Shadowing Practice: How To Change Your Accent (Part 1: My Story) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hey, what's up?

Stephanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime .com.

In this video, I want to talk to you about how to change your accent, given that this is something that I did in Spanish.

I want to talk to you about my experience

and what worked for me because I know so many of you do not like how you sound in English.

I actually get DMs and emails about this all the time from people saying that they want to change their accent, reduce their accent, they don't like how they sound etc

and i know it's a real thing i know changing your accent

is a real desire for so many people

and i am not here to shame you for this desire

or tell you that it's wrong because this is exactly what i wanted

when i was learning spanish and i didn't want to sound like a native speaker

because that's what was marketed at me

and that's what i was told i should want not at all i was in high school

when i started learning spanish and i just loved the way the language sounded

and i wanted to honor the language by speaking it as well as possible

so i know there's this whole thing right now with you can't really say

that you want to change your accent because your accent is your identity

and i just don't believe that at the same time

if that's true for you i'm totally okay with

that i made other videos talking about this

that i really recommend you watch one is an honest conversation

about speaking like a native i think that's what it's called

and the other one is the dark side of wanting to

sound like a native speaker anyways go watch those videos i

really talk about this whole issue more in depth in this video though we are past

that this video is for people who really want to change

how they sound in english i wanted to change how i sounded in spanish

and i achieved it so today i want to share with you what worked for me.

Okay, so the first thing that really helped me change my accent in Spanish was I actually went to Argentina.

And don't hate me for making this be number one

because I know a lot of you watching are going to be like, Stephanie, there's no way I can travel to the US to fix my accent.

Don't worry, you don't actually have to travel to another country to work on your accent.

I'm just telling you my story right now.

And I did what I thought I needed to do back then.

And knowing what I know now, I now know that it's totally possible without traveling to another country.

But let me tell you what I learned about going to Argentina.

So I did a study abroad program with my university.

I went to Argentina.

I got super lucky in a way because my family was from Argentina.

So there was a lot of family, friends waiting for me over there.

And I really got to spend a lot of time around native speakers.

And that was key.

For those of you who don't really know my story, my parents immigrated to the US from Argentina, but I did not grow up with the language.

I didn't grow up speaking it.

I didn't grow up understanding it, not even a little bit.

So me going to Argentina was like me trying to reclaim an identity that I felt like I had lost.

I really wanted to get to know the country and the culture that my parents were from.

So anyways, I go to Argentina and all of a sudden, everyone is speaking Spanish basically the same way all around me

and that was the first time something like that had happened

because when I was living in California I had a lot of friends from Mexico

so I was very familiar with Mexican Spanish

but I had teachers in my university classes from Spain from Argentina from Mexico

so my exposure to Spanish was quite varied and so I could understand the different accents more or less.

And I was, I don't know, I think I had a pretty basic to lower intermediate level in Spanish.

I was one of those good students that could do very well in grammar, but I couldn't speak.

And I was so shy.

I was terrified of making mistakes.

So anyways, I had all this exposure to different kinds of Spanish through my classes, through traditional environments,

but I was never immersed in the same accent 24 -7 for a long period of time

and that changed when I went to Argentina

because suddenly I was around people who were all speaking the

same way with the same sounds the same intonation patterns

and the same words and it was amazing

and you know what ended up happening the patterns started jumping

out at me I was like oh my gosh I keep hearing this very specific pattern

when people are asking questions or when people are surprised or

when people are communicating disappointment because a lot of the things

that we think and feel get communicated in tone right

or in intonation patterns and stuff like that it's stuff

that you could never learn from a textbook

and it just started jumping out at me and it made it

so easy for me to imitate and mimic and copy

and shadow right but I wouldn't do shadowing the way a lot of you learn shadowing

and do shadowing I was just listening and obsessively studying how people were speaking.

And I was open to modifying the way that I speak.

