This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2462, Intonation is Connection.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
Coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. and to get your transcripts delivered by email every week go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe You spend hours working on vocabulary and grammar, but there is a simple trick to better connection that is waiting for you.
It's intonation. Listen in to find out how to train rhythm and intonation in your English today.
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Hey there, Michelle. What's going on today?
Not too much, Lindsay. I have a question.
Yeah. When you speak another language, I know you speak other languages. do you change your intonation to match what is typical for that language?
Or is that hard for you too? I do. I am kind of like I mimic pretty well.
I'm pretty naturally gifted at mimicking.
So when I learn a language, I actually like repeat the language in my head a lot, especially if I'm living in the culture.
I'm always repeating things and naturally the intonation comes with that.
Now there's a lot of work that could still be done to perfect that, to make it better and correct.
But I do pick up on rhythms and intonations quickly.
I do. It's just, I don't know, maybe it's a thing.
That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool.
Your secret special power. Yeah, it's my special power, which I've not exploited as much as I should, but oh well.
Oh, thanks. We're here for our listeners today, right, Michelle?
Exactly. We got a really good, important listener question and a very nice one as well.
So thank you to this listener. We're going to read it in a second.
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All right, Michelle. Now we saw this come in and we were overjoyed because we love this kind of feedback.
First of all, do you want to read the first paragraph and I'll read the second?
Sure. This is from... Farisaltawaiti6395, and I'm sorry for butchering your name. this name.
I'm so sorry, but thank you for this. It says, I've been listening to All Ears English for over a year now, and it has truly made a big difference in my English learning journey.
That's so great to hear. That's so good.
I love it. The way Lindsay, Michelle and Aubrey teaches fun, practical and full of real life examples.
I love how the episodes are not just about grammar.
They focus on connection, culture and confidence.
Wow. I get this listener really like. picked up on exactly what we're trying to do, right?
Exactly. Kind of our mission, right? Yes.
The three C's connection, culture, and confidence.
I love it. And here is the listener's question.
I have one question for the Allers English team.
I'm trying to make my speaking tone sound more American do you have any tips or exercises on how to change or improve my sound, my sound tone, my intonation or my rhythm? so I can sound more natural and confident when speaking English?
Such a good question. That is the question, right, Michelle?
Yeah, we, you know, and we have discussed intonation in the past episodes.
But I want to definitely answer this listener's questions because this is not something that we that can be overstated. that we can pay too much attention to.
This is very important. Intonation and rhythm are huge in American English.
And yeah, Lindsay, what do you think? Yeah, I really think you're right, Michelle, especially when you get to the higher levels.
So this summer, we've been building Professional English Level 2. which will be coming out in September.
I'm so excited. And in our curriculum development The majority of what we're focusing on in terms of pronunciation points is actually intonation and delivery.
It's no longer so much the sounds and pronouncing.
You still have a little bit of that in the course.
But as you get into the C1, B2 level and higher...
It's about delivery and what are the words we're punching and stressing so people listen to us and frankly respect us.
They hear us. It's one thing to be heard.
It's another thing to be listened to Oh, I like that.
So, yeah, I mean, this listener wants to, quote, sound more American.
I always think it's more about being able to be understood, not necessarily sound American.
The goal is that you want to be understood and you can do that even if you don't sound American.
Don't you think, Lindsay? i totally agree i mean you may have accent preferences personally i love the aussie accent you know if i were learning english i'd want to sound australian Yeah.
Yeah. Because I think it sounds so cool.
But so we all have our preferences. But what we want to be focusing on more so is, again, being clear. delivering so that people actually listen to us and so that they want to hear more from us.
We're seen as a leader. Yeah, exactly. And a huge piece of that is that rhythm and that intonation. because you can say something in English and not use rhythm and intonation.
And not only is it just not as interesting to listen to, but sometimes it can actually impact the meaning.
And because it English is very rhythm dependent and it's very important for how things sound.
Um, so, It's not just about, oh, let me show you my intonation.
I'm so interesting. And it's not just that.
We really have to think about, all the layers and why this is important.
Oh, for sure. Yeah. So we're going to give you, our listeners today, a couple of ideas, some methods. some activities we can do right michelle to actually yes devote our time to developing that rhythm and intonation yeah yeah so One thing, and we've talked about this a bit before is shadowing or imitation.
Now, Lindsay, you mentioned you're a good mimic.
Yes. So what kinds of things, I mean, is it just pretty much what you hear from people when you talk to them or how do you?
Yeah. Yeah. It's like a weird mental quirk.
So when I'm learning, like I said, it works better when I'm actually living or staying in the place.
But even if I go to like a meetup, a Spanish meetup in Denver, in the hour or something after the meetup, I'll go home and you know, on the train or my my scooter scooting around Denver and I'll be speaking Spanish in my head.
And I will carry with that, not just the words, but the rhythm. too.
