Develop an English Accent And Sound Like A Native Speaker In 10 Weeks Or Less

People judge you because of your accent. I wish this wasn’t true, but it is. And it’s really not their fault. It’s human nature. That’s tough to change.

“If you don’t sound like us, you’re not one of us.”

It’s not your fault either. You can’t be blamed for your accent. You talk that way because you were taught that way.

The thing is, we all have to deal with reality. And the reality is:

People find it hard to understand you when you talk
You find it hard to understand Australians when they talk
Because of this, you lack confidence when you’re around other people
You’re worried about people judging you, talking behind your back, making fun of you
You don’t enjoy social events at work or with your friends
You find it hard to enjoy English television and movies
And on top of all this, it’s having a bad effect on your career!

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Hey, I’m Daniel and let’s get one thing clear.

I never woke up one day and thought I want to remove people’s accents. I never thought I want people to sound like me. I wanted to be a cowboy.

The truth is people just wanted me to teach them how to speak English like a native speaker. I worked as a language teacher for 15 years and most of that time I never thought twice about this aspect of the language. But over the years more and more people asked me, begged me to coach them to speak with a native accent and pronunciation.

I began to see how important it was to people.

I saw their confidence being shattered by reaching a point where they just couldn’t improve any more. I saw them crying in my classroom while they said they are ashamed of their speech. I saw how painful it was to be part of a society and yet an outsider. I saw people who were experts in their fields with just one barrier left to cross. I started to see the undeniable advantage of effortless speech that didn’t put a label on you.

So I started playing with coaching pronunciation and accent. I read books and listened to people carefully. Then I threw out the books because I realised they didn’t work. I realised that perfect speech is actually imperfect. I realised I needed to teach people how to break all the rules and let the language flow in a new way.

I have a VERY good ear. And I am VERY creative. So I just listened and found ways to communicate precisely what cannot be heard or understood. I started to see people getting it. They said, “I literally feel a shift in my brain”. They said “You are a magician. Suddenly I can understand everyone” They said “I can see myself as a native speaker and it feels so good”. So I kept going.

My profession is an extremely tender topic.

People feel uncomfortable with my work. Others think it is amazing. It provokes questions of identity, and touches deepest fears of acceptance and pride, insecurities that have been pushed away and prejudices that are denied. I understand all that. But this is doing people good. I see confidence growing and barriers being smashed. So let’s Keep winning.

Why learn to speak like a native English speaker?

The truth is I don’t want to teach you to speak with a native English accent. I want to teach you to speak EASILY and EFFORTLESSLY. You have to ask yourself, why do native accents evolve? There are many many variations of native English accents. There is Australian, American, English, Irish, Canadian, and dozens of regional accents in every English speaking country! But they all evolved to deliver the English language in the most effortless way possible. That’s how speaking should be for you.

Speaking with a native English accent is really hard!

Every student will tell me sooner or later that speaking in the way I am instructing them is really hard. My response is always the same: The way you speak English normally is very hard! You have to make so much effort just to pronounce all the words and you speak slowly and your mouth gets tired and still people don’t understand you! I’m telling you how to speak this language in the easiest way possible, with the minimum effort and still be understood clearly.

So what is a native English accent?

A native English accent is characterised by very soft consonants. Consonants are the sounds we make when the lips come together for /p/ /b/, when the teeth touch the lips for the /f/ /v/ and when the tongue touches the inside of the mouth for /n/ /l/ /t/ /d/ /k/ etc. The consonants are so soft that often you can’t hear them because you are expecting them to be stronger, and sometimes you can’t hear them because they are not even there. Everytime you struggle to understand a native English speaker it’s because they are speaking with very soft or completely missing consonants.

Let it flow

Why are the consonants so soft? Another characteristic of native English accents is the breath. In English the breath is always flowing. Because consonants are produced by lips, teeth and tongue making contact, they restrict the flow of breath. When the breath is blocked it cuts the flow of words and syllables. Let it flow let it flow let it flow. When breath and voice is flowing the stress pattern and intonation pattern of English language will start to become easier to imitate too.

What do you want to express?

We do not only communicate through words. We communicate through stress pattern and intonation too. Language is a multi-dimensional system and if you ignore the stress pattern and intonation then it’s like singing in only one note or having a powerful computer and only using it to browse the internet. When you free your voice and let it flow you can start to learn the other dimensions of communication too.