How To IMPRESS Native Speakers With Your English SPEAKING Skills (9 Tips)

How to speak English so good  native speakers are impressed.

I'm impressed, I'm impressed.

You'll learn 9 tips #1 master the basics.

It certainly will not impress anyone.

Not native speakers, not your  teacher, not other students.

If you say I go store now,  

I'm sure you know that the correct way  is to say I'm going to the store now.

But maybe you forgot that article.

I'm going store now.

Even forgetting one small word, the article, the  store, or using the wrong verb tense, the present.

Simple I go instead of the present.

Continuous I'm going makes  a big difference in how you  

communicate and how others receive your message.

But don't worry, you don't need to master every  single grammar concept in the English language.

You only need to master the basics.

There are 12 verb tenses in English, but  only 6 verb tenses make up 96% of speech.

This is why you should focus  first on mastering the basics.

Make sure you have correct sentence  structure, basic grammar, and then  

you can keep improving and keep learning  more advanced concepts #2 use contractions.

I know what you're thinking,  but contractions are not slang.

Contractions are grammatically correct.

Contractions are not unprofessional.

Contractions are used in  professional and formal English.

Contractions help your speech sound  more friendly, fluid, and natural.

Let's take this common greeting.

If you say it without the contraction, it will be.

How is it going?

That doesn't sound impressive  because it doesn't sound natural.

A native speaker would say, how's it going?

They would take how is and form a contraction.

How's, how's it going?

Repeat after me.

How's it going?

Now you'll impress a native  speaker #3 connect your words.

A lot of students will pause between  words, but this does not sound natural.

It sounds very robotic, and it makes your English  levels seem more beginner than it probably is.

So if you pause between words, it  definitely won't impress native speakers.

Let's take the expression we used before.

How's it going?

So let's say you apply tip 2  and you use that contraction.

How is how's?

But you pause between those words.

How's it going?

This won't impress a native speaker.

You need to combine those sounds.

So repeat after me.

How's it going?

We have how's and it so we can  combine that together and it  

sounds like how's it, how's it, How's it going?

And even though there is no connection between  it and going, I still don't pause between them.

How's it going?

Repeat after me.

How's it going?

So if you connect your words, you will definitely  impress natives #4 use idioms and expressions.

Congratulations, you already learned one that  will help you sound natural and impress natives.

How's it going?

You can use this instead of asking  how are you or how are you doing?

How's it going?

And because you know how to pronounce  it, you will feel confident using it.

There are so many idioms and expressions  in English and you can just add a few  

every day or every week to help build  your vocabulary so you impress natives.

Let's start with some basic ones.

Instead of I'm tired, what could  you say that's an alternative?

Way more of an expression.

You could say I'm beat, I'm beat.

Instead of I'm going to bed, I'm hitting the hay  or instead of you did a great job, you rocked it.

Most of my students already use this one because  I use it with my students almost every video.

You rocked it.

You did a great job.

So if you think I'm doing a  great job with this video,  

why don't you show your encouragement,  show your support and put rocked it.

Put rocked it in the comments to  practice this so you remember it.

So the next time you can use it with  natives to impress, and if you don't  

like that expression, find a different one.

You can say you rocked it, you killed  it, you crushed it, you nailed it.

All of those are commonly used and will  impress natives #5 Use phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs are not slang.

Phrasal verbs are grammatically correct.

Phrasal verbs are not unprofessional.

Phrasal verbs are professional, friendly,  

and natural, and sometimes there is  no other way to communicate an idea.

Sometimes you must use a phrasal verb to  correctly and naturally communicate this idea.

Let's take a look at this image.

What are the people doing?

Hmm, maybe you could say they're leaving the bus.

That is a direct translation.

They're exiting the bus.

Again, a direct translation.

They're getting off the bus.

This is the correct and natural  way to communicate this idea.

In this case, the phrasal verb get  on to enter and get off to exit is  

the only word used to communicate  this idea naturally in English.

