Are you having trouble understanding your native colleagues?
Of course you are. It's a stupid question, really.
To help you out today, I'm going to go through some really common business sentences said in a natural way with connected speech to help you understand better.
Let's crack on then, shall we?
Hello, and welcome back to Confident Business English.
You're here with me, Anna, your host and neuro language coach. Just before we start, if you do really find the podcast useful, make sure you become a free member of the Confident Business English podcast. You get full access to transcripts.
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So I'm sure your long term goal is to be able to understand your colleagues better and in In an ideal world you would be able to understand all conversations and everything that people are saying to you.
But we both know that it can be really, really challenging and it's also just a little bit of a lottery about who you get in your team or who you get as your boss.
Some of them can be easier to understand than others.
But regardless of that, one of the big problems, especially when native speakers are using quick and short sentences is that we often use connected speech and this is where we change the sounds or we blend the sounds to give a smoother faster delivery.
Great for us but awful for you because it can be really hard to pick up on.
Long -term of course it takes time to get used to hearing native speakers talk and perhaps if you've moved to a native speaking country you've been through that process of I feel like I don't understand anything anyone's saying to okay now I'm starting to get it a little bit more.
And that process does take time.
However as a more short -term solution what I'd like to do with you today is walk you through some really classic business phrases sentences and questions said naturally with connected speech to help you understand what people are saying in real life and hopefully help build your confidence in your work interactions.
First of all, though, let me just recap on what exactly is connected speech. You've probably heard it before if you've been studying English for a while.
As I said, it's about the way we change the sounds or blend the sounds together when we speak, naturally.
There's different ways that we could do this.
So it could be linking, which is when the final sound of one word connects to the next words, vowel sound, like rather than saying go on, we would say go on.
It can be when a sound is dropped, when we're speaking fast. So, for example, next day becomes next day.
We can add a sound, we can assimilate a sound, there can also be reduction, this is when sounds in the words become weaker or pronounced in a shorter or less distinct way, a really good example of this that you might have noticed is if I was going to say I need to do something but said very quickly it would be I need to do something, I need to do something.
Another classic would be going to which becomes gonna, I'm gonna call you later.
Those are some of the areas and I'm not going to dive into detail in that because there's of information out there if you want to go into detail.
What I really want to focus on today are the common sentences and you learning to hear those sentences said in a natural way with connected speech. Right then, let's get started with our examples.
I'm going to read you a couple of sentences and what I want you to do is just see if you can figure out wherever you are, if you're in the car on the commute, maybe you're on the train, if you have access to a pen and paper, great, if not you can do it in your head or out loud, and just listen to the sentence and see if you can figure out what I'm saying.
I'm going to be saying these sentences in a really natural way which means fast. Feel free to go back and rewind and listen to them as many times as you want.
I'm going to read each sentence twice and then I'll review it with you afterwards.
Here we go. What do you think?
What do you think? What do you mean?
I'm going to look into it.
We need to make a decision.
Let me check and get back to you.
Let me check and get back to you.
It's up to you. I don't mind.
It's up to you. I don't mind.
How was that? I know it's a little bit difficult because you don't have a context to a whole conversation, which would make it more straightforward. Let's have a look at the sentences.
The first one was a classic.
What do you think? What do you think?
Rather than what do you think?
The second one was what do you mean?
What do you mean? What do you mean?
So you're starting to hear a pattern in that sound there.
What do you think? What do you mean?
What do you want? What are you looking for?
What do you want to ask me?
The next one was using the phrasal verb to look into, which means to investigate something.
The sentence was I'm going to look into it which just sounds very unnatural for us and we make it I'm gonna look into it I'm gonna look into it.
You've got gonna there which I imagine is more straightforward for you to pick up but then that sound there look into it look into it look into it.
And that's a great one to learn because that is a phrasal verb and a phrase that just comes up all the time in business English.
The next one included that classic reduction of the sound to.
We need to make a decision.
We need to make a decision.
Simply, we need to make a decision.
I imagine you probably got that one.
The next one was a little bit longer.
Let me check and get back to you, Which, said in a natural way with connected speech is Let me check and get back to ya.
Let me check and get back to ya.
Back to ya. You've got different elements of connected speech going on there but it's good to remember that phrase, the sounds.
