5 Ways to Sound More Natural in English

You have a decent amount of vocabulary. Right? And  you've got a pretty good handle on grammar. So,  

how can you sound more natural in English?  How can you come across as confident in  

social situations and convince people in a  work setting of your proficiency in English?

Hi. I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer.  I'm going to share five ways you can sound  

more natural in English. The first game-changing  practice you need to learn is not to rush when you  

speak. Just because others are speaking a mile a  minute doesn't mean you have to. You won't impress  

anyone if you lose control of your articulation.  Speaking faster than you're comfortable with can  

also challenge you to maintain clean grammar and  make use of rich vocabulary. Set yourself up to  

speak your best by not rushing to say everything  as fast as possible. You can actually sound more  

confident, more credible, and more authoritative  if you speak more deliberately. Compare.

Henry David Thoreau said, "The question is  not what you look at, but what you see."

Henry David Thoreau said, "The question is  not what you look at, but what you see."

Which sounded better?

The second game-changing practice you must  master is the use of thought groups. If  

you try to say every sentence in one breath,  you'll run out of steam, so to speak. Thought  

groups allow you to break longer ideas  into logical units, grammatical units,  

so that you can pause in natural places to take  a breath. Thought groups are often introductory  

words and phrases: fortunately, in  the end, however, the way I see it.

Long subjects: my best friend and I, a group  of us from work, a few of my colleagues.

Long predicates or verb phrases:  are going to see a movie tonight,  

have lunch together every Friday,  have recommended this app.

Dependent clauses: which is supposed  to help you build new habits.

Prepositional phrases: at our favorite café.

Now listen as I say these sentences.  Notice my use of thought groups.

My best friend and I are  going to see a movie tonight.

A few of my colleagues have recommended this app,  which is supposed to help you build new habits.

Grammatical units like subjects, verbs, objects,  and complements can become their own thought  

groups if they're long. Shorter grammatical  units often combine with each other. Observe.

My brother is a hockey trainer.

As a skating instructor, he  spends a lot of time on the ice.

All that ice time has made  him an excellent skater.

Remember to break and breathe in natural  places. Use thought groups. You can use  

any of my Oral Reading Fluency lessons to  see texts marked up with thought groups.

The third game-changing practice you must  learn is linking. If you connect your words,  

you'll create smooth speech. One of the easiest  types of linking to master is from a final  

consonant sound to a following vowel sound. Let's  use those same practice sentences from before.

My brother is a hockey trainer. My brother  is a...is a...My brother is a hockey trainer.

As a skating instructor...as a...As a skating  in-...As a skating instructor, he spends a lot  

of time on the ice. He spends a...he spends  a lot of...he spends a lot of time on...he  

spends a lot of time on the ice. As a skating  instructor, he spends a lot of time on the ice.

All that ice time has made  him an excellent skater.  

All that ice...All that ice time has made  him...has made him an...has made him an  

ex-...has made him an excellent skater. All  that ice time has made him an excellent skater.

My Fast Speech playlist covers different  types of linking. For example, vowel to  

vowel sound can be done with a Y sound  /y/ or a W sound /w/. What do you hear  

in this phrase? The ice...the ice...on  the ice. I'm linking with a Y sound from  

"the" to "ice." The ice...on the ice.  He spends a lot of time on the ice.

The fourth game-changing practice you must  learn is stressing content words. This means  

you need to understand the difference between  content and function words in English. We don't  

stress every word. We stress keywords that  carry meaning, usually that means nouns,  

verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. We also  stress numbers and question words. Usually,  

the little words like articles, conjunctions,  and prepositions don't get stressed. They're  

function words. We need them so that  the sentence functions grammatically.

A stressed word has a stressed syllable. The  stressed syllable has a stressed vowel sound  

that sound needs to be lengthened. Usually,  a stressed syllable is longer, louder,  

and at a higher pitch. Can you predict  the words I'll stress in this question?

Here's how I'd say it. Did you know that I have  three brothers? I'm stressing the main verbs,  

the number, and the noun. Know,  have, three, brothers. "Brothers"  

has two syllables. The first one is  stressed. Brothers. The other words  

are function words. They're not stressed.  Did you know that I have three brothers?

A lot of tongue twisters can help with rhythm  if they have a good mix of content words and  

function words. I have a number of tongue twisters  posted and recorded on my website. Here's one.

A tutor who tooted the flute tried to tutor  to tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor,  

"Is it harder to toot or to  tutor to tooters to toot?"

Can you spot the content words?

Let me highlight them.

nouns

verbs

adjectives

numbers

I'll say the tongue twister slowly  and clap on the stressed syllables.

A tutor who tooted the flute tried to tutor  to tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor,  

"Is it harder to toot or to  tutor to tooters to toot?"

If you correctly contrast the content words  with the function words, reduction will happen  

more naturally. I don't say "to toot" with two  long /u/sounds. The first is a function word,  

so the vowel sound is reduced. It  sounds like /te tut/. Once more.

A tutor who tooted the flute tried to tutor  to tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor,  

"Is it harder to toot or to  tutor to tooters to toot?"

I review content and function words in  my Fast Speech playlist. You can also  

check out my Oral Reading Fluency lessons to  develop a sense of rhythm within a sentence.

The fifth and final game-changing  practice is to master intonation.  

I have a full playlist on intonation  and rhythm, but right now let's do a  

short overview of the patterns you can  use to sound natural and appropriate.

Falling intonation. My oldest  brother works in the film industry.

Rising intonation. Does he know any celebrities?

Mid-rise. This happens mid-sentence.  If he does, he doesn't brag about it.

Fall-rise, which can happen mid-sentence.  If he does, he doesn't brag about it.

A fall-rise can also happen on  an introductory word. However,  

I know he's worked with famous actors.

Sharp rise. Really?

A rise-fall. Wow!

So, there you are. Five ways to sound more  natural in English. Don't rush. Use thought  

groups. Link words. Stress content  words. Use intonation appropriately.

It also goes without saying that you  need clear sounds. I have lessons on  

vowel sounds and consonant sounds  in American English . Check them  

out. And also please download my free  Pronunciation Toolkit for more practice.

We'll end here. Please like and  share the video if you found the  

lesson useful. As always, thanks  for watching and happy studies!