This is an All Ears English episode.
Why slow down in English?
Part 2. Give space for emphasis.
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Today we continue our series about slowing down, taking up space, and leaving yourself open to connection in English with two more strategies.
Find out what they are today.
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Hey there, Aubrey. What's shaking?
Not much. How are you, Lindsay?
Yeah, doing well. Aubrey, do you know anyone who's a really good storyteller?
Like they start hard to tell a story and everyone just kind of huddles up next to them.
Yes. Yes. I have a neighbor friend.
He actually did stand up comedy and improv.
He did improv shows when he was younger.
He's a banker now, which is funny, but he is very funny and he has such good, I think a lot of it comes from the comic timing of that standup comedy, but he is really good at building up a story.
So you're just can't wait to find out what happened, right?
He's adding this interesting dramatic effect and building suspense.
Even if it's a story that's sort of just about like what happened yesterday, not a very big deal, right?
It's incredible. And it's very empowering to know these are skills we can use.
It's not like he was born with that talent.
Maybe there's a little talent there.
Maybe he's high EQ potentially, right?
But these are skills we can learn at the the same time about delivery.
It's delivery, right?
Yes, absolutely. It's a lot about delivery and it's really interesting how the skills that make you a good storyteller also transfer to what make you a good conversationalist, to what makes it easy to understand everything you're saying in English, right?
Yeah, a good conversationalist, a good presenter, someone that people listen to at work right a career a successful career there's a lot here Aubrey exactly right the speed yeah we want to talk about the speed that we use and also the intonation the pauses right this really affects not only a story that we're telling but the message the import that's given to our message so this is part two of a series right if you missed part one scroll up you can check it out.
And today is part two.
Yes. And this series is inspired by our amazing student Sina, who I got to meet in Open Conversation Club.
And he explained to me his challenge that he tends to speak fast in a way to cover up mistakes out of a fear that maybe what he's saying is wrong.
And so we're digging into this and we're explaining what can we do, not only why we we should slow down, but how to strategically slow down and where and when.
It's not simply slowing down.
Yes, we have all been there.
We often, especially in a second language, but even in our first language, if we get nervous, we speed up thinking that it will cover up any mistakes or hide our nervousness maybe.
And in a second language, if we're worried about grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation errors, we feel like if we speak really quickly and and fluidly that they won't be as noticeable.
And in part, that is true.
But unfortunately, it also can make what we're saying harder to understand.
If we're not clear with our phonemes, those individual letter sounds, and if we're not pausing to give different words the variety of tone they need, the emphasis they need.
Exactly. And what ends up happening is we make ourselves small.
We make ourselves small, Aubrey, right?
We say to ourselves, themselves i'm maybe not worth taking up this space here that i would take off if i paused if i change my intonation so i'm going to speak quickly i'm going to be smaller and they won't notice my mistakes we play it safe but we never win in life when we play it safe right and we devalue our message whether we're presenting or just having a conversation with a friend we are devaluing ourselves and and giving the impression that what we're saying isn't important and they don't really need to pay attention.
Even if the content is awesome.
Yeah, often that is the case.
Usually this happens in life, right?
When the content is great, but someone doesn't feel that they can deliver it well versus people that talk all the time, but talk too much and they're not actually saying anything, right?
Absolutely. Yeah, so in part one, we talked about the need to pause for punctuation in a sentence.
If you are listening to this podcast, you are using compound complex sentences that have multiple clauses, introductory phrases, relative clauses, and you have to pause when there would be punctuation in order to build dramatic effect in order to make your meaning clear.
Yeah. Don't lose the complexity of what you're saying.
Don't let that get lost in that monotone, right?
A lot of our listeners, you guys tell us you want to show your true personality, the complexity of your thinking in English.
But if we're saying in a monotone, not pausing, we're not conveying the complexity of our thoughts, right?
Exactly, right. So we're diving into our second tip here today.
Whether there's punctuation or not, you have to give space for emphasis and to vary your intonation.
So we talked about this.
Often students, listeners, all of us will slip into a monotone if we're thinking about other things.
We're trying to think of the correct grammar, the vocabulary, and often what goes goes on the back burner is interesting intonation.
Delivery, exactly. So what are some scenarios where we would do this?
Aubrey, give space for emphasis and variety of intonation.
Tell us more what that means.
Yeah. So for example, if you're correcting a misunderstanding, let's say someone, you know, misunderstood something you said, or maybe you're defending yourself.
Let's say, let's use this without interesting intonation.
If I said, I told you I did try, but no one, no one was listening.
Kind of a little muted, a little monotone.
You might not even understand that I'm actually trying to correct a misunderstanding.
How should this sound, Lindsay?
Yeah. I told you, I did try, but no one, no one was listening.
Right. So you have noticed how there are pauses there.
There have to be pauses in order to give these words space, in order to emphasize them.
