3 Tips To Speak Fast English

Aw yeah! What's up everybody?  Have you ever wondered why  

natives always seem to speak so quickly? Well, actually when you think about fast  

speech in English it's the fact that  English is a stress-timed language,  

meaning that some syllables  are stressed and others aren't. 

So this makes English a rhythmical language and in  today's lesson I'm going to tell you some easy to  

apply tips so that you can sound and feel more  natural and confident when you speak English. 

We're going to learn contractions, we're going  to learn linking sounds and we're going to learn  

sentence stress. And the best part is I'm going  to ask you to practice with me as we go through,  

and right at the end I have a really special  surprise for you, so make sure you watch all of  

this video to check out what that surprise is. Do you sometimes feel that you don't sound as  

natural as you can when you speak English?  Well I want to tell you that every week  

we help you understand fast native speech, be  understood by anyone and connect to the world. 

Just ask Tamara, who says that our channel is now  part of her bedtime ritual. So join Tamara and  

support me and the team at RealLife English. All you need to do is hit that Subscribe  

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We have some breaking news out of a  fast food restaurant in Washington DC,  

an unidentified exchange student was in McDonald's  when a team member asked him what would you like. 

The exchange student was confident because  he'd practiced many times before in his head.  

He replied "I'll have a Sprite please." He'd been waiting a while when his name was called  

after getting his order. He was shocked  to realize that he hadn't ordered a Sprite  

but instead he was given a large fries. That same  afternoon he was admitted to hospital due to an  

allergic reaction to nightshades we spoke to the  restaurant manager who prefers to remain anonymous  

and he said we didn't know this would happen. I guess he was afraid of losing face so he  

didn't say anything had. He asked we'd  have certainly replaced his order.

Well a lesson learned for our  friend next time you order a Sprite  

make sure you get a Sprite. This is Ollie,  reporting live from RealLife English headquarters. 

What would you do in this situation?  Would you keep the fries or would you  

go back and get your Sprite like you asked for? If you're like me then you have lots of these  

funny stories to tell and in fact if I told  you all of my stories we'd be here for days. 

So my first tip to speak English  faster is to use contractions.  

Now, you probably know that contractions  are a combination of two or more words. 

So contract means to make smaller and you  probably remember your first English lessons  

where you learned the verb "to be" and  you were probably taught the contractions. 

You're thinking why do I  need to learn the full form  

and the contraction as well? Well,  truth is we use contractions a lot. 

We use contractions in every single context  and quite often I get asked by learners  

if contractions are too informal to use in real  life conversations. And the answer to that is NO. 

If you watch the news, listen to podcasts,  go to a restaurant and talk to the waiter  

or even talk to your friends at a barbecue,  you're going to hear contractions all the time. 

Truth is they are a part of real life  conversations and real life speech. For example,  

instead of saying "Do not play with the  dog," we'd say "Don't play with the dog." 

However the only time where it's not okay  to use contractions is if you're writing  

a formal email or you're in a job interview.  In fact, Ethan made a great lesson with common  

job interview questions, so you can check out  that lesson when you finish watching this one.

So often learners know how to recognize  contractions, but they actually won't use them.  

For example I've been to Brazil is contracted  with "I" and the auxiliary "have." However  

I often hear learners pronounce  this like "I have been to Brazil." 

So I recommend if you see a contraction,  

pronounce the contraction. That way you're  going to be able to speak English a lot faster.  

In a contraction the apostrophe takes  the place of some of the letters.

Now let's go and look at some examples that were  used in the news interview that we saw earlier. 

Now the exchange student said I'll have a Sprite  please. Do you know what "ll" is in this sentence?  

Yeah, that's right. It's "will." So you can see that the W and  

the I have been taken away. And they've  been replaced with an apostrophe "I'll" 

Now how would you contract this sentence?  "I had cooked before my parents got home." 

Yeah, that's right. "I'd cooked  before my parents got home."  

Did you notice how much faster I  sounded when I used the contraction? 

Now I want you to say the  uncontracted sentence after me:  

"I had cooked before my parents got home" It's your turn. 

Nice job! Okay now let's  try the contracted sentence  

and see if you spoke any faster: "I'd cooked  before my parents got home." Your turn.

Great job! I'm sure you're already speaking  faster. So you're probably sitting at home  

thinking, "But Ollie, how do I know which words  I can contract?" And truth is there are so  

many that I would be here for days telling  you every single contraction, so what I'm  

going to do now is I'm going to show you some  common ones that we use every day in English.

Quiz time! Do you know how we'd  contract these? "Would not have."

"Wouldn't have"

"Why did"

"Why'd" Example, "I wouldn't have  

done that if I were you." "Why'd you do that?" So my second tip for you to use to get you  

speaking English faster is to link the  words, and if this isn't your first time  

here you have probably seen Ethan, Andrea and  now me talk about connected speech quite a lot,  

and that's because us natives use connected speech  so we don't have to pronounce word for word. 

