Shadowing Practice: How I got my American Accent in English - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

In this video, I want to share exactly how I got my American accent.

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In this video, I want to share exactly how I got my American accent.

My full story, including all of the turning points,

the systems, and the mindset shifts that changed everything for me.

If you're working on your accent in English right now,

I really hope my story will inspire you and give you actionable tips to make progress faster.

Hey friends, and welcome to my channel.

I'm Veronica, and here I share my language learning journey to help you become more fluent

and confident in your target language not through pressure or perfection,

but with real practical habits that actually fit into your life.

I was inspired to make this video after watching another amazing YouTube creator share her own American accent journey,

and her video reminded me how powerful it is to hear someone else's story.

So that is exactly what I'm doing today.

If you are on your own English journey and want some support,

I have created a few resources you might love.

You can check out my language learning notion template to organize your study routine

and if you're ready to take things deeper i also have a full language master program on my website

which is a self-paced video course about the science behind language

learning everything is going to be linked in my description below all right let's dive into my story

and start with my english beginnings in russia i'm originally from russia i was born

and raised in a small town to the south of moscow and this is where my english journey began.

I have to mention something really important here because in Russia in general,

in a regular school, we are taught British English, not American English.

And so I started learning British English when I was around seven years old,

but obviously as a kid I did not like English.

When I was a kid in elementary school and middle school,

I really liked math, but then math became too complicated in high school and I stopped liking it.

I think one of the reasons why I didn't like English when I was younger,

but I loved French when I was younger,

French just felt way more natural to me because of my amazing teacher.

She really embodied the personality of a classy French woman,

even though she was obviously Russian,

but she would travel to France,

she would tell me stories,

and just by looking at her,

I really wanted to study French.

I honestly remember when I was in middle school,

I was like 12, 13,

I would tell everyone that I would move to France.

You know this question, who do you want to be when you grow up?

My answer was, I don't know,

but I know that I would live in France.

And look at me now,

I live in Mexico City,

really, really far away from France,

and I don't really speak French anymore,

like I don't remember anything.

But also look at my English,

like a person who hated English,

who actually studied British English at school,

my accent is completely different i'm really passionate about english

and yeah that's crazy that's just life obviously

because i went to a regular school our teachers didn't really have this native like pronunciation

and

so at the beginning my pronunciation was just a mix of

my russian accent then maybe some of the british pronunciation rules i learned somewhere

and then maybe some American rules I decided to learn.

Basically a mix of everything,

but mostly it was my traditional Russian accent.

So I think the biggest takeaway from my early experience with English is that it wasn't immersive,

it wasn't inspiring.

It was just these traditional classes that I had at my school probably twice a week.

I had to do my homework.

We were doing a lot of grammar drills.

We were learning how to spell correctly we were reading lots of texts,

but obviously there was no listening,

almost no listening, and also pretty much no speaking.

At that time, English wasn't really an exciting subject for me because I hated learning grammar,

I hated memorizing words that I knew I would never use.

What I really needed at that time was to understand the feel of English,

the melody, the natural expressions, how people actually talked.

That's exactly why I love FluentU,

and I'm really excited that they're sponsoring this portion of today's video.

I know there are a lot of language apps out there,

but I think FluentU really stands out because it gives me tools for real comprehension.

And yes, it's sponsored, but I always share tools that I find extremely helpful.

FluentU turns real videos like YouTube clips,

movie scenes, and interviews into language lessons.

So instead of cramming boring vocabulary,

I can see it used in context by native speakers.

They also have a Chrome extension which lets me learn with any Netflix or YouTube video that has subtitles.

And here is what makes it really special.

When I come across a new word,

I don't just see a translation.

I get an image, tips,

example sentences, and this is my favorite part,

links to other videos that use the same word.

This helps the word actually stick because your brain remembers meaningful moments, not isolated definitions.

FluentU also has a built-in review system that we can use to start with single words,

then move on to phrases and full sentences.

So we're actively building the skill of speaking, not just memorizing.

And we can also use FluentU to look up words and see how they're used in real life.

I find this feature super helpful.

If you want to give it a try,

I have linked a free trial

and a 40% discount code for you guys in the description below so that you can check everything out later.

Okay, so now let's talk about my main turning point in English

when I actually fell in love with the language and it happened in a very interesting way.

I think I was around 14 or 15 years old and one evening YouTube recommended me a video in English.

I mean, I was already using YouTube a lot.

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I was just watching videos in Russian

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and for some reason YouTube decided to recommend me a video in English by an American YouTuber

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and I was like why not?

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You know I don't really speak English well.