So let's talk about what exactly you did.
First of of all, you stressed the word did to correct a misunderstanding to defend yourself in the intonation the context has shown.
Right. And the presumption here is that what I said to you before that was, seems like you didn't try, right?
Right, exactly. If this were part of a conversation, someone has told you that you didn't try.
I did. I did try. Right.
But no one, no one was listening.
Okay. So that's the first thing we did I told you I did well we did a few things we have this this slash here this hyphen where we we pause there too right I told you I did try right yes right and then we also repeat no one and we're going to emphasize it stronger the second time whenever we have repetition of a phrase it is the first way I said that is very strange to just say it with a monotone you're saying it again in order to emphasize.
So you want to hit it harder.
So you say no one with that little bit of a pause and you punch it harder to add sort of emotional weight and frustration.
You are showing emotion through your expressiveness.
This is a nice little trick our listeners can have, just a self -contained trick in their back pocket that they can use.
Even if this is the only thing you take away from this episode, guys, this is great.
Choose what you want to repeat occasionally in a a passionate sentence and really punch that hard the second time you say it, it can have a big effect for sure.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And if you're speaking too quickly and running this all together, you won't be able to emphasize those words.
They need space. They need those tiny pauses in order to be able to punch those words harder.
Yes. What would be the second example, Aubrey, of giving space?
All right. Let me first show it, you know, as a monotone.
I'll run together if you said um she looked me in the eye and said this was never going to work yeah just not it not engaging to me right exactly there's very little emotion expressiveness my listeners might just be kind of shutting off their brain thinking about what happened earlier yeah it happens very quickly even as adults i think what do they say is like the attention span of a goldfish or so like we have like a three second attention span and we're gone i lost you already once you were in the third word in the phrase.
And unfortunately, attention spans are getting even shorter with screen time and movies and filmmakers editing or having to do quicker edits because they lose the audience's attention too fast. The same happens with us in conversations.
Yes. So how could it sound with emphasis and variety of information?
You could say, she looked me in the eye and said, this was never going to work.
Yes. We really emphasize never.
Why did we choose never?
Yeah. Punching never adds that emotion, adds that emphasis.
If you're saying something was never going to happen, pretty much anytime you have never in a sentence you should punch it harder because it's such an absolute.
You're saying something will never happen.
You can't say this will never happen.
You also paused. There was a comma After said and before the quote, we saw that.
So you paused before that quote to build tension, right?
To break it up, right?
If you're saying she looked me in the eye and said, and then there's this pause, like what, what, what did she say?
Right? So you're building tension, intentionally pausing before what you share that was said, but this goes back to part one as well.
You know, there should be a pause there because there would be punctuation.
There would be quotation marks.
There would be a comma here.
So you're also pausing for punctuation.
I love it. So strategic, Aubrey, isn't it?
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Okay. We are back with our, well, the third tip in the series, the second tip for today.
Aubrey, what is it?
Yeah. So often when you slow down, it's intentionally to be able to use clear enunciation.
Because if you aren't enunciating clearly, it can lead to misunderstandings, confusion.
So, Sina mentioned that speaking quickly can mask minor grammar and pronunciation mistakes, which can be true.
But it can also cause the entire message to be lost if the individual words and sounds aren't clear.
All right. So, So this is the time when you do need to slow down, right?
Before, we said that, you know, a lot of this doesn't necessarily involve slowing down.
But in this case, that is the recommendation for this third tip, right?
Exactly, right. Without proper intonation, pacing, word stress, the listener might not know which meaning is intended.
There's a lot of ambiguity in English and through our intonation, we often can make it clear.
So let's give a couple examples.
examples. I'm going to say a sentence fast first. And when it's said fast, you might not understand exactly what I'm saying.
Okay. Let's hear it.
Ready? Yes. I told my friend John would be late because he missed the bus.
Oh, yeah. I misunderstood a couple things right in the middle there.
Yes. Right. So, this is tricky.
If you say it fast, it could sound like, I told my friend John we'd be late because I missed the bus.
A lot of pronouns can sound the same when you're speaking quickly and running things together what i intended to say was i told my friend john or i told my friend john would be late because he missed the bus i honestly didn't know what you were saying until just now i told my friend john would be late because he missed the bus but if you say quickly sounds like i told my friend john we'd be late okay well that's a the perfect example of what happens, right?
We lose it, we lose the point, and therefore we lose the connection, right?
Yeah. So often because there is, you know, there are so many sounds in English and so many tricky things about word stress that a lot of things that you say, a lot of things that anyone says could be misunderstood.
If we're speaking very quickly in order to avoid these grammar and pronunciation errors being clear, but the bigger risk is causing a misunderstanding, understanding, confusion.
It's not the end of the world to have to say, wait, who was late?
Who missed the bus?
But it's not necessary in the first place if you're able to use correct intonation, slow down so that you can enunciate clearly.
