5 Tips to Speak Better in Any Language

this video is brought to you by Squarespace what  if I told you that speaking better in any language  

isn't about memorizing thousands of words or  endless grammar rules the secret is keeping  

in mind a few often Overlook techniques in this  video I'm sharing five great tips to elevate your  

speaking skills you don't need hours of practice  just a smarter approach let's dive into tip number  

one focusing on pronunciation first you guys  always ask me in the comments how I worked on my  

American accent and the reality is very simple a  lot of discipline but also really really focusing  

on my pronunciation because I was exactly like you  I didn't know all of these techniques and rules I  

was going to school I was learning English there  we were focusing on grammar drills on memorizing  

a lot of random vocabulary and when I went to  college I decided to focus on my pronunciation  

in English as if it was my day one with English I  started learning the alphabet again but not just  

memorizing it like a song you know like a b c  d e f g no what I was doing I was making sure  

that I knew how to pronounce all the sounds you  know all the sounds that letters make in words  

because sometimes the letter c is pronounced as  s sometimes it's pronounced as C like in the word  

cake and I was also making sure that I wasn't  letting Russian my native language interfere  

with this process because in Russian we don't  have the sound the or th and so that's why a lot  

of Russians usually use the sound s like instead  of saying think they might say syn and so I was  

really teaching myself all of these new sounds all  of these sounds that my mouth my tongue weren't  

really used to and I'm a nerd so for me doing all  of those pronunciation drills wasn't boring at all  

but if it is boring for you one of the things  that you can do is listen a lot when you listen  

to the speech for example the sounds of English  you are going to pick up on all of those sounds  

you notice a sound you try to repeat it maybe you  watch some YouTube videos about the sound this is  

the active approach to language learning cuz yes  some of the sounds are going to be difficult and  

it just means that you need to focus on them more  and more spend more time practicing this sound the  

second tip to speak better in any language is to  practice minimal pairs so what is a minimal pair  

let's look at these two words sheep and ship  in English these two words form a minimal pair  

because these sounds are very similar and a lot  of non-native English speakers make mistakes here  

instead of sheep they say ship instead of ship  they say sheep and practicing these words is so  

important to highlight the importance of minimal  pairs I'm going to share a story that happened  

to me recently so I met up with my friends a  couple the girl is Russian the guy is American  

and the girl was trying to say a sentence and  use the word thick but instead of saying the  

word thick she was saying thick just because in  Russian we don't really have this uh sound like  

thick it was really hard for me at the beginning  to learn how to pronounce this word correctly as  

a native Russian speaker and so basically she was  talking to her American boyfriend and she said the  

word th instead of thick and he didn't understand  her he was like what what are you trying to say  

and then she turned to me and she was was like  what am I doing wrong I'm trying to say this  

word th and so yeah this example just highlights  the importance of pronunciation because once you  

learn all of these rules the minimal pairs the  basic pronunciation it will help you speak better  

in any language it will help you have fewer and  fewer of those situations when somebody is not  

understanding you because you're pronouncing  a word wrong now that we've talked about the  

power of mastering minimal pairs to improve your  language skills let's take this idea of precision  

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domain now I prepared a little sneaky tip for you  because I don't see a lot of people talking about  

it and that is all about learning fillers and  connectors you know and but so well these are  

all examples I know some people don't like them  but they really help us sound more natural and  

maintain this flow of conversation and the reason  why I decided to include this point in today's  

video is if you know how to use all of the fillers  and connectors really well in the language you're  

learning it means that you have internalized ized  the language well because usually when we speak  

when we speak a foreign language and we don't know  what to say we don't use fillers in this foreign  

language we use fillers in our native language  because it feels more natural to us let me give  

you an example I'm Russian so when I don't know  what to say my natural reaction is to say no if  

I need to think and it's actually something that  I've noticed my friends do like my Russian friends  

when they speak English new kind of means well  or um you know when you need to think this is  

just what we say in Russian no it shows that maybe  you know your natural response is obviously to use  

your native language and it's completely normal  like even the way people say uh is different in  

different languages in English people would say um  um okay but in Spanish people will make the sound  

a little bit different I've noticed that here in  Mexico people say something like a it's different  

all of these sounds are so similar but they're  also so different the next thing you can try doing  

if you want to speak better in any language is  shadowing native speakers I talk about shadowing  

all the time because it's something that I've used  it's something that I am still using in English  

and especially in Spanish and every single time  I practice shadowing I notice my speaking skills  

improve so the way shadowing works is you mimic  native speakers right after hearing them speak  

you're trying to copy everything their Rhythm  their intonation their pronunciation obviously  

at the very beginning it's going to be very  hard because native speakers tend to kind of  

like mush words together with time you will  learn all of these rules and you're going to  

start mushing words together yourself and guys  this tip is not just something that you know  

I like to do it is one of the most effective  science-backed techniques to help you improve  

your intonation your pronunciation your accent  in any foreign language because when you repeat  

phrases immediately after hearing them you are  training your mouth your tongue to get used to  

unfamiliar sounds because obviously when you're  learning a foreign language all of these sounds  

are different all of these sounds are unfamiliar  and when you mimic sounds it helps your brain  

create new neural Pathways that solidify accurate  pronunciation every single language has its unique  

music or Rhythm and when you're practic iing  shadowing you're learning this music of the  

language you're practicing the fall of speech  pauses Rhythm intonation and eventually it  

helps you sound more like a native speaker and  on my channel I always say that knowing words  

and speaking them fluently are two completely  different things and shadowing helps you bridge  

the gap between knowing a word memorizing it and  knowing the correct pronunciation speaking it  

fluently and so by by mimicking The Sounds Rhythm  and intonation of native speakers you don't just  

learn a language you embody it and finally I  thought that I absolutely had to mention this  

tip I think that slowing down when you speak not  rushing not trying to sound like blah blah blah  

blah blah blah blah blah blah will help you speak  better in any language because I get it I know  

where it's coming from you hear someone online or  maybe you look at a native speaker and they speak  

very fast and so you think that to sound fluent  you have to speak so freaking fast if you first  

focus on fluency on you know pronouncing all the  words correctly you focus on learning the grammar  

slowly and surely you start you know picking up  the pace obviously eventually you are going to  

speak English way faster even my YouTube videos  from like 3 years ago the way I was speaking  

English was different from the way I speak English  now maybe right now I can speak English faster  

but for me it's so much more it's not just about  the speed I feel more confident now when I speak  

English compared to my English 3 years ago but  if you watch my videos from that time you will  

definitely see a huge difference because I've  been practicing English consistently with enough  

discipline and also this is how I'm now seeing  all of this progress so I think it's going to  

be it for this video if you liked it please don't  forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my  

YouTube channel make sure to check out Squarespace  by clicking my link in the description and use my  

code Veronica for 10% off your first purchase of  a website or domain today I mention some of the  

language learning tips I learned from polyglots  and if you want to know more of their secrets  

polyl secrets you can check out this video right  here just click right here and keep on watching