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A lot of people ask me if it's possible to sound like a native speaker if you weren't
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born in the US. They want to know how long it will take. That, of course, depends entirely
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upon the individual. Really focused pronunciation practice can yield great results. In this
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video, I'm going to go over two different ways to study English to perfect your pronunciation.
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All you need is the audio or video of a native speaker speaking.
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First, we're going to do a Ben Franklin exercise. This is when you write down everything you
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can about what you hear: whether or not you hear words being linked, or if you hear something
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being reduced, for example. Now, we'll do this together to help you get
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an idea of how to listen to and analyze what you hear. "A lot of people ask me if it's
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possible to sound like a native speaker-- A lot of people ask me." So the first thing
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I notice is that this T is a flap T, it sounds like a D, "a lot of," that's because it's
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coming between two vowel sounds. I also notice that I hear these three words as one unit:
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"a lot of, a lot of," with the stress happening on the middle word. "A lot of, a lot of people
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ask me--" I also notice that this word ends in a consonant, this word begins with a vowel,
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there's no punctuation in-between, "a lot of people ask," and I do hear that L as really
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linking to the beginning vowel sound: "people ask." Another thing you'll want to note as
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you listen is any sounds that you know are difficult for you. For example, many of my
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students have problems integrating the AA sound into their speech. They know how to
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do it, but they just don't use it in speech. So I would definitely, if was one of them,
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mark this AA vowel, so that I'll be sure to note it, and then will hopefully begin to
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integrate AA into my speech when I see this word 'ask.' "A lot of people ask me." Let's
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keep going. "A lot of people ask me if it's possible to
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sound like a native speaker-- if it's possible to sound, if it's possible to sound--" So,
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I notice the stress here: possible, first syllable is stressed, "to sound," I notice
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that has stress too. "--if it's possible to sound--" The word 'to' is definitely reduced
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to the schwa, so I may mark that so I don't forget to reduce it. "Possible to sound."
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"If it's, if it's." Here's another case where one word ends in a consonant sound, the next
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word begins with a vowel sound, "if it's, if it's," and I do definitely hear those connecting
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together. "If it's possible to sound." "A lot of people ask me if it's possible to
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sound like a native speaker-- like a native speaker--" I notice my voice goes up at the
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end here, "speaker." That's because the sentence isn't over, the next word is "if." I also
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notice the stress is big, small, big, small, big, small. "Like a native speaker." DA da
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DA da DA da. "Like a native speaker." Also, again here we have ending consonant sound/beginning
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vowel sound: like a, like a. I hear the K linking to the schwa. "Like a. Like a native
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speaker." Native -- I hear this T as a D because again, it's a T coming between two vowel sounds:
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will be a flap T, sounds like a D. "Like a native speaker." In the entire sentence, I
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don't hear and gaps or pauses between words. So in some cases, there's a very obvious link,
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like when one word ends with a consonant and the next word begins with a vowel. But even
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when there's not a very obvious linking sound, there's never a gap between the words.
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"A lot of people ask me if it's possible to sound like a native speaker--" We've been
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working for several minutes, and here we are only half way through one sentence. This is
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just an example of how you might take notes from the audio or video clip of your choice.
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After you've listened several times and taken thorough notes, you then put the audio or
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video away and, from your notes, try to speak the way the native speaker was speaking. If
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you can, record yourself, and then compare this to the native speaker. This is how you
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can figure out where you still need to work. And now we'll do an imitation exercise. In
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this video, you don't look at the text. You're not concerned with the actual words because
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you do already have ideas about how words should be pronounced. So in this exercise
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you're just listening. And I loop things three times in an imitation exercise so that you
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begin to think about the pitch changes and the musicality of the speech, rather than
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the individual words themselves. Repeat it back exactly as you hear it, even if you're
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not sure of the individual words. It's ok, that's not what we're going for in this particular
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exercise. A lot of people ask me [x3]
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A lot of people ask me if it's possible to sound like a native speaker [3x]
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if it's possible to sound like a native speaker
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if you weren't born in the US. [x3]
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Because of the internet, there really is an
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endless supply of audio and video where English is being spoken by native speakers. I know
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looping something over and over, as in the imitation exercise, can be more of a hassle
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on your own. That's why, on my website, I do have both Ben Franklin and imitation exercises
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ready for you. So I encourage you to take a look at these, or any other audio or video
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clip that interests you, and turn it into a pronunciation exercise: study it this way.
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It will really take you far in your practice. That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.
