Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the
Understandable English Podcast. My name is Oliver and today we
are going to be talking about a very important or commonly asked
about topic and that is how to speak English more like a native
speaker. Time and time again, so very,
very often I see English language learners wanting to
speak English more like a native speaker.
Perhaps they want to have an English accent, or maybe they
want to learn slang or use the words that native English
speakers use, but it's really common in general.
So today I want to give you a sort of step by step guide as to
how I would advise you to try to sound more like a native
speaker. But first I want to say that I
don't think it's important. I don't think having an English
accent is important or using slang.
Personally, I think that everyone should be proud of
their accent and the most important thing is just to be
understood. So to be clear and
understandable. But anyway, today we will talk
about how to sound more like a native speaker. 1st, I just want
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OK? So the first step that I would
usually advise learners to look at is signs.
So these are the important signs of the language and the
pronunciation. So the first step in speaking
like a native speaker is definitely pronunciation.
Native speakers, I would say, often have specific or very set
ways of pronouncing certain signs.
And actually how you pronounce these signs in English can
depend on the area you're from. For example, even in different
parts of the UK, you will pronounce these signs
differently. Like let's give an example with
the ER sound. So any word that ends in an ER,
if you're from, for example, the north of the UK or Northern
Ireland, you will pronounce these signs like a hard signs
like ER. And if you're from the South of
England or many areas of England, you will pronounce it
with a soft sound like an AH. So for example, I would say
being from Northern Ireland, I would say pyre and someone from
the South of England would say power like a soft signed.
So that is something to keep in mind.
What type of accent do you want? Do you want to signed like
you're from Scotland or from Northern Ireland or from London?
And even in London, there are lots of different accents.
But maybe you just want to sound like the queen or the king now,
and that's OK too. But it's something to keep in
mind. OK, so once you know what accent
you want, you need to focus on the signs and practice how to
say them. There's lots of videos online
and really focus and practice these key signs.
The next step is you're going to want to listen to lots of native
speakers. This is so important.
You know, even listening to movies or music or YouTube
videos, these are the best ways. Actually, to be honest, I don't
think music is a great way to learn speech.
But the best way in my view is listening to real content.
Even TV shows and movies in some ways are not representative, so
they don't reflect or show how the real English sounds.
So in some ways, it is better to watch real YouTube videos or
Instagram or content from real English people.
This is a great way to learn and practice.
But here is the key part that lots of people miss.
They will listen to this stuff, they will watch it and they
think, hmm, if I listen to it and watch it, that's fine.
I will suddenly start to speak more like this in the future.
But you need to copy it and repeat the signs and the words
to start to speak like these people, like the native
speakers. That's what you need to actually
make sure you do to make it a practice, not just improving
your understanding. Yes, listening and watching
English content helps to improve our understanding.
It does help our vocabulary, but only by actually practicing or
speaking will we improve the pronunciation and the sound of
how we speak. We need to actually actively
work on it. OK.
The next key point I would say to focus on is something I call
or I think it's actually called connected speech or connecting
speech. And these are words that flow
and join together, and maybe they change a little bit.
And often native speakers will say them in a very specific way.
And actually from consuming or watching or listening to native
English content, you will hear these phrases.
And then you can think, hmm, I need to use this or I need to
learn this. And I'll give you some examples
of these. For example, linking words.
This could be saying I'm gonna instead of I am going to, it
gets shortened to I'm gonna. Or for example, what are you
doing? Could be what you're doing.
So a short version of that. Of course, not everyone uses
these short versions and some are more specific to different
countries. Like I would say what you're
doing, what are you doing is more American.
But even here in the UK, we would often say I'm gonna
instead of I am going to. And these would be called
reductions, making the words smaller.
So joining together more. Oh, another one I would use as
well, maybe quite often is wanna.
So instead of I want to, I might say I wanna.
And perhaps by using these you can also start to sound a little
bit more native. But try to use them naturally.
Don't use them all the time, and don't overuse them.
So using them too much to the point where it's unnatural.
Native speakers would also tend to use these types of phrases or
words in more casual social situations.
So not so much at work or in maybe school or academia.
We would use them more with friends or casual interactions,
and that would be the main use. OK, so the Third Point I want to
talk about is very difficult, and it's actually quite
difficult to explain. And I think this is an area that
a lot of learners struggle with or at least never think about,
and that is intonation and rhythm.
What does that mean? So native English speakers have
a certain melody or a rhythm when they speak, and that is not
what they're saying, but how they say it, how they say it, if
I want to say it more English. So the tone, so how we say it
can go up or down depending on what we're saying.
