This is the Business English Podcast special episode, how to avoid monotone in business meetings.
Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
The best way to engage listeners in what you're saying is to have interesting intonation.
Today, you'll learn how to vary your tone to avoid monotone and grab the attention of your coworkers.
All right, Lindsay, I'm excited. Today we have a very special episode and I have a question for you.
Okay, Aubrey, I'm ready. Go for it. Have you attended a meeting where someone spoke in a monotone?
Unfortunately, yes. Occasionally I'll end up on a meeting like this and it really is hard.
You know, they may be saying really interesting things, right?
They may be really smart, really insightful, but if they're monotone, I tune out.
It's It's impossible to stay focused and stay engaged.
It's the same for me. I just really I find my eyes sort of glazing over and I'm thinking of other things.
And then you realize you've lost your train of thought and you're trying to come back and you've missed things.
It's worst case scenario, really. It's so true.
I mean, even, you know, today in this episode, we're talking about meetings, right?
But I mean, this could happen if you find a great podcast, for example, and you're so excited about that topic.
Unfortunately, you listen to that first episode and you realize it's very monotone.
You're gone. Absolutely. Right. Intonation is everything.
I have no interest in listening to someone who speaks in a monotone.
TED Talks. There have been some really interesting TED Talks and then the speakers in monotone.
I can't do it. A couple minutes and I just turn it off.
Exactly. So what are we doing in this special episode today?
Yes, you guys are going to hear an episode from the All Ears English podcast.
That's so good. We wanted to share it here because it's so applicable to how to speak in a meeting.
It's so important that especially if you really need everyone's attention, like you said, Lindsay, you're sharing important details, important information.
You can't just assume that because your message is important, everyone's going to listen.
You still have to engage them. Yes. And a big part of this is speaking is varying your intonation, not using that monotone.
Exactly. Your job is not done just by having the grammar, having the vocabulary.
What we emphasize in all our podcasts here at All Ears English is connection, connection in business, connection in life.
And so to have that final connection moment, you actually need to not be monotone.
Right. Exactly. It's so vital, right? And then everyone will get that message.
And it's the same for you. You want anyone presenting at a meeting you're a part of to also vary their intonation, hold your engagement.
This is such an important skill in business English.
Yeah, exactly. So today you guys are going to hear an episode from our All Ears English podcast.
Now, I know many of you already listen to All Ears English, but some of you might only be listening to Business English right now.
So Aubrey, where can our listeners find the All Ears English podcast?
Yes, open your search tab, type in All Ears English podcast.
You'll see all three of our podcasts. Make sure to follow All Ears English for great vocab tips.
You want to make sure you're hearing those episodes as well as these.
Yeah, 100%. So go and do that now, guys, before we get into this episode.
And I guess we are all set to go ahead and let our listeners in on this awesome episode.
Yeah, let's listen in. Hey there, Michelle.
How's it going today? How are you feeling?
Hey, Lindsay. I'm good. I'm good. How are you?
I am feeling amazing today, Michelle. Amazing.
Well, that makes me so happy. That's good.
I'm also feeling amazing. This is going to be a great episode.
Oh my God. What are we doing? You know, sometimes I like to extend my words super long, right?
Make them super Super long. Oh, this is going to be a fun one today, Michelle.
What are we getting into today? Okay, guys, if you couldn't guess, we are going today to be talking about how to draw out your words to show emphasis and personality when you are having a conversation.
Yeah, and I think this is exactly what our listeners need right now because we know, you guys, you know the basics.
You know the basics. You're probably even above intermediate level.
You're wanting to move to that advanced to native-like level, that 99% fluency level.
Right. So this is why we're here. This is what gets you to that point and actually makes people want to listen to you.
Because if you're monotone, what happens?
You sound boring. Boring. It's boring. And it doesn't catch the ear.
People just don't listen. Right. If you're monotone.
Do you know? Yeah. Sorry. It's actually like even I think because we're not expecting monotone sound, I think it almost becomes difficult to understand in a way, not just being boring, but like because you have to like listen extra to kind of fill in the spaces yourself.
It's true. Do you know anyone who speaks in a very monotone way in English, like a native speaker?
Anyone like on TV or someone you know? Remember that comedian Ben Stein?
Yeah. No, I don't know him, unfortunately.
You wouldn't know him if you, well, okay, wait, I think he's the one, and I actually haven't seen this movie, but in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, who like goes Bueller, Bueller.
