- Want to sound better when you speak English?
Here are three things that you can do
to do just that.
(upbeat music)
Hello, I'm Julian Northbrook, from DoingEnglish.com,
here to help you master the English language,
faster, with less stress, less hassle,
and fewer of those bloody headaches.
Here are three things that you can do
to sound better when you speak English.
Number one:
vary the speed of your voice.
There's this huge misconception
that native speakers speak fast,
and that's why they sound so fluent in English.
But it's actually not true at all.
We don't speak fast,
or at least we don't speak fast all of the time.
We do, however,
vary the speed of our voice
to add meaning to the things that we are saying.
For example, if I want to convey
that I'm really excited about something, I will speed up.
But, if I want to emphasis an important point,
I'll slow right down.
Get good at varying the speed of your voice
depending on what it is that you want
to convey to the listener.
But, the question is, why do people believe
that native speakers speak so fast?
Ah ha!
That's a good question,
and it all comes down to the way that native speakers
chunk their language.
Which is point number two.
Chunk your English well.
When people join my English learning group,
the Extraordinary English Speakers,
99.9% of the time,they all have the same problem.
They speak fairly well.
They speak with accurate grammatical English,
but they don't sound fluent, and they don't sound natural,
because they don't chunk their language well.
Native speakers don't speak using grammar rules
and individual words most of the time.
We can do this
but we only do so when we absolutely have to.
Most of the time, we speak in chunks,
big bits of language that we store in long term memory
and just pull out and use as is when we're speaking.
And this is how native speakers
sound so fluent and so natural.
Something like, for example, "let's give it a go"
sounds fast and fluent and natural
because it is a very common chunk of language.
We store it as whole in long term memory
and just pull it out.
Let's give it a go.
On the other hand,
something like "let's try to do it"
is okay.
It's grammatical, but it sounds a little awkward,
a little slow,
a little unnatural.
The reason why is because this is not
a highly frequent chunk of language.
Also notice that when I say "give it a go"
the sounds are crushed down and blended together.
It's pronounced as a single unit.
Again, this is because we store this
in long term memory
and just pull it out and use it as is.
"Give it a go".
But, when I say "try to do it,"
the individual words are very distinct.
This is because it is not crushed down and blended together.
It's not a chunk of language.
So, if you want to sound good when you speak English,
try to speak like native speakers do,
using this highly frequent, probable, chunked language.
"Give it a go."
Not this grammatical, but unlikely,
slow, awkward-sounding language.
"Try to do it."
The best way, of course , to do this
is to learn in chunks in the first place,
which is exactly what we do
in the Extraordinary English Speakers programme.
Every week, you get a new lesson-- just study--
from me, packed with a whole tonne
of chunks, phrases, expressions,
common bits of language to just pull out,
store in long term memory,
and then use yourself in your own conversations.
Check the link in the description,
or head over to DoingEnglish.com/EES for more information.
Point number three,
speak using clear, simple,
concise language.
This is another common misconception.
People think that in order to sound advanced
when they speak,
they have to learn advanced English,
big, pompous, complicated-sounding words,
phrases, expressions, difficult, rare grammar constructions.
But actually, using these doesn't
make you sound better at all.
It just makes you sound odd.
Research actually shows that people who try to speak
using difficult, complicated-sounding language
are actually judged as sounding quite a lot less intelligent
than people who speak using simple, clear, concise language.
This, quite simply, is because the people trying
to use the difficult language--
we haven't got a fucking clue what they're talking about.
Simply, put masters of the English language are masters
because they have mastered the fundamentals,
not because they have learned a lot of advanced stuff.
So there we go, three things you can do right now
to sound better when you speak English.
Did you find this useful?
Do you wanna hear more tips like this from me,
because I've got a whole tonne of these
hidden away in my back pocket.
You wanna know what they are?
If you do, let me know in the comments,
and maybe, just maybe,
I'll have a couple more of these tippy-tips for you.
And with that, this is me, Julian Northbrook,
signing off for another video.
See you tomorrow, bye-bye.
(energetic music)