Speak like a native speaker? Do these 3 things!
Transcript
“And if you want to sound more like a native speaker in English, that is exactly what you need to do. In fact, that might be one of the biggest things you can do right now to sound more native like.”
You are listening to Living in English: 365 by Paradigm English. Welcome to episode 88, “Speak English Like a Native Speaker.” Paradigm English
Introduction
Well hi there, y’all. Welcome to the Living in English: 365 podcast. I am your host, Ashley Rhone. If you’re new here, I have to say another. Hey, Hey. Thanks for joining us. Make sure that you like subscribe and go ahead and leave a rating and review for me if you are a returning listener.
Speaking English like a native speaker… be real. Admit it. You kind of secretly want to speak like a native speaker, don’t you? Like, it’s kind of low key one of your goals. I think it is. Yeah, you can learn English from Youtube, online, or from a textbook, or a podcast, but it won’t teach you to speak English and it definitely won’t teach you to speak like a native speaker.
In fact, it won’t even matter if you can’t speak at all. You can learn all the vocabulary that you want. If English speakers can’t understand you when you’re talking, sorry, friend, it… it was for nothing. You’ve got work to do, especially if you ever plan on using your English at work, your job or in school. The best way to speak in sound like a native speaker is right here. in this podcast episode.
Practice
Uh, none of this is going to happen if you’re not practicing. I Want to say that if you don’t practice, it doesn’t matter how much you want it. It ain’t happened in practice. You don’t need to sound like a native speaker. I’m not pushing or telling you that you have to sound just like I do—a native speaker. I’m not advocating for that. I just want to put those out there before I tell you everything you need to know to speak like a native speaker.
All right, let’s go ahead and get started.
There are only, let’s see, basically just focus on three big groups and I’ll give you some things to look for in each of them first.
Sounds
Sound. Yes. Sounds. I don’t care which native speaker you want to sound like. Maybe you have a friend that’s from some tiny village in Canada, or you want to sound like me—somebody who has more of a Southern drawl or a twang. It doesn’t really matter. Okay. So long as, you know, definitely don’t choose the, um, standard American, standard Canadian, because first of all, that’s not how a native speaker sounds because we don’t have that accent. That’s something only people learning English or whatever [language] have. Okay. So just want to point that out. I’ve said that in a few other episodes. Keep that in mind.
When I’m talking about sounds, I’m talking about adding contractions, we’re speaking fast and the way to speak faster. You need to shorten what you’re saying.
Contractions
Contractions. That’s one way to do it. These are what I’m talking about. Contractions, of course I’m talking about, instead of saying, I ‘cannot’ do that. I ‘can’t’ do. And also depending what you’re talking about and how you say it. If you use the non-contracted form, it actually has a different meaning. Um, so keep that in mind.
Linking
Also think about liasions. Alright? How your words are linked together, if at all. Sometimes we don’t link them, but usually we do. Uh, for example, I said ‘at all.’ Did you hear that ‘at all’. The ‘T’ and the ‘a’, they go together. That final sound on the, the, ‘at’ the ‘Tuh’ [T] and the beginning of the vowel sound ‘a’ “at all.” That’s one example.
Also, sometimes we just delete the sounds like there’s a—I’ll give you an example. There was this commercial I heard years ago and they were advertising some car. Well, you know, to buy this car from this car dealership in Midwest City. And I thought, “why did he say it like that?” And I thought about it. I’m like, “why does it sound weird?” because that’s, those are the words. And I remembered he pronounced the final “T” in Midwest. Nobody says the ‘T’ it’s Midwest City. Do you hear that? Midwest City. We continue holding that ‘S.’ To the next ‘M’ sound. The ‘T’ is a stop. So we have to stop the flow of air. When we say Midwest. Do you hear that? Midwest. Midwest City. Nobody wants to do that because we’re trying to speak faster. Those are a couple of things that you can work on.
Rhythm
The other thing that will take a lot more time is rhythm. You have to get the rhythm of the way that we speak. It’s not super difficult to mimic or imitate the way that a native speaker sounds. Especially if you, um, are a musical person, you like music, you listen to a lot of music. You can hear the music and the, the language, the musicality of it, the way that people speak. That’s the rhythm and to achieve that rhythm, it really has to do with the way people are stressing their words. Word stresses completely. ..That’s that’s too big of a topic for here, but I just want to point that out native speakers obviously know where to stress. What part of the word, and if you want to sound more like a native speaker in English, that is exactly what you need to do. In fact, that might be one of the biggest things you can do right now to sound more native.
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Talking
Let’s let’s move on to another section. This is about talking. Right? Speaking. However you want to say it. I already mentioned don’t use the standard English dialect or accent because nobody speaks like that.
That’s not how a native speakers sounds. That’s. I don’t even know what you want to call that it’s just a standard way of speaking that nobody uses. I don’t care if you choose Canadian. I don’t care if you choose American, whichever you want to choose. It doesn’t matter. Choose one to help get you started.
