Pratique du Shadowing: How I Teach Actors in Hollywood to Speak with an American Accent - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo

In this video, I will show you how I teach actors in Hollywood to speak with an American accent, and I believe this video will help you as well.

I work in Los Angeles, and a lot of my students are actors working in Hollywood.

They are foreign-born, and they're working on TV series or in films, and they need to have an American accent for the roles that they're playing.

Sometimes I work on location at the place where they're actually filming

and I help them on the same day that they're shooting

But sometimes the actors come to my office

And then we work in detail and we work on specific scripts

that they're planning to film in the future In this video, you will see me working with an actress.

Her name is Yasmin Almasri And she has an Arabic accent with also some French influence

She is well known for a role that she played in the TV series called Quantico.

She played a good twin and a bad twin.

She played both of those roles and she did an amazing job.

But in the video that you will watch here, she was in a different TV series.

She was in Law and Order and we were analyzing the script after they already filmed.

She wanted to find out what her mistakes were and we talked about the importance of word stress.

So listen to the way I'm teaching her about which words she needed to stress to sound more American.

We had already worked hard on that script before the filming, but those are the remaining little mistakes that she was still making.

And before you watch this video, I just want to emphasize the importance of stressing the correct word in the sentence.

When you stress a certain word in a sentence, you can change the feeling, you can change the emotion, and even the meaning of what you're trying to say.

I want to know what are the things I could have done better.

But the main problem that you were having is stressing the wrong part of the sentence.

For example, when you said, I had to play ball, you said I had to play ball instead of I had to play ball.

Yeah.

So stress the ball.

Or for example, there was one you said, I got on the plane.

And that sounds maybe overly emotional.

I got on the plane.

Just, I got on the plane.

I got on the plane.

There you go.

I got on the plane.

Either keep got in plane.

I got on the plane.

Right.

Or stress playing a little bit more.

But you kind of went up, I got on the plane.

I got on the plane.

Right.

That's a completely different intention.

It makes me sound like I'm trying to say something else.

Yeah.

And then the other one was when you said, I tried to call you.

You said, I tried to call you.

That sounds very intense.

You see, I think this kind of goes with what I just said

when I said the two critics

that I had for me was I would have loved to play that woman in a more rational way than emotional.

and what you're saying now kind of explains to me or confirms my doubts because I tried to call you.

Yes, so emotional.

And I tried to call you.

That's right.

So the thing to do is to not stress

that first key word as much as you're doing I think

that was the main thing that I noticed about that particular episode

and your speech in general when we practice

and how do you think I'm gonna get control of

that I would say

when you get a script analyze the lines first before you

do anything else analyze the lines ask yourself where should I

put the stress just think about it before you just automatically do it

because if you just automatically do it you might bring the cultural different the history of another woman

that has nothing to do with the character right yeah right

so yeah um don't be so passionate in every single line

but I don't do it on purpose that's the thing yes the accent for example the other line

that you had in

that script was it was they ordered another drink you tell

me what mean they ordered another drink they ordered another drink one the second one was

that we're just having a good time we ordered another drink the first one was they were getting drunk

and then they ordered another drink so the meaning completely changed

and if you're acting and

if you stress the wrong word yeah they might people might I changed the story you changed the story yeah

so pay attention to that yeah that's I would say number one thing for you look Look at the lines, analyze them, analyze what is the true meaning,

and then assume that for you it may not be in the beginning of the word.

Sometimes it is, but I would say usually it's not.

What I'm doing is something that is happening as a consequence and not as a choice.

I want to be aware.

I want to stand out because it's a choice that I made

and because I had a method a method I worked on

when you have that foundation

when you know all the rules then you can make a

choice I know the goal is first to learn the basics to know

which words we stress and why we stress them

and how we stress them yeah

and then to sound as natural as possible as neutral as possible once you know

which words are stressed then you can say okay maybe I'm

gonna say it this way then you the actor part comes in.

Then I'm going to say it with this kind of enthusiasm

or this kind of stress because this character would speak like that.

Then once you get really good, then you can play around with it and make it your own.

I would say that's great.

A lot to work on.

When you know the rules, then you can become creative with the language, but you have to have the foundation.

I really like this quote by Picasso.

He says, you need to master the rules like a pro so that you can break them like an artist.

As you can see from when we analyzed that script, when she stressed a certain word, there was a different meaning.

So it's really important that you know the rules of which words you're supposed to stress.

In my course, Rhythm and Melody of English that you could buy at accurateenglish.com, you learn 15 different rules of word stress.

And when you learn those rules, you will have the confidence to express exactly what you mean.

And people will understand your intention, but also your accent will sound more clear.

Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?

Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.

Pratique du Shadowing: How I Teach Actors in Hollywood to Speak with an American Accent - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?