Okay, I love that movie. That's a fun movie.
Okay, so I'm pretty sure that's Ben Stein, but he's known, he's actually like famous for his monotone voice.
And he's a comedian. So it's part of his act.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's part of it's part of his act.
He's known for that. So that's a little bit different.
But he's he's famous for that. So but yeah, very important to be expressive in your conversations with your words.
And yeah, I thought of this because I was watching a show and someone used the word terrible in a sentence, but they made it super long.
They were like, oh, it's terrible. And I thought, you know what?
We do this a lot. And it's something that I think we want to take some time to pay attention to on the podcast because this is a good lesson for our listeners to deal with timing, stress, just showing emphasis, personality, like I said.
Exactly. And then so let's go through the basics of how to really do this.
And then we can take it to an even higher, more advanced level, because I know that sometimes people have inside jokes with friends about extending certain words, like saying goodbye on the phone.
I've heard people around me with certain friends, like very close friends, they'll say something like, bye.
Right. It's so annoying and I would never say it, but it's their personal joke, right?
And so that's a way to build connection too is by extending certain syllables just because you did it once and you laughed about it together and now you keep doing it all the time.
So that's also a way to build connection.
I mean – Yeah. No, that's true. That's true.
So, guys, we're going to get into this. But just before we move on, we want to remind you, if you haven't done it yet, hit follow for the All Ears English podcast now.
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Okay, Michelle, let's get into these examples to make sure our listeners know what we're talking about here.
Okay. So you could say, what a terrible day.
Or you could say, what a terrible day. Now, what do you think?
What do you think about those two examples?
What a terrible day, right? Well, you know, the second one makes me want to say, whoa, what happened?
Like, why was it so terrible? It actually gets me a little more interested in you and what's going on in your life, right?
So starting a conversation. Yeah. So I think that, you know, the first one, what a terrible day, it can be just as emphatic if you do it in a little bit of a different way.
Like, what a terrible, you know, like, depending on how you play with it, it can also be very interesting to listen to.
But lengthening the word is one technique, you can use it to really make it interesting.
Like Lindsay said, then she wants to hear about it and makes it expressive and strong.
What a terrible day. It's definitely dramatic.
It's definitely dramatic, but sometimes we need that.
I mean, it doesn't always have to be that it's super dramatic to do this type of a thing, but just a little bit with a little bit of pizzazz.
Yeah. Do you think it's possible to overdo it with this, with doing too much of this in the normal way you speak just all the time?
Some people do it a lot, this kind of thing.
Yeah. I think it is possible to overdo it.
I think, you know, we always want to be expressive, but you don't need to, you know, guys, the last thing we want you to leave here with is to say, okay, let's go through my conversations.
And then now every word I'm gonna do. No, no.
No, don't do that. Don't go that far on that in that direction.
Right. We just add a little bit of this every once in a while and we get more connection.
Maybe we should give our listeners some examples here, Michelle.
Okay. So here we go. So what do you think of my new haircut?
Oh, Lindsay, it looks amazing. Good. So I really needed, you know, you could have said, oh, it looks amazing.
That's okay, too. But it's fun if you really want to say it truly is a transformative change, right?
Maybe I just got a totally different cut.
You want to say amazing. Right, right, right, right.
So again, like the first example was, oh, I had a terrible day, terrible day.
Now, it doesn't always have to be for negative things.
Like here we have a very positive thing.
Oh, you look amazing, right? Amazing, strange. stretching it out a little bit just makes it more intense, you know?
Yeah. One area that this will happen a lot is when you're wearing a wedding dress, when you're getting your... And sometimes it's hard to know whether people really mean it or not, right?
Like if you're getting alterations, you know, and there it is.
And you get a lot of that. Is it genuine, right?
That's one thing that I think people might struggle with.
Is it really genuine or are you just supposed to emphasize amazing when you see someone in a wedding dress?
Oh, I think we have to give people the benefit of the doubt.
I don't want to second guess it. But yeah, yeah, of course.
All brides look amazing. Absolutely. Well, there you go.
All right, Michelle, here's the next one.
Did you have fun today? Yes, the food was incredible.
Yeah, and that's good. You know, you find a great restaurant, you got to talk about it, right?
The food was incredible. You know what's kind of funny, though?
When you write this in a text message, it's very weird.
