Aw yeah! What's up everybody? Have you ever wondered why
natives always seem to speak so quickly? Well, actually when you think about fast
speech in English it's the fact that English is a stress-timed language,
meaning that some syllables are stressed and others aren't.
So this makes English a rhythmical language and in today's lesson I'm going to tell you some easy to
apply tips so that you can sound and feel more natural and confident when you speak English.
We're going to learn contractions, we're going to learn linking sounds and we're going to learn
sentence stress. And the best part is I'm going to ask you to practice with me as we go through,
and right at the end I have a really special surprise for you, so make sure you watch all of
this video to check out what that surprise is. Do you sometimes feel that you don't sound as
natural as you can when you speak English? Well I want to tell you that every week
we help you understand fast native speech, be understood by anyone and connect to the world.
Just ask Tamara, who says that our channel is now part of her bedtime ritual. So join Tamara and
support me and the team at RealLife English. All you need to do is hit that Subscribe
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We have some breaking news out of a fast food restaurant in Washington DC,
an unidentified exchange student was in McDonald's when a team member asked him what would you like.
The exchange student was confident because he'd practiced many times before in his head.
He replied "I'll have a Sprite please." He'd been waiting a while when his name was called
after getting his order. He was shocked to realize that he hadn't ordered a Sprite
but instead he was given a large fries. That same afternoon he was admitted to hospital due to an
allergic reaction to nightshades we spoke to the restaurant manager who prefers to remain anonymous
and he said we didn't know this would happen. I guess he was afraid of losing face so he
didn't say anything had. He asked we'd have certainly replaced his order.
Well a lesson learned for our friend next time you order a Sprite
make sure you get a Sprite. This is Ollie, reporting live from RealLife English headquarters.
What would you do in this situation? Would you keep the fries or would you
go back and get your Sprite like you asked for? If you're like me then you have lots of these
funny stories to tell and in fact if I told you all of my stories we'd be here for days.
So my first tip to speak English faster is to use contractions.
Now, you probably know that contractions are a combination of two or more words.
So contract means to make smaller and you probably remember your first English lessons
where you learned the verb "to be" and you were probably taught the contractions.
You're thinking why do I need to learn the full form
and the contraction as well? Well, truth is we use contractions a lot.
We use contractions in every single context and quite often I get asked by learners
if contractions are too informal to use in real life conversations. And the answer to that is NO.
If you watch the news, listen to podcasts, go to a restaurant and talk to the waiter
or even talk to your friends at a barbecue, you're going to hear contractions all the time.
Truth is they are a part of real life conversations and real life speech. For example,
instead of saying "Do not play with the dog," we'd say "Don't play with the dog."
However the only time where it's not okay to use contractions is if you're writing
a formal email or you're in a job interview. In fact, Ethan made a great lesson with common
job interview questions, so you can check out that lesson when you finish watching this one.
So often learners know how to recognize contractions, but they actually won't use them.
For example I've been to Brazil is contracted with "I" and the auxiliary "have." However
I often hear learners pronounce this like "I have been to Brazil."
So I recommend if you see a contraction,
pronounce the contraction. That way you're going to be able to speak English a lot faster.
In a contraction the apostrophe takes the place of some of the letters.
Now let's go and look at some examples that were used in the news interview that we saw earlier.
Now the exchange student said I'll have a Sprite please. Do you know what "ll" is in this sentence?
Yeah, that's right. It's "will." So you can see that the W and
the I have been taken away. And they've been replaced with an apostrophe "I'll"
Now how would you contract this sentence? "I had cooked before my parents got home."
Yeah, that's right. "I'd cooked before my parents got home."
Did you notice how much faster I sounded when I used the contraction?
Now I want you to say the uncontracted sentence after me:
"I had cooked before my parents got home" It's your turn.
Nice job! Okay now let's try the contracted sentence
and see if you spoke any faster: "I'd cooked before my parents got home." Your turn.
Great job! I'm sure you're already speaking faster. So you're probably sitting at home
thinking, "But Ollie, how do I know which words I can contract?" And truth is there are so
many that I would be here for days telling you every single contraction, so what I'm
going to do now is I'm going to show you some common ones that we use every day in English.
Quiz time! Do you know how we'd contract these? "Would not have."
"Wouldn't have"
"Why did"
"Why'd" Example, "I wouldn't have
done that if I were you." "Why'd you do that?" So my second tip for you to use to get you
speaking English faster is to link the words, and if this isn't your first time
here you have probably seen Ethan, Andrea and now me talk about connected speech quite a lot,
and that's because us natives use connected speech so we don't have to pronounce word for word.
