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If you would like to improve your accent when you're speaking English, in this video I'm going to give you a very important tip that will definitely transform your accent.
You cannot neglect the melody of English. Even if you're pronouncing all of the individual words and the consonant and the vowel sounds correctly, but you're not paying attention to the rhythm and the melody of your words, your speech is going to sound choppy and unnatural, and you even might sound less fluent.
In this video, I will teach you the secret to having a better accent and sounding more like a native speaker. I will also teach you some common everyday expressions that native speakers use, and I will teach you how to say them with the perfect American accent. And even if you prefer a British accent, this video will also help you.
One of the fastest ways to reduce your foreign accent is for you to focus on these three things:
Word stress
Word reduction
Connecting words, not pausing between thought groups
In this lesson, we will focus on word reduction. This is such an important topic and it's not commonly taught in English classes. Maybe you've already thought about word stress or maybe you've watched lessons on word stress. But have you thought about word reduction? That topic is just as important as word stress for having a natural sounding and a native sounding flow.
Native speakers don't pronounce every word clearly and fully. If you don't reduce some words in your sentences, your speech will sound choppy and robotic. You will speak like this with each word stressed the same way:"Please pass the salt and pepper."
"Hello, I'm Mike. I am a robot. I am here to serve you. How can I help you?"
When we reduce words, the vowel sounds almost disappear. They become the schwa sound. It's the /ə/ sound. And the consonants are also sometimes eliminated.
Let's look at this pronoun. You have probably learned that the pronunciation is "our", but let's listen to how native speakers are saying "our house", "our children", and "our school". Listen carefully.
"And so, we had tons of people over to our house.""There's hospice at our house. What will happen to our house?""We have to talk to our children about it.""The sort of planet we're going to leave behind for our children and grandchildren... but to really ingrain within our school."
Notice that the O and the U are reduced. They're not saying "our", they're saying "er" — it becomes a schwa sound. "Our house." "This is our house."
Let me practice that together. Repeat after me:
This is our house.
Do you like our new car? You say it.
They're our friends.
So "they are our friends" sounds very similar to "they're our friends". Remember, in natural sounding speech, pronouns are reduced and they're connected to the words around them. For special emphasis, we make an exception and we don't reduce the pronoun:"This is ours. It's not yours. It's ours."But otherwise, we would simply say,"This is our house. This is our car."
Let's talk about the two ways to pronounce the conjunction and.
In the strong form, it's pronounced as /ænd/. But it's usually not pronounced that way in most situations. You can pronounce it that way only in these cases:
When you need to speak especially slowly or when you're pausing to think. For example:"I would like to order a sandwich... and... a salad."
When you want to emphasize the fact that there's another thing. For example:"You had pasta AND pizza.""You speak Italian AND Japanese."
Otherwise, we say and in its weak form, and it sounds like this: /ən/ or /n/. The 'a' becomes a schwa sound and the 'd' disappears.
Let's practice:
Black and white (Black 'n' white). We wouldn't say "black AND white".
Bacon and eggs (Bacon 'n' eggs). Connect all of those three words and say them as one. Don't pause. Let me say that again: Bacon and eggs. These words are one unit and they belong together.
Now it's your turn. How would you say these words? You say them:
In and out -> I went to In-N-Out. Have you ever gone to In-N-Out Burgers in California? It's a really popular place.
Again and again
Better and better -> Your English is getting better and better.
Husband and wife -> Husband and wife. I didn't say husband AND wife. That D disappeared. 'N' wife. It's just a little N. Husband and wife. Are they husband and wife?
Okay, let's keep practicing. You will see some words on the screen and you say them as one unit. Don't pronounce the 'd' and reduce the 'a' of "and". How would we say this? You say it:
Mom and dad -> Have you met my mom and dad?
Salt and pepper -> Please pass the salt and pepper.
Sweet and sour -> I ordered sweet and sour chicken.
Trial and error -> Notice I'm primarily reducing the "and", but I'm saying "trial and error". I'm saying those words clearly and fully. Let's make a sentence: We figured it out by trial and error.
Peace and quiet -> I went to the mountains for some peace and quiet.
Thunder and lightning -> We had thunder and lightning last night.
