hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from englishfulltime.com in this video I'm gonna
give you five ways to instantly sound more fluent these tips are going to come in really handy for
everyday speaking like if you feel like you're just not as fluent as you want to be but also
if you have some important event like a test in English where people are going to be measuring
and Grading your fluency or an interview where people are going to be listening to you and
thinking about how fluent is this person and do we want to hire them okay so listen to these tips
if you want to know how to instantly sound and feel more fluent in English Okay the first tip
is when you hit a wall in your communication like you're trying to share your idea but suddenly you
can't remember the grammar structure you're supposed to use you can't remember the word
you're supposed to use don't let people see that you are frustrated with your communication instead
pretend like you're thinking about your idea you know like sometimes we do this even native
speakers do this we're trying to share an idea and it's like um I can't find the perfect word
to describe it because I'm trying to describe something that is so intricate or so technical
or so specific that I really want to find the most perfect word to describe what I'm saying
okay this is actually a normal thing that happens in communication so you actually don't have to let
people on to the fact that you don't remember what grammar tense you're supposed to use or
you forgot a really basic word you can just sit there and think a little bit about what you're
saying and people will understand like okay they just need a minute to put their thoughts
together again this is normal it happens to me all the time especially now that I'm a mom now
that I'm a mom communication has just I don't even know anymore you guys it has gone to a whole new
level where basic communication is difficult for me okay because I am sleep deprived I'm constantly
thinking about a million things so when I talk with people I'm constantly pausing and just like
what am I trying to say okay so you also don't have to tell people like oh I don't remember the
grammar tense or oh I don't remember the word I know sometimes we tend to out ourselves like that
just because we want people to understand what's going on in our mind but you don't have to do that
you can just you know allow yourself that time to pause and likely the person will wait and also
when these things happen to us it feels like it takes such a long time but usually your pause
is like two to three seconds it's not like a whole minute even though it might feel like
it okay so just relax and pretend like you're thinking about what you're trying to say and
not like oh my goodness I don't remember how to uh construct the grammar of my sentence my next tip
to instantly sound more fluent is when you can't think of the right word and it becomes apparent
to you immediately that you probably won't be able to remember it in the next one to two seconds then
just start describing the word so if you can't remember the word depressed for example you can
say I was just feeling really sad and tired and you know like you can make it simple you don't
have to remember every single word all the time you can describe what you're talking about and
sometimes that will be even easier for people to understand and the benefit of doing this is
you don't lose your train of thought it's not like you have to stop and then think for a whole minute
about a word that you're missing your brain just goes oh can't think of that word can't remember it
okay so we're going to describe what we're talking about instead and you don't lose the fluency you
don't lose the fluid speech your speech just keeps going on and it continues you don't lose
any of like I said the fluency because you're just instead of using a specific word you're
now describing what you're talking about my next tip to instantly sound more fluent is to add extra
words and phrases and sentences to your speech that are not really necessary but will help fill
time and space so for example if somebody asks you a question and all of a sudden you don't
know what you think about it you don't know what words to use you're trying to think about maybe
the grammar and all these things right instead of feeling like oh my gosh I'm stuck what do I do now
just start talking out loud right just hmm that's an interesting question you know I haven't thought
of that before so here's what I think I think that okay and that sounds completely natural
native speakers do it all the time you even do it in your own language but I think sometimes when
we're speaking foreign languages we have this expectation of ourselves that our communication
has to be instant we have to instantly know what we think and what we want to say and how to say
it and that's just not how language works we have to process ideas but in your native language okay
you often process ideas out loud well you can do the same thing in English and it will help with
the fluency because you can begin speaking before you're actually really ready if that makes sense
but you do have to be thinking as you're speaking so you know where you're going my next tip there's
actually two tips in this one when you're saying something and suddenly you realize oh my goodness
I actually don't know how to say this correctly with the grammar for example you have two options
