Create a Personalized Framework for Learning Pronunciation | Core Training with Hadar

Hello, Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the seven day pronunciation challenge core training. This is day one. How are you doing? I'm gonna give it a minute, wait for everyone to join and in the meantime, just celebrate you and tell you that you are amazing for deciding to be here with me in this challenge and here live with me today for day one. If you are here with me live, please let me know in the comments how you are feeling and put an emoji that describes how you're feeling. For me, it would be the fire emoji or the confetti. That's how I feel right now. I sent my team a video of me singing in Hebrew just before the challenge started. That's how I warmed up. That's how I got excited and motivated to start. Actually, I don't need a reason because to get motivated because I'm super psyched to begin this training with you today. So let me know in the chat. Let me know, let me know. Okay. I do see some fire emojis, hearts, hugs, dancing. Thank you. Paolo says I'm motivated. He's a man of words, so he's using words. Amar is excited. Okay, very good. This is the energy that I want us to keep for the entire seven days. I know it's hard, but believe me, if someone can keep you hyped and excited about this, excited about English, excited about pronunciation, it's us, my team and I and the rest of the community inside the community. We have a lot of new people to our world. So welcome to all the new people who just came across this ad or video about the challenge. And now you know us. If you haven't watched the training from yesterday, the pre training, so go watch it. I explained a little bit about the challenge and about myself. If you are not new to us, if you are from the influencing community, from beyond, from new sound, from the mindset, my English mindset, then welcome. I'm excited to have you here again. And let's make this the best challenge, the best live event ever. All right, now we have a lot to do, so we're going to get started with the training for today. As you can see, I'm a serious person. I have slides and I'm going to use them if I can. Let's see. Yes. To talk about what we are here to learn today, which is how to create a personalized and effective framework for learning pronunciation. Now, I'm going to play with the size of the slides because sometimes it's going to be too small, sometimes it's going to be Too big. Here is what you're going to learn today. First of all, how will pronunciation help you get fluent? We are here to improve pronunciation. Of course, we all know that it's called the Seven Day Pronunciation Challenge, But I do it because I believe not only that it's fun, it's also super effective when it comes to being more fluent, feeling more confident. And we're going to talk about that. Then we're going to talk about the biggest challenges when learning pronunciation. So it's not easy to learn pronunciation. I'm going to address the challenges and I'm going to eliminate those obstacles throughout the challenge. So not only that, you'll learn that the things that you struggle with are not just you and they're not your fault. It's actually something that most learners struggle with. And I'm also going to give you tools on how to overcome them. Then we're going to talk about how to learn effectively. I'm going to teach you how to identify your priority. What I'm teaching you here is really priceless because it's going to help you understand how to organize sounds in English in general, but sounds for you in particular as well. And also, what is a challenge, how to know if something is challenging for you and it's time for you to work on it. And then finally, I'm going to introduce you to a resource that I have. If you're new to me, maybe you don't know it just yet. I have organized some of the top priorities, top pronunciation challenges for specific speakers in different languages. So if you find it hard to identify your challenges, then this is definitely going to help you. All right, so first of all, let's talk about pronunciation and how it will help you get fluent. The reason why I'm speaking so in love with pronunciation work, because I truly believe that it goes beyond how you sound. First of all, it grows your active vocabulary. What does that mean? What is an active. What is your active vocabulary anyway? When you think of the words that you have, the words that you use, then you have the words. You have passive vocabulary, meaning when you hear the word, you know what it means. However, this word may not be available, okay, when you need to recollect it on the spot, when you speak, it is just not there. This is why you usually get stuck. It's not because you don't know the word. It's because you know the word, but it's just not available. Think of it like a sock, like a sack full of socks that you have here. And you need you Know the white pair of socks, and you have all those colors at the top. And you know it's there. You know it's there, but it just takes a little longer to reach out to it and find it, because it's all the way in the back, right? So think about it. Think about your words like that. You have the available words, the words like the pairs of socks that you use every day, the red socks and the blue socks and the green socks, maybe use colorful socks. Maybe for me, it's a black pair of socks and that's available. So you use them easily all the time. You can find them really easily. But that white pair of socks is all the way in the back, and it takes a little longer to retrieve it when you need it. Unfortunately, when you speak fluently, you don't have time to do it. So you want to have as many words available as possible. You want to have access to them. That is your active vocabulary. Now, I teach how to reach your active vocabulary in different places. We're not going to talk about it here, but I'm just going to tell you that when you work on your pronunciation, you increase your active vocabulary. Why? Because as part of drilling sounds and repeating words, what you also do is you actually repeat a lot of words. And a lot of those words are not words that you use on a regular basis. You know them, but they're in your passive vocabulary. Simply by the act of saying them out loud or using them in context, you make them more available. You bring them into the beginning of the pile, right? So more words become more active. This is why pronunciation work unintentionally can help you grow your active vocabulary. It also builds confidence. Now, I'm going to make it smaller because I speak a lot more than I show you the slides, so you can trust me. But it helps you build confidence. A lot of times we don't use pronunciation because we're not comfortable with how we sound. We don't know how to pronounce a word. We avoid a word for some reason, and as a result, we just limit the our level of English. And as a result, it affects our confidence. So when you work on your pronunciation, not only that, you use it more, you also increase your confidence because you know how to use the language better. One more thing that it does is it will help you get stuck less. You eliminate obstacles. When you work on pronunciation, you create more smoothness and effortlessness, and that is really important. And when that happens, you get stuck physically stuck less. And also, like I said, the words are More available. So ultimately, you get stuck less. You're more fluent. There is more flow. You learn how to connect the