In just 15 minutes, I'm gonna teach you a groundbreaking vocal exercise.
This exercise will literally open up those American sounds, stretch them out so you'll be able to hit them consistently, making you sound that much more American.
Hey, I'm Gabriel from GB Voice Academy, your accent reduction instructor, to get you that much closer to mastering the American accent.
If you haven't yet, subscribe to my YouTube channel so I can continue delivering these groundbreaking videos to you.
Also check out my five-star best-selling action reduction course, as well as my other communication courses, and all the links are below.
Now the first thing we need to do is we need to find out and identify the sounds that are the furthest away from our natural accent.
And I've identified three of them.
So the first one is, are you ready for this?
Ah.
Believe it or not, this sound is a very common American sound.
You hear it all the time.
Fantastic.
Happy birthday.
Thank you for calling.
It's a sound that's in your face.
You can't help but cringe a bit when you hear it too.
Now out of all of the accents I've ever taught, this sound does not exist in other accents.
It seems to be very specific to the American accent.
So how do we master that?
By consistently hitting that target over and over again in different ranges.
So no matter how you're expressing yourself, that sound will be available to you.
So I want you to smile.
And I want you to put that sound right here, sort of in your nose and the top of your forehead.
It should sound ridiculous.
You should have neighbors calling you saying, oh my God, is he having a spasm attack?
The tendency is wanting to go, oh, down here.
Oh, i want you to imagine that your head is.
There's an equator in the middle of your head.
There's sounds that resonate up here and there's sounds that resonate down here.
People with accents tend to make this sound down here versus doing it in the upper part.
Ask black cat, see what I mean, how it's more up in this vicinity.
So now let's do some exercises to warm up that sound, to make it available and in our body.
So once again, and so this is how we're gonna do it.
Your job as we go up is to keep that sound in that same place.
The temptation will be you're gonna want to go down to the lower hemisphere I was telling you about.
Keep it up north, up in the upper hemisphere together.
Good,
One more, you got this?
It sounds ridiculous.
I know.
It feels ridiculous.
But I'm telling you, if you consistently hit that on a daily basis, you do these exercises every day when you're in a conversation and you're about to hit that sound well.
Thank you for asking.
Fantastic work yesterday.
It'll be available to you.
Versus thank you for asking.
Fantastic work yesterday.
See what I mean?
Now let's go down to that same sound.
Same thing.
Now let's go down.
Keep it here.
Good.
The reason why we're doing scales is depending on your emotional state you're going to hit that ah sound, depending on how you're delivering it.
Whether it's with excitement wow fantastic.
Or whether it's a little more serious wow fantastic ah ah, ah ah.
That position needs to be there, regardless of the pitch.
That's why doing these exercises are important.
Now let's put some of these sounds into sentences so you'll see what i'm talking about.
Thank you for asking.
You see how easier it is to hit that now that you're warmed up.
Your body is used to resonating in that area.
Thank you for asking versus thank you for asking.
Not in the lower hemisphere, the northern hemisphere.
That's fantastic.
You hear those ah sounds?
That's fantastic.
There's three of them in that phrase.
Stick around because I'm gonna be combining these and other very strange sounds.
I'm gonna mix them all up and put them into structured sentences at the end of this video.
What's the point of listening to me lecture if we're not putting all this into practice?
Do you hear that?
Practice versus practice.
Here's another one.
These are fascinating facts.
Hear how bright that is?
See how in your face that is?
You need to feel and sound rude.
Most people say Americans sound rude.
Well, it's because these sounds are in your face.
These are fascinating facts.
Excellent, here's another one.
National average.
You hear this a lot in the news.
National average.
See, there's two of those sounds in there.
Versus national average.
National average.
Excellent.
Now, here is the second sound that is the furthest away from 99% of the accents I teach.
This is the ah sound.
See how big that is?
It's like I'm throwing up.
Ah.
But you hear this all the time.
You hear that?
Ah.
Obligated.
Give me a call.
Lot of options here.
The Americans drop that sound and it sounds really deep and really big.
This is a sound that a lot of us miss.
Optimal versus optimal.
Cautious. versus cautious.
See how big that sound is?
Again, we gotta train our body to be able to drop into that sound consistently.
So, let's do the same exercise with this particular sound.
Your job is to keep that AH open throughout the whole exercise.
The temptation will be to shut it up.
AH.
Your job?
AH.
You should feel like there's cool air going through your throat.
It's like a huge opening in the back.
I want you to envision a snake.
Did you know that a snake has two jaws?
A front jaw and a back jaw.
That's how it's able to swallow big objects.
Well, we need to open both jaws when we're making the sound.
Just opening my mouth doesn't make that sound.
Ah dog dog, you need to open from the back.
So repeat after me Nice and open.
You're doing good.
Last one.
