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
Anyway, today we will talk about how to sound more like a native speaker.
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Okay, so the first step that I would usually advise learners to look at is is sounds.
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 are from, for example, the north of the UK or Northern Ireland, you will pronounce these sounds like a hard, sound 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 power.
And someone from the south of England would say power, like a soft ah sound.
So that is something to keep in mind.
What type of accent do you want?
Do you want to sound 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 okay too. but it's something to keep in mind.
Okay.
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, 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 our speaking will we improve the pronunciation and the sound of how we speak.
We need to actually actively work on it.
Okay, 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.
Okay, 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 we 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.
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 listening to a podcast even my podcast or a TV 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.
Okay, so the fourth 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 fourth point is to expand your vocabulary and 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, cancer dogs or something like this and they try to use it all the time.
They will quickly realize 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 will be ready, but I will let you guys know when that's available.
Okay, 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.
Okay, 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 HelloTalk, 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 mix 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 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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So thank you again for listening and I hope you have an amazing day and I wish you the best of luck with improving your English pronunciation and speaking.
Goodbye.
