Understanding Americans When They Talk Fast

The place to boost your English and boost your career.

If you don’t understand what I just said

and if you work with Americans, you’ll love today’s video.

We’re gonna look at 4 common American greetings

so you can understand the first thing Bob the big American says

when he starts a conversation with you.

Ya ready?

A lot of my clients say their American colleagues talk too fast,

don’t articulate,

and generally it's just really hard to understand them.

That’s partly because of a linguistic phenomenon called

“connected speech”.

Basically, it's when the sounds in a sentence

all run together.

In connected speech, you don’t hear

“Good to meet you”

you hear

“Guhdtuhmeetchuh.”

Let’s play a game.

I’m gonna say

4 different expressions that Americans typically use to greet their colleagues.

I’ll say each expression

twice.

Listen and try to understand what I’m saying.

Here we go.

Let’s see if you were correct.

listen again and check with the subtitles

below.

Number one

Number 2

Number 3

And number 4

Notice what happens.

In all of the expressions that end in -ing,

Americans generally say goin’ or doin’,

not going or doing.

Sometimes the auxiliary verb disappears completely.

instead of “how have you been?”

We might say “hah ya bin”

and instead of “How are you doing?”, we'll say

“Hah ya doin”

In both of those examples, you don’t hear “how” clearly,

you don’t hear “How you bin?”, you hear something like

“Hah ya bin?”.

In the final example,

how's your day gowin ?

you hear a je sound

“Howzjaday goin?”

you don't hear how's your

you hear

“Howzja”

“Howzjaday gowin?”

Here’s the recap:

When your American colleagues say hello to you,

it might sound like this

Hey, Howzitgoin (How’s it going?)

Hah ya bin? (How have you been?)

Hah ya doin? (How are you doing?)

Howzjadaygoin? (How’s your day going?)

Listen often to these expressions so you can learn to recognize the sounds of connected speech.

This’ll help you feel a little more confident about understanding Americans

at the beginning of the conversation.

Here’s your Speak Better, Feel Great challenge for this week

Listen to Americans speaking,

or better yet,

start a conversation with an American if you can.

Listen for these expressions

and try to understand them.

Then

come back

and tell us about it in the comments section below.

Remember the best way to boost your English and boost your career is to work regularly on your English communication skills.

Sign up for the Speak Better, Feel Great Blog

and you’ll get one video a week delivered directly to your inbox.

Each week, you’ll get the opportunity to work on understanding spoken American English.

Go ahead and sign up at christinarebuffet.com.

I’m Christina, from Speak Better, Feel Great TV.

See ya next time!

Did you notice I don’t say “see you next time?” but instead

“See ya next time”!