Advanced Pronunciation Lesson | Ask Questions Like a Native

Hey everyone today we're learning all about how to  ask questions in English. Most times when learners  

think of a question in English they think of  them in terms of grammar. You know as a formula:  

auxiliary, verb and pronoun and main  verb. If you find that useful that's okay,  

but once you have mastered getting the structure  of questions right and even have learned to break  

the rules like a pro. You know sometimes we don't  say how are you doing we say how are you doing.  

There's a whole other aspect that's also important  for fluency, that is how you actually say it.  

In this lesson we'll learn how to apply  features of connected speech to our questions.  

Connected speech is how we cut and connect  our words so that we can make our speech flow  

more naturally. To illustrate this I'll  say this sentence first without connected  

speech and then with connected speech. The second time I said it I applied linking. 

Also not every syllable is  stressed some are unstressed. 

By the way if you're new here we make lessons  every week to help you understand fast speaking  

natives, to be understood by anyone and to connect  to the world. Just like Sean who says that our  

channel has helped him improve a lot over the past  year. So if you want to improve your English be  

sure to hit that subscribe button and the bell  down below so that you don't miss any of our new  

lessons. Practice is the most important thing for  mastering connected speech but along with actually  

practicing you also need to open your ears and  start listening to these features of how we speak.  

Once you change your perception of how English  sounds you can then much more effectively start  

to imitate and get closer in your attempts  to speak with fluidity and then repeat and  

repeat and repeat until you can say these sounds  automatically without having to think about it.  

Even though you might not be able to  speak like a native English speaker  

all the time it's much more likely that you  can ask questions like a native because:  

to begin with there's a reduced number  of words that you'll use to ask questions

You can combine these and a few other words  into a wide variety of different questions with  

different tenses. Another benefit of improving  your ability to ask questions like a native  

is that it will have a positive effect on your  conversation skills, because questions are  

what keeps the conversation rolling along. Also  your listening will improve. Have you ever been  

asked a question and you didn't understand what  the other person said? Well this is a good place  

to start to bring a solution to that. In this  lesson we'll take a look at a list of some of the  

most common questions. I'll also bring Ethan along  so that you can also hear how he pronounces them,  

which may be different from the way that I say  these questions. Before we start practicing  

keep in mind that stress plays a big part in  the mastering of questions. We've actually  

created a lesson where I explain what stress is  in this lesson. For now just focus on mimicking.  

Also accept the fact that some words will sound  quite different to the way you think they should  

sound. For example in context have might be  pronounced as uv of or even just a. This is what  

we call reduction. We usually reduce vowel sounds  to schwa which is that a sound I mentioned before.  

Sometimes we even drop these vowel sounds. In  this same way consonant sounds are dropped or  

not fully articulated. For example and becomes an  or even just n. Let's get to our first question. 

If you say this without connected speech  this question will sound something like 

That's probably how you pronounced it  when you were just starting to learn  

but then you realize that's not  actually how you're supposed to speak.  

You should say what do you want to do.  So first these two words get softened. 

The t in what isn't fully finalized so you won't  hear it as a true t as in what rather you'll hear  

this word as wha. So if we drop the t all together  we say what do you what do you want to do.  

The next feature of connected speech present  in this question is saying this as wanna. 

All together I say it like: It's also possible to turn these  

two into one single syllable. What do you want  to do. Ethan who's from the us says it like this: 

To develop even more in your understanding of fast  speaking natives I highly recommend our Real Life  

Native Immersion Course. This course will take you  on a 41-week real-life adventure of the English  

language, each week exploring a different topic  connected to our goal to help you understand and  

use real native English and make it a permanent  part of your life in a way that is fun natural and  

convenient and did you know you can try for free  with our three Mini Lessons. All you have to do  

is click up here or down in the description  box below to learn more and sign up now! 

Now on to the next question. You'll often hear this as what does he do, like  

in our previous question what sounds like what  with a true tea or it's even completely dropped 

and did you notice I didn't say he I said  e, this is the reduction I mentioned before.  

Altogether this is: Ethan would say it like this 

With connected speech you could say this  question as "where did they go". Because  

I'm british I don't say where with a clear  r I say this word in isolation as where.  

In American English they say where so  you actually hear the r sound at the end.  

Often times when there's a d before a th sound the  th sounds like a d. This is called assimilation  

so this would sound like where did  they go. Ethan how would you say this? 

If you'd like to learn more about the  features of connected speech I highly  

recommend you watch this lesson I made where  you'll learn about intrusion, linking, illusion  

and more so you can click up here or down in  the description box below to watch it next. 

The linking takes place  between when and are when are.  

And then that r sound links right into the you  in American English. When are you going to go,  

like when we turned want in to wanna going  to becomes gonna when are you gonna go.  

All together I'd say this like Let's hear how Ethan says it: 

The next one is a nightmare for learner. Tell me in the comments can you say this question  

comfortably or share with your fellow Real Lifers  is there any other question that trips you up?  

The word we're reducing here is have we say it as  UV. What have you been up to. We link what with  

this of and we link that with you so we get. Then  make sure you link the other words been up to what  

have you been up to. all together I say and Ethan says this as: 

Up to this point we've used a few different  words and we've combined them into different  

types of questions. Now we're going to do  something different. I'll say a question  

without connected speech then I'll give you a few  seconds to say how you think this sentence is said  

with connected speech. After that you'll  hear my pronunciation of it and then Ethan's  

pronunciation. Keep in mind that now I'm not  going to stop and explain each different sound  

so you'll rely on your ability to figure out  possible modifications to how we say these.  

And based on general ideas of linking, reduction,  dropping assimilation, etc that we've seen so far.

I hope this lesson has helped you to better  understand connected speech in questions  

so that you can start asking them in a fluent  natural way. But now it's time to go beyond  

the classroom and live your English. Aw yeah! This means that learning new words to describe  

your English is a good idea. Don't you think? so  rather than just using the usual words like good  

bad beginner intermediate and advanced today  we're going to learn some more colorful language  

and vocabulary that's going to help you to  describe your English and the English of others.