Hey Naturals, How's it going? Welcome to Go Natural English.
I'm your English teacher, Gabby, and I'm really excited
to be here with you to share 3 ways that you
can respond more quickly in English.
This will make you a more fluent, confident English speaker.
Now a good way that you can practice these strategies
that I'm going to share with you is by taking a quick
online lesson, a live lesson with a teacher at our sponsor
iTalki. You can get 2 lessons for the price
of 1 when you visit GoNaturalEnglish.com/italki
GoNaturalEnglish.com/italki Now let me share
these 3 awesome strategies that I know will help
you to feel better about your English and they're going to make
your conversations smoother, faster and help
you get rid of that hesitation that you feel when you're trying
to think of what to say in conversation or
maybe in a test or in your English class or at work.
Ok so let me share these 3 strategies and some examples
and how they can work for you. Ok so we have number one
situations. So, I want you to think
about common situations where you might use
English. There are some common situations that everyone
experiences. It could be, for example
going to a cafe and ordering coffee
it could be going to a restaurant. Maybe it's
going to work and talking to your coworkers or
as simple as greeting your office mates when you
arrive at work. Maybe it's related to transportation if you take
the train or the bus or you take a taxi or Uber
or something like that. Each person will have slightly
different common situations depending on your
daily life, your regular activities, but think about
what are the common situations where you're going to use
English. So let me take the example of a coffee shop.
I love coffee, as you can see I have my mug
of coffee right here, my cup of coffee. And
I also like to go out for coffee a lot. I think it's fun.
When I go tot the cafe I can expect a specific
usual common situation
a common kind of script to happen.
I get to the front of the
line to the cashier or the barista
as sometimes they're called in a cafe, the person who works
there, who takes your order and makes your coffee, and
they'll probably say, "Hello! Good morning!
What can I get you?" Or "What can I get you?" If they're
speaking in natural, fast English
and I might say, could I have a
small, black coffee?
Hot. Please? If I'm feeling
kind of talkative I could add to that. I could say, "How are you?"
"How's your day?" But it's up to you, right?
I'm just giving an example of a common script. What you can expect
that person to say and then you
have your common response. So if I know
the barista is going to ask me, "What can I get you?" It's not going to
shock me. I'm going to think, "Oh! What did they say?!"
and hesitate to respond, "Oh! What do I say now?!"
I'm going to be ready for that and I'm going to have my response
ready. Just like that. It's easy when you have
your expectations set
and you've practiced in your mind for common situations.
Next, let me talk about people.
Other English speakers can give you a model
for how to respond quickly. If you listen
to native speakers having everyday conversations
around you, you can pick up and
copy some responses that you like. So listen
for common responses. Maybe someone
showing their interest. Maybe people often
say, "Interesting!" or "Yeah!"
or "Cool! Great!"
You can listen to peoples' conversations and
pick up the kind of phrases that you feel would work for you.
And say them in your mind. It's just like copy and paste
on the computer. Copy that word or that phrase so that you
can use it later to respond to other people. You might
also want to copy some ways that people show understanding
like "Ok, got it." You can copy
that and use that in your own conversations. So find
English speakers that you can relate to. Maybe someone who has things in common
with you, maybe same gender, same age
same profession, same interest, it doesn't have to
be somone exactly like you but sometimes it helps for you to be able to
copy and paste those phrases if you feel something in common
with that person whom you're copying.
OK finally, tools. What do I mean by, "tools?" Well
I want you to remember a few phrases
or at least one phrase that will help you to buy
time. If you're not sure what to say
you don't have to just say something that comes out
right away without meaning it. You can buy yourself some
time while you think. For example, if you're in a conversation
and you don't want to hesitate, you want to respond
quickly, just say something like, "Let's see."
Or "Let me think."
Or if it makes sense, if someone asks you a question, you could say
"Good question! Let me think." So you can add them
together, right? Or, if you're in a conversation and someone is sharing their opinion
you could say, "Good point! Hmm I think..."
OK so these are some phrases that can help
you to buy time and make it seem like you're speaking
more quickly because you are joining the conversation, even though
you're just buying time to think of something
more interesting, more substantive to say.
So I hope that these 3 strategies really help you.
Think about common situations, think about how you can copy what
other people say and remember you can use a phrase as a
tool to buy you some time. And you can practice these strategies
anytime if you want to sign up for an online
live lesson. It's quick, it's live, it's easy. You can get 2 for 1 at
GoNaturalEnglish.com/italki, our sponsor
for this episode. Thanks so much for watching! Be sure to subscribe
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