We can make our speech continuous by linking words and sounds together, which is known as
connected speech. Now do you often feel frustrated when you don't know how to use connected speech
or you don't understand fast speaking natives? Then I highly recommend our Fluent with Friends
Course. In this 48-week course you're going to learn with the first two seasons of Friends. Each
week you'll receive PDF Power Lessons, Vocabulary Memorization Software, lifetime access to our
Fluency Circle Global Community and so much more! And do you know what the best thing about this is?
You can try it absolutely FREE with our 3-Part Masterclass.
To get started today, all you need to do is click up here or down in the description below.
So you might find it difficult to understand fast speaking natives
when you aren't too sure about what words and sounds link together, so when we ask
questions we quite often link the words together. So what I recommend you do is learn the question
as a chunk and that way you'll be able to kill two birds with one stone. Not only will you be able to
practice the connected speech, but you might also learn some new vocabulary and sentence structure.
Here at RealLife English we're big on guiding you beyond the classroom.
So let's practice some questions that use connected speech.
So I'm going to say the sentence and then I'm going to show you where it links
and then we're going to practice together, right? But first I want to show you what it sounds like
without linking the words together and then I'm going to show you what it sounds like when I do
link the words together, and you're going to recognize that when I link my words together.
I actually sound a lot faster number one: "What have you been up to?"
Did you notice how I actually sounded a lot quicker when I linked the words together
in this sentence? You'll notice that I reduced have to 've. "What've you...?"
Sentence number two: "What would you do?"
Did you notice how I linked would and you? "Would you?"
Sentence number three: "Did you arrive late?"
Did you notice how I connected the final d on did with y in you? "Did you?"
Okay, now it's time to practice with me. I'm gonna say it and then I want you to repeat.
"What have you been up to?" "What would you do?"
"Did you arrive late?"
Now if you find that a little difficult there's an exercise called "back chaining." So instead of
pronouncing the words from start to finish you're actually going to reverse it or flip it around
and you're going to say the last word and then slowly build up.
Let's take a look at how that works. So the sentence "Where do you come
from?" sounds like this back chaining goes like this: from - come from -
did you come from - where did you come from - You can see that when we do this exercise we start
with the last word of the sentence and slowly work our way up to the first word of the sentence,
and that way you're going to build the confidence to be able to use connected speech when you talk.
In some, if you can learn questions as chunks you're going to be able to speak quicker,
as you'll learn the linking words when you learn the questions and actually we've made a great
lesson on how you can ask questions like a native. When you're done with this lesson make sure you
check it out by clicking up here or down in the description below.
So my third tip to get you speaking faster is to emphasize the most important words.
You might remember at the start of this lesson that I said English is a stressed time language.
It's the fact that English is a stress time language meaning stress syllables follow a
certain rhythm and unstressed syllables are incorporated to fit that rhythm.
In fact, did you know that music is a great way to learn rhythm?
We have a great playlist over on our Learn English with TV Series page.
To check out that playlist next you can click up here or down in the description below.
Now do you remember the story about the exchange student at the start of this lesson?
There were a couple of sentences where I expressed some stress.
Listen to this sentence without stress: "He was shocked to realize." I pretty much stressed every
word, but in English in fact we don't do that. Listen again: "He was shocked to realize."
Which words do you think I stressed?
Yeah, that's right. I stress "shocked" and "realize."
A great way of trying to understand which words are stressed is by knowing
which words are content words and which words are function words.
Content words refer to those words that have meaning. So in my example
"shocked" and "realized" have meaning. And function words are the words that
don't have meaning, for example "was" and "to," so I didn't stress "was" or "to."
I actually reduced them to was and "he was shocked to realize."
However, content words and function words are not set in stone, so the speaker can
decide which words they wish to emphasize. So let's look at another example from the
news report: "He was given a large fries." Which words do you think I stressed here¿
Yeah, that's right. I stressed "given" and "fries." Now listen to me change the content and
function words and see if it changes the meaning. "He was given a large fries."
In this sentence the stress is on "was" and "large"
and this is used to emphasize that the exchange student was actually given the large fries.
Okay so do you remember at the start of the lesson I said I have a special surprise for you?
Well we're now going to have a conversation. You're going to duo me, so I want you to say
the sentences where it says you. First, we're going to do it without contractions
and then in the second part we're going to highlight the contractions where things are
connected and the stressed words in the sentence. So are you ready? Let's go!
So I want to thank you for joining me in today's lesson.
I hope these tips will be able to guide you beyond the classroom,
where you can start living your English and speaking faster just like us natives.
Don't forget to support me and the team at RealLife English by hitting that Subscribe button
and the Bell down below so you don't miss any of our weekly lessons. See you next time!