Okay, I have a question for you and I need you to be honest with me.
Do you think Americans are loud?
If you answered "yes," don't worry, I completely agree with you.
But I also think that you're probably not speaking loud enough.
Let's talk about this a little bit!
So something you need to understand about Americans speaking English is that we use
volume very effectively in order to communicate our ideas.
So many non-native speakers hear Americans speaking English, whether that's in our own
country or when we're traveling abroad and they look at us and they stare.
Americans are so loud!
But it's really important to understand that being loud is how we communicate different
ideas, how we signal which words are important, how we signal what we want you
to understand from our meaning.
And trust me, I completely understand - I remember when I first moved to Argentina and
I was walking around with my American friends and I was embarrassed noticing everyone staring
at us as my friends were speaking with this incredibly high volume.
It's part of our nature!
It's something that we're used to doing culturally.
But if you want to be understood by native English speakers, you need to start thinking
more carefully about your volume.
So let's talk a little bit about how we use volume in order to express
different ideas in English.
In previous videos I've talked about word stress.
Word stress is when we make one syllable in a word longer, louder and higher in pitch,
and I really want to focus today on this "louder."
If you need a little review with word stress, please be sure to sign up for my free video
course, Sound More Natural in Just Five Days at soundmorenatural.com.
I go into more depth there.
But what you notice is that when we're stressing words, we're making one syllable of the word
longer, louder, and higher in pitch.
We're increasing the volume on this particular syllable in order to pronounce it correctly.
But this carries through throughout the sentence.
The words that are most important, or known as the content, words, are stressed, which
means they are longer, louder and higher in pitch.
We use this increase in volume in order to make the most important words
in the sentence clear.
So if you're not stressing and making these words longer, louder and higher in pitch,
especially louder, which is the easiest for most people to do, it's going to be hard for
a native English speaker to understand you.
But on top of that, a lot of times people who are speaking a language that isn't their
first feel a little embarrassed about their accent, so they tend to
reduce the volume of their speech.
And this can be really confusing because we can't really hear you.
It's not your accent!
It's the fact that your volume is really low.
So you want to speak up.
You want to increase your volume because we're used to hearing people speak at a higher volume.
So if you speak at a higher volume, we're going to understand you.
The other thing I want you to consider with regards to your volume is that you can use
your volume for effect.
It can be used with your intonation in order to make certain syllables or certain words
more clear in order to really bring attention to your emotions and attitude.
But it can also be used in order to create interest when you're speaking.
I want you to think about when you're listening to actors and actresses on television shows
or movies and how they use different levels of volume because sometimes you're speaking
more quietly because it's a little bit of a secret and other times you're speaking with
so much emotion and energy and attitude because you're angry or you're excited or there's
something that you want to express through your volume!
So even if you're giving a presentation or leading a meeting, you can signal with your
volume which words are most important, which points you really want the person to pay attention
to and what you're most concerned with them listening to.
So I'm just playing with volume a little bit to show you that changing up your volume beyond
just using word and sentence stress correctly is really going to help native English speakers
pay more attention to what you're saying.
If you're speaking with a meek little small voice, nobody can hear what you're saying
and we're not going to listen to you.
It's not your accent and it's not that you're a foreigner, it's that we can't hear you.
So I really want you to consider your volume.
Think about how you can speak more clearly, more loudly with more volume and more control
of the way that you sound when you're speaking.
So I hope this helps you understand why Americans tend to be so loud when speaking, but how
you can control a little bit of your own volume in order to speak English a little bit more
clearly and be understood by native English speakers.
Once again, I'm Kim from englishwithkim.com.
I am your guide to the essential conversation skills you need to sound more natural in English.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below the video, and if you like this
video, please give it a thumbs up and share it with a friend.
Have a good one.
Goodbye.