What happens to a lot of people

is they're not really trying to change how they speak so

when they listen they're just hearing the message and replying

and moving on i didn't do that i was observing

and i was obsessing

and i was listening for every single detail i was studying the way people would move their mouths

and i would imitate that

and i usually would imitate it quietly like under my breath like you could barely hear me

because i was just trying to train my tongue to get the right positioning

and then I would do it in my head like I would just listen listen I'd practice in my head

and then I would do it very quietly I was never very loud

and I never practiced for hours and hours

and hours I spent a lot of time listening in fact

I ended up spending a few years in Argentina that's another story for another time

but I spent a few years in Argentina

and for the first few years I was so terrified of making mistakes

that I would basically not speak unless I really had to

and that's not good and I had to work on overcoming my confidence issues

and that took years but in the end because I was

so afraid of speaking I got really good at listening

and hearing the little details in the language anyways going back to obsessing

and paying attention and wanting to work on how I sounded I would practice

and I would imitate and it felt really weird in the beginning

and it felt kind of fake it felt like I was pretending to be somebody

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that I wasn't but I just had to push through that and it started getting easier.

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Now I just want to quickly compare

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that to my friend who I studied abroad with

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because she already spoke Spanish quite fluently

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and she already had sort of like her accent and she wasn't trying to change her accent.

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And so today when she speaks Spanish, she sounds exactly the same as you know how she sounded back then.

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She wasn't trying to modify anything.

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She liked her accent.

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She liked the way that she spoke.

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And it's fine because she's able to communicate just fine.

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And her accent is part of her identity, I think, you know, because she is Mexican American.

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So she wasn't trying to change anything.

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She was just enjoying the new culture and exploring and connecting with people.

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And she was not afraid to speak.

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And I admired this so much about her because I could hear when she would make mistakes, for example.

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And then I would think, oh my gosh, I'd be terrified if I made a mistake like that.

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That's basic, right?

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We can be so judgmental of our peers.

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It's so sad and I love her so much.

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But anyways, she was over there speaking freely and I was too afraid to speak, even though I had in many ways better grammar.

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You know what I mean?

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So anyways, so many stories I could tell about this phase of my life, but those are some of the things that worked for me.

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And I just want to take a moment to say that I had no feedback during this entire process.

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I know so many people want feedback all the time and they just feel so

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insecure in their ability and they want somebody to just confirm that they're on the right path.

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I totally get it.

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When I was in Argentina, though, I had no feedback.

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And when I would try to ask native speakers for help, or I would ask them about a certain sound or whatever, they were not able to help me in any way.

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In fact, sometimes the explanations that they would give were quite confusing and totally missed the mark, like had nothing to do with what I was asking.

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So I really had to train my ears.

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And I think that is one of the biggest secrets.

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I really worked on training my ears and I would study what was going on and I would practice.

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And when I would say a sound or a word, I could literally hear if I was saying it the way I was used to hearing it or not.

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So I'll give you an example because this was really cool.

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The word estás in Spanish, you hear the Esther estas that's how many spanish speakers around

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the world pronounce this word estas that's how i learned to pronounce it in school

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but i could hear in argentina people were not saying estas they were not saying

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that at all and every time i would try to say

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that word i could hear i'm like i'm not doing what

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they're doing they're doing something totally different what's going on

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and it took me a little while to figure out and

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so i would try to drill the word and i would go

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and every time i would get to the s i'm like

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no that's not the sound that's not what they're making that's

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not what they're doing whatever's going on with this s it's not an s all right

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and then one day it kind of just clicked

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and i went eh that's eh that's

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and i realized that's not an s it's like just air coming out of your mouth eh that's

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and then you move into the t and rest of it

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and and it was so cool when i finally got it

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because it was so hard locking in

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that sound was probably one of the hardest sounds for me in the entire language

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but when i got it i was like that's amazing

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because instantly my accent sounded even more argentinian

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which is obviously what i was going for and

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when you lock in a sound in one word when you practice with one word and drill with one word, you can lock in the sound.

