Josh from Splash English talks with Jill, a professional voice coach, about how good your English pronunciation needs to be. They cover accent improvement techniques and why feeling sounds physically matters for learners.
Hi, everyone, it's Josh, your teacher from splashenglish.com. if you are wondering whether you should or should not change your accent and pronunciation, listen to this episode. I got Jill, a professional voice coach and a voice artist to discuss this topic. Now, let's get it started.
Hello and welcome to the Splash English podcast, where you learn to speak better English.
Welcome, everyone. I have a special guest today. Her name is Jill. Hey, Jill, how are you?
Hi, Josh. I'm fine.
Thank you so much for that beautiful corporate narration voice. My students have been asking me about accent and pronunciation, so I decided why don't I just ask a professional, an expert who's been doing this for a long time. So, Jill, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Your background as a voiceover artist, a voice coach, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I actually come to this field from an acting background. I studied theater and acting, and then all my life I was always very good with mimicking sounds and hearing different accents. I could tell people locally. So as I got older, I started to think I really would love to be able to coach people on improving their accent or even making a standard American English accent or someone who speaks a second language improve their accent in order to help them be better understood. I thought I could apply this to the business world instead of the theatrical world and study this field of work. One of the things I really enjoy working with my clients is they're amazed when I tell them how to pronounce a word and they pronounce it that way and it's like, well, okay, we're done. You know, I mean, that's the ultimate goal. You're changing the way you pronounce one word. That's. And when you do it, you finish the practice comes from being able to do it when you're not thinking so hard about it. And if you're changing by feeling, you can practice the words until it becomes more muscle memory rather than having to think so much about how you're saying it. So that's what I started doing. And then I also. In this day and age, we're lucky enough to be able to record studio quality voiceovers from our own computer. And so I also started to pursue that. And people go to my website, Jill tarnoff.com, they can hear all kinds of demos and projects that I've worked on and learn more about speech coaching as well.
There's so much to unpack there. So, first of all, I think there's a lot that we can learn from the world of theater, because actors, they have to learn the American accent, the Australian accent, the British accent, depending on their role. And there just aren't enough material on pronunciation and accent when it comes to the English language education. So, first of all, I think there's so much that we can learn from the theater world. And the second thing that really stood out to me is when you said you have to feel it as an English learner. You know, we think that listening is really important. I'm sure it is important to a certain degree, but when it comes to being able to pronounce something clearly, you also need to feel it. So I think that's going to be a sticking point for many people. So maybe could you elaborate a little more on what you mean by feeling the sound?
Okay, well, first of all, I want to say to me, this whole concept is a lot more fun because, I mean, when people start to try to learn phonetics, it's a bunch of dots and squiggles, and I can see brows furrowing, and they're taking it very seriously. But when you say, well, just act it, pretend you're playing with it, imitate an actor or actress that you like or, you know, do lines from a movie, and you'll probably say it in the accent that was used in that role. You're not thinking so much in your head listening to how you sound. So, for example, the th sound, this is a difficult sound in many languages. And one of the for the people who speak many languages to use in English properly. And one of the main reasons is that the tip of the tongue has to come out a little bit between the front teeth. And a lot of other languages don't have that kind of sound because it's rude. People tell me, I feel like I'm sticking my tongue out so far. And in reality, it's just a little bit, but it feels like a lot. So, for example, he equated there are 2th sounds. One is whispered and one is voiced. So there's in the word this and the it's voiced. There's a vibration under the sound at the end of the word breath. That's a whispered th. So the mouth is doing the same thing, but one sound is voiced and the other is whispered. Arthur Lessak equated that voice th to the sound of a clarinet in an orchestra. So if I tell somebody to just go th, a lot of times they have difficulty. But if I say, put the tip of the tongue between your teeth and make sound come out, then they're doing it just by feeling it and the sound magically, no other sound is going to come out. A wrong sound is not going to come out because you are physically in the position to do it. Likewise, if you put the tongue between the teeth and you just don't make sound, but push air out, you get like that. But that's an example of how just by feeling for the sound, you're changing the sound.
You know, I love the analogy of the music instruments, and I'm really glad that I wasn't the only person who thought about that, because your mouth, not just your mouth, but your body is like a music instrument. And when you change the placement of your tongue or when you change the shape of your mouth, you're producing a. A different resonant chamber. So. And it's really funny that you mentioned that students don't want to do that because it feels rude. And we have, like, so much psychological hang ups about. About that.
And I hear it all the time.
Your clients, can you name some of their nationalities everywhere?
I mean, I will have definitely Korean, Chinese, Japanese, I've had Spanish, Italian, French, and as well as Americans from the south, southern states, as well as native New Yorkers and native Philadelphians who just feel that their regional accent is getting in the way of their professional image. But I mean, in Korea, you must have different regional accents. Can you tell where someone's from by the way they speak Korean?
Yes, definitely. You can definitely tell the difference by their intonation and dial.
Right. And are there unfortunately, certain images that fortunately, you know, go along with assumptions about where the person's from?
Yeah, definitely. People from the southern part of Korea are considered, I guess, more outgoing because of their dialect. And if they want to become, let's say, a TV announcer, they definitely will go through some training to sound more like a person from Seoul.
You make a wonderful point, because a lot of times people will take an attitude of like, no, I shouldn't just be judged by the way that I talk. But, well, if you want to be a news announcer, you know, you're. You have to dress for the role and you have to sound right. It's this training for the position that you want in the world. You know, we're not judging you.
Yeah.
As a person, the quality of your character.
Okay. If people ask, should I change my accent? My English teacher told me that I don't need to, but my other teacher told me that I should. How would you answer this question?
What do you think? What are your goals? Do you find that your accent might be getting in your way, do you have trouble being understood? It comes down to evaluating yourself and really making the choice for yourself. You know, again, you know, if we're applying this to the working world, to your job, that's mostly what we're talking about. I have clients who say to me all the time, well, I'm going to go home and I'm going to forget all of it. Or when I get home, I fall back into my old patterns, and I'll say, fine, you're home. Put on your slippers. You know, but know that when you're, when you're at work, you know, if you have to keep repeating yourself, it's taking a long time or people are getting a little frustrated with you, maybe make an effort. Just like you putting on your work shoes, Put on your work voice. I mean, you know, I like, I opened the podcast with my, quote, phony voice. Is it phony? I'm paid money to speak that way many times. So.
You just listened to part one. The interview is not over. In part two, we discussed how the American accent changed over time and how Americans from different regions pronounce some words differently. You can find the link to part 2 in the description section below, as well as Jill's website, should you decide to get a coaching session with her. And could you do me a quick favor? Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. That would help me reach more English learners just like you. Now, let's listen to part two.
