It's your favorite American English teacher, Gabby, here to help you today with eight ways that you and anyone can sound more like a North American English speaker.

Now I know this is just the lesson that you've been waiting for.

I'm going to tell you eight tricks and secrets that you probably didn't learn in your normal traditional English classroom

We're going to really focus on how to make your pronunciation and your accent more American like

Now, I'm not saying that everyone should speak like an American.

But hey, if you want to know how to do that, I'm going to explain exactly how.

So instead of just trying to imitate or copy you're going to learn the specific points so that you can focus on what it means to speak like an American.

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Now let's begin with the 8 ways that you can sound more like an American English speaker.

Number one, let's talk about syllables every word that has at least

two syllables or more has a stressed syllable and a weak syllable, so let's just take the word

American We have 3 syllables, right?

American that's four syllables

So when we have more than two syllables one is going to be stressed when which syllable is stressed in

American Can you hear it?

American

so it's the second syllable right so in order to speak more like an American

make sure that you

really stretch that stressed syllable out make it longer make it louder make it higher say

American with me now

American and to balance this out the syllables that are not stressed are

probably going to sound like a

Schwa sound which is up that sound you make of someone punch of you in your gut you go Oh

American

Can you hear that? Uh American. Very

Good so American English

Really stresses the stressed syllable and makes the other syllables very weak number two learn

Connected speech. Oh, it's so easy to say but yet there are so many different rules in connected speech, so let me quickly

share several the most important with you in American English

Especially whenever you find a t between two vowel sounds it's going to be a d. We don't drink water

We drink water

We don't put butter on our toast we put butter on our toast okay?

so t between two vowels equals a d

a T between an N, and a vowel gets removed

International not

International International

dentist not dentist, but dentist

when you have an N then a T then a vowel sometimes it becomes a glottal stop like Mountain or

Or a vowel then a double t

And a vowel like button or cotton when you have a t or a d between two

Consonants it often gets removed old man, not old man old man

most famous not most

Famous, but most famous we blend and link sounds together when one word ends with a consonant

and the next begins with a vowel or when the next word begins with the same consonant as the word before it ands

With that was a big jumbled mess

We blend and link sounds together from one word to the next for example social life becomes social life

We also make two words seem as though They were one when we blend sounds together like this

afternoon this afternoon

Now I know I'm going really fast because I've made

Specific lessons about most of these points in other video lessons on the go natural English channel

So make sure to check those out if you'd like a more detailed

explanation of each point

You can click up here for one of my best lessons on linking and connected speech

Assimilation is huge in American English did you becomes didja and don't you becomes dontcha?

intrusion where we insert a new sound for example between he and

Asked we insert the /j/ sound he asked or do and if we insert a /w/ sound do it

he asked to do it and in some parts of the united states you have an R intrusion between vowels -

like for example between Media and attention media attention

Finally let me tell you about

Elision where we omit a sound for example the t in the word kept when it comes before going

kept going

Number three in American English the R is so important and so frustrating for many

English learners because it can be quite different than in your native language be aware of r-colored

vowels for example in the word

word

Or why is it not ward it's er word or for example

World why is it not

World its world. So that is an r-colored vowel where a vowel and before an R and it becomes er

so a lot of American English

vowels will become this sound that sounds like a pirate talking so get out your pirate hooks and go er

When you make this sound or not because that's kind of weird when we have an r at the end of the word we usually

pronounce it strongly

I say usually because some people like in new England will cut that R off for example

I parked my car

Well, that's a Boston accent and yes, I have lived in Boston, but I never adopted that accent. I would say I

park my

car

so but watch out for

Different ways of using the R if you really want to sound American you need some American phrases like instead of asking

How are you you can ask. What's up or instead of saying That's nice, or that's good

You could say that's cool. Or that's awesome in general when you speak English try to speak a little bit louder

verbs use a ton of

phrasal verbs we rarely use a

normal kind of academic verb in everyday speech in conversation

so instead of the verb to exit or to leave say to get out or

instead of saying to arrive say to

Get in or instead of saying to start or to begin you could say get going

Get going could also mean to leave so phrasal verbs can be kind of confusing but they're really key

to use a lot of them if you want to sound like an American

Native English speaker also start creating verbs out of nouns

Like Google Google's a noun, but we say let's google it google that question or friend friend is a noun

Right well I can friend you on Facebook

So friend is now a verb so just take any noun you want and make it into a verb and you'll sound more American

and finally

Vocabulary so I did suggest to you some very American phrases like awesome, and what's up?

But if you want to know quickly a few words that are different in American English as opposed to British English, we

Say fall not autumn. We say faucet not tap

We say apartment not flat. Elevator, not lift. Diaper not nappy

TV not telly and

Candy not sweets. Oh, and one more that always catches me off guard

We say take out not take away when we go to a restaurant, and we want to take the food home

So I think that you are properly prepared now to sound really American like a native speaker

So if you have questions about any of these points, I know I went really fast leave a comment

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Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in another video lesson soon. Bye for now