words together, which helps your fluency, removes tension. Pronunciation not only helps you sound clearer, it also helps you to understand what is the optimal way to pronounce a sound, the most optimized creation of sound in your mouth for each vowel or consonant. Which means that maybe because you never learned how to pronounce sounds in English, we don't learn it in our first language as well. But when it happens, when we're, you know, a few months old, it's a lot easier. When we're older, we already have certain habits, and sometimes what we hear is not how we translate it to our mouth. So as a result, you might be investing a lot more energy into your pronunciation. And when you learn how to pronounce something accurately, what happens is that you start letting go of a lot of tension, and that releases the tension that you have when you speak. You get tired less. Okay. And you feel more effortless when speaking. And that affects your flow, your willingness to speak, and your confidence. See? It's all interconnected. Put yes in the comments if you can resonate with that. I want to. I want to see. Okay. Get stuck less. I see that people want to get stuck less. That's what. Why you're here. Good. So you're in the right place. Struggle finding my socks, Mateo. I get you, actually, I literally get, like, I never find socks, but real socks, not just words. I don't know why. Like, I always lose the other pair. Okay, that's a different question. Like, what happens when you just have one sock and not two? Okay, good. Yes. You can resonate with that. Yes, yes, yes. That's me. Good. So I'm not off here. What else? Of course, the obvious. It creates clarity. And why do we need clarity? Because clarity helps you get what you want. That's what we're about. You need to get what you want and say what you need to say. So you feel fulfilled, so you feel like you're making a difference, so there is impact so that you can help others. Right. There's so much that goes into being understood, more than just making it easier for them. Of course. That's great, too. We want to create trust. We want to build trust. We want to have good rapport with the people we speak with, but we also want to make a difference in the circumstances of our lives through English. English opens doors. And it's easier to do it when you are understood, when you know how to deliver A message effectively. By the way, learning how to deliver a message effectively needs to happen in your first language as well, right? Like, it's not just in English, but when you speak a second language, there are other. All these other obstacles that you need to remove. And this is why it's important to do this type of work. And also it connects you with your voice. There is nothing more beautiful, more fulfilling, and more important than loving and enjoying your voice. So who here just put me in the comments has issues with their voice? I'm not going to call it like, you can say, oh, I don't like hearing my voice. You might just not. It might manifest as not listening to your recorded voice. Maybe you don't like to hear yourself speaking out loud. If someone here has feelings that are not positive, meaning, you know, loving your voice, put me in the comments. Okay? So just look at the chat and see that it's a thing, it's a problem, it's an issue, and it has to be resolved. Because when you don't like your voice, you're less likely to speak. When you're less likely to speak, you're less likely to make a difference in the world, right? You're less likely to improve your English because to improve your fluency, you have to speak. And if you avoid speaking because you don't like your voice, and if you avoid practicing or recording yourself because you don't like hearing yourself recorded, that needs to be resolved, my friends. It's not gonna. It's not gonna make you reach breakthroughs when you have. When you haven't resolved these issues that you have with your voice. And it's not just you, it's every single one of us almost. And we're gonna get to it. We're gonna get to it. I'm gonna talk about it later. I also have a masterclass coming up where I focus more about the voice. In my program, New Sound, we have an entire module about the voice because we think of it as something that is just like, okay, it's our voice. What can we do about it? There's a lot you can do about it, starting with learning how to use it in an optimal way, learning how to not manipulate it, especially in a second language, but also getting comfortable with it and teaching yourself to love it. Because when you do, you are more likely to be. To allow yourself to get hurt and to speak up. It goes so deep, so deep. And I need you to understand that English and pronunciation and fluency, it is not just about the sounds. It is not just about the strategy. It all starts with how you feel about it and how you think about it, because that affects how you use it and your willingness to do the work. All right, I like my voice. I love it. Good. I want to see more of that in the future. All right, my friends, taking off the jacket. I don't know what I was thinking. All right, biggest obstacles when learning pronunciation. Good. I see. I do love my voice, which is amazing. This is exactly what we want to see. So all of you who love your voice, please, please, please, please. Let's see that it's possible. So tell us in the comments so other people see that it's possible to love their voice, and we want to do it both in your first language and in your second language as well, and to feel like it's your own voice and you're not manipulating it because you're thinking that maybe you should sound a certain way. Okay, all right. I'm good. I'm good. Obstacles. For those of you who have tried to learn pronunciation, here are some of the things that you might come across or that you might have come across that challenged you when it comes to learning pronunciation. The first one is where to focus, which hopefully today I'll teach you how to overcome that obstacle. What does that mean? What should I do? What should I learn? Where should I focus? There is so much to learn, and especially for people who are passionate about pronunciation, everything seems equally interesting. So we want to make sure that you know where to focus so you don't waste your time learning a whole lot of things and you don't waste your focus, because when you focus on everything, you actually focus on nothing. So it's really important to work in a thorough way and not in a scattered way. And today I'm going to teach you how to do that. The second challenge is am I doing it right? Put yes in the comments if you have experienced that in the past. So let's say you learn. You open a YouTube video that teaches you how to pronounce the R, and you're like, okay, let me try and do it. And you practice it, but then you're like, I don't. Okay. Sounds fine. Or it sounds a little strange, but I don't know if I'm doing it right. How do I give myself feedback? How do I. Like, if I don't have someone to tell me if I got this right, how would I know? And even with apps, I know that a lot of people love using Elsa. I think their voice recognition is excellent. I have other challenges that I See, with this app, but not for now. But it does give you pretty decent feedback on your pronunciation. But even though you might have gotten 86% out of 100, how would you know what to change? What is it that you're doing? So you need the tools to know if you're doing something right. We're going to talk about that at the end. And