in which
people will do anything to be successful
even if that thing harms other people.
So, for example, we could say
that hollywood is a place
where it's a dog-eat-dog world.
Now when we say that something
"is a blessing in disguise"
we're saying that
although that thing seems
bad or unfortunate in reality it's
something that really leads to great things.
So for example. let's say that
you just lost your job,
but then, next week you
get offered the job of your dreams
like the best job that you
could ever imagine
and we would say losing your first job
would have been a "blessing in disguise."
So if you want to learn more
with Sofía
in a fun way like this, I want to
let you know that we have an
exclusive lesson with her over
on our Instagram.
I highly recommend that you check that
out after you finish this video and
while you're there be sure to follow us
because you'll get new inspiration,
tips, lessons, and more every single day.
Now at the beginning this lesson we
posed some common questions
that I hear all the time,
and no, you do not need to have a native
accent in order to be fluent in English.
In fact, your accent can be
a calling card for you.
A part of your identity
that makes you unique,
as is the case of Sofia Vergara and
other actors I'm sure you know,
like Deepika Padukone, who we actually
did a recent lesson on,
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Penelope Cruz.
And of course it's not just actors who
can be successful even while keeping
their native accent.
American businesswoman, Ariana Huffington,
very similarly to Sofía,
took accent reduction classes to try to
get rid of her Greek accent.
But in the end she actually decided that
she would rather maintain it
because it's part of her heritage.
For her, she says that the focus is on
speaking and sharing her message.
So, of course, in the end it's up to you
whether or not you want to do the hard
work that goes into trying to achieve
a native accent when speaking English.
But personally, what I recommend
to my students
is that, instead, they put their focus on
having clear pronunciation.
So even though they'll have an accent,
which I personally believe
makes them sound more interesting and
exotic, they're easy to understand.
And of course, I don't condone laughing
at other people's accents, specially if
you only speak one language.
But one of the most
admirable things that we can learn
from Sofía Vergara,
is that she doesn't really care when
people laugh at hers,
she is part of the humor,
she's part of the joke,
and really what we can learn from her is
that she is proud of where she comes from.
She's comfortable with
who she is and she's confident.
I speak several different
languages myself,
and I know for me when someone
laughs at the way that I say something
I try not to take that too personally
Instead I actually look at that as
something that's kind of guiding me
towards where I need to still improve.
It's kind of showing me
where my pronunciation still
needs some work.
So, I want to hear from you.
Let me know down in the comments below,
Do you want to have a native accent?
Why or why not?
Now, thanks so much for joining me today
and now it's time to go beyond the
classroom
and live your English!
Aww yeah!!