British or American English
I know some people were like, well, does it really matter if I choose British or American English? First of all, yes, it does. Because even though we speak the same language, Right. The structure of the language is the same. The accent is not the same and depending on where that person is from, it’s very possible that we don’t understand what they’re saying as well.
If we’re not familiar with that, that accent or that dialect, for example. Yeah, of course. It’s like that anywhere. It’s the same language, but it’s pronounced quite differently. So choose one, if you want to choose American. Well, listen, we have a lot of accents. We have probably five broad ones. So, if you’re really interested in the “Yankee accent,” um, there’s east coast, um, In general.
American Accent
I mean like the Northeast then there’s, like, New York— New York has so many different accents, especially in New York city. O M G! And we have the Southern accent, which is kind of a drawl, y’all. We hold on to the vowels like that. And, um, that’s one big category. I’m part of that. Although mine is a little bit different.
We do something a bit different. We have something called a twang, which is more nasal. It’s a more nasal sound. And then of course you have the Northern one, like the Midwestern, and then there’s the west coast one. So there’s like broadly five or six speaking and then tons of tiny little ones because this country is huge.
And I didn’t even talk about our territories. Anyway, choose one. Don’t choose non-standard English.
Spice it up!
And whenever you’re talking, add some flavor . Add some spiciness to, to what you’re saying. This—what I mean by that is use some slang use informal speech. I remember reading a comment from some teacher—I can’t remember where he was— I think he was in Mexico. I don’t know if he was Mexican, but he definitely was in Mexico. And he was like, “oh, you know, I never speak in informal ways. And I only. You know, only speak formally.” And I just laughed at him. I thought, what are you saying? Like, do you think you’re better for speaking like that? That’s not how native people speak. You’re not helping your students. Like, what is your goal? Just to give them English that nobody uses it. Nobody speaks like, what is your point here? I didn’t appreciate it. So if you’re listening, stop doing that. If you’re a teacher, don’t do that because that’s not how we speak.
You need to know how—students need to know how we speak and how we actually sound or else you’re wasting your time and theirs. So add some flavor, add some spiciness in. Use slang, use the informal speech, use it correctly. Of course use, um, you know, phrases and collocations and expressions. Yes. Has. I know there are so many. I know, but you know, you learn something new every day. That’s how the phrase goes.
Speak faster or slower
Also, I kind of spoke about this earlier. Some of you need to speak faster. Like the way the rate that you’re speaking, it’s not how a native speaker speaks English. So we speak a little faster. Although some of y’all, some of y’all need to speak slower.
This is probably because of your first language, it’s actually a little faster than English. But that’s not how it sounds to us. Especially if you have an accent, a very heavy, thick accent. Then, um, then you’re going to be pronouncing the words in a non-standard way. And that goes back to the stress and rhythm that I was talking about. And now people can’t understand you. So, just speak slower.
You can also just listen to the natives or advanced speakers of the language speak. It doesn’t have to be a native speaker. I mean, advanced speakers–we’re technically — a native speaker is technically just an advanced speaker of English. That’s all we are.
It doesn’t have to be a native speaker. It could be an advanced speaker as well. So don’t forget about them. Listen to the way that they talk. Just analyze the way that they’re talking and you don’t have to, to study every single thing that they’re saying each word, each syllable, you don’t have to do that. You can just get the general rhythm of it. How are they saying these words? Which brings me to the last broad section listening.
Imitate
So talk like those people. Imitate them, but also just listen to how they’re talking. How natives speak. We all speak different. We all have a different way of speaking. Of course, even every person, I don’t sound like your other teachers. I’m pretty sure. So make sure that you are actually listening. This is something easy you can do. When you’re driving in your car somewhere, or if you’re taking the Metro, the bus, whatever, if you have a couple of minutes, just sit and think about, um, just take a clip from YouTube. It can be from your favorite TV show.
It can be from a news broadcast radio station, whatever. Just listen to it. Just take a sentence or two, listen to what they’re saying and practice it. You can do that even a couple of times.
Um, remember I said different accents. So you can expose yourself to different accents sometimes depending where we’re from, we can mix the accents. Now I’m very far from New York city, hundreds of miles from them. So I’m not going to mix the New York city accent unless I make, you know, one of the New York city accidents, unless I make an effort to do it just to be funny or cute or something. Okay. Be realistic here.
Yeah. And so that’s really, those are really just the three really big things that you can work on. You’re listening, you’re speaking or you’re talking and of course your sound, your sounds.
All right. That’s really all you need to know to speak and sound like a native speaker of English.
This is episode 88. Y’all it’s done. “It’s in the bag”. I’m Ashley Rhone I’ll see y’all next time.
Hey, thanks for listening to the living in English at 365 podcast. Be sure to check the description below for all resources and links, and don’t forget to like subscribe below and share this with your friends.
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