of course, if you decide to continue with us into my signature program, New Sound, that will open in a few weeks, then just so you know that we have a method that teaches you how to analyze your speech and give yourself feedback because it's so incredibly important. To bridge the gap means the English that when you know that a word needs to sound a certain way and it comes out of your mouth in a completely different way, right? So when you say something and you're like, I know that it's not the right sound, but I don't know what to do about it, you need to have the vocabulary to use when analyzing sounds when listening to English, when listening to sounds, to know exactly what to listen to and what affects your pronunciation. I use that term a lot to bridge the gap because I think it's very relevant to so many things related to English. For example, the English that you know and the English that you use, like passive versus active. But it's also the same with pronunciation because a lot of you are very much exposed to English. I think mostly American English because of popular television. But it really depends on where you're from. Some are more exposed to British English, some Australian English, it doesn't matter. But you have a certain sound in your head and sometimes it's not aligned and you just don't know what you're doing differently. And then another thing, and we talked a little bit about it today in the mindset talk, how to stay motivated and how to stay on track and how to keep doing this type of work. This is another challenge that will be discussed throughout this pronunciation challenge. Now, here's another thing, because a few weeks ago or a few months ago, I asked my students, I asked my community, what is the most challenging thing for you when it comes to working in your pronunciation? So, by the way, a shout out to my influency community members who answered this. This was really helpful. And a lot of people said that they get exhausted after speaking. So let's say you practice the th and then your tongue hurts or you practice the r and your jaw hurts. So when you practice, you need to learn how to do it in a way that doesn't get you tired and exhausted, and also you know how to monitor it. So this is a thing that could be challenging but could easily be navigated. And I'm going to give you the tools on how to do that in this challenge. And this is the biggest one, right? Put yes in the comments if you have experienced that. Okay, great. I'm learning it. I'm learning how to pronounce it. I even worked with a teacher, and they gave me feedback, and I know that I'm doing it right. However, when I speak to my friends, when I don't think about it, I go back to old habits. Okay? So put yes in the comments. If this has happened to you, you go back to old habits. When you speak, it's hard for you to implement what you learn in real life. And by the way, it's not just about pronunciation. It's pretty much about everything, because it happens with grammar, it happens with vocabulary. Right. It happens with new structures that you learn. It's all good and nice when you're just you and your computer, but then you're like, having a conversation with a friend, and it's all out the window, and you're going back to old habits. See a lot of yeses. A lot of yeses. And some of them have several S's. Yes. So that's a big yes I'm getting. So my method, my pronunciation confidence method, is designed to help you do that. Like, use the things that you learn in real life. There are no magic solutions. It's hard work, my friends. You can make it fun. You can make it easy in a. Like, hard. By hard, I mean not hard, but it's just, like, you need to invest the time in doing it. It's not physically hard. Could be fun and easy to do 10 minutes a day, but it's not something that. Oh, it's. It's because your brain is not getting it. It's not you. It really is about developing a new habit, and developing a new habit takes time. We are creatures of habit, my friends. Our brain would always prefer what's familiar than anything new, and so would your mouth and your tongue. So to be able to pronounce something differently and to use it spontaneously without thinking about it, you have to develop a habit. Okay. Which leads me into learning effectively. And I'm going to talk a little bit about my pronunciation confidence method. I have taught it in the past. It is the foundation of everything that I teach, especially in my programs and definitely in those live sessions. So let me walk you through the pronunciation confidence method. When it comes to pronunciation, but just so you know, you can use that when you want to learn new vocabulary or also grammar and also listening, by the way, but that's a different story. Okay, wait. I want to take a minute just to look at the chat to see that you're all with me. Good, good, good. All right. Thank you for the support. Keep the chat going. I see it, like, moving, and it makes me feel like people are paying attention. Otherwise, it's just me and the camera, and that's just boring, you know? Okay. Pronunciation confidence method. First step prioritization. What does that mean? Your 20%. The Pareto principle. The 20% that will affect 80% of the results, that will cause 80% of the results. Focus only on the things that will make a big impact and forget the rest. I'm not saying don't get to the rest. It doesn't matter. Because first of all, let's say if you want to be at a hundred percent instead of getting to 80 by doing 80% of the effort, if you know what to work on, you can only put it, invest 20% of the effort, but still get to 80% of the results. Why? Because you're working on the right things. This is critical with everything. As a business owner, if I don't focus on the things that would move the needle in what I want to create or build or leading to, you know, my end goal, then I wouldn't be. I wouldn't get to where I want to get. When I first started my business, I did everything. I taught pronunciation, I taught general English, I was teaching kids, I did translation, I. I was bartending, I was waiting tables, I was doing a whole bunch of things. In my first few years of teaching English and pronunciation, I like, I worked on my website. And then at some point, I still needed to do all of those things, and I actually enjoyed doing all of those things. But I was stuck, right? I didn't develop, I didn't improve. And I said to myself, okay, if you want to only teach pronunciation, because that was my main passion. That was many years ago. You have to stop doing all those other things. So I started saying no to translation work. Even though I needed the money. I started saying no to teaching kids. Same thing. And then I was only able to focus on the things that would move me in the right direction, which was to only become a pronunciation teacher. Back then, that was my goal. And eventually, even though it was hard at the beginning, that's where I got to. Same thing with my students. A lot of them want to learn all the sounds of English. So they focus on so many things, but it doesn't get them to where they want to be. Because like I said before, if you focus on everything, you focus on nothing. So today we're going to talk about how to prioritize. Prioritize your speech needs. Then once you know what you need to work on. Perception, my friends, is key. What does that mean? If you can't hear it, you can't make it. Your brain filters out information that is not necessary in your first language. All right, so if in your first