Speaking English well is not just about what you say it's about the way you say
it the intonation so today I'm going to show you an easy way to get real English
intonation to make you sound much more natural and improve your English
speaking so let's go I'm Dierdre Nicholas from palm tree teaching TV
teacher speaker and your personal English language coach so what is
intonation when you listen to somebody speaking English the rising and falling
music is the intonation the tone units there is a certain rhythm and the pitch
moves up and down rising and falling now it does this according to three things
firstly meaning the second thing is attitudes and feelings of the speaker to
what they're saying and the third thing is to certain rules which I'm going to
be sharing with you today and you can use to improve your English speaking I'm
also going to be showing you how you can practice this intonation so watch to the
end of the video so you don't miss this now intonation is a huge part of
communication now getting an intonation right can make the difference between
being understood and sounding natural and not being understood or even being
misunderstood without intonation it's really impossible to understand what the
thoughts are of the person when they speak so for example if I said it's
snowing flatly like that would you know how I
felt about the fact that it was snowing no not really
but if I said it's snowing you would know that I would be happy about this
or if I said it's snowing you would know that I was annoyed about this it's such
an important part of communication so let's start straightaway with the easy
rules that will make your intonation sound right and make you sound a lot
more natural in which you can apply straight away
so let's start first of all with rising intonation which is a rise in a person's
voice like whoa so when do we use this this all first of all when we're asking
yes/no questions we often use this rising intonation when we ask questions
but not all questions really only the questions where we have a yes/no answer
such as do you like living in England yes I do
or no I don't and another example did you visit your friends last night yes or
no so these closed questions often start
with words like do did are or have another example of when we use rising
intonation is when we're creating lists so for example I went to the shops and I
bought eggs milk cheese and bread we come down on the final item so it goes
up we also use a rising intonation in question tanks when we're not sure you
know those little questions at the ends of statements so for example we don't
have to finish all this work today do we so this rising intonation at the end
indicates that you're not sure what the answer was or another example you pour
the vegetables didn't you again you're not sure whether the person bought the
vegetables and you're looking for a confirmation now some question tags are
different but I'm coming to that at the end of the video now you may find some
people and they may even be native speakers who get the intonation totally
wrong I'm thinking of people who end every single statement with a question
sound and they rise with their intonation here's an example of where
the intonation is all wrong you mean when people raise the intonation of
their voice at the end of a sentence yeah the Tonie use when you're asking a
question or when you're unsure of yourself or maybe you're try
oh yeah I've heard of up talkin sweeping the nation now this is completely wrong
because is it a question no it isn't so don't do this
Oh before I go on to falling intonation don't forget to hit the subscribe button
and Lebel so you don't miss any of my videos and lessons and of course if you
would like me to coach you to really improve your english email me on the
email below deirdre at palm tree teaching comm and
you'll find out about pricing and my availability falling intonation what
about when native speakers use falling intonation when the voice goes down like
when do we use this and what are the rules which you can apply firstly in
wh-questions so these types of questions the ones
that start with wh so where when what which why and also what kind of and
which kind of they all have the falling intonation so for example what's your
name where are you from what kind of ice cream do you like and so on we also use
falling intonation for statements such as that's great I think that's wonderful
another way we use falling intonation and another example is in commands so
come here go over there we also use falling intonation for question tags to
confirm something as I mentioned earlier we don't use a rising intonation for all
question tags only if we're unsure if we just want to confirm something we use a
falling intonation at the end of the question tag so for example intonation
is easy isn't it you live in France don't you ends of sentences we use a
falling intonation at the ends of sentences and to finish what we want to
say also if you remember we use falling
intonation at the end of a list on the last item to show that we've finished
what we want to say so an example of an end of a sentence would be when we got
back home we had a cup of coffee so how do you practice intonation well here are
some great ideas if you're a learner at home or if you're a teacher you can use
with your class number one tune your ear into intonation this means that you
listen for it when you hear native speakers talk make sure you notice the
intonation that they're using this could also be of course when you watch films
or listen to podcasts or watch and listen to YouTube videos because the
advantage with all of that is that you can put that on pause and listen to the
intonation again number two record yourself and copy the
intonation listen to these audios and copy the way the native speaker talks
with all the rising and falling of their voices and the pitch and the tone and
record that on your mobile.phone listen to yourself and see if your voice
rises and falls in the same way as the native speaker does and if it doesn't
practice again number three read a sentence aloud take a sentence that
you've heard and read it aloud exaggerating the rise and fall of the
intonation it's very useful to do this at home especially in private and you
can do it in class too if you're a teacher provide your students with
models and get them to copy the intonation and exaggerate it it creates
a really fun class and they will improve their intonation to number four pretend
to be a robot again this is something that you can do on your own or in class
if you're a teacher have your students have a two-minute conversation in pairs
and pretend to be a robot talking like this
I know my dad told you to watch me but can't you close your eyes even for a
minute two steps forward my mechanical friend you can do this at home too the
atomic regulator is secure there is no more danger of radioactive poisoning
then get your students to go back to normal speech and tell them that the
difference is the intonation I have lots of other videos on this channel which
I've created to support you as an English Learner but also I have a lot
for English teachers too so make sure you go and watch those put the links
below for you so go and have a look at those straight after watching this video
I really hope you enjoyed this video don't forget to Like share and subscribe
to this amazing Channel good luck with your English if you're a learner or a
teacher and I'll see you next time bye