In this American English pronunciation video, I’m going to respond to a question from
a member of the Rachel’s English community about speaking quickly vs. slowing down.
Fabio recently said that when he was in America trying to sound American: speaking quickly,
linking sounds, making Flap T’s, people had a hard time understanding him. When he
started speaking clearer and more slowly, he was understood perfectly. He says, do you
really think it’s necessary to speak fast and linking everything?
Great question. This brings up two things that I want to talk about. The first, and
maybe most important thing, is that I don’t teach that you should be speaking really fast
as a general rule. I’m sure Fabio isn’t the only one confused by this. When I talk
about saying words that reduce really quickly, like “because of the”, the point isn’t
to speak fast. The point is to create a contrast. You must have clearly pronounced stressed
syllables. You cannot speed through those and be easy to understand. But, when you have
clearly pronounced stressed syllables and quick, maybe reduced unstressed syllables,
you have contrast in syllable length. And this is what’s important in American English.
Not speaking fast. If every syllable is fast, you’re going to be very hard to understand.
So it’s as just important to make your stressed syllables clear as it is to reduce and simplify
and speed up your unstressed syllables.
So, speaking with stressed and unstressed, fully pronounced and reduced, clear and fast
syllables is one of the defining characteristics of American English. It’s a stress-timed
language, and I’ve made a video about that. I’ll link to it at the end and in the description
below. Don’t rush everything, just create contrast.
What if you have perfect sounds, but every syllable is the same length? Let’s see.
Hello my name is Rachel and I live in Philadelphia.
I think probably everyone could understand that. But it didn’t sound very natural,
did it? Also, that was with every sound being perfect. If some of your sounds aren’t perfect,
and you try to fully pronounce everything with you have no rhythmic contrast, suddenly
you have multiple factors that might get in the way of being understood.
So to answer Fabio’s question, I do think it’s necessary to reduce words that reduce
in American English, and to link words together in a thought group, like we generally do in
American English, in order to maximize your changes of being understood.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and asking that very important question.
I’m going to put an on-screen link now to a video on English as a Stress-Timed Language,
and a collection of videos on words that reduce. Those links will also be in the description
of the video. In the final section of this video, there’s also a link to a playlist
on American English in Real Life and Ben Franklin exercises. Both of those sets of videos have
lots of examples of real life words that reduce and rhythmic contrast.
So, in conclusion, you don’t want to just speak fast all the time. You want contrast
of stressed and unstressed syllables. The stressed syllables will be longer. But those
unstressed words will be very fast.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.