We can make our speech continuous by linking  words and sounds together, which is known as  

connected speech. Now do you often feel frustrated  when you don't know how to use connected speech  

or you don't understand fast speaking natives? Then I highly recommend our Fluent with Friends  

Course. In this 48-week course you're going to  learn with the first two seasons of Friends. Each  

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Fluency Circle Global Community and so much more! And do you know what the best thing about this is?  

You can try it absolutely FREE  with our 3-Part Masterclass.  

To get started today, all you need to do is  click up here or down in the description below.

So you might find it difficult to  understand fast speaking natives  

when you aren't too sure about what words  and sounds link together, so when we ask  

questions we quite often link the words together. So what I recommend you do is learn the question  

as a chunk and that way you'll be able to kill two  birds with one stone. Not only will you be able to  

practice the connected speech, but you might also  learn some new vocabulary and sentence structure. 

Here at RealLife English we're big  on guiding you beyond the classroom. 

So let's practice some questions  that use connected speech. 

So I'm going to say the sentence and  then I'm going to show you where it links  

and then we're going to practice together, right? But first I want to show you what it sounds like  

without linking the words together and then I'm  going to show you what it sounds like when I do  

link the words together, and you're going to  recognize that when I link my words together. 

I actually sound a lot faster number  one: "What have you been up to?"

Did you notice how I actually sounded a lot  quicker when I linked the words together  

in this sentence? You'll notice that I  reduced have to 've. "What've you...?"

Sentence number two: "What would you do?" 

Did you notice how I linked  would and you? "Would you?"

Sentence number three: "Did you arrive late?"

Did you notice how I connected the  final d on did with y in you? "Did you?"

Okay, now it's time to practice with me. I'm  gonna say it and then I want you to repeat. 

"What have you been up to?" "What would you do?" 

"Did you arrive late?"

Now if you find that a little difficult there's  an exercise called "back chaining." So instead of  

pronouncing the words from start to finish you're  actually going to reverse it or flip it around  

and you're going to say the last  word and then slowly build up. 

Let's take a look at how that works.  So the sentence "Where do you come  

from?" sounds like this back chaining  goes like this: from - come from -  

did you come from - where did you come from - You can see that when we do this exercise we start  

with the last word of the sentence and slowly  work our way up to the first word of the sentence,  

and that way you're going to build the confidence  to be able to use connected speech when you talk. 

In some, if you can learn questions as chunks  you're going to be able to speak quicker,  

as you'll learn the linking words when you learn  the questions and actually we've made a great  

lesson on how you can ask questions like a native. When you're done with this lesson make sure you  

check it out by clicking up here  or down in the description below.

So my third tip to get you speaking faster  is to emphasize the most important words. 

You might remember at the start of this lesson  that I said English is a stressed time language.  

It's the fact that English is a stress time  language meaning stress syllables follow a  

certain rhythm and unstressed syllables  are incorporated to fit that rhythm. 

In fact, did you know that music  is a great way to learn rhythm?  

We have a great playlist over on our  Learn English with TV Series page.  

To check out that playlist next you can click  up here or down in the description below.

Now do you remember the story about the  exchange student at the start of this lesson?  

There were a couple of sentences  where I expressed some stress. 

Listen to this sentence without stress: "He was  shocked to realize." I pretty much stressed every  

word, but in English in fact we don't do that. Listen again: "He was shocked to realize."

Which words do you think I stressed?

Yeah, that's right. I stress  "shocked" and "realize."  

A great way of trying to understand  which words are stressed is by knowing  

which words are content words and  which words are function words. 

Content words refer to those words  that have meaning. So in my example  

"shocked" and "realized" have meaning. And function words are the words that  

don't have meaning, for example "was" and  "to," so I didn't stress "was" or "to." 

I actually reduced them to was  and "he was shocked to realize." 

However, content words and function words  are not set in stone, so the speaker can  

decide which words they wish to emphasize. So let's look at another example from the  

news report: "He was given a large fries." Which words do you think I stressed here¿

Yeah, that's right. I stressed "given" and  "fries." Now listen to me change the content and  

function words and see if it changes the meaning. "He was given a large fries." 

In this sentence the stress  is on "was" and "large"  

and this is used to emphasize that the exchange  student was actually given the large fries. 

Okay so do you remember at the start of the  lesson I said I have a special surprise for you? 

Well we're now going to have a conversation.  You're going to duo me, so I want you to say  

the sentences where it says you. First,  we're going to do it without contractions  

and then in the second part we're going to  highlight the contractions where things are  

connected and the stressed words in the sentence. So are you ready? Let's go!

So I want to thank you for  joining me in today's lesson.  

I hope these tips will be able to  guide you beyond the classroom,  

where you can start living your English  and speaking faster just like us natives. 

Don't forget to support me and the team at  RealLife English by hitting that Subscribe button  

and the Bell down below so you don't miss  any of our weekly lessons. See you next time!