So you must use this phrasal  verb to impress native speakers.

Otherwise it will sound like you're using awkward  direct translations from your native language.

Number six, understand syllable stress.

Since this lesson is on speaking, you  must understand and use the concept of  

syllable stress, which may not  exist in your native language,  

in order to speak in a natural way  that impresses native speakers.

In English, in every word  that's more than one syllable,  

there is a stressed syllable  and an unstressed syllable.

Let's take this picture.

What is this?

Say it out loud.

What is this?

Did you say BA na na or did you say banana Banana?

Using the correct syllable stress will  instantly make you sound more natural,  

so whenever you're learning a new word,  you must learn the syllable stress.

The phonetic alphabet tells you specifically  where the stress is, and you can listen to  

an audio dictionary and listen for the  syllable that sounds louder and longer.

Banana.

Louder and longer Nah is the stress syllable.

Bah and uh are the unstressed banana.

That's how you can say this word and  impress native speakers #7 Vary your tone.

Did you know that only 7% of  communication is the words you say?

38 percent is your tone, your tone of voice,  

which represents the rising and  falling of the sound of your voice.

So you may already understand this concept because  when you ask a question in English, a yes or no  

question, you have a rising intonation,  which means the tone of your voice rises.

Would you like a banana?

Banana.

So my tone comes up at the end.

But notice how my tone changes  when I say I hate bananas.

I hate my tone comes down.

I love bananas.

My tone comes up on love.

Imagine you just said I hate bananas.

I love bananas.

Notice how different that sounds?

The words are exactly the same,  the only difference is my tone.

In every sentence you say, there should  be a rising and falling of your tone.

This is something you can practice  by recording yourself and listen  

back and ask yourself if you  can hear those rises and falls.

But you also don't want it to be too dramatic  

because that will not impress  natives #8 Add body language.

You already know that 7% of  communication is your words,  

38 percent is your tone, and that leaves  55% for, you guessed it, your body language.

Let's look at this picture.

Of course, there are no words, so we can't hear  the tone of voice because there are no words.

But these people are communicating a message.

What are they communicating?

I'm sure some emotions  instantly come to your mind.

Some negative emotions  instantly come to your mind.

They are communicating even  though there are no words.

How about now this is the same couple, but notice  they're communicating an entirely different  

message even though there are still no words,  no tone of voice, because there are no words.

It is only their body language  that they're using to communicate.

So when you record yourself to  practice your intonation, why not use  

the video recorder instead of just audio?

So you can look at yourself and  look at your body language and  

ask yourself if any improvements could  be made #9 My personal favorite, smile.

There are so many studies that  show the importance of a smile.

Did you know that even studies where people were  talking on the phone, salespeople were rated  

higher when they delivered their sales script  while smiling compared to while not smiling?

Even though this was a phone conversation,  a smile is obvious even when you're talking  

on the phone because when you smile, it raises  your tone, which makes you sound more friendly.

Imagine you go into a job interview and you say  hello, nice to meet you, my name's Jennifer.

Hi, nice to meet you, my name's Jennifer.

Simply by adding that smile,  

imagine I started this video and said  today you're going to learn 9 tips.

Today you're going to learn 9 tips.

Of course, a smile is very closely related  to your tone of voice because as I said,  

it raises your tone and you need the appropriate  body language to go with your smile as well.

So when you're recording yourself and  you're recording yourself with video,  

you can look back and watch yourself as you smile.

Now it is not natural to smile the entire time  you're talking, so definitely don't do that.

But as a fun exercise, you can review this  video and review it from my tone of voice,  

my body language and my smile.

And why not rate me?

I'm sure I still have areas to improve as well  and I'm constantly trying to improve how I  

communicate because I also want to impress  native speakers and non-native speakers.

I want to impress everyone with  my message, especially you.

So keep practicing these 9 tips and I  have another lesson I know you'll love,  

so make sure you watch it right now.