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My listening skills were absolutely horrible at that time

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but I still decided to click and I got hooked in

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and I think after that I just realized

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that I wanted to focus on my English because I really wanted to understand that YouTuber.

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I really liked her videos,

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the way she was showing her life.

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I still remember she had this like huge American fridge.

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It's not something that my family had.

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We just had like a regular size fridge.

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But in her house, they had this like two-door fridge.

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And I thought that was absolutely amazing.

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I talk about this a lot on my YouTube channel.

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I think that time was when my journey of comprehensible input in English actually began.

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Because before I was a teenager,

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all of my learning was happening in school.

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I hated doing my English homework.

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I hated my English classes.

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It was not the subject that I enjoyed.

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And so once I discovered YouTube,

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you know, videos in English,

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those old school American YouTubers,

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I really connected with their content and I started wanting to understand everything they were talking about.

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But also because it was a video and they were mainly sharing things about their lives,

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like vlogs, they were showing a lot of things.

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I was learning through visuals,

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through context, and it really helped me improve my English skills really fast.

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But also because I still lived in my small town,

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I still went to the same school,

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even though my English skills were improving,

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I didn't really receive support in my classroom.

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My teacher would tell me that I was moving too fast,

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I should just calm down and follow everyone else,

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and all of my classmates,

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they would laugh at me because they thought I was crazy,

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they thought I became obsessed with English,

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and I wanted to be better than everyone else,

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and so I think what started happening is I started becoming more culturally disconnected from my own peers,

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my own environment, because I stopped consuming all the content that wasn't in English.

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I only wanted to watch videos in English,

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movies in English, absolutely everything had to be in English.

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And so I would miss out on a lot of things,

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you know, memes and some jokes.

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Like sometimes my classmates will share memes with each other and I was like,

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I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about.

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Because culturally, I was so immersed into this world of American YouTube.

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But okay, let's actually move to high school and my college struggles.

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Again, in high school, it was exactly the same.

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All of my textbooks, absolutely everything was in British English.

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My English teacher at school would tell me that I had to learn British English.

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I had to be focused on the British accent.

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And I think because of that, I was confused.

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And also because I was a teenager.

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And you know, if you tell a teenager that they can't do something and they have to do something else,

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they're going to want to do something that they can't do

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and for me that was my American English the fact

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that I couldn't really work on my accent in school

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and try to make my accent sound more American made me even more passionate about English outside of school

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and everything else I was doing to support myself and to help me on my own English learning journey.

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But something really exciting happened when I went to college because I really wanted to get into this college in Moscow.

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It was my absolute dream and I did.

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I got in for free because I studied very hard.

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I was so excited about my journey.

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I thought that now I could finally start working on my American English

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and you know ask my professors for advice and that is actually exactly what I got fortunately.

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My English professor in college was absolutely amazing.

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I could tell that she was extremely passionate about her subject,

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about English, and her support,

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like that phrase that if I wanted to,

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I could go deeper into my American accent,

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and she would support me,

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she would help me if I needed her to help me,

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that meant so much to me,

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because still, I was in college,

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and obviously all of our materials,

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they were still in British English.

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I remember my English professor always supported me if I wanted to discuss books with her,

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if I had questions when it came to some rules of the American accent.

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Moving on my timeline, let's now actually talk about the first time I went to the United States.

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It was in 2020, right before COVID,

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and I actually got stuck in New York City.

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I couldn't fly back to Russia because my flight got cancelled.

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It was a whole experience.

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But I remember when I came to New York city in 2020 on a tourist visa

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and i went to a supermarket i started crying

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because i just got so overwhelmed i obviously always wanted to visit the states

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and i wanted to practice my english and talk to native speakers

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but i felt very scared i felt scared to go to

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a supermarket by myself to talk to native speakers i thought

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i was going to say something stupid people would laugh at me or they would be just like, what?

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Like, what are you saying?

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We can't understand.

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I was just so anxious and so scared.

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And you know what I can tell you guys?

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I think my English is slowly improving day by day.

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Like even right now.

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I started my YouTube channel in 2020.

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Actually, at the end of 2020.

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This is just something that I love doing.

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I love recording YouTube videos.

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This passion started when I was 14,

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15 with me watching American YouTubers.

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And now I'm creating my own YouTube videos too.

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If you go to my channel and you sort by the oldest videos,

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you will see how much my accent has changed over the years,

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how much my English has improved.

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I deeply believe in this concept of continuous improvement.

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If you're working on something,

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you will always be slowly, gradually improving.

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And sometimes we just don't see that we are and that is the biggest issue.

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That is why I have all of my YouTube videos to inspire you guys and to maybe inspire you to record yourself.