language, there is no difference between pay and pay, and I'm going to say it again, because for some of you, this might be new. If in your first language, there isn't a difference in the p between pay and pay, you might not notice if I'm saying people or people. It might sound slightly different, but you won't be able to even tell what I'm doing differently. But if I were to tell you, pay attention. The first P is a regular P where I close my mouth and I release it, and I open it to the vowel pe. Pe. In the second P, I hold my air, I build pressure, I release it with a puff. It sounds like there is an H, P. And then I go into the vowel. Then you'd be like, oh, I can hear it. Pay, pay, pay. People, people. Now, I cannot expect you to pronounce this, what's called aspirated P, P that exists in English. If you can't hear it, I could tell you, okay, say pay, and you'd say, pay. I try to teach you how to do it. But if, if, if, if we haven't started at the beginning, which is how your brain perceives sounds, which is step two, perception. It's going to be very hard for you to not only pronounce that sound, but also to do it consistently. And it would be very, very frustrating for you because you'd be like, I don't know why I'm not getting it. What is wrong with me? Nothing. You just need to learn how to listen and also understand how your brain categorizes sounds and how it is different than how native English speakers, since we're talking about English, categorize sounds, and once you know that, you know how to do this detour in your brain. I'm not a native speaker of English. These sounds that I'm using right now, I wasn't born into those sounds. I never used them until I was, I don't know, 15, when I started watching American television and Then when I moved to the US when I was 21, I am creating. I created a detour in my brain. I started noticing those sounds or I've learned them. And then I realized, what are the sounds that I'm substituting it with or them with? And then I started tapping into that sound every time I knew that that's the sound that I need to use. So that is the process. So, but perception comes first, not production. Then we have production, which is the pronunciation, which, again, step two and three, we're going to do not with all the sounds, but with a lot of them in the next few days. And then it's really about the technical aspect of pronunciation, how to produce the sound. This is scientific. This is what you need to do with your tongue. This is not what you need to do with your jaw. This is what you need to do with your lips and your cheeks. Right? There are certain muscles in the mouth, and we just need to learn how to use them effectively, or we know how to use them effectively, how to use them to create the optimal sound in English. Now, this pertains to pronunciation. There is also prosody, intonation, rhythm, and stress. Same idea, but the pronunciation part is a little different. And then to build a new habit, what do we need to do? Repetition. Okay, Once you know how to pronounce the sound, great. But it's just the beginning. Because to create a new habit, you have to repeat it again and again and again. That's how you build muscle memory, and that's how you create a habit. But then it is not enough. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. You got to use it intentionally. And this is key if you want to learn something and actually be able to use it in real life. This is key because you want to get closer to how it's like to use that sound in real life. But usually what happens, sorry, is that you practice it. And then there is real life. And we need something in the middle, something that will bring the practice into real life. But also, thinking about the sound when speaking to a friend is not ideal. You want to think about your friend. You want to think about what you're saying. You've got plenty to think about when you're communicating in a second language. So we want you to use it intentionally when speaking. So this is step number five. I talk more about it. I will talk more about it during this week and definitely more later on. Okay, so back to what we discussed. So many things to work on when you want to think about when you want to work on pronunciation consonants, there is this pitch and connected speech and rhythm and intonation, minimal pairs. Wait, what about primary stress thought groups? There are 14 vowels. All of that, how to know what to work on. And this is where we're getting to the most important part of the session. So if you're watching this but doing other things, please come back to me, because this is going to be the foundation of what we're going to do in this challenge. Because I am going to talk to you about the priority chart and teach you how to use it. But before I'm going to take a sip of water and take a look at the comments. It always happens to me like my voice is perfectly fine. And then I speak and there's all this. This extra stuff coming up. It's the coffee. Okay. I repeat it again and again. Flap, T and D. Repetition is key. Yes. Good. All right, my friends, let's talk about the priority chart. The priority chart is a way to organize pronunciation challenges. Now, what is going to be challenging for you depends on so many things. One and the main one. What is it? What do you think affects your pronunciation challenges? Let me know in the chat. Now, I'm going to see it in delay, so I'm going to continue talking before I see it, and I'm going to come back to it. But some of the things that affect your or may cause a certain challenge is first of all, your first language, the sounds that you have in your first language, and the phonology of your first language. It's how the sounds are organized in your head or what is allowed or not allowed in certain languages. For example, if you speak a language that has no consonants at the end of syllables except for maybe nasal consonants. Japanese speakers, I'm speaking to you. If this is a constraint, it's going to be challenging for you to to use structures that are different in other languages unless you train yourself or unless you were exposed to it in an early age. So exposure affects it as well. If you were exposed to English or a certain dialect of English in this, like, at a certain age, that also affects how you perceive the language practice, your willingness to change. Because sometimes people don't want to change, right? They might think it makes them sound different or fake. And as a result, they won't make those alterations, which is totally fine. We're not here to change anyone if they don't want to change. But that could be the reason why one thing could be more challenging for you than other things I've worked with. So Many people, one on one. And I remember that with some people that, that came to me with the same pronunciation, let's say, of the sound r. And they would pronounce it as. And it started the same. They had the same initial pronunciation. One person would have an easier time to shift once they got my direction, and another person would not be able to do it whatsoever. They have the same mouth, they have the same muscles, they have the same ears. Yep, for one person it would be easy, and for another it would be a lot harder. So it really has to do with so much more than just what you are born with. Has a lot to do with, with what's happening here. And like I said, your willingness to adapt and to change. And sometimes it's even something about, you know, like how you translate sound into movement. Okay, so