Hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
in this video we are gonna talk again about fast speech now I say "again"
because I already made a video about fast speech or what is known also as
connected speech and you guys really seemed to like it and you asked me to make
more videos like that so that's what I'm doing so here's the deal you guys
already know that English actually sounds nothing like the way that it's
written and that's because it's not a phonetic language so you might see for
example a T in a word and realize that native speakers don't pronounce the T
when they say it okay that's quite common and that's just something you
have to make your peace with the writing system of English is old it's outdated
and it just doesn't work very well okay so spelling in English writing in
English is completely different than the way that native speakers speak and when
we are speaking in casual conversation we combine words in many different ways
so as long as you're paying attention to the way that we combine the words you
can imitate us and do this too you just really have to get away from trying to
pronounce things the way that they're written because if you separate every
single word in a sentence you're gonna sound like a textbook you're not gonna
sound natural and you know what even though every word might be clear because
you're clearly pronouncing them it'll be difficult for native speakers to
understand you because they really have to focus on what you're saying and put
the words together in their head okay because it'll say on choppy so for
example if I say "hi what are you doing today?" right that's kind of slow and it
just sounds choppy or like whoa what is she saying right and if I just say "hey
what are you doing today?" okay what are you doing today I'm sure you understand
that and it sounds more natural okay so we're gonna talk about phrases like this
and words that get reduced when we're speaking in casual conversation and
actually I want to go back to the example that I just gave "what are you
doing today" because in the first video that I made
about fast speech the example that I gave you was "hey whatcha doing later?"
right whatcha doing later?" we don't always say what are you doing
later cuz that's just way too choppy we say whatcha doing later but we can
also say whatter you doing later what are
becomes "whatter" what are what are you doing later what are you doing later
okay and I wanted to give you that example
because when I watched the other video I realized oh that's not the only
way we say it okay so with fast and connected speech sometimes we you know
we combine the same words differently so what are you can become whatcha or
"whatterya" "whatterya" next the word especially okay when something is
especially funny or especially interesting the word is especially it's
spelled with an e in the front so it looks like it should be especially but
the way we say it is just especially but here's the thing in fast speech when I'm
just talking in a regular conversation with somebody I don't really say
especially unless I'm really exaggerating the word and trying to draw
attention to it I just say 'specially like I really like dessert 'specially
chocolate ice cream okay 'specially now the reason why I'm telling you about
this is not just for the pronunciation because I think a lot of you know that
we say specially you've picked it up but what happens is sometimes when you
write comments on my videos you say 'specially in the comments and we don't
do that we don't write 'specially we only say it okay we write especially the
next one is similar excuse me if you're in a formal situation you're gonna say
oh excuse me I'm sorry I didn't understand you can you repeat yourself
or something like that okay excuse me but if you're just at the grocery store
and someone's in your way you can say oh 'scuse me we take off the "ex" okay so
instead of saying excuse me you are in my way excuse me you're in my way I just
say "scuse me" okay the next word is fundamental fundamental fundamental now
this is a pretty long word and words like this get reduced all the time and I
said this the other day but I didn't say fundamental okay I said "funamenal"
funamenal okay so I actually said funna funna menal now maybe I'm
actually saying that wrong maybe it's supposed to be "fundamenal" fundamenal
where you actually still pronounce the D a little bit like funda menal but I
don't even do that so who knows maybe I'm saying it wrong but that's how I say
I just say yeah "the funamenal rules of XYZ are blah blah blah" okay so if you
want to speak like me feel free to say that if someone makes fun of you just
tell them to shut up I'm just gonna don't say that don't think you're mean
okay the next example really makes me laugh the word is "probably" okay probably
probably the thing is when I'm speaking quickly I actually don't really say
probably so let me give you an example let's say my sister asks what I'm gonna
do today let's say she says "hey Stefanie whatcha gonna do today?" and
I'll be like I don't know I'll probably go to the store I'll probably call my
friend I will I don't know I'll probably work a little bit so what am I saying
there I'm not saying probably I'm literally
saying prolly like prolly except when I say prolly by itself it sounds
ridiculous it sounds bad but when I'm speaking quickly I'm saying prolly but
I'm saying it very very fast I'm not saying probably I'm saying prolly look
I'll prolly go the store later prolly there's no way I can say
probably that quickly okay so I'm eliminating a ton of sounds so I can get
it out of my mouth fast anyhow I didn't realize how much English speakers reduce
sounds until I started really paying close attention to it for you guys so I
could make more videos like this and I'm realizing yeah we reduce sounds all over
the place so I'm sorry English is really hard but you know you guys are doing
good and the fact that you're watching these videos and you're learning from
them and you're improving your own speech it shows how dedicated you are so
just keep it up okay and by the way that's an extra tip it has nothing to do
with this video but a lot of times you guys say hey keep going like you really
like something and you say "keep going!" in English we don't say "keep going" we
say "keep it up" okay so it means the same thing but that's like the English way of
saying it like I don't want to say the correct way it's just the normal way
okay so keep it up you guys are doing great keep it up next the word
comfortable this is really hard for a lot of non-native English speakers to
pronounce because there's so many syllables okay so listen "comfter-bl"
comfortable comfortable comfortable so what gets confusing right is the M and
the f come-fff com-fff e so we put that together we just say come come come it's really
weird it's it's I don't even know how I'm making that sound come like that
okay come the yeah the M and the F just get squished together so comf just say that
comf usually when I'm working with a student and I say repeat after me and I
just make the sound and then they make it right after me they almost always do
it correctly the problem is doing it correctly in
other situations right you have to develop the muscle memory to be able to
make these sounds quickly in natural conversations so that takes time but if