And I'll be narrating kind of, Oh, there's a car over there.
Right. And obviously you need a certain amount of vocabulary to start doing that.
So that's not so much for the big beginner level, what my method of speaking in your head.
But we all have a dialogue going on in our heads.
I think it's not just me. I hope. And why not make that in the target language?
Especially if we've just consumed something. right from a native speaker.
And we're gonna then mimic not just the words, but the rhythm. yeah right exactly so you know one thing even if you are not living in the place if you're not living in the culture.
So you can listen to it, do this shadowing.
So you can watch a TV show. I think a talk show is really great. because then you're listening to more natural ways of speaking or a podcast, of course.
Anything with more natural conversation to me is better.
You know, maybe not like listen to a Shakespeare play that might not, you know, think about who you want to sound like.
What is it? You know, if you want to do it for work, you know, you can listen to YouTube job interviews.
I mean, anything. For sure. And I think when you choose, let's say a podcast, it's good.
I think there are a lot of podcasts out there that are single hosted, which are great.
You could spend some time with that single host.
But there is value, obviously, because our listeners are listening to All Hears English.
They know there's value in listening to a co-hosted show.
There is something that happens in the back and forth, Michelle, that's really important.
The way I wait for you, because I think you're going to interject something.
These are the nuances of high-level conversation that eventually, B2, C1, C2 levels, we're going to start to want to mimic that too.
Depending on what your level is, choose the right material to mimic.
Exactly. That's such a good point, Lindsay.
Yeah. So when you're shadowing or imitating, you know, you just let it play and then you stop and you repeat it or you repeat it right behind where the person is speaking.
As they're speaking, you are speaking too, just like a second behind them.
So that's a really good exercise to try. to really tune into the intonation as well.
But another thing you could do is listen with a transcript.
So to many different things and circle points where intonation changes are So you're kind of doing a little case study, you're listening, and can you find some commonalities between different things you listen to?
Does a talk show sound different than a movie?
All those different things. So do a little bit of research.
Yeah, I love that. And if this requires, as Michelle said, circling places where the intonation changes.
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That's one way to do it. And Michelle, should we also as another method record ourselves?
At what point do we want to do this? To me, I think that's great.
I mean, record a conversation or a version of you reading some sort of passage listen back to it, analyze it, play it for someone, whatever resources you have, then repeat again and again and listen to your progress.
I mean, yesterday I was I mean this isn't the same thing, but I was looking up a drawing video on YouTube with my son for something to do.
And he started it, and he didn't like it, and he didn't like how his was going.
And he was making some mistakes. It was kind of a tutorial thing.
And I just said, okay, let's get a new piece of paper and try it again.
And even just the second one. he was so much better.
And I know, obviously this is very intuitive we say if at first you don't succeed try try again right but it is true the second time is just different even when you exercise right First time you do an exercise, you might be totally winded.
The second time already, it's a little better.
So keep going for it. Yes, you're right.
You try again and again. I mean, even children, when they're learning a language at a very young age, they're mimicking their parents.
They're trying again. They're trying many times, right?
It's so true. And recently, we've just added some really cool AI pronunciation scoring activities to some of them. of our courses Michelle so that's another place we can try and try again but not only can we try multiple times we can get us score each time and try to improve our score.
So this is currently inside our B2 course.
It will be in the B1 course very soon. And it will probably be in professional level two when we launch it this fall.
So check out our courses for that. Really cool.
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Hiring Indeed is all you need. All right, Michelle, what else should we be doing here to make sure we're getting the right intonation?
Right, so yeah, I think another good thing is to journal, right?
So keep some sort of an intonation journal.
Pay attention throughout the day, or maybe you say, I always say to students, pick 20 minutes a day where you're paying attention to this.
But with intonation, I would almost say make it Intonation Wednesday or something like that.
You don't have to do it all the time. but find moments in the day or a day a week where you can really pay attention to that.
And then write, how did it go? Is there something that you felt? worked or didn't work and just kind of use it as a journal, right?
Yeah, Michelle, it sounds like you're inviting us to be more present, right?
Which is always So many aspects of our lives could improve when we're just a little bit more present, right?
We're not offering. in the dialogue in our head, unless it's in the language, the target language, of course.
But often, I spend a lot of time just kind of spacing out.
I don't know about you. I do, and it's so bad.
For sure, of course. Sorry, what? Where are we?
No, I just... I just miss so much of life.
And I think about how much better I would like life would be if I paid more attention to things.
And language is under that bucket, too. Yeah, definitely.
So and then, you know, practice saying the same thing in different ways.
You know, choose an emotion to like to match what you're trying to express and change it up so you can kind of make it a little bit of a game.
So, Lindsay, we're going to play a game.
OK, let's do it. OK, so we are going to say the same thing.
So the neutral sentence is I am going to my friend's house this weekend.
Very basic, very neutral. Okay, Lindsay, why don't you choose a way to say it and I can try and guess how you're feeling.