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Once you get the sound, you can then apply it everywhere else that it exists in the language

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so then i was able to say every other s

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that comes out like that in that way and it totally helped shape

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and transform my accent so mastering those little sounds is really important

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and also when i introduce myself with my name my name is stephanie

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but in argentina nobody says stephanie they say okay they don't

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even say stephanie right they literally kind of just jumped to my nickname, Steffi, and they call me Ehtefi.

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So I couldn't even introduce myself the way people were saying my own name to me.

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They're like, oh, Ehtefi, Ehtefi.

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And I'm just like, what are they saying?

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How do I introduce myself?

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I want to say my name the way they're saying it

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because clearly this is how it's said in this part of the world.

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And so I practiced, I practiced, I practiced, I drilled, I tried, I failed, and then I got it.

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And then I locked it in and then i was able to use

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that sound everywhere and now obviously that sound is

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so natural for me and it's just awesome the other thing

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that i want to say about accent work is i already

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mentioned earlier it can feel awkward it's a gradual process

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and now looking back on my earlier videos

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and everything i can hear how gradual the process actually was

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because in those first six months when i was working

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so hard on locking in the accent i can listen to those videos now

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and I can hear that I actually sound like I'm really trying you know

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but it's okay that's part of the process

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and then over time I got really comfortable with the Argentinian accent

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but I will say it got to a point where I

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felt like okay my accent is really good I'm fooling people people think I'm from Argentina not everyone

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but a lot of people do but I felt like I was performing

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and I didn't want to feel like I was performing.

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So then I decided I was going to dial it down a little bit

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and find a comfortable middle ground between being inspired by an Argentinian accent

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and then speaking the way my mouth kind of just wants to speak.

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And that is the accent that I have settled on.

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So I'm going to show you my accent now in Spanish.

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By the way, I can imitate other accents in Spanish just for fun, like accents from Spain or Colombia,

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Mexico, etc. But my way of speaking is definitely inspired by Argentinian Spanish, specifically the porteño accent.

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So, let me show you real fast.

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This is a book that I've been reading my son.

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It's called Ruperto Detective.

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It's a children's book, okay?

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I just want to show you, especially for those Spanish speakers who are like, ooh, I want to hear her Spanish.

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Here we go.

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Una cuestión de tamaño.

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Me llamo Ruperto Sapo.

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Soy detective.

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Bueno, en realidad hace solo cinco minutos que soy detective.

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Acabo de poner un cartel que dice, sapo privado.

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Afuera de la cueva y estoy esperando mi primer cliente.

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Afuera hace frío.

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Debido a mi gran inteligencia, me doy cuenta de que eso se debe a una cosa.

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Es invierno.

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En invierno siempre hace frío.

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So that is how I sound in Spanish.

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It's easier to just read from a book than speak freely at this moment

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because I've never really spoken freely on social media and it still makes me kind of nervous.

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So I'll work on it because I think it would be really fun to make more content in Spanish.

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Anyhow, I am aware that when I speak in Spanish, my voice does go a little bit deeper and I find it fascinating.

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Many people have pointed it out to me and I hear it too.

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And I think one of the reasons this might be is because when I was learning Spanish, my husband was one of my role models.

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He was someone I was around all the time

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and I would listen to how he spoke Spanish

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and i would imitate it so i possibly you know grabbed

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that deeper sounding voice from listening to him i'm not sure

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anyways i could make my voice a little higher i don't

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really like it as much i don't think let's try it

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a little bit actually i've never done this before i'll just read a little bit

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and i'll try to make my pitch a little bit higher

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and you tell me which one sounds better Me llamo Ruperto Sapo.

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Soy detective.

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Bueno, en realidad hace solo cinco minutos que soy detective.

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Acabo de poner un cartel que dice, Sapo privado, afuera de la cueva, y estoy esperando mi primer cliente.

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Afuera hace frío.

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Debido a mi gran inteligencia, me doy cuenta de que eso se debe a una cosa.

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Es invierno.