all of these things. Let me see my first language. Let's see what your answers are. I want to see. Get tired pronunciation challenges. Okay, you're going into. Sounds good. Okay, so let me. When it comes to the priority chart, it can help you identify the most important things that you need to work on. Like I said, if you work on everything, you work on nothing. So you want to focus on the things that are most critical. Now, I organize this chart based on how a certain challenge affects your clarity, meaning that if you pronounce something a certain way and the challenge is a high priority challenge, you're less likely to be understood. But if it's a low priority challenge, then you are more likely to be understood and then it's not a big deal. So high priority challenges are going to prevent you from being understood, and that is important. This is why I'm saying this is the first thing that you need to work on because you want to be able to say something so that you get what you want and then people do what you want them to do or respond the way you want them to respond. But if there is something that creates an a challenge or there is an obstacle in how they listen to you, then obviously it's going to affect your communication. Now, by the way, if you go to the main website page and you go up to resources in the navigation bar, you will see the priority chart there. I'm going to go over it now, but it might be a lot for, for you to kind of like process. So just so you know that you have access to it and you will have access to the priority chart and all of those resources and all of those videos until one week after the challenge is over. All right, we're Going to share the exact date. So if you can't watch the live sessions and you're watching the replays, make sure you do it. And you have an additional week to catch up. So you can find the priority chart on the website. And now I'm going to tell you what each of those challenges are. High priority, low priority, and medium priority. Wait, no, we're going backwards. Okay, high priority. Here are some of the things that if you struggle with, I would highly recommend for you to start with those. Okay. To focus on those first. It doesn't mean that you don't need to work on all the rest, but this is something that is. That would get you more results if you work on that. First of all, consonant swapping. What is consonant swapping? When you replace one consonant that exists in English with another consonant that exists in English. So for example, let's take the American R or the English R, not just American. And let's say I replace it with right. So I took one sound and replaced it with another sound that exists in Arabic, Russian, Spanish. Right, right, right. Okay. This is a challenge, but it's not a high priority challenge because doesn't exist in English. Okay. So I would recommend working on the R. But. But it's not critical. However, if you take the R and replace it with an l. So instead of right, you might be saying light, for example, a challenge that Korean speakers might face. Then it might be more critical for your intelligibility, for your clarity, because people will first of all hear the word that is with the other word, like light. They'd be like wait, light, even though you meant to say right. So when you replace a sound that exists in English with another sound that exists in English, that could be a challenge. But even here, there are some sounds that if you swap them, for example, if you say tanks instead of thanks, not a big deal. If you say sanx instead of thanks. So if you replace the thumb with a T, it's not going to affect your clarity so much, but if you replace it with an S, it will. So even here, I organized it and it's all on the chart in a way that will help you know what's more important and what's less important. Are we good on consonant swapping? Did you get what that is? The video is freezing. Is it freezing? Okay, maybe not for everyone. Sound deletion. For some speakers, it's hard to pronounce consonant clusters at the end. And a word like text might be pronounced as text. They might just drop it. Mind would become mine. For me, it's fine. All good. All good. All good. See a lot of yeses and no's. So for some. Okay. It's okay. It's okay. You know, we had lives in the past where everything would crash. My WI fi, my sound, my camera. I think today we're doing good, right? Like, not a lot of tech issues, thankfully. So sound deletion is critical if you tend to drop sounds at the end of words or at the end of certain syllables. This is definitely something that I would focus on if I had to tell you. Okay, here it is, right? If you had a teacher in front of you telling you, work on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, great. But you don't. So this is why we want you to have this priority chart sound insertion. Sometimes people add vowels. Let's say in some languages, you cannot have a word that ends with a consonant, like in the word bag. And you might add an U sound at the end, bagu, Right? So you actually add another syllable. That will affect your clarity. And this is something that I would recommend for you to prioritize than other challenges. Misplacing the primary stress will affect your clarity. Integrate instead of integrate. We will not have time to go deep into the primary stress. Unfortunately, I do teach it in my program, but it is something that is important to be aware of. And I have a video about primary stress. So if you struggle with it and you need more tools, let us know and we'll direct you into the free resources that we do have. Let's move on to medium priority. Medium priority is we still have important things here, but let's say that if you had to choose between something that is medium priority and something that is higher, high priority, I would go with high first, take care of that and then move on because the results are going to be your ROI return on investment. You is going to be higher. Okay. You're going to become clearer, faster. Consonant swapping. So that's another segment of sounds. R with a W, th with a T, s with a z. So, for example, if you say ice instead of I's, of course it will affect your clarity, but it's not as critical as right versus light. So consonant swapping, vowel swapping. This is merging similar vowels. Sheep and ship might be pronounced as sheep and sheep. So if you happen to pronounce similar vowels the same, it will affect your clarity. Usually people get it. They get it from the context. They get it because these are common substitutions. But again, if you want to own your pronunciation, this is something that you could work on. And we will work on it in day number three. Diphthong simplification. So in English, there are five diphthongs and. And some speakers reduce the second part of the diphthong. A diphthong is a changing vowel like o, A and actually there are two vowels that go into one syllable a day. It's not two sounds. De, e one day. And some people just don't get to the second part. Day, go. And while sometimes it might be okay, I don't want to go, okay, you still get it. But if you say, let's say sell instead of sale because you didn't pronounce the diphthong, it will change the meaning of the word. So this is why it's important to understand that this is something that first of all, perception. Be aware of it and then make sure that you change it. If you've already taken care of the more critical things. Using the wrong intonation for your message. Okay, we're going to talk about it in day