I know. It's like, even just, guys, if you could see my notes now, you know, like, how do you even...
It's so weird with the stretching. I just have a whole bunch of ease, but it's not incredible.
Right. Incredible. So it's funny, I guess over text, you know, maybe you would just like maybe do all caps or you could.
Yeah, I don't know. It's but it's kind of it's kind of different.
It doesn't work quite the same. I don't think.
But I think this is what people do over text.
I think they write it like incredible. Yeah.
Or amazing with five A's in the middle. I've seen it.
I've seen it for sure. So I don't think there honestly is a better way to deal with that.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm glad to know.
Yeah. So Lindsay, do you draw your words?
Do you, do you stretch them out to express yourself?
I don't know. I feel like we should both record ourselves in our daily life and then take this material to our listeners for a podcast episode.
That would actually be really cool. I don't know if I do or not.
I mean, maybe a little bit, but I know some people that do it more, that are a bit more over the top.
That's not exactly my personality, but I want to be very warm.
I am warm. I just don't necessarily do it in a very dramatic way.
Right. Right, right, right. Well, I mean, luckily, there's a lot of audio of us.
So you can go back and let us know. Yeah, true.
They would know better than we would, Michelle.
Yeah, you can let us know. Like, do like, do I draw my words more than Lindsay?
Or does she do? You know, is this something that you've noticed?
So let us know. Yeah. A few years ago, I think there was something where a listener wrote in and said, Lindsay or Michelle says this all the time.
Right. They called us out on one thing. We say a lot.
We didn't even know it. Right. Yeah. So you guys know better than we do what we actually say.
Yeah. Sometimes it's like I'm almost like scared that I said that you guys should do this because then I'm like, oh, gosh, like they're going to find something.
We challenge our listeners. Yeah. I love it.
Exactly. Exactly. So. All right. Let's do let's do another example.
Okay. Oh, no. This is the venue? Yikes. This is awful.
So sometimes that happens. You show up and it's been built up in your head.
People have talked about something is going to be amazing and then it's terrible.
Looks awful. Right. Right. So, and again, the, the different, I didn't say this is awful.
Like it doesn't always have to be stretched out like that much, but just a little something.
So like the difference would be yikes, this is awful or yikes, this is awful.
Right. So it can just be a little bit extra.
So you can kind of, you can decide, you may say, oh, I don't want to be super dramatic, but I want to add a little.
Yeah. yeah michelle do you want to do that difference again one more time the normal way and then the stretched out way for our listeners so we can hear okay i'm gonna do three ways actually so the first way is uh yikes this is awful right that's kind of neutral right still expressing with your words and you know um or you could say yikes this is awful right a little like a little stretch.
And then the third way would be, yikes, this is awful, right?
Maybe a little bit louder, a little longer, whatever it is.
Interesting. I love it. So there are, you can decide how extreme, how kind of dramatic you want to be guys.
This is where we get to play around with our language.
This is where it gets fun. Yeah. It is fun.
It is fun. Yeah. What else, Michelle? Well, one of the things is like generally, generally, you usually would like drag out the vowel, right?
Awful, terrible, right? It's a little bit tough to drag out a consonant really, although I suppose like in a way sometimes you could be like – with like really, like really, you know, you could.
But I think in general we think about dragging out like a vowel sound, right, Lindsay?
Yeah. Yeah. We just, there's not really much of a way.
So what you're saying with the really is the R a little bit, maybe the R sound, but yeah, generally it's the consonant.
So a few more examples here, guys, you know, you're holding your belly.
You just, you're stuffed. That was a huge meal, right?
Maybe you say that after Thanksgiving dinner or something.
Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you could say that was so much fun.
Yes. Or there is never enough time. That's an interesting one.
Yeah. So what is that? When would I use that?
What scenario, Michelle? If a visit with someone went by really fast and you're saying goodbye and you're like, yeah, I mean, that's how I feel like when I see my parents, I'm like, I feel like I go and then like it just flies by.
Even if it's a long time, it's like, oh, there's never enough time.
Yeah, that's an awful feeling when it's gone by and that's it.
Yeah. What about a movie, movies? Well, you could say that was the funniest movie ever, right?
Ever. Ever, right? Or you could say that was the funniest movie ever, something like that.
But, you know, a lot of times we drag out the adjectives, not always the adjectives, but you might, you know, if you're starting off with this, you could try that.
