So you’ve been working on your British English pronunciation and intonation whether that’s
through my weekly videos on my YouTube channel or through other channels or maybe from the
materials over on my website www.englishpronunciationroadmap.com and you're probably making progress and you’re
building in new ways of saying these English words but the challenge that most of my students
face is that moment where there in like conversation and they go to speak and use these new pronunciations
and new ways of using intonation and they come unstuck.
They tend to use the old habits that they have built from their first language and it
is understandable because live speech is a spontaneous thing how do you know what you're
going to say and what words exactly you’re going to use and in what specific order.
You don't because you're aware of the other person you are listening to their content
and you're aware of the circumstances, so it is complicated and my students ask me every
single week, “how do I get over that hurdle; how do I get over that block and start using
the skills that I am building in live speech?”.
Essentially - how to communicate in English fluently.
And I guess there are different ways to learn how to speak British english fluently depending
on the type of person that you are.
And you may have already tried this but one way that I found that’s particularly useful
is to take the guessing out of a life speech.
What I mean is not to be rehearsing your conversations, that’s impossible but to be considering
and thinking about the types of phrases that you use on a daily basis and trust me if you
start to do this you'll discover that you are using the same phrases over and over and
over again, every single day, every single week, every single month.
So there is an opportunity not to know what you're going to say in live speech but when
those phrases come up to have rehearsed them, to have rehearsed the pronunciation, to have
rehearsed stress in the sentence, to have rehearsed intonation in the sentence.
So for instance a lot of people might find themselves say that “I'm going to work”
or “what time are you back from work?” or “would you like a cup of tea?” or “I'm
going to bed now” or “dinner is ready”.
You know, these little phrases that may or may not think about as being the most important
phrases and I’m sure that in a professional capacity that you are using varied language
all day long but even in a professional context you are probably using similar phrases you
know: “what's the deadline: or :I’ve got a meeting in half an hour”.
Anything any kind of phrase that you're using and any technical language that might be using
on a daily basis.
Scribe or write down those phrases.
Maybe just start with five, maybe start me 10, and build and build and build and you
rehearse those phrases.
Now the problem is: how do I know how to pronounce the words in the phrase and how do I know
how to stress the right words and how do I know what right intonation is?
I guess you don’t.
Now one option to learn how to speak English like British, if it's available to you, is
to find a willing native friend and I don't know maybe just listen out to the way that
they use these phrases or ask them directly if your bold enough and say ‘look I'm working
on my pronunciation and how would you say “dinner is ready’ how would you say “I'm
off to work now” and maybe record them and listen back and tune in to the way they're
using pronunciation, stress and intonation.
Failing that, you could pick the words apart.
If you had the phrase ‘I'm going to bed now’ you could check in a pronunciation
dictionary and look up all of the phonetic transcription.
If you are on the Oxford dictionary (which is great for how to speak proper British English)
it’ll give you the audio as well and you can listen to the way in which they pronounced
those words.
You may not get the intonation and the stress but you'll be getting the pronunciation of
those individual words and you'll be halfway there.
I guess another option is to call on someone like me: a voice coach, some of the deals
in accent reduction or elocution or British English pronunciation and then have an initial
session and just find out what it is that is stopping you from speaking British English
confidently and fluently and change those habits.
This is the best way to learn how to speak English like a British person (RP and standard
accent).
Run those phrases past the voice coach.
I’ve got a lady from Spain at the moment and she comes every week with about 10 or
15 different phrases that she knows that she is using everyday and she is making great
progress because she's taking the guesswork out of live conversation and that might be
a useful way of thinking about stepping up in your work on British English pronunciation
and intonation.
So if you want to learn how to speak British English like a native speaker, and if you
found that useful and you're on my YouTube channel, subscribe, there are weekly videos
here.
You could also head over to my website www.englishpronunciationroadmap.com.
There’s a load of free materials, a load of videos about how to speak British English
accent, some free downloads, there is an e-book British English Pronunciation Roadmap, my
pronunciation book I published last year that is available to purchase.
There’s a load of free stuff out there so go and check it out and I'll speak to you
soon.