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En invierno siempre hace frío so there you can hear

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that my voice is a little bit higher

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and I don't think it sounds bad

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so I guess let me know in the comments

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which one you think sounds better

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and then I will just speak you know whatever way I like however I'm comfortable

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but isn't that cool that we can change

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and manipulate what we do with our mouths right here in

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this video I'm talking about how to change your accent

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and the one thing I want you to know and believe is

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that your mouth is an incredible instrument you can change

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and shape how sound comes out of it this is exactly

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what singers do this is exactly what actors do it's 100

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% possible you just have to know what you're trying to accomplish because

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that will make the process a whole lot easier anyhow

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so that's it it was very simple i was around spanish

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all the time i obsessed over the pronunciation i drilled the things

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that were hard i practiced and over time my accent changed

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and it improved i don't know if that's what you were expecting

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or coming for i hope i did not disappoint with this video please let me know

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if you have questions about how to change your accent

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because i do want to make a part two

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and in the next video i want to give you really specific tips and strategies

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that you can use to shape how you sound i did

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it all on my own obviously i was winging it it took me a long time to figure things out

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and i really believe that we can make it faster

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and easier for you because i've learned a lot since then like i now know

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that you don't have to go to a foreign country to pick up the accent that is used there.

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Anyways, that is it.

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I hope you enjoyed this video.

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Please leave me some feedback in the comments.

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I love reading your comments.

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I want to know what you think about this.

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And if you haven't heard me talk about this yet, I just want to let you know

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that I now run an online community for intermediate to advanced English language learners where we practice

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and use English every single day.

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And my goal is to really help you become confident

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and articulate in English i've been running this community now for almost a year

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but i haven't really talked about it a lot

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because i've been testing so many things in the background

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but it's growing and it's so amazing

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and i can't wait for you to check it out

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and i hope you will consider joining us inside i'm sure

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i'll tell you more about it in another video okay that's all for now and i'll see you in part two

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “How To Change Your Accent”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: accent, spanish, sound, argentina. This video has 275 sentences and 3315 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:48. The speaker talks fast, about 197 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
accent noun	/ækˈsɛnt/	A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to…
anyways adverb	/ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/	Anyway, anyhow, in any case.
detective noun	/dɪˈtɛktɪv/	A police officer tasked with collecting evidence and information in order to solve a crime; an investigator.
shadow noun	/ˈʃædəʊ̯/	A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object.
feedback noun	/ˈfiːdˌbæk/	Critical assessment of a process or activity or of their results.
drill noun	/dɹɪl/	A tool or machine used to remove material so as to create a hole, typically by plunging a rotating cutting bit into a stationary workpiece.
introduce verb	/ˌɪntɹəˈdus/	To cause (someone) to be acquainted (with someone else).
communicate verb	/kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/	To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell.
freely adverb	/ˈfɹili/	In a free manner.
exposure noun	/ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/	The condition of being exposed, uncovered, or unprotected.
ear noun	/ˈɪə̯/	The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
abroad adverb	/əˈbɹɔːd/	Beyond the bounds of a country; in foreign countries.
grammar noun	/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/	A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
quietly adverb	/ˈkwaɪ.ɪt.li/	Producing little or no noise.
intermediate adjective	/ɪn.tə(ɹ)ˈmi.di.ət/	Being between two extremes, or in the middle of a range.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
grow up verb		To mature and become an adult.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
pick up verb		To lift; to grasp and raise.
push through verb		To force (legislation or a plan) to be passed or agreed to or a decision to be reached.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

I'm just telling you my story right now.
I didn't grow up speaking it.
It's so sad and I love her so much.
You know what I mean?
How do I introduce myself?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	I've been reading · i've been running · i've been testing
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have settled · I've never really spoken · have pointed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was marketed · was told · was terrified
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who really · people who were · friend who I

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 68 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, intermediate /ɪn.tə(ɹ)ˈmi.di.ət/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, disappointment /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪntmənt/, manipulate /məˈnɪp.jʊ.leɪt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like accent, anyways, detective.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: How To Change Your Accent (Part 1: My Story) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

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What is the Shadowing Technique?