you can just keep going and risk possibly saying something totally incorrectly but whatever you're
communicating it's fine just get your idea out there but if you are concerned about grammar and
speaking correctly and you are aware of that as you're speaking like for me when I speak Spanish
I'm often aware of when I'm making a mistake as it's happening or right before it happens and I
can sort of auto correct before it happens or right after it happens anyways so if you
are concerned about that what you can do is when you're about to run into that wall change course
and just cut yourself off as if you suddenly had a different idea I do this all the time when I
speak Spanish and I'm saying something and I realize oh my goodness I actually don't know
how to say this in a grammatically correct way so I'm actually just going to go over here instead
and say something else that I know means the same thing and is grammatically correct right so it's
almost like I'm saying one thing and then I pretend like I suddenly had a new idea or a
different idea or suddenly want to say something else and then I cut myself self off and I go in a
new direction for example you could be talking about something and then you say so I had been
um I thought right I don't know if that's a good example but see how I just cut myself off right
there so I have been thinking that the it's like I thought right okay so you cut yourself off that's
totally natural because even native speakers do it sometimes we're so excited about what we want
to say that we don't even finish our sentences we just stop mid-sentence and go right into something
else so you can use that same strategy to avoid mistakes before they happen if you are aware that
you're about to make the mistake my next tip is to use intonation Rhythm and interjections to
your advantage communicate the way native speakers communicate try to use our Rhythm try to use our
intonation slow down make your intonation make that Melody go up and down because that makes it
more interesting when you speak if you're more monotone it's not as interesting and it's just
not going to make you sound as fluent but the more you use Melody and the more you have a an English
Rhythm to the way you speak like you reduce words and you lengthen words and that in a sentence and
you do that and you use interjections like you know so it was Lie week um you know okay doing
those kinds of things will help you sound more fluent and natural however I do want
to caution you don't overdo the interjections it's actually a really bad habit some people
say you know you know you know um um um all the time and then it can go from a point of being
natural and helping you sound fluent to being distracting and uh just not pleasant to listen
to okay my final tip for you is to use lots of body language and facial expressions why because
a lot of the communication that we do is actually not verbal communication it's done through our
facial expressions through our body language and if you can use your body to communicate
for you you actually won't have to do as much of the talking right you can let your hands do the
talking you can let your face do the talking for example if you want to say that you felt a certain
way but you don't remember the word you can just be like and and I I was sitting there like
how is this possible Right see I didn't actually say I was sitting there feeling shocked and
outraged or what like I didn't say exactly how I was feeling I just I showed it right so the more
you show with your body the more you communicate and it kind of makes you look and seem more fluent
and if you don't do this if you're very still if you don't use your hands if you don't use your
face to communicate then you are relying 100 on your words 100 on your voice and that's putting a
big burden on your voice and your words and I know I for example tend to be a very expressive person
with my body with my gestures with my facial expressions with my tone you can even communicate
with tone right and that helps me communicate so many different ideas and I can make nuanced
ideas too and it's really fun to communicate like that also and it makes communication a lot easier
so anyhow that's why I recommend it okay those are my tips to instantly sound more fluent now if you
feel like you understand English a lot better than you can speak it I want to invite you to join our
fluency breakthrough challenge this is a challenge we do every year once to twice a year and it is
amazing hundreds of students join this challenge we all do it together it's so much fun it's a 30
day challenge and it unlocks your fluency and your confidence like nothing else I guarantee
it you just have to try it to see what I mean and we have some really fun extra bonus things
for all the students who join us for this round of the challenge okay so that's all I'm gonna say I
will leave the link in the description but again if you want to improve your fluency in 30 days
unlock your fluency get to a whole new level and I have to say if you do this Challenge and if you
do it correctly you will likely speak more English in our 30-day fluency breakthrough challenge than
you have ever spoken in your life you will feel more fluent than ever before you will feel more
confident than ever before and you will finally really get in touch with that English speaking
version of yourself that I'm sure you have always truly wanted to be so I cannot wait to help you
make this breakthrough that's it I will leave the link below and I will see you in another video bye