you just repeat what I say I think you're gonna do pretty well anyhow so
the big problem with this word is you guys tend to separate it and create
syllables that are non-existent and you might say something like comfortable
nobody says that so don't say comfortable okay
just say comfortable comfortable are you comfortable I hope you're comfortable I
hope this video doesn't make you uncomfortable
okay next can vs. can't a lot of you guys have problems with this and you've
asked me to talk about it so that's what I'm gonna do okay can that's can like I
can go can't you can hear the T at the end but the problem is in fast speech we
eliminate the T we just say I can't go so I can't go sounds a lot like I can go
here's how you can tell the difference there's a couple different ways first
can usually has a longer "aaa" sound like we draw it out I can go I can go can't
stops okay I can't go it can't go the A is a lot shorter now
the easier way to tell the difference is just to realize that we rarely say can
drawn out like that we usually say "cn" right so check out this question "hey cn
you go" cn you go cn you go I'm saying cn "cn you go" can you go right it's very
very subtle it's very reduced I'm not saying can at all I'm saying can
you go and then if you say can't you say no I can't go
I can't go so now there's a huge difference between cn and can't ok cn
and can't can you go can you go and can't hopefully that helps you tell the
difference next let me know when I'm talking on the
phone with somebody and I say hey maybe we can do this maybe we can do this let
me know let me know what you think okay I'm not saying LET me know I'm not
saying le' me know I'm saying "L'mmie know" let me know let me know what you
think let me know let me know ok let me know but I'm not even really saying "e"
ok the sound just gets so reduced it's almost not there ok so it's not really
let me know you don't want to say let me know ok and put the stress in the wrong
place just say hey let me know let me know let me know so practice that
practice repeating it right after me and I know that's gonna help you be able to
say it better ok the last one this is actually something that I said to my
husband the other day I was getting up to get myself some tea and I asked him
if he wanted any but I said hey you know "do you want water or tea or anything?" ok I
was asking him if he wanted water or tea or anything that I could get for him ok
and I realized I wasn't saying "or" you know the word or do you want water or
tea or anything I'm saying "er" ok "er" do you want water or tea or
anything and then the water er water er that's kind of a tongue twister so when
I say it quickly I say hey do you want water er tea er
anything water-er-tea water-er-tea water-er-tea it almost just sounds like water
tea right but it's not exactly water-er-tea right you have to fall back on the
"R" again so water-er water-er water water-r water-r water-r do you want water-er-tea
er anything so you guys recognize what I'm saying because you understand
English right you understand the fast speech but you struggle to make it
because you're like what is she actually saying because you know how everything
is spelled and you're just trying to figure out ok wait why doesn't it sound
like that so I'm going to give you some tips now that will hopefully help you
with your pronunciation and your speaking skills so you can start
speaking more fluently combining your words and just sounding
more like a native speaker okay so my first tip for you is the way words sound
changes based on the environment so you have to think of sentences and phrases
as environments that words are in okay so the word or for example when it's by
itself it's not in any kind of environment I'm not really using it in
any specific way I'm just saying the word or and that's why I pronounce it so
clearly but when it gets put into an environment with other words around it
the words around it are going to affect the way that it sounds that's why you
hear me say things like "hey do you want water-er-tea-er anything?" I'm saying or
or is in the sentence the meaning of or is in the sentence but I'm not saying or
so you have to understand that the way words sound changes based on the
environment okay and then recognize this is my second tip recognize that your
ears won't deceive you 99% of the time you know what you're hearing and you're
hearing it correctly but because you're thinking about the way words are spelled
that's what's confusing you 99% of the time that's the case so just realize
that your ears won't deceive you but your eyes will so just be very careful
do not try to learn how words sound by reading them because it won't work
and lastly repeat what you hear right after you hear it so all the examples
that I gave in this video you should repeat them right after you hear them
because that's what's gonna help you say them correctly instantly right you hear
it you say it you hear you say it and 99% of the time when I do this with
students they say it correctly right after me the trouble is getting that new
sound into your long-term memory so that's gonna take repetition and
practice and then bonus tip I wasn't even gonna include this but I just
thought of it don't get frustrated with fast speech okay just really listen to
what you hear and practice shadowing practice shadowing my videos say what I
say say how I say it practice my intonation patterns you know my voice
goes up and down etc practice all of that and soon
start feeling really natural to you alright guys the last thing that I want
to say is that it's really helpful to practice your English with native
speakers and I'm sure you know this already maybe you have trouble finding
native speakers and you really wish you could practice with people and so I made
a guide for you that will help you meet native English speakers and be able to
practice with them and you can download it it's in the links in the description
lots of people have downloaded this guide already and they found it to be
very helpful so practicing with native English speakers is definitely not the
only way to practice and improve your English but it really helps right
because you can listen to the way that they talk you can talk with someone like
me you can listen to them and respond to them directly and practice imitating
them like if they say a word you can repeat it back to them in the next
sentence anyhow like I said I have a guide on my website that's about
practicing your English with native speakers how to meet native English
speakers online and you can go ahead and download it the link is in the
description okay guys that's it for this video let me know if you liked it feel
free to give it a thumbs up and also comment which of these phrases are
difficult for you to pronounce what kinds of videos do you want me to keep
making how are you doing with your English what do you want to improve let
me know in the comments because I read every single one ok that's it guys I'll
see you in another video bye
now that's probably that's probably I just said probably that's probably ugh now I'm
getting tongue-tied okay the sound it just gets so reduced it's
just like a "uhhhhhhhhh" it's just like a hard to say to learn maybe I don't know but when I
start saying it quickly the sound changes a little bit so I don't say
"comfortable" comfortable?... Yeah I do! what am I talking about? Sorry.