Let's take for example, when we ask questions, the tone tends to
go up at the end if it's a yes or no question.
Like for example, are you coming?
You can hear my voice rises at the end.
This is a basic example. And then the reply to that
question might be, I am coming. So the tone drops or falls at
the end. So when you're listening to
English content, it's really important to listen to how the
rhythm or the melody of the speech is.
And that is, in my eyes, more important than accent.
It's more important than the words.
It is how to really truly sound like a native speaker.
And it can be very hard to learn, maybe even impossible to
study it. But you can practice and improve
by copying or imitating rhythm or tone.
But over time, you will naturally find your own rhythm
and intonation, which will develop and begin to sound more
natural. OK.
Another part of this which is equally as important is
emphasizing important words. Now, native speakers, definitely
don't stress every word equally. You can hear.
I just did it. I said native speakers don't
stress every word equally, or definitely don't stress every
word equally. I stressed the word definitely
to put extra emphasis on it. Now, we do this in our own
native languages, but often when we speak in a foreign language,
we don't really emphasize or stress words as much as we
should. Now don't do this with
everything, but do pay attention to it when you're listening to
native speakers. Speak and experiment and
practice emphasizing more words. You might find it very helpful.
For example, a very commonly stressed word is really, So for
example, I really want to go, and that emphasizes that you
want to go. It's a stressing or an
emphasizing word to show that you really want to go.
And try practicing this with some of your sentences.
Now with each of these things, the tone and the stressing or
emphasizing of words, listen for them.
Watch for them. When you're what, listening to a
podcast, even my podcast or ATV show or a YouTube video, listen
for them. Try to identify these points to
find them and then copy them. That is the key, the secret, if
you will. OK, so the 4th point, this is
going to be a longer podcast today because I think there are
very important tips in this step by step guide.
So the 4th point is to expand your vocabulary, but mainly by
using idiomatic expressions. So idiomatic expressions or
colloquial phrases we could call them, and most importantly from
these are phrasal verbs. If we look at first idioms, I'll
be honest, I don't use a lot of idioms in my speech and the
biggest mistake I see learners use with idioms is overusing
them. So maybe they've heard in class
an idiom like it's raining cats or dogs or something like this
and they try to use it all the time.
They will quickly realise that not many people say it,
particularly younger people or the younger generation.
Idioms were much more popular in the past and I've noticed,
particularly amongst my generation, that they aren't
used so much, but phrasal verbs are so important.
I know they're difficult and there are so many to learn, but
do start to add these and use them in your conversations and
practice them as much as you can.
It is a really key point or a core point to sound more
natural. I am working on an ebook for
phrasal verbs at the moment with short stories to teach phrasal
verbs. I'm not sure when it'll be
ready, but I will let you guys know when that's available.
OK, the next point when we're talking about all of these verbs
and phrases are colloquial phrases.
So for example, instead of saying how are you?
You might say what's up or how's it going?
And this can be different in each part or place of the UK
too. Don't overuse these or say them
too much, but using a few of them here and there in your
speech can look very natural and make you sound much more like a
fluent speaker or a native speaker.
It's a great way to make your speech more interesting.
But again, try to use them more in casual settings like with
friends or outside of the workplace.
Don't use them so much in work because it can look quite
unprofessional. OK, so I have a few final points
on how to practice. So now that I've given you all
of the areas that you should focus on.
Now how to practice. I've already mentioned listening
to lots of stuff and repeating, but here are a few extra points.
This one is basic or easy to understand, and that is talking
with native speakers and listening to them.
Try to meet them maybe at a language exchange club or an
English speaking club, or maybe through a service like Tandem or
Hello Talk, or perhaps even just a teacher that you have lessons
with. It's one of the best ways.
Next is actually to record yourself speaking.
So to make some sentences, speak it into your phone's microphone
and play it back and listen. This will help you to hear
different areas that you can improve or make better.
And finally, try to stay consistent.
If you're trying to sound more like a native speaker, you need
to be practicing it almost every day.
I'm not saying you have to every day, but it's better to do, for
example 10 minutes practice per day than, you know, two hours
once per week in my opinion. It's good to practice a little
bit every day if you can, and that will help you to have
continuous improvement over time.
So thank you so much for listening today.
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practice. So thank you again for listening
and I hope you have have an amazing day and I wish you the
best of luck with improving your English pronunciation and
speaking goodbye.