So you want to sound more like a native English speaker.
That means you have to speak fast English, right?
Absolutely not.
One of the biggest issues I have with accent advice here on YouTube is the emphasis on
speaking fast English.
If you only spoke faster, you'd sound more natural and more American.
The problem with this advice is that it emphasizes speed over clarity.
You may think you'll impress people with how quickly the words come out of your mouth,
but what they really want is to understand you.
When you speak too quickly, you might start mumbling, dropping important sounds, or rushing
through your vowels.
You might forget to stress your words and your speech will sound choppy, which is harder
for native speakers to understand.
You might stop thinking about your message, or emphasizing your most important ideas by
breaking them into smaller chunks or thought groups.
You may forget to use your pauses and your pitch to punctuate your ideas.
While this is something I've observed while listening to my clients and students, it's
also something I personally struggle with when speaking Spanish.
So let's pause for a moment.
Slow down.
Take a deep breath.
[deep breath] Let's talk about why you need to stop trying
to speak English fast and focus on speaking clearly instead.
Before we get started, I want to remind you that there's a difference between thinking
quickly in English and speaking quickly.
You should definitely do whatever you can to think more quickly in English by increasing
your fluency.
When you think quickly, you can respond and react to what's happening in the conversation.
You can come up with new words when you realize that you're not being clear, or when you simply
need more details to express yourself fully.
That said, I know that when you start thinking quickly, you're going to want to get those
words out as fast as possible, but that's when you should focus on clearly communicating
your message.
You want to speak clearly so that people understand you.
Sometimes that means slowing down and being more intentional with how you say your words.
Let's get started.
First, let's talk about what we mean by fast speech in English.
If you want to speak English quickly, you'll learn about the following: stress and reductions,
or which words and syllables you emphasize and which you de-emphasize or reduce to make
them less obvious.
Contractions, or when we combine words to make them shorter and faster to say.
In this case, I'm talking about standard contractions like "I'm," "you'll," "she's," "he'd," "they've,"
"we've," "they're."
We also have informal contractions like "gonna," "wanna," "shoulda," "tryna" that happen in
casual, relaxed speech.
When we're speaking quickly, we may actually drop or delete sounds like when the "ng" sound
on "doing" and "playing" becomes "doin'" and "playin'."
We might drop the "h" sound from "his" or "he" and it'll sound like "'is" or "'e."
There's also elision, when we remove sounds from words like "library" and "February,"
"comfortable" and "chocolate."
Then we have assimilation, which is when we transform certain sounds to make them easier
for our mouths to say.
For example, "I can believe it" becomes "I cam believe it."
You can hear that sound becomes the "m" sound.
"I can go" becomes "I cang go."
The "n" sounds like the "ng" sound.
"That's on my way" becomes "That's om my way."
Once again, the "n" becomes the "m" sound.
It's easier to produce that sound.
Then there's palatalization.
That's when "would you" becomes "woudju" or "wouldja," "did you" becomes "didja" or "didju,"
"what are you" becomes "whatcha."
Once again, this change happens because of the way our mouths form these sounds.
Our mouths are trying to be more efficient.
These elements are part of linking and connected speech.
Connected speech is how we link words together within a thought group in order to say them
faster.
Native English speakers do this naturally because they're stressing important words
and reducing the ones that don't matter.
The important thing to remember is that stress comes before connected speech.
If you're trying to use linking, connected speech, deleting sounds, or transforming them,
but you're not stressing your words, it's not going to sound natural.
It's going to sound like you're forcing it.
With so many possible things to focus on, it may seem completely overwhelming to try
to speak fast like a native speaker.
And like we said at the beginning, if you try to speak English too quickly, you might
sacrifice meaning.
That's why we're going to focus on what you need to do in order to speak English clearly.
The most important thing you can do to speak English more clearly is to increase the contrast
in your speech.
When we speak English, we emphasize the stressed syllables of stressed words by making them
longer, louder, and higher in pitch with an extra clear vowel sound.
The stressed words are the ones that express your meaning.
You're basically highlighting the most important words with your voice.
Native speakers are listening for stress in order to understand your meaning.
Consider this sentence: I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't
had the chance to visit Brazil.
Listen one more time and see if you can identify which syllables are stressed and which are
reduced.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
If you pronounce every single syllable evenly, it'll be hard for a native speaker to understand
you.
