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  • Hi again, welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today, I'm going to help you sound

  • a little bit more like a native speaker, hopefully. Students ask me all the time: "How can I sound

  • like a native speaker?" Well, before I say anything, let me just tell you that it will

  • take time and a lot, a lot, a lot of practice. The best way is to live in an English-speaking

  • country, of course, but of course you can do it anywhere, but it takes time; be patient,

  • practice, practice, practice. So we're looking at pronunciation. Let me

  • start with this word: "pronunciation". Not: "pronounciation". It is not a pronoun. A pronoun

  • is: "I", "me", "my", "mine". Pronunciation is how we speak English. So I'm going to give

  • you three tips that will help you sound a little bit more like a native speaker.

  • We're going to start with connecting words. Now, think about your own language, whether

  • you're speaking Spanish or Polish or Chinese, you do this in your language as well. When

  • you're speaking fast, you're taking words and you're squeezing them together; you're

  • connecting them, so one word flows into the next word. That's what we're going to do here.

  • You can connect consonants to consonants. What this means: when a word ends in a consonant...

  • A consonant is "b", "c", "d", "f", "g", etc. A vowel is "a", "e", "i", "o", "u". When a

  • word ends in a consonant and the next word begins with the same consonant, drop the first

  • one. So for example: we do not say: "black coffee", we don't say: "ke, ke". There's only

  • one "k": "bla coffee", "bla coffee." Okay? Practice that.

  • Now, "t" and "d", these are two different consonants, but according to the tongue and

  • the mouth, they almost sound the same so we do the same thing. "Wha do you do?", "Wha

  • do you do?" But again, another thing you have to keep in mind is when we say it fast, we

  • also don't really say "e", we say like a... Sort of like a small... We don't say "o" - sorry

  • -, we say sort of a small "e". "Wha do ye do?" Practice that. "Wha do ye do?" Strange,

  • huh? No "t", "wha", "de ye do?", "Wha de ye do?" That's how a native speaker would say

  • it naturally. Now, another thing is when a word ends in

  • a consonant and the next word begins in a vowel, make sure you roll it in. Right? Roll

  • the consonant into the vowel and separate the syllable before. A syllable is the vowel

  • sounds in a word. Okay? So nobody, like native speakers don't say: "Not at all. Oh no, not

  • at all." We don't say it like that. We say: "Oh, not-at-all.", "Not-at-all.", "Not-at-all."

  • Right? The "t", so this becomes: "No-ta-tall", "No-ta-tall"c"Not at all". Okay? Say it quickly,

  • blend the letters one into the next. But again, practice it.

  • Now, for those of you who are going to be taking a test, an English test that involves

  • listening; IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, if you're in Canada you're maybe doing a CELPIP test.

  • Okay? This is going to help you on the listening section as well. This is one of the things

  • they're testing. Somebody on the recording will say: "Not-at-all", and you need to cut:

  • "Not at all", you need to understand the separate words, that's part of the test. So practice

  • speaking it, practice listening to it. Another thing we do is we squeeze some words.

  • Okay? Certain words, we don't say all the syllables, we don't even say all the letters.

  • I've heard many students say: "Com-fort-able", "com-fort-able", but native speakers, we don't

  • say this part, we don't say the "or". We say: "Comf-ta-bil", and notice the last sound is

  • like a small tiny, tiny little "i" in there. "Comftabil", "comf-ta-bil", "comftabil". Okay?

  • We don't pronounce the "or": "Comfortable". Nope, don't do that.

  • Another word like that: "Interesting". "In-chre-sting". Find out what the syllables are so: "In-ter"

  • - sorry, my mistake -, "In-ter-rest-ing". If you want to emphasize something, we have

  • a word called: "enunciate". When someone wants to emphasize a word, then they enunciate each

  • syllable; they say each syllable separately. "Oh, that is very in-ter-est-ing." Right?

  • Because I want you to understand that the word is interesting, but in every day speech:

  • "Intresting", "in-tre-sting". "In-ter-est-ing", I have four syllables, when I actually say

  • it naturally, it becomes three syllables and the "t" and the "r" become like a "ch", but

  • that's... We'll talk about that next. Another word: "every". "E-vry". I don't say:

  • "Ev-er-y", I don't say this letter "e", "ev-er-y". "E-vry", "evryone", "evrything", "evry". Okay?

  • Last: squeeze letters. Now, this is particularly true for a few letters. When we have "tr",

  • "tr" together usually sounds like "chr" so we don't say: "country", we say "cun-chry",

  • "cun-tree", like a tree that grows but even a tree is: "ch-ree", "chree". Okay? If you

  • go out with your friends, you go out for a "treat". Okay?

  • Another one is "dr", "dr" also doesn't really sound like "dr". We don't say: "Hun-dr-ed".

  • Okay? It's too difficult for the tongue to make the quick switch, so this sounds like

  • "jr": "Hundjred", "hun-j-red", "hunjred". Now, this goes with the first idea when you're

  • connecting words, but when you're connecting words and you have a "d" and a "y" together,

  • it becomes like a "j" sound. "Di jou?", "Di jou?", "Di jou?", "Di jou do it?", "Di jou

  • do what I asked?", "Di ja? Di ja?" Okay? So we say it like that; very quick, very mixed

  • and you have to practice these because it's more habit than anything else. Native speakers,

  • we don't think about doing these things; it just rolls off the tongue just like that.

  • Okay? But also, make sure you do a lot of listening; listen to TV sitcoms, listen to

  • the radio, lots of things on the internet, ted.com for example you can hear native speakers

  • all the time. And what you can do is you can try to do dictation and try to listen and

  • cut the words you hear into the actual separate words that they are. Listen to individual

  • words, and try to find their syllables. Okay? But again, it's just practice, practice, practice.

  • And, of course, at www.engvid.com if you go to the search box at the top of the site,

  • we have a few more... We actually, we have quite a few more pronunciation lessons. You

  • can go there and become a more natural speaker of English. Okay? Thank you for joining me

  • today. Please go to the YouTube channel, my channel on YouTube, subscribe. And I will

  • see you again, really soon. Bye.

Hi again, welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today, I'm going to help you sound

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