four. Everything related to prosody, really, I'm super excited about day four. So make sure you stick to the end. Don't just be here on day one and then forget about it, because I'm going to be teaching you a lot of great things about intonation and address all of these challenges using the wrong intonation. So people might not get your point, or they might think that you are sarcastic when you're not, or that you're asking a question, or that you're stressing something else than what you had meant to stress. Emphasizing every word the same, putting a lot of emphasize emphasis on each word could also be a challenge. So you might be pronouncing everything perfectly in terms of the sounds, but if you put an emphasis on every single word, it's going to be hard to understand your main message because English has a certain hierarchy when speaking. And then mispronouncing other key sounds like an R or an L or an oo or other sounds of English that are, let's say you're pronouncing the R, as in right? So it will pose a challenge, but not a critical challenge, because people get used to the substitution. But again, it also depends on the speaker. It also depends on the pronunciation. So of course there are some nuances here that we would need to address. But if you are studying on your own, this is a really good tool to use. Low priority here. There are a lot of things that go into low priority. One of them is actually pronouncing all the different T's the same. And some people are going to resent this, especially pronunciation lovers and people who love learning about the different T's. I am one of them. So don't get me wrong, I love teaching the different T's. Like the T in time and how it's different than the T in better and how that's different than Internet or kitten or cat. All different T's. However, if you were to say time, Internet, cat, and pronounce all the T's the same, you, you will be perfectly understood. So it's fun, it could help your confidence. But in terms of clarity, it's not critical. I do teach the flap T in my program and I do teach all the different T's at the end of the program because I think it's good to know. But just so you know, in terms of how it affects your clarity, because the end goal is clarity, not necessarily accuracy. Clarity over accuracy. This is a low priority challenge. And then we have, let me things like subtle mispronunciation. So let's say you know how to pronounce the R, but there is something off with it. Red. Red. Right. It's not strong enough. Or the th is like a little tight. Like think it's fine, but it's a little tight. Or maybe your P right is not aspirated. So I call those subtle mispronunciations. And basically, again, I would fit it into the low priority section. And then lack of pitch variation. You could be perfectly understood if you spoke on the same pitch level. Right. Like, just like I'm doing right now. It's called monotone. Monotone intonation. And it's fine. And we might be doing it in our first language as well. English is very varied. And while there are a lot of native English speakers who don't change their pitch, this is important for communication. We're going to talk about it in day four. But I would also address it as a challenge that you could overcome, but not critical because you're still understood. All right, how are you feeling? Who here feels like they have a challenge that is categorized as a high priority challenge? Put me. Actually, what I would want you to do is put the different categories that you feel you need to work on. High, medium, and even low. Yeah, so we have some high priority needs here. Good. Let me know what it is. Okay. What is it? Consonant swapping. Is it misplacing the primary stress? Good. I'm not sure. Good. I'm going to teach you how to do that. The exercise for today, Ricky, I saw that you said you're not sure. So the exercise, the homework that you have for today, it's very short, like five minutes, 10 minutes, no big deal, will help you identify it. You need to sit with a list and see what's relevant for you. So how to know. Which leads us to how to know if something is a challenge for you. See, I read your mind. First of all, you're conscious of it. You're aware that it's happening. You're conscious of it and it bothers you. So this is why I would say going back to the different T's, if you are really bothered with the fact that your T is not flapped or that you can't say the word order because you have the flap T and the, and the R right after the R and then the flap T or D, same sound or party and it bothers you and you avoid saying it. We can move it up to a high priority challenge because you don't want to worry about your speech. And if you're conscious of is what it is, it's a challenge. Then you find it hard to pronounce a word with this sound. So sometimes you can just recognize that there's like a group of words that you avoid using or you don't like to say the word the right. So you avoid using this article. Maybe, you know, forget about grammar. I wanted to say a bad word, but forget about grammar. Let's just not use the word the because I don't like to pronounce the th. So if you find it hard to pronounce words with a sound, it is a challenge. You avoid using it. Okay, same thing. Something happened with the animation here. As you can see, people may have trouble understanding you start checking with yourself what are the challenges that when people don't understand you. When does it happen? Okay, does it happen when you ask a question? Does it happen when you maybe say certain words? Maybe when you say your name, maybe when you say the word world. So sometimes that could be a good indication as to something that is challenging for us. And then it's high priority and you weren't aware of it. And I'm going to talk about it more when I talk about challenges by language. But sometimes it's in high priority and then you realize that, yes, maybe it's something that you're doing, but you weren't aware of it. It doesn't mean that it's not a challenge for you. Because if it, if, if you realize that, you know, when you looked at it, you're like, oh yeah, I actually do replace those two sounds, then then there is a is, then there is an issue with perception. You weren't able to hear it and as a result you won't be able to make it. And that is important. Okay. And also if it's high priority and it's hard for you to pronounce it, okay, another thing, if. Let's say you are. Let me think about one of the high, okay. Consonant clusters. You tend to drop consonants at the end and it's really hard for you to pronounce a full cluster when there are a few consonants one after the other at the end of words. If it's hard for you, it probably means that it's a challenge and you need to work on it and it would serve you because everything is possible. Something is challenging for you to pronounce. There is nothing wrong with you. You just don't know how to use it. And it's just a matter of learning how to pronounce it. Everything is learned, my friends. Everything is learned. You know, there are some languages, African languages, with clicks and ticks and over 80 different consonants. And sometimes the subtlety between consonants is so small for people who are, who weren't born into that language. The human mouth can do miraculous things. So you are able to do it. It's just a matter of learning it. Now, if you don't want to do the hard work or go of going over the pronunciation, the priority chart and trying to figure out what your challenges are, I have a resource