When we use stress, we highlight or focus attention on the words that matter.
We also de-emphasize or reduce the ones that don't.
For example, prepositions like "for" and "to" are function words and they're not usually
stressed.
We reduce them.
"For" becomes "fer" and "to" becomes "ta."
These are called weak or reduced forms.
If I over pronounce these sounds, the other person has to work extra hard to figure out
my meaning.
Listen again and hear how these words are reduced.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
Focusing on contrast between stress and reductions will help people understand you.
And it will help you speak English more quickly, but it won't have a negative impact on your
meaning.
I also encourage you to learn how to use standard contractions.
We actually expect to hear them, so when you separate the words, it focuses extra attention
on the words that don't matter.
Affirmative contractions like "I'm," "you're," "they've" are one way that we de-emphasize
unimportant words.
When you clearly pronounce them, your listener is going to think that they're important.
On the other hand, negative contractions like "don't," "didn't," "haven't" and "wouldn't"
are important because they communicate meaning.
We usually stress negatives for clarity because it's not what you expect to hear.
You can learn how to say contractions with the right stress in this video.
You'll also find links to all the resources I mentioned in the description below.
Another thing you can do to speak English more clearly is to break your ideas into thought
groups.
If you listen to interesting, effective speakers, you'll notice that they often pause after
key ideas.
This is another way to emphasize what matters.
It makes it easier for people to digest and process your meaning.
In English, it's your responsibility as the speaker to make your meaning clear and easy
to understand.
Let's look at my example again.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
First, I'll say it fast without any thought groups.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
How did you feel while listening to me?
Now listen to how I say that sentence with thought groups.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
You can hear that I pause and slightly change my pitch after key ideas.
If you're listening extra carefully, you may notice that I'm stressing one word in each
thought group more than the others.
Listen one more time.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
I'm still stressing the rest of the words in the thought group, but one stands out more
than the rest.
Rather than trying to speak fast, think about how you can package and present your ideas
so that they're easy to follow and understand.
For more practice with thought groups, check out this video on breathing, pausing, and
thought groups.
The last thing you can do to speak English more clearly is to learn how to use your voice
more effectively to communicate your meaning.
We've already talked about pitch with regards to stress and thought groups, but it's also
super important for intonation, or how we communicate, meaning emotions and attitudes
through changes in our pitch.
Let's look at some examples.
You've been learning Portuguese for a long time.
This is a statement of fact.
You've been learning Portuguese for a long time.
I'm using falling intonation at the end of the sentence in order to signal that it's
a neutral statement.
Listen to how the meaning changes if we change the intonation.
You've been learning Portuguese for a long time by using rising intonation at the end
of the statement.
This is now a question.
You've been learning Portuguese for a long time.
You might turn the statement into a question in order to check that you understood, or
to show curiosity or even disbelief.
Have you been to Brazil?
This is now a yes/no question.
Have you been to Brazil?
The rising intonation on the end of the questions signals that I need a response.
When did you start learning Portuguese?
This is an information question.
When did you start learning Portuguese?
The falling intonation signals that I'm done with my question and I need a longer response.
I haven't been to Brazil.
I'm stressing the negative contraction "haven't" in order to answer the question I was asked
previously.
Have you been to Brazil?
I haven't been to Brazil.
You can also emphasize a certain word to clarify.
Have you been learning Portuguese for a little while?
No, I've been studying the language for a long time.
By putting extra emphasis on the word "long" through my voice and a higher pitch, I'm clarifying
the duration of time I've been studying Portuguese.
And, of course, remember that slight rise after thought groups.
I've been learning Portuguese for a long time, but I haven't had the chance to visit Brazil.
We use a slight rise after thought groups to signal that we're still talking, and falling
intonation at the end to signal that the sentence is complete.
Let's review what you can do to speak English more clearly.
Number one: speak with more contrast using stress and reductions.
Number two: make ideas easier to with thought groups.
Number three: communicate your meaning with pitch and intonation.
Focusing on these three things will help you sound more natural and more like a native
English speaker.
You won't sacrifice your meaning to speak quickly.
Instead, you'll help people understand what you mean because it'll be easier to follow
what you're saying.
Once again, I'm Kim from englishwithkim.com.
If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe and click that
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Check out these videos for more in-depth practice on what we talked about today.
Have a good one.
Goodbye.