This is a hilarious scene from the movie.

The pink panther.

Not really to be taken seriously, but what can we learn about accent coaching by watching this?

I would like to buy a hamburger, I would like to buy, I would like to buy a hamburger.

Okay, right away, I have a little bit of beef and that is she said it once he repeated it, not very accurately and then she exaggerated.

I would like to buy a hamburger so that's not actually natural english.

I can't stand it when people are coaching students in a way that's not natural.

No one wants to learn unnatural english.

They want to learn natural conversational english, let's keep going, let's go over to phrases I used here, I said I had beef.

What the heck does it mean to have beef beef is the meat that comes from a cow, but we also use it idiomatic lee to say I have a complaint or a problem with someone or the way someone is doing something like here.

The way the accent coaches working, I basically said this again in another way when I said I can't stand it, it bothers me, I have a problem with it.

I think something is wrong with it.

I have beef with it.

You would like to buy em baga, No, no, no, let's break it down.

I I okay, now I do love breaking it down.

This is something I do with my students all the time.

Sometimes a full sentence is too much, there's too much going on.

Melody rhythm sounds, linking reductions.

I actually love breaking up longer sentences into smaller chunks.

I I would would would okay, so she's breaking it down and she's just saying a single word, having him repeat it, but she's not giving him any feedback when he's not doing it well, and she's also not really doing it enough times for him to repeat it back In a better way.

So I have an online school, Rachel's English Academy where we do accent training with our students and the transformation they make is incredible when my students use the plates, say it method in the academy, they may play it and say it 15 times in a row.

Now, here's what's incredible about that, when you play it and say it, play it and say it, their ear does something, the mind connection works and they end up tweaking their mouth position to make a sound that's usually completely accurate by the end of their repetitions.

And they do that by themselves without me telling them what to change your tweak, they figure it out as they go as their ear matches the sound.

And I love watching this happen because it empowers the students, they realize with this method and this material, they can improve all on their own without having an accent coach, there would we are, would you know what I'm going to say again, Would that's not how anybody says that word.

So let's not teach our students.

That that's how we say a word.

Now.

Another thing that's important that she's not doing that.

I always do with my students in the academy is also give information.

It's not just about listening and repeating with adult students.

Adult students need some information, some insight into the anatomy and how we produce certain sounds.

So if you're studying with me in my academy, you get a video that goes over the concepts.

So you get it intellectually with your head.

Then you move into the audio for the training session.

Mm hmm.

Like like like like to do I to try two.

Do it.

Bye bye bye.

I love everything about this.

I love steve martin now.

Like we said, this is a comedy, This woman isn't actually trying to be an accent coach.

It's a spoof.

What's a spoof?

It's an imitation of something generally in a way that exaggerates some of the characteristics.

The other really important thing to talk about here is the character wants to sound completely american to blend in for his job.

He has a french accent.

And the one thing I want to make sure I say explicitly is that there's nothing wrong with having an accent sometimes as an accent coach.

I feel like I get pigeonholed as somebody who thinks we all need to sound the same, totally not true.

I feel like I exist for my students to help them meet their goals, Whatever their goals are accents themselves are completely beautiful.

I used an interesting phrase here, pigeon hole, Have you heard this phrase before?

A pigeon is a common city bird.

A pigeon hole did originally mean a small space for a pigeon.

Now it refers to a set of small compartments for sorting letters or papers as a verb.

The way I used it, it means to assign a particular category or class to something, especially in a manner that's too narrow.

Let's say you're an aspiring chef.

You've worked in three seafood restaurants.

You're looking for a new job and you've decided the restaurant definitely won't be a seafood restaurant because you don't want to get pigeonholed.

You want to be known to excel at various cuisines, not just seafood or an actor wants to make sure he doesn't get pigeonholed for playing the same kind of part all the time.

He wants to be hired for all different kinds of roles.

I said as an accent coach don't pigeonhole me as someone who thinks everyone should lose their accent.

Some of my students have that goal and I want to help them reach that.

But other students love their accent but want to have more ease with spoken communication and I think that's great.

Bye bye bye baby.

A Hey hamburger hamburger hamburger hamburger.

Oh my gosh, I love so much how he says this word hamburger hamburger hamburger.

Hey there.

So one thing to note for my french students, The H in english is sometimes silent but usually not like in the word hamburger we have that little escape of air sound hamburger.

Why is it pronounced in hamburger?

But silent an hour and honor.

I don't know but usually it's pronounced hem go okay.

Another thing I always try to make sure that my students become aware if they are bringing in a physical gesture.

So for example with the word hamburger ham he says mm.

Um And I would want to make sure my students recognize if they were doing that so that they could stop doing it.

Sometimes students will bring an extra movement here with the lips a lot.

That's just gonna be more work and it's going to be harder to relax with that.

So I always try to get my students to notice these extra movements and to take them out.

It's just gonna lead to a more natural, comfortable english.

I would like to buy a hamburger.

They would like to buy a hamburger.

It's not damn burger hamburger.

I'm not saying damn burger.

I said I would like to buy a hamburger.

Okay.

One other thing in spoken english so often we use contractions.

That would be much more natural in spoken english.

I would like to buy a hamburger.

Well that phrase itself.

Not very natural.

I'd like to buy a hamburger.

Sure.

But what's even more common.

I'll have a hamburger.

Or I'd like a hamburger or I'll take a hamburger.

All of these are a more natural way to say this phrase.

I would like to buy a hamburger.

I would like to buy an A Okay, so there comes a certain point where the method isn't working at this point, I would always stop with a student and try a different approach.

You can always find something that's going to get a little progress one way or another.

And if what you're trying to do isn't working, especially if it's starting to lead to you shouting or some extra attention, just drop it, forget it, leave it for a minute and then come back to it maybe with a slightly different approach or start working on something totally different, a different phrase.

In conclusion, if you want to reduce your accent, there are methods, listen and repeat and as an adult being told the specifics of a certain topic, like a mouth position or the four reduction, studying them and then working repetitious lee with audio and if you can get feedback from a teacher great.

Obviously that helps to actually all of these things are available in my academy.

I'm Rachel smith.

I've been teaching english here on youtube for 13 years and I've worked with many, many students who have wanted to reduce their accent through working with them.

I've developed my method a little different from what you saw here and I put all of my best ideas in my academy Rachel's english academy, so check it out if you think you might want to work on your accent.

As a side note, you're also improving your listening comprehension as you work through the materials in the academy.

If you want to know more, check out this video about the academy or go to Rachel's english academy dot com, you'll get access to the method, the materials and teachers to help guide you.

It's a subscription, but you can cancel it anytime, and if you're unhappy with it, just ask for a refund in your 1st 30 days and we'll give it to you and thank you for having given us a chance if you have any questions, put them in the comments below and thank you so much for watching, you can keep your learning going right now with this video and don't forget to subscribe with notifications.

I make new videos on the english language every week and I'd love to see you back here, that's it.