for you. It's also linked, go to the navigation bar, go to resources on the challenge page and it will take you to challenge by language. And I actually have several languages where I have already analyzed the key challenges for those speakers based on the phonology of English versus that language. So I have it for Spanish, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Brazilian, Portuguese, Japanese, Arabic and Hindi, Urdu. So if you speak one of those languages and you don't have it just yet, there is a free resource that actually lists the top 10 challenges. And also you will find additional exercises, drills and audio practice for you to work with. I'm sorry that I don't have it available for all languages, but if you speak a similar language, then it might be relevant for you as well. But either way, I want to teach you how to own your speech and own your pronunciation. And one of the ways to do that is to really develop your listening abilities and your ability to decipher between one sound and another and what's important to you. So giving, I want to give you the tools to do it on your own and not just to be like, okay, this is what I need to work on. That's it. Because it really. It will really set you up for success a lot more than me telling you what to do. Okay, here's what we learned today. We learned how will pronunciation help you get fluent? How will how pronunciation will help you get fluent? Switch the words there. The biggest challenges when learning pronunciation. So I kind of like talked about it, but it will be resolved on day five. How to learn effectively pronunciation confidence method. How to identify your priority. We talked about the priority chart. What is a challenge? How to recognize if something is a challenge. And. And also I introduced you to challenge by language for some of the languages so you can have all the resources available to you on the website. All right. For tomorrow. Oh, your daily task. Your daily task. Your daily task, my friends, is in the workbook and I just skipped it. So where is it? Just go to the workbook because obviously it's not here. Go to the workbook. Here's your daily task. I'm going to say it. It's not written, but remember it. Listen to the mindset talk. I recorded it this morning. If you haven't just yet, it's only 10 minutes, so go ahead and listen to it. Go to your workbook. Identify your main challenges, your main pronunciation challenges based on the priority chart. Take a look, see what is challenging for you, and write it down. Answer the questions that I have for you in the workbook, and that's it. Engage. Connect with people. Watch this session. Obviously you're here, so you're watching this and that's it. Do you have any questions for me? We have five more minutes, so if you have any questions, let me know and I'm gonna look to see if. Okay, great. So Stephen is asking, is it important? Or Stefan, is it important which accent I want to learn British or American? Just want to say a shout out to Amar and Yelena and Sergey and the rest of my team who is monitoring the chat and helping me with the questions. So thank you, Lena, everyone. So, team, I love you. Is it important which accent I want to learn? British or American? It doesn't matter. Here's the thing. Do whatever you're drawn to and whatever you were mostly exposed to. Okay? So if all of your life you were exposed to, let's say, British English, then it might be easier for you. Okay. So you won't have to bypass it. Ultimately, it doesn't matter because the purpose is not having the right accent unless you're an actor and you want to work to get certain roles speaking a certain accent, then it doesn't matter. It's a matter of clarity. And so many of the vowels and consonants are the same in British English, American English, Australian English, and everything that I'm going to be teaching you in this challenge of the things that I teach in my program are relevant for all dialects, right? Maybe with the exception of the R. That kind of like changes a little bit in some diphthongs. But the most important thing is that the key sounds are pronounced in the most optimal way, right. To create clarity and to avoid tension. And then, you know, when it comes to have owning a certain accent, this is where prosody comes in. The melody, the intonation, the rhythm, all of that actually is more important when it comes to certain accents. And then I would say just do whatever you enjoy listening to and what you were exposed to most of your life and what you like. Second question. How long should I practice? How many minutes a day? I'm at this. So Jatine is asking that. I'm a busy person, so I would always try to look for the most efficient practice for you so that you don't spend a lot of time. Like I said, if you only focus on the most critical things and you learn how to practice effectively. Unfortunately, we're not going to go deep into effective practice. And the pronunciation challenge, I teach it in my course, but I will give you some tools on how to practice, and I have a lot of free videos available for you to practice with. I believe that what's more important is for you to develop a sustainable habit of practicing 15 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day. But to build a habit, you need to develop to create an upper threshold. Otherwise it would be very hard for you to stay on track. So what I usually see is people getting excited and practicing for an entire hour for a certain period of time, but then they just get tired of it. It becomes a bit too much. So I would say if you practice effectively, 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, is enough to build those habits. It's more about the repetition, the consistency, than deep, thorough practice when it comes to pronunciation. And also, there is a point. I don't know if this is like, if you can, I'm sure you can relate. But when you sit down to practice, you have the first, like, 20 minutes, 30 minutes when you're fully focused, and then at some point, you get distracted or it starts to become a little harder to remember things. So I'm saying Like, it's better to do efficient and concise work where your brain is fresh and is able to learn and then to do other things. Maybe just practice speaking or do other things related to English. If you still want to do English, then you know, forcing yourself to do something when your body and brain are not ready to actually learn, because that's just going to be a waste of time. And then you know what happens? You become frustrated and you feel stuck on a plateau because you're like, I'm doing all of those things and I'm stuck. Effective practice, my friends. High performance practice. Okay. Alexandra is saying, sometimes I can't understand the different pronunciation between can and can't. Not your fault. It's very subtle. So I'll take a few more minutes. I know I've made the commitment to stick into one hour, so I'll take five more minutes to answer the rest of the questions. But if I don't get to all of your questions, my team is going to share a link to the Q and A form where you can submit your question. Because on day six, I'm only going to answer questions. Okay, good. The difference between can and can. Can has a k sound, then the A as in cat, but then there is an N. So the A as in cat actually sounds a little bit like that's the stressed form of the word can. However, this word is usually not stressed unless you want to stress the word can, and it's usually reduced to can. Can. I can do it. I'll