Were you able to keep it open throughout the whole exercise without going Let's go down now.
Same thing.
Down.
See, now your body is nice and relaxed and open.
Let's throw in some sentences in here.
I'm calling my colleague.
See how big that is?
Instead of what most people do, I'm calling my colleague.
Colleague?
Colleague.
You got to be available.
We follow all the laws.
Did you hear those three ah sounds?
The second we're off by that ah sound by just this much, we follow all the laws just by a tad.
There's an accent.
Remember americans ears are very, very sensitive.
If you miss that sound by just a smidge hey, you're not from here, are you?
Where are you from?
Where's that accent from?
That's why we got to be specific.
I'm a stickler when it comes to these sounds.
Excellent, these are optimal options.
It sounds weird and it feels weird.
This needs to feel weird to you.
If it feels comfortable, that means you're not hitting that sound correctly.
You're cutting it short.
How about this one?
Mark is at the mall.
See how big that is?
Mark is at the mall.
Excellent.
Now here's the last American sound that is the furthest away from 99.9% of the accents I teach.
This is the er sound.
I've talked a lot on this channel about the er sound because it is extremely strange to a lot of people, right?
It's like you're a bear.
Everything is closed, clenched, and you're choking on your tongue.
Good.
The second we loosen that up.
I've heard of her.
Then we kind of sound a little British-y, right?
Er.
So, here we go.
You're doing great.
Drink some water if this is hurting your throat.
You want to keep this lubricated and flowing.
Because although this is a very tight sound, er, there's still air flow.
Er.
Keep her teeth clenched.
Last one.
Good, you should feel pain.
It's just like going to the gym.
When you work out your muscles that you don't normally use, you should feel pain.
Now let's go down.
Fight the temptation to wanna go... Ah, clenched.
Good.
Let's work on some sentences.
It's her turn to learn.
You hear how tight that is?
My mouth was pretty much closed throughout that whole phrase.
Versus, it's her turn to learn.
Learn.
It's her turn to learn.
Everything is folding back into itself and resonating in here.
Good.
We're going to be putting all of this, shaking it up and throwing it into structured sentences, so stick around.
Real rear view mirrors.
That's a mouthful.
You notice these are getting more difficult as we proceed.
One more time.
Real rear view mirrors.
Again, nice and tight.
Regular rituals rarely rule.
That's another big one too.
One more time.
Regular rituals rarely rule.
The key to a successful pronunciation is, like i said earlier you gotta let the air flow.
For a lot of people this is new, so what they do is they tend to cut the airflow.
You have to remember that although everything is clenched, it's still open enough that air is able to go flow through to create that sound.
You should be feeling tired and fatigued and like, oh my God, I just went to the gym.
Well, that's exactly what this is.
Good job for sticking around.
Now we're gonna throw all of these into a sentence And it's your job to identify whether it's the sound that we did the sound or the sound.
Be ready and available.
Now here it is.
I want you to try it on your own first before I dive into it.
Excellent.
See if we could identify those sounds.
All I ask, you see that big leap from the aw and the ah sound in a matter of seconds?
All I ask, is that we try harder.
So we have that ah right into that erder.
So we're jumping back and forth from ah to ah to er.
But the difference is we've been there before.
We've worked out and exercised those flows.
One more time.
I'm going to really over exaggerate it too.
All I ask is that we try harder.
Good.
A little more in real time.
All I ask is that we try harder.
Good.
Now, real time, throw it away.
All I ask is that we try harder.
See how quick and fast that is?
We're jumping in and out, in and out.
This is something a lot of action reduction instructors don't put more time on.
It's not just repeat after me, it's the flow, the flow between one sound to the other.
It's that connection.
Once you have mastered that connection, everything else sort of falls into place.
And as I'm talking to you, you're probably identifying these sounds, right?
Sounds.
Fa.
Good.
Next one.
Robert has a lot of options.
Robert has a lot of options.
Feel that?
It's all in there.
Good job.
We are optimistic about Sam's operation.
You hear that?
We are.
We're dropping right into that ah into the er, ah back into that ah, optimistic about Sam's operation.
Now, a little more in real time.
We are optimistic about Sam's operation.
Good.
Jumping from one sound to the next.
This is the last one, here we go.
This is a big one, so pay attention.
We need to ask her ophthalmologists for some answers.
Lot going on in there, huh?
One more time.
Nice and slow.
We need to ask her ophthalmologist for some answers.
Good, one more time in real time.
We need to ask our ophthalmologist for some answers.
Hear that?
Ah, er, ah, we're all over the map.
Now there are many more American sounds and I'm gonna be doing a series of these exercises for you, so your muscles are loose, open and available to you.
So make this a part of your daily routine, as well as using the other practice videos I have on this channel to get you that much closer to mastering the American accent.
