Hi everyone, and welcome to our 186th podcast.

Today's episode is going to be different from every podcast I've ever done before.

Today I'm not going to teach a physical skill.

I'm not going to talk about the vocal tract or listening skills or ways to practice pronunciation.

Instead, I'm going to touch on an emotional aspect that comes with working on changing the way you speak,

and that's the natural feeling of vulnerability.

The cause of the feeling of vulnerability that I'm going to talk about is very

different than the fear of making a grammar mistake or of embarrassing yourself by using the

wrong word at the wrong time. This is the vulnerability that accompanies feeling fake, or feeling like you're acting or pretending when you change your pronunciation.

I can't even count the number of times I've heard a student struggle with a pronunciation skill, and then finally, like magic, say something absolutely

perfectly. Then, just as I congratulate him or her on how great it sounded, that person

replies that it felt or sounded weird. It didn't really sound like it was he or she who spoke. To that person, it sounded

like they were acting like something they're not. The person felt like he or she was

pretending to be a native English speaker, and somehow that made the speech sound less authentic

or less genuine.

It's interesting that this happens so often.

Let me tell you a few things about this.

First, sorry, but native speakers don't usually notice

when something was said really nicely, really clearly, or more

like a native speaker. It's a little unfortunate and maybe even unfair because so much of the

hard work that the student does goes unnoticed until something was said in a way that causes

confusion again.

...