Improve Your English Speaking Skills | How to Speak English Fast and Understand Native Speakers

there always comes a point in our lives when  we start thinking about our accent in english  

how do i sound can native speakers understand  me how can i be moral like them these were the  

questions i asked myself four years ago when i  decided to work on my accent and switch to the  

american pronunciation but i guess the reason  why i chose the american accent was because of  

me not because what other people think and not  because what is popular right now i personally  

love the way it sounds and i hope i can make you  like the american accent as well so in this video  

i want to share some of the secrets of the  american pronunciation i've learned so far  

and believe me guys some of those secrets  are going to be pretty surprising to you  

but first i want to mention here that i have  a whole playlist on my channel dedicated to  

accent training so if you're interested you  can check it out after you watch this video  

so let's talk about the first interesting thing  that a lot of people called dropped syllables so  

in one of my previous videos i talked about the  reasons americans speak so fast and one of the  

reasons was that they drop a lot of vowel sounds  and consonant sounds as well so we all know that  

a lot of the changes happen with the t sound for  example in this sentence instead of saying that  

cat was really cute americans would say that  cat was really cute so this is a stopped tea  

but i think a lot of people are not familiar with  the dropping of vowel sounds and this is actually  

something very very interesting so instead of  saying chocolate with three syllables you should  

say chocolate instead of saying broccoli  with three syllables again you should say  

broccoli this way you will be speaking faster and  this is exactly why americans drop all their sound  

you know they change them the reason is that they  just want their conversation to flow you know this  

is very important here and i guess let's practice  this rule by doing this exercise together actually  

aspirin average basically beverage different  extraordinary evening every family generally  

broccoli and guys i highly recommend you to use  everything i'm teaching you today in conversations  

because this is exactly how you'll be able to  change your pronunciation and speak with a more  

american accent and i think you can do that by  joining lingoda's language friend lingoda is an  

online language school that connects students from  across the world with native speaking teachers  

in live immersion classes currently on  their platform you can study english  

business english french spanish and german  and lingoda hosts one of one or group learning  

sessions on zoom for students for all levels  from beginner to advanced and if you're ready  

to see real progress in your language learning  journey you should consider joining lingoda's  

language sprint which is an intensive language  challenge where you take either 15 or 30 classes  

a month for two months and if you attend all  the classes you can get 50 or 100 cash back  

and as you guys remember i regularly take  open conversation classes on their platform  

because they help me connect with new people and  practice the expressions that i've learned and  

here is a little sneak peek from my previous  class yeah hello nice to meet you my name is  

so guys i just had my open conversation class  and as usual i wanted to share my thoughts  

after this lesson first of all i absolutely love  taking ligotis classes because i love the fact how  

easy it is to book classes on their platform  you just go pick the course you know pick the  

class and done it's very easy just in a matter  of minutes and another thing that i especially  

love is that you can take a class any time so  they have the same classes at different times  

this way you'll be able to choose the best time  for you and so guys if you're looking to reach  

the new heights in your target language then the  lingoda linger sprint is exactly what you need to  

stay motivated and committed to your goal click  the link below for more information and use my  

code veronica may for 20 euros or 25 off of your  deposit now let's talk about intonation so let  

me tell you a little story here my friends always  laugh at me when i say interesting because i love  

saying interesting in english all the time for  example if they're telling me a very interesting  

story i might say wow that's interesting and  sometimes when people say interesting they don't  

actually mean that it's interesting you know  guys so here it's very important to have the  

correct intonation and sometimes my intonation is  a little weird so my friends think i'm joking or  

they think that i feel like something they are  doing is weird let me give you an example here  

so one of my friends he collects eggshells for  his plants so instead of just throwing them out  

he collects them in a jar and then he uses them  for his plants and when i learned about that i  

was like interesting and my friend was like what  does it mean veronica it doesn't mean that you  

actually think it's interesting or you think it's  weird and i think americans really understand the  

power of intonation and the power of always being  so polite and friendly and welcoming even though  

maybe sometimes they don't really want to talk to  you they don't really think what you're saying is  

interesting so let me give you another  example imagine you bought a new dress  

and you're showing it to your friends and they  might say wow this dress is so cool but in reality  

they don't really like the stress and for some  people this might be a problem because in some  

cultures it's very common to be very direct for  example in my culture a lot of people are direct  

if we don't like something we just say it you  know we say yeah this dress is kind of you know  

not that cute we don't really like it but  in america people are very conscious about  

being polite and friendly and not hurting another  person's feelings and i think what will help you  

with your intonation in english and understanding  you know the intonation of native speakers better  

is watching tv shows for example friends  friends is a great tv show where people are  

interacting with each other in just day-to-day  conversations it's very interesting to watch  

what expressions they say and how they say  that now let's move on to this word in english  

so this article we use it all the time  and this is something that a lot of people  

are unfamiliar with and i'm talking about the  pronunciation of this article so when the article  

the is followed by a vowel sound we pronounce  it as e so we say v for example you might say  

the apple right the orange but if the article the  is followed by a consonant sound we have to say  

the and here again a lot of people make the  mistake of saying that and this is not that  

so to illustrate the word better try to say fun so  this is the exact sound you have to make when you  

say the so just let's get rid of this f and let's  try to say zan and then just say za and that's it  

this is how this article is supposed to be  pronounced so for example you might want to say  

the world or the banana but there is another  interesting situation when native speakers  

might say thee even if the next word begins on a  consonant sound they do this to put an emphasis  

on the word and we call it the emphatic the so  you might be talking to your friend and they  

might tell you i saw the president yesterday  and obviously you're shocked you're like  

wow the president of the united states and your  friend is like yeah can you imagine so first your  

friend was just like it's a regular conversation  so that's why they said i saw the president  

but you're so shocked you know you want to place  emphasis on this word and that's why you're saying  

the president that's crazy and the last thing  i want to talk to you guys here is slang in  

casual speech when americans talk to their  friends and acquaintances they will use slang  

a lot so a very common example is instead of  saying 10 you can say 10 bucks and instead  

of saying i don't have any money you can say i'm  broke and guys if you want me to make a dedicated  

video about american slang let me know in the  comments because it's a very interesting topic  

and there are so many things i could teach  you but for now i'll leave the links in the  

description to some of the interesting books that  i like that help me learn more about the american  

slang and like some idioms and expressions  that americans use all the time so guys i  

think it's going to be it for this video make  sure to check out lingoda's language sprint and  

use my code veronica may to get a discount and  as always make sure to subscribe to my channel  

and follow me on instagram you can continue  watching more videos about accent training  

and american accent in general by clicking right  here and i'll see you guys in my next video bye