But is this unprofessional? Yeah. Well, I think it just depends on how much you use it.
I think you guys need to find ways to convey your emotion.
If you feel strongly about something, you need to find a way to convey that at work.
Right. But if you're if you are putting this intense emotion, the thing is, it's not that it's professional or not.
It's more like you're going to weaken every single thing you say if you do it for everything.
Right. Right. It's like it's like anything else you overdo it, then people underestimate the importance of it because you're saying it all the time.
It can't be that important. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right. That's true. So don't do it all the time, like we were saying before.
But I mean, you could like if you were talking to a coworker, you could say like, oh, that meeting was long or something like that.
But yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it depends.
Yeah. And I think if you feel like you have an animated personality, some of us have more animated personalities than others.
If that's you in your native language, you know, we are here to show you how to be you in English.
That's the whole point of All Ears English.
So if this is you, then go to town, right?
Do it all the time. And it could be that in certain situations or with certain friends or, you know, that you feel more comfortable doing something like this.
But at the workplace, you keep it a little bit different.
So it doesn't mean that you have to change this for every single thing in your life or every single context.
That's a good point. It depends. It depends.
We all kind of have, you know, differences depending on situations. you know, who we're with.
And I mean, you know, we, we try to be sincere to who we are, of course, but you know, we have kind of personalities that arise in different situations.
Yeah, I completely agree. That's a good point.
You know, I could imagine someone that goes to work every day and doesn't necessarily use this too much.
Maybe they use it like 1% of the time. And then on the weekends out with their friends, they're using it all the time because it's who they are socially versus professionally.
So you could definitely be someone different.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right.
Well, this was fun. I did a lot of, a lot of, I'm tired now.
All that being dramatic. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Stretching things out and doing all sorts of things.
Doing our stretches for the day or stretches, right, Michelle?
I mean, guys think, you know, the takeaway here in my mind is think about how you speak, record yourself, right?
Everyone has a recorder on their Android or iPhone.
Okay. Record your voice, you know, on a meeting or around your friends or something, and then listen and ask yourself, are you being monotone?
If you are, then think about playing around with this a little bit, right?
That's the key. Okay. Absolutely. So a little assignment.
So that could help you out with this. But yeah, Lindsay, this was a fun episode.
Really fun, Michelle. Yeah. All right. So guys, thank you for listening and or watching and we will talk to you soon.
All right. Talk to you soon, Michelle. Take care.
Bye. Oh, such great tips. I loved how you guys showed how to draw out a sound like in amazing and incredible to emphasize.
This is so vital. Yeah, it's so perfect when you're sharing information in a meeting, right?
I mean, when someone calls on you, let's say your boss asks you to contribute in that meeting.
You have something to say, but people are just not going to hear you if you say it in a monotone way.
Yeah, exactly. Right. Don't say, I'm going to show some incredible results.
Imagine. No, instead, I'm going to share some incredible results.
Listen to the difference, how you're pulling in and engaging your audience.
Yeah. You know, you're just not very convincing when you're monotone.
Like when you say that in a monotone way, I don't really get very excited about hearing those results.
I don't believe it's going to be incredible.
No, I don't believe you. Exactly. Exactly.
So this makes sure that your message is going to be heard and understood.
A lot of you guys are telling us that you're afraid that your native speaking colleagues might not understand you.
This is another benefit of not being monotone.
Absolutely. That is such a good point that your message is more easily understood.
Emphasizing having varied intonation forces you to slow down to emphasize different syllables and it makes your words, your word stress, everything more comprehensible.
Your message is much more likely to be understood.
Yes. And you avoid that glazing over. I love that expression, that phrasal verb there, glazing over.
We've all seen that, right? When we're speaking and you just see their eyes glaze over, you know the moment you've lost their interest.
I love it, guys. So now is the time to go over.
You've heard a sample of an All Ears English episode, but we have many more.
Aubrey, more or less, how many episodes do we even have on All Ears English?
We are close to hitting 2000. It's so exciting.
We have some amazing content over there for you guys.
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So this is an extremely popular podcast.
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Aubrey, I'm excited for our new listeners to come and join us.
Absolutely, guys. You've got to follow All Ears English for more amazing vocabulary and tips.
All right. Good stuff. See you guys over there.
And Aubrey, thanks for hanging out today.
Awesome. Thanks. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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