Recently. I've been getting a bunch of
comments - which means a lot of comments - a
bunch of comments from people on this
channel, from people on Facebook,
by email - comments that are focused on the
way I speak. Some people are asking me to
slow down they say that I am speaking to
quickly and, therefore, they can't
understand what I'm saying. While others
are saying i'm speaking too slowly and
they want me to speed up - they want me to
speak at my normal pace. As you can see
there's a little bit of an issue here
because part of my audience wants me to
slow down; part of my audience wants me
to speed up.
Additionally, people are asking me if I
speak at my normal pace - my normal speed -
when I'm making these videos. They want
to know if this is what a native or
proficient in English speaker sounds
like. So, I'll answer that question first:
in most of my videos, I do modify my
voice a little bit and I do this for two
reasons, firstly, because i want
intermediate english learners to
understand what I'm saying in these
videos and, secondly, when you're creating
a video - when you're making a
presentation - then you modify your voice.
You slow down the way you speak, you
introduce more pauses into your
presentation. So, know that when I'm making
a video like this, I do modify my voice. I
would modify my voice if I was speaking
to a group of people here in Asheville
because that's the style of a
presentation. Now, I've also made a couple
of videos where I tell stories and when
I practice these stories before I
actually made the video, that means I can
speak a little bit more quickly - a little
bit more at my normal pace It obviously
helps as well if I put subtitles or
introduce the captions here on YouTube.
Now I used to do this all the time. I
used to do this for my first 200 videos
i think, but i found it to be too
time-consuming - it took me a long time to
create these captions and I've started to do
this (again) on some of these new videos like
this one.
There are captions on this video, but some of my
videos are 30 minutes long and I also
record some of them live, so, it's not
easy for me to go back (and) spend about four
hours adding in these captions. Moving
forward, what i think I'm going to do is
to introduce different types of videos - a
little bit like what I've been doing
recently. Now, we're going to have videos
about conversations - or you're going to
watch a conversation between myself and
someone else, for example, I brought in my
wife a few weeks ago we did a podcast - we
answered some questions live on YouTube -
check out the description for that - but I
also want to feature other people as
well and to have conversations with
people so that you can listen to a
conversation and then from there, you'll
be able to look at the vocabulary, the
transcript, and everything else to help
you understand what we said and so that
you can learn English. Now, the next bit, I
want to get some feedback from you:
let's just take one of my recent live
lessons - and if you haven't seen one of
my live lessons before, again, they'll be
a link in the description. Now, think
about that live lesson: was I speaking too
slowly or too quickly for you? Please let
me know in the comment section - please
let me know what you think about these
videos and... give me some advice as
well. Give me feedback so that I can make
these videos better for you - and if you
have any recommendations for me, any kind
of video that you want me to make, please
let me know. Also let me know what type
of videos I make are your favorite. So, there
are big things coming in 2017 - it's
nearly the end of 2016 -
I can't wait to share these things with
you and I'll see you in the next lesson.
Thanks for watching!