Let me check, and let me is great, because it just is let me.
Let me see, let me check, let me go and ask.
Finally, then, I don't mind it's up to you is a natural way to say, I don't mind it's up to you.
Again, we're reducing the sound of that T and by the way, this phrase just basically means I'm not bothered.
You decide. Let's have a look at some other sentences and these are around requests, delegating actions.
So there's going to be some questions The same thing.
I'm going to give you the sentence twice and then we'll review.
Could you help me out a sec?
Could you help me out a sec?
Would you mind sending me the agenda?
Would you mind sending me the agenda?
Did you get my message?
Did you get my message?
I'll put you on the agenda for the next meeting.
I'll put you on the agenda for the next meeting.
How was that? Pretty fast, right?
And this is why it's so difficult, it's because people speak so quickly and if you blink, you miss it.
What was going on with those sentences?
Well, you may have noticed a pattern, and I think this is a really important sound for you to get embedded in your mind, which are these combinations with questions could you, would you, did you, which all add a sound when we join those two words together which becomes could you.
Could you help me out a second?
Would you mind coming with me to the meeting for example?
Did you get my message?
Did ya? Did you get my message?
And those questions could be many different things.
Did you speak to John?
Could you tell Sarah?
Would you mind letting Sarah know?
That pattern of sound is really going to help you understand some of those very quick and fast questions.
Finally, we had a sentence there, which was, I'll put you on the next agenda, which essentially means I'll give you a slot to speak, which sounded like in connected speech, I'll put you on the next agenda.
I'll put you on the next agenda.
I'll put you on the agenda for next week.
I'll put you on table number 4 for the discussion.
I'll put you in this group.
I'll put you on this team and what we're associating with all of these sentences is that addition sound when we're using you.
Couldja, wouldja, didja, putja.
Let's do a final group of sentences and we're going to do some ones with different sounds we haven't looked at before.
Same thing, two shots at the sentence, see if you can understand what I'm saying.
We really have to focus on results.
We really have to focus on results.
We've got a lot of data to analyse, We've got a lot of data to analyze.
This process has got to be improved.
This process has got to be improved.
Let's start with the first one.
And the key sound I want you to take away from here is have to.
You may have noticed that in the sentence I was saying we have to focus on the results.
Which when said in a natural way ends up being we have to.
We have to focus on results.
Have to. And we can insert that into lots of different sounds.
We have to look at this in more detail, we have to speak to John, we have have a look at you have to come up with a new plan.
Have to as have to is a great sound to have there.
The next two are both with got to and if you picked up on this the first sentence was we have got, which is the same as saying we have, a lot of data to analyse.
Which sped up and said really fast is we got a lot of data to analyse.
That is tricky to hear when it's said very fast. A good sound to take away is got a lotta, which means got a lot of.
For example it could be we got a lot of people to talk to, we've got a lot of work to do, we've got a lot of time.
Even in the negative, we've not got a lot of people, we've not got a lot of resources, we've not got a lot of time.
That sound is really going to help you understand those sentences.
Finally then if you picked up on the last sentence, it was this process has got to be improved.
Wouldn't it be great if everybody spoke like that?
Well, maybe not. It might be a bit frustrating, but said in a natural way, it's this process has got to be improved.
The key sound there is gotta be.
Gotta be, gotta be, gotta be.
I know it sounds super stupid when I'm saying it like this, but you could insert that sound into lots of other sentences which is gonna help you understand.
This has got to be improved, you've got to be more on top of the work, we've got to be more on the ball, you've got to be at the conference tomorrow, we've got to be there at 9 o 'clock, this has got to be finished by Friday.
Hopefully if you can understand that sound it's gonna help you with other sentences in different contexts as well, using that got to be.
Gotta be. Great. Let's wrap it up there then, and I hope that was really useful going through some core sentences with some key sounds.
And I hope that helps build your confidence even if it's just a little bit.
Go back to this episode, listen to it as many times as you want.
You can write down the phrases.
You can say them if you want to.
Anything that's going to help you to consolidate that sound.
And the best thing of all is see if you can hear this sound when your colleagues are speaking.
Thanks again for squeezing me into a very busy day.
It's been great to be here with you and I look forward to speaking to you again next week.
Bye bye.
