When I was 21 I moved to NYC dreaming to become a working actress. But I had one BIG obstacle. My English. I had a thick accent and I wasn’t fluent.
In this episode, I share with you how I transformed from being a timid speaker of English to a pronunciation expert and fluency coach who runs a thriving online business, and how I get to do what I love teaching students from all around the world who inspire me every day. This is my story.
Links to resources mentioned in the video:
The schwa (the key to American Pronunciation)
Learn about the Accent Makeover course
If you want to improve your accent and understand spoken English better, download my free American Accent audio crash course.
You can also download an interactive list of 50 of the most mispronounced words in English and master the pronunciation of those tricky words.
You want to improve but you need to practice? Join our community on Facebook – the best place to practice English online for free.
17 Responses
Keenan Mitchell Aireus mitchell Julie Simpson
Hi,Hadar thank you for your interesting videos on Facebook.I love you so much, but I wanna tell you about me and I wanna from you to help me if you can . I’m English teacher I’m from Iraq my proplem is that I understand you and everyone who speak English but I have some shyness when I wanna speak English language,so can you help me please?
Hello Dhuha,
This is Karen from Team Shemesh
Hadar knows how frustrating it can be for a non-native speaker to struggle with speaking.
So, first I suggest you watch these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjDICKlkusw
https://youtu.be/cnVJQt-GlHE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QcygiLnKPw&t=188s
Here are some amazing Pronunciation Drills to help you boost your pronunciation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QcygiLnKPw
Inspiring! And Hadar, your approach is marvelously inclusive, and realistic. My world includes volunteer service to the adult ESL community. Is there anything more charming than perfect [American] English spoken with ones own accent? And knowing that you can “make breakfast”, but deciding to share that you “prepared” that very same breakfast? Why not choose the more polite, more elegant words? Drills, yeah, baby!
FINALLY!! It’s has been a while since I wanted to get my ears on your podcast and I’m so happy i finally did! I love your story & journey for the past decade. Thank you for sharing ❤?
Omg! Just listening to your story, it inspired me so much, I’m a English student in New York City and it is hard to learn on a traditional English school.
It is a great accent with a wonderful pronunciation , well done !
It’s awesome you’re sharing the transcription!..
great well done but How can we download them??
Hi, Hadar! I like to use this kind of lesson. So please continue with it. I can do something simple when I am listening. Multitasking!
I was looking for information about your teacher. I think, what I heard, she is Leigh Dillan, isn’t she? I have a doubt. It is possible to take a course at the university about Speech and Pronunciation? If so, what is the name of the University where you studied this? I am really interested on taking that kind of course.
Thanks!!!
Every time I watch you or now listening your podcast I feel more confident to overcome my comfort zone of my native language (Portuguese) and limits. I’ve been living abroad (very close of Israel) and I’ll stay in this country for more one and a half years. I have followed you for a long period and watching your amazing classes on YouTube. Now we can listening to your podcasts wherever we are whatever we’ve been doing . Thanks so much for helping us to learning this universal language.
Divaldo – LBN
You inspire us, Hamar! Thank you!
Hey coach thanks for sharing your story and what a great journey with ups and downs! but hey your podcast is only available on ITunes and Spotify right? because I use podbean as a platform but I can not find you there.
Hey Younggod, yes. by now you can find Hadar’s podcast on iTunes, Spotify and Google Music. But you can also subscribe to the emails, so you’ll get all the episodes.
And Android?
Hey Luis, yes it’s available for Android gadgets.
1. Go to the Google Play Music
2. Launch the Google Play Music app from your Home screen or from the app drawer.
3. Tap the menu button on the top left of the screen. …
4. Tap Podcasts.
5. Search for Influency Podcast or Hadar Shemesh
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oYWRhcnNoZW1lc2guY29tL2ZlZWQvcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D
Happy listening!