call you later. I can pick it up after school. Yes, I can. When you are stressing it, usually when it's at the end of the word or when you want to emphasize that it's the positive form, that's when you use the Yes, I can. Yes, we can. And then you end it with an N. That's the can. The word can't. I deliberately pop the T right now. Starts the same k N and then t. However, this is where it gets tricky. The T at the end of word. At the end of a word, especially after an N is held. So basically, you don't hear the T. You just hear an abrupt step of air or an abrupt step of the n sound. Can't. Can't. That's the T. Can't. That's the t. So a lot of people who are expecting a t and they don't hear it, they hear can't. It sounds like I just said can. But listen to the difference. Can. Can't. It's a little more nasal. I'm Kind of like grabbing the T in my nose. Can't, can, can't. Another thing is that the can't will never be reduced to a schwa. You will never hear I can't do it. Never. It's always going to be that a sound. I can't do it. So usually when you hear that sound, assume that it's the negative form, right? Because otherwise it would probably be pronounced as k. And again, we're speaking about listening, we're not speaking about pronouncing. So this is how you distinguish between the two when you're listening to those two words. When you are speaking, pop the T, my friends. Accuracy over clarity. Clarity over accuracy. My brain is already on fire right now. Clarity over accuracy. Say the T. Can't. Can't. First, because a lot of native speakers will pronounce it like that anyway. Okay, Permission, native permission to pronounce the t. And second, because you won't, you know, you sometimes, if you're not used to pronouncing the held t, you might just drop the t and say cam and not actually pronounce the can't. That help. Can't. And as a result, this is the, this is the subtle, the low priority. And as a result, you might be misunderstood. So when you are pronouncing it, just say can and can t. Pop the tea. And when you're listening, look for those clues that I've given you. The quality of the vowel before and the quality of the n after. We can do it. Yes, yes, we can. With the a sound, Angel is asking, is it possible? Or angel, is it possible for me to pronounce every high priority pronunciation clear? Clearly, if I work hard, a hundred percent, yes, I have seen it happen. There is a proven method to do it. It's all it takes is to have the right strategy, the commitment in building that new habit. Yes, yes and yes. Okay. And like I said, I do think that working on your high priority would serve you. So the answer is yes. Do you recommend to use app for pronunciation to practice? First of all, it depends on what app. And second, it depends that, like, it's important that you don't get addicted to it in terms of or dependent on it, right? What I don't like about those apps that give you feedback is that you become so dependent that you don't even know if you're pronouncing something correctly or not without checking it yourself. Right? And when you work on your own and you use a method where you can like say something and listen to yourself, and actually. And you're actually able to hear the difference. It would actually give you tools to pronounce it better next time. And I just depend on what you've heard because you know what you're doing now. I think it's an additional tool that could be very helpful. I love technology. Don't get me wrong. I love voice recognition or any AI solution. It's just that you want to make sure that it doesn't take over your ownership of your journey and you don't become too dependent on it. I would say that it's true when it comes to apps and also when it comes to working with a teacher. When I teach my students and when I used to teach my one on one students, I didn't teach privately anymore. I wanted to make sure that they know how to give themselves feedback before me telling them what they need to work on. Right. I would always ask what do you think is the challenge here? Right. And help them listen to it differently. And I would encourage them to do that with their peers because that's how it's like, you know, getting the fishing rod and not just the fish. Okay. Difference of live and leave. Day three, my friend. Tense e leave lacks I live. But we're going to go deeper into that when we talk about vowels. Okay, stay tuned. How to handle with pronunciation with real conversation. Because there's no time to think. This is why you have to build the habits when you practice. And this is like when you implement the pronunciation confidence method, an intentional practice. So that needs to happen for you to be able to use it in real life because you don't need to think about your pronunciation. I'm going to say it again for the people in the back a little louder. You should not think about your pronunciation when you're speaking to people who are not your practice partners or your teachers. You need to think about them. You need to think about what you want to say. You need to have freedom. You don't want to think about whether or not you're sticking the tongue out. Right. This happens in practice. This is why creating like a, a healthy learning habit or practice habit is not, is not less important than the actual work of pronunciation. Okay, my friends. Okay, last question. So I'm going to answer this. Last question, alas, is asking. I've heard people say that a certain age you can't make your mouth create those sounds. Is it that? This is very discouraging. I hope it's not true. What are your thoughts that are. I say that what people say to make you feel bad about yourself is to begin with, not true. And specifically about this. Absolutely not true. You have the same tongue, you have the same mouth. It's just a matter of muscles. It's just a matter of learning what to do with your mouth. I have worked with people who are with children at the age of four year old and, and with people at the age of 70. So like an, like I've gotten results for everyone. It's all a matter of how to use your mouth and not to let limiting beliefs hold you back. Because if you have a belief that it's not possible for you, it will not be possible. Remember what I said at the beginning and I don't think you think it's. It's true. According to your question, I. I believe that you know it's possible for you and you just need this affirmation. So I'm giving it to you. I'm telling you, you can absolutely do it at any age. I've had students again at all ages seeing results. It's all a matter of how willing you are to change. Okay. It's a per. It could be a personality thing. It has nothing to do with age. All right. More water. Do you recommend using youglish? I love you, Glitch. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so thank you so much for joining day one. This has been a pleasure. Thank you for the great questions. Thank you for your participated participation in the chat. Go check out the workbook tomorrow morning. If you haven't listened to the mindset talk, go listen to it. Tomorrow we're going to have another mindset talk and in day two, we're going to start talking about consonants, which is also very, very exciting. I believe that my voice is going to be better tomorrow. Woke up like this. Thank you so, so much my friends. I love you all. Take care. Post videos in the group with your insights, with your thoughts about today's training and have a beautiful rest of the day. Take care. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.