Okay. I'm going to my friend's house this weekend.
Very good. Doesn't sound like you're happy to do that.
Sounds like you might be a little bit sad about it or you're just not maybe a little bit bored, right?
Not excited. Yep, exactly. Bored slash sad slash flat, right?
What about one more, Michelle? All right, I'll do one more.
I'm going to my friend's house this weekend.
Hmm. I hear a friend of what's the word?
A sense of there's frantic in your voice.
Your voice is frantic, like a little rushed.
Right. So I'm going to say and then I have to do this and then I have to do this.
Yeah, for sure. You are rushed. Absolutely.
Time is of the essence, Michelle. So we say things in different ways.
And so we're... But I think the key point with all of these suggestions is our listeners.
You all need to take control of your learning.
Right. We're not necessarily going to school, sitting in classrooms anymore.
As adult learners, we need to create our own study plan.
And in our courses, we give you that. But if you're listening to the podcast, you need to be creating your own study plan here.
I totally agree. So now we're going to do two different role plays, one with no intonation.
Okay. Initiation. One with no intonation and one with more intonation.
And again, you know, intonation can mean a variety of things, really.
It's number one. It's it's your emotion but it's also in it the rules of intonation and stress and rhythm and that we've done other episodes about as well so today that we're just kind of focusing on this For the purpose of this exercise, we're focusing on monotonous versus not monotonous.
Lindsay and I here in this, both of these role plays, we're talking about summer plans.
Okay. So in this one, we're speaking on a monotone.
Okay. All right. And so then I'm going to the beach.
Oh, for how long? A week. Nice. Yeah, I'm excited.
Okay, where is this bus? I'm nervous. I'm going to be late.
I don't know. It's really frustrating. Oh, my gosh.
I struggle doing monotone, Michelle. I can't do it.
I struggle. I tried. I tried. I think I failed.
No, no, it's okay. But yeah, it's hard. I mean, you can't, I mean, really to say, yeah, I'm excited.
Okay, where is this bus? I mean, it's hard to understand, right?
It just doesn't, it feels... The listener needs to work harder to actually understand what you're saying.
It feels like one long string of words. It doesn't feel like a message. you know yes yeah right exactly so it's not just about oh maybe this person doesn't sound that excited that's actually a choice It's more just if it's that string and not doing variations that can be hard to listen to or very uncomfortable or like the listeners to work.
Well, you don't want that, right? That can break the connection.
That can break the connection if the listener has to work.
Let's show it the same role play now with actual intonation.
All right. OK. All right. Here we go. And so then I'm going to the beach.
For how long? A week. Nice. Yeah, I'm excited.
Okay, where is this bus? I'm nervous. I'm going to be late.
I don't know. It's really frustrating. Yeah.
So there's a lot. We might be a little exaggerated here, right?
Versus real life. Of course, we do exaggerate a little bit on the show, but to show you right as an example, I mean, this conversation had connection.
It had life. I felt urgency in your voice, Michelle, because you were worried you were going to be late.
It had emotion. It had the good stuff of life, right?
Yes, exactly. So yeah, we were basically talking about the beach.
And so Um, you know, let's go back to, I mean, there's, we're not running through vocabulary here, but some highlights are, I said, yeah, I'm excited.
And then I had this switch. Right. Yeah.
OK, where is the bus? I'm nervous. I'm going to be late.
So I'm sharing to I'm excited about the beach, but now I'm currently nervous.
So I had to show that with my voice. And I had to mirror, and this is a connection point here, really important.
I needed to mirror your... maybe not mirror your anxiety, but mirror what you're frustrated about.
So I punched the really, I said, I don't know.
It's really frustrating. Okay. So then there's connection right there, just in the intonation.
So intonation is connection, Michelle. Yeah.
Oh, for sure. I really I think that if you match somebody's intonation, you can just really up that connection quickly.
I mean, even when you're excited, hey, how are you?
Oh my gosh. I've got, you know, but it's just, it's, it's, it's contagious really, or it should be, um, and how intonation is.
Right. Yes, so, so incredibly important.
We focus so much on grammar, vocabulary, but We forget that intonation, you can get so far in your connections with just intonation, mirroring how someone feels.
Michelle, what's another episode our listeners should go to right away if they love our style?
All right, guys, head on over to episode 2457.
A few episodes ago was Can You Relate? how to speak up with confidence in a meeting.
So I love it. So Michelle, We've given our listeners today a lot of good ways to practice.
So one takeaway, guys, is you need to create your study plan here.
Take this episode, create a plan. It's up to you to insert these activities in your lives.
And then the next piece for me is intonation is connection.
Like I said, that's what it is. If we don't have it, we don't connect.
Huge. Love it. All right. Thank you again. this listener for that great question such an important topic and thank you for listening today and lindsey this was fun talking with you good stuff michelle i'll talk to you soon have a good day all right bye bye Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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