Hey, Naturals. What's going on?
It's your favorite American English teacher Gabby here to help you today with eight
Ways that you and anyone can sound more like a North American English
Speaker now I know this is just the lesson that you've been waiting for I'm going to tell you eight
Tricks and secrets that you probably didn't learn in your normal
Traditional English classroom
We're going to really focus on how to make your pronunciation and your accent more
American like now I'm not saying that everyone should speak like an American
But hey if you want to know how to do that
I'm going to explain exactly how so instead of just trying to imitate or copy you're going to learn the specific
points
so that you can focus on what it means to speak like an American if
You'd like to get a notification for when I make a new
English lesson video and I'm putting out a lot of new ones these days make sure that you're subscribed to Go Natural English here on
YouTube by clicking on the big red Subscribe button
below
It would be my honor to have you join our awesome community of Go Natural English learners here on
YouTube and make sure you visit gonaturalenglish.com
Where I post the blog lesson for each video to help you learn more
Now let's begin with the 8 ways that you can sound more like an American English
speaker
Number one, let's talk about syllables every word that has at least
Two syllables or more has a stressed syllable and a weak syllable, so let's just take the word
American We have 3 syllables, right?
American that's four syllables
So when we have more than two syllables one is going to be stressed when which syllable is stressed in
American Can you hear it?
American
so it's the second syllable right so in order to speak more like an American
make sure that you
really stretch that stressed syllable out make it longer make it louder make it higher say
American with me now
American and to balance this out the syllables that are not stressed are
probably going to sound like a
Schwa sound which is up that sound you make of someone punch of you in your gut you go Oh
American
Can you hear that? Uh American. Very
Good so American English
Really stresses the stressed syllable and makes the other syllables very weak number two learn
Connected speech. Oh, it's so easy to say but yet there are so many different rules in connected speech, so let me quickly
share several the most important with you in American English
Especially whenever you find a t between two vowel sounds it's going to be a d. We don't drink water
We drink water
We don't put butter on our toast we put butter on our toast okay?
so t between two vowels equals a d
a T between an N, and a vowel gets removed
International not
International International
dentist not dentist, but dentist
when you have an N then a T then a vowel sometimes it becomes a glottal stop like Mountain or
Or a vowel than a double t
And a vowel like button or cotton when you have a t or a d between two
Consonants it often gets removed old man, not old man old man
most famous not most
Famous, but most famous we blend and link sounds together when one word ends with a consonant
and the next begins with a vowel or when the next word begins with the same consonant as the word before it ands
With that was a big jumbled mess
We blend and link sounds together from one word to the next for example social life becomes social life
We also make two words seem as though They were one when we blend sounds together like this
afternoon this afternoon
Now I know I'm going really fast because I've made
Specific lessons about most of these points in other video lessons on the go natural English channel
So make sure to check those out if you'd like a more detailed
explanation of each point
You can click up here for one of my best lessons on linking and connected speech
Assimilation is huge in American English did you becomes didja and don't you becomes dontcha?
intrusion where we insert a new sound for example between he and
Asked we insert the /j/ sound he asked or do and if we insert a /w/ sound do it
he asked to do it and in some parts of the united states you have an R intrusion between vowels -
like for example between Media and attention media attention
Finally let me tell you about
Elision where we omit a sound for example the t in the word kept when it comes before going
kept going
Number three in American English the R is so important and so frustrating for many
English learners because it can be quite different than in your native language be aware of r-colored
vowels for example in the word
word
Or why is it not ward it's her word or for example
World why is it not
World its world. So that is an r-colored vowel. We're about and before an R and it becomes err
so a lot of American English
vowels will become this sound that sounds like a pirate talking so get out your pirate hooks and go err
When you make this sound or not because that's kind of weird when we have an r at the end of the word we usually
pronounce it strongly
I say usually because some people like in new England will cut that R off for example
I parked my car
Well, that's a Boston accent and yes, I have lived in Boston, but I never adopted that accent. I would say I
park my
car
so but watch out for
Different ways of using the R if you really want to sound American you need some American phrases like instead of asking
How are you you can ask. What's up or instead of saying That's nice, or that's good
You could say that's cool. Or that's awesome in general when you speak English try to speak a little bit louder
verbs use a ton of
phrasal verbs we rarely use a
normal kind of academic verb in everyday speech in conversation
so instead of the verb to exit or to leave say to get out or
instead of saying to arrive say to
Get in or instead of saying to start or to begin you could say get going
Get going could also mean to leave so phrasal verbs can be kind of confusing but they're really key
to use a lot of them if you want to sound like an American
Native English speaker also start creating verbs out of nouns
Like Google Google's a noun, but we say let's google it google that question or friend friend is a noun
Right well I can friend you on Facebook
So friend is now a verb so just take any noun you want and make it into a verb and you'll sound more American
and finally
Vocabulary so I did suggest to you some very American phrases like awesome, and what's up?
But if you want to know quickly a few words that are different in American English as opposed to British English, we
Say fall not autumn. We say faucet not tap
We say apartment not flat elevator. Not lift diaper not nappy
TV not telly and
Candy not sweets. Oh, and one more that always catches me off guard
We say take out not take away when we go to a restaurant, and we want to take the food home
So I think that you are properly prepared now to sound really American like a native speaker
So if you have questions about any of these points, I know I went really fast leave a comment
Make sure to subscribe so that you can see you my answers to
Your questions if I make a video to answer them and make sure to visit me at gonaturalenglish.com
For more learning, and that's where you can get the English Fluency Formula ebook that I wrote for you as well
Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in another video lesson soon. Bye for now