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This is something that I always mention in my YouTube videos.

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If you don't want to create a YouTube channel,

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that is absolutely okay, but maybe you can create voice recordings

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or some little videos just for you so

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that you can see how much you have improved

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and have those nostalgic moments when you're just watching your older videos and thinking,

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wow, like I have improved so much and I'm so proud of myself and so grateful for my journey.

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Getting used to a new accent doesn't happen quickly.

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It's a process.

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I grew up in Russia.

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I always spoke Russian as my only language.

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Getting used to a new accent doesn't happen quickly.

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It's a process and that is absolutely okay.

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I grew up speaking only one language,

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so that is absolutely normal that now that I'm learning English and Spanish,

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when I'm speaking English, sometimes I don't know how to say certain words,

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sometimes I mispronounce things, sometimes my accent is not perfect,

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and that is absolutely okay,

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because when you're learning a new accent,

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you're actually training your ears to listen to those new sounds and to learn to pick up on them,

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to actually differentiate the sounds of English from the sounds of your native language.

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The same thing with your mouth you're actually training slowly your mouth

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and tongue to be able to even create those sounds that you have never created before.

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Everything in your body has to start working in this new way,

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so it is absolutely okay that getting used to a new accent takes time.

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Okay, so now that I've shared my journey with English with you,

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with my American accent, let's actually move to my final takeaways.

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All of the things that played a crucial role in my journey.

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The first lesson is that devotion is so much more powerful than discipline.

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I talk about this concept devotion versus discipline on my self-improvement channel

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but here I just want to mention that at the very beginning of my English journey when I was a teenager,

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I started practicing English regularly not because I was disciplining myself.

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No, it wasn't discipline.

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It was devotion.

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I was truly passionate about those youtube videos about the content

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those american youtubers were creating about the books i was reading

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and that is also the reason why i didn't like my classes

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when i was in elementary school in middle school

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and in high school

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because all of the materials there were boring just regular textbooks with a lot of grammar drills

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and long boring texts and when you're practicing from this place of devotion

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that actually becomes your identity because the most powerful shift

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when you want to start building new habits

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and language learning is a habit is your identity shift i

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know it's like a joke in the language learning community

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when you're learning a language really hard you want to sound exactly like a native speaker

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and then you meet a native speaker

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and the first question they ask you is where are you from

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which means that you know your accent is not perfect

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but right now i don't care that is absolutely okay i mean i'm not from the united states of america Yes,

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and that is okay.

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Like, I actually want to share my story with people.

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I like when people ask me this question because I know it's not taking away my efforts.

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This question is meant for connection.

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People are not trying to undervalue your achievements.

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So the next big lesson that we can take away from my journey is that listening is absolutely everything.

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And not just random listening,

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but listening that is fueled by comprehensible input.

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Again, when I was in school,

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my listening skills were absolutely horrible.

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I could understand anything, like all of my answers and my tests were wrong.

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But then when I learned that listening is actually the most important skill,

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I started focusing on listening.

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Enjoy the process, choose the materials that you like,

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and then eventually your listening skills will improve and they will help you so much with your pronunciation,

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with your accent, with your grammar and vocabulary, with absolutely everything.

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That is why I believe that listening is the most important skill when it comes to language learning,

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especially when it's comprehensible input kind of listening.

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And finally, lesson number three is yes, YouTube.

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I absolutely have to talk about YouTube in this video because I think YouTube is a goldmine.

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This free content on YouTube has changed my life forever,

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and one channel that I recommend to every single person is Rachel's English.

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When I was in college and my English professor told me that she would support me in my accent journey,

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her channel was the first one I found, Rachel's English YouTube channel.

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Her videos helped me so much because at the beginning,

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I knew absolutely nothing.

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Like, I didn't know any rules when it came to the American accent,

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and Rachel's explanations were just so easy to understand.

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I especially enjoyed her longer videos where she would take an episode of friends

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and she would literally break it down sound by sound.

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I was repeating all the phrases word for word and that process helped me so much.

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Like why Americans say these certain sounds and how I can learn to make these sounds too.

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Okay guys, I think it's going to be it for today's video.

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If you liked it, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel.

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Also leave me a comment.

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If you want to share something with me,

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your feedback is always appreciated.

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If you want to know why I stopped trying to sound native in English,

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I highly recommend checking out this video right here,

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because here I talk about the dark side of wanting to change your accent,

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of wanting to sound exactly like a native speaker.

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We often think that sounding native means success, but does it?

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You'll learn all of the answers in this video.

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Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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Shadowing Practice: How I got my American Accent in English - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

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What is the Shadowing Technique?