Yeah. You don't want to have to waste your time on those questions when you can get to more interesting content in your conversation with someone, right?
Yes. And then there's also all of the ambiguity of words in English that have the the same or lots of meanings for the same word. So for example, Lindsay, what if I say I saw her duck?
What does that mean?
It could mean two things, right?
Are you saying I have a duck, like a duck that goes quack, quack, and you saw my duck over there waddling across the yard?
Or are you saying you saw me or her, someone duck down?
Yeah, which means like lower to avoid something above them, right?
We have the noun, a duck, like you were saying, that quacks, and also the verb, which means to lower yourself, to duck.
And so words like this that have multiple meanings can easily lead to misunderstandings if there's no intonation in the sentence.
So let's say it is a duck waddling across the yard. You'd want to say, I saw her duck.
Because if you're talking about someone ducking, it's not exciting, right?
You want this this intonation to punch duck harder.
Interesting. Right.
And adding a little information.
I saw her duck. It was waddling across the yard. Right.
Especially when we know, oh, this word exists as a noun and a verb.
We're probably going to add more context.
I saw her duck. It was waddling across the yard. Wait, why was she ducking?
Yeah, you're never going to.
Yeah, exactly. Or in the context of physically ducking, right?
I saw her duck right before the ball hit her, okay?
Right. And the intonation would be different, right?
I saw her duck. It goes down there because we don't have this excitement.
And then also adding more context.
Oh, I saw her duck right before the ball hit her.
We know we're not talking about the animal, a duck.
Yeah. It seems like we're placing the most emphasis there on the verb hit, right?
Because that's kind of the surprising thing that happened, right?
Right. It's really if someone's ducking, we care more about why they had to duck.
Right. Good point. Wow.
There's a lot here, Aubrey.
This has been a very solid series.
I'm so excited that, you know, we got this question from Sina.
Such a good question and a concept that we don't think about, right?
We think about maybe people speaking too slowly, but we don't think often about speaking too fast. Right.
Absolutely. Right. And it's interesting.
We talk about this quite a bit over on the IELTS Energy podcast. If you're studying for IELTS, adults, you've likely heard this.
You have to slow down to enunciate words to make sure that you know, word stress is correct, phonemes are correct, and your intonation is interesting.
But often in just daily life, we don't realize that it's vital then as well to make conversations and stories interesting.
Yes. What's another episode our listeners could check out if they're excited about this series and they want to keep going with All Ears English?
Yes. I loved the episode you and Michelle did, 2439, English for Touchy Testy Situations.
And an episode like this really lends toward interesting intonation, right?
If you're talking about touchy testy situations, you're definitely going to be using very interesting intonation there.
Fantastic. So as we wrap up this episode in this series, Aubrey, where should we leave our listeners?
What is the most important thing to keep in mind here?
Yeah, I think this can be sort of a misunderstanding that speaking quickly will improve your English, will make it so that no one notices your errors and your message is clearer, that's actually the opposite of what actually happens sometimes.
It makes it so that your message is misunderstood or even lost at times.
Exactly. As you're talking, always keep in mind connection is the goal, right?
And And people want to connect with other people.
And if you make yourself small, which is what happens when we speak fast to mask our errors, that's not opening us up to connection, Aubrey, right?
Absolutely, right? Such a good point.
You want there to be value on what you say, whether it's a presentation at work that has high stakes or a story you're telling.
You want the people that you are talking to to know why they should be listening.
And a lot of this is done through your intonation, through the pauses that you're making speaking intentionally and slowing down so that you have the space to give words that weight.
Exactly, Aubrey. And I think the final tip that just came to mind is this is about taking up space, right?
This is about being willing to take time, take space.
And maybe one thing that could help is using gestures more.
Because when I gesture, I feel like I sometimes space out my words with my gestures.
I'm doing it right now on our YouTube channel.
I do that too. do. I talk with my hands a lot and it sort of adds that extra punch. Exactly.
And also, I'm not sure if this research has been disproven or what, but I kind of think it makes sense.
Do you remember there was some research in the that was out about when we physically put our arms in the air, it increases our confidence and it kind of makes space, right?
I think it works. It works for me.
When I stand up, I expand my space.
So what if you're having trouble implementing these tips?
What if you you actually try to take up more space and at the same time slow down.
That's just something to think about as a strategy, as a tactic.
I love that, right?
Take up more space and also the time it takes in order to make sure your message is clear.
Often you won't actually be saving time if someone has to ask you to repeat or clarify, right?
So if you think about that on the front end, say it clearly the first time, enunciate clearly, give words the space and time they need.
Yes. So I'm excited to see this shift in our listeners and our students and our student -only open conversation club.
Super excited to see some results here.
Good stuff. All right, Aubrey, you have a good rest of your day.
I'll see you soon. You too.
Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay.
Bye. Take care. Bye.
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