American Intonation Patterns and 10 Common Uses | English Pronunciation Training

Did you know that how you use your voice can hold someone's attention and let

them know you're not finished speaking yet. You don't want to be interrupted.

It can also let others know that you have absolute confidence in your

ideas and your opinions.

The way you use your voice can allow you to disagree with someone else,

politely express, curiosity, or enthusiasm,

just as your word choice.

And your grammar structure is important for communication.

Intonation plays a critical role in how you express yourself.

It allows you to be precise and convey deeper levels of

meaning. In this lesson today,

I'm going to share with you 10 American intonation patterns,

plus tips on how you can practice.

If you don't already know, I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your

life and work in English.

One way I do that is with my weekly Confident English lessons,

where I share fluency and confidence, building strategies,

advanced level vocabulary, and pronunciation training.

Just like in this lesson today, while you're here,

make sure that you subscribe to this channel.

So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons,

whether you're leading a meeting and you want to let others know that

you have more to say now is not the time to be interrupted.

Or you're participating in a discussion.

And you want others to know that you are absolutely certain that you've

identified the solution to a problem, or perhaps you're presenting in English.

And you want to express some doubt about a commonly held belief.

Intonation allows you to do all of that. Moreover,

understanding these intonation patterns will also help you to understand other

English speakers better and be able to interpret the message they are

conveying through their intonation. To start,

let's be clear on what intonation is.

Intonation is the way our voice rises and falls. We speak.

Let me say that again.

Intonation is the way our voice rises and falls. When we speak,

let's try listening to that another way, da, da, da, da.

I can remove the words, but intonation.

It allows you to hear the melody and the music of the language.

There's meaning expressed there. If I speak without intonation,

not only do I lose that vocal variety, that helps capture interest,

but it also means everything I say is flat

emotionless, boring. For example,

intonation is the way our voice rises and falls.

When we speak like that, it almost sounds robotic,

but intonation can change all of that.

When we talk about intonation and English,

there are four different ways that we can use our voice and that we describe

what we're doing. The first one is with rising intonation. For example,

the way my voice goes up at the end of a question, like,

are you coming out with us for lunch? The second one is falling intonation.

For example, the way my voice goes down in a statement such as we need more

resources, let's compare the two. Are you coming out with us for lunch?

We need more resources.

The third way we can use intonation is rising, falling intonation.

It's a combination of those two.

It's a bit wavy and more subtle. For example,

when I say sure, I can help you sure.

There's a slight rise and fall. Sure.

I can help you. Let's contrast that with sure. I can help you.

Which one of those do you think is more enthusiastic? Definitely.

The first one. Sure. I can help you.

The fourth example of intonation is just the opposite falling,

rising intonation. Again, this is much more subtle.

We might use this when we're expressing hesitation, for example. Well,

I think so. Let's contrast that with, well,

I think so there's much more hesitancy in the first one

because of that falling rising intonation.

Before we get into the 10 patterns we're going to talk about today,

let's go over one more quick example to see how intonation can

add meaning emotion and attitude, to what we're saying.

Let's say that in a meeting,

someone is providing an update without knowing what the update

is.

How do you think I'm feeling based on my response in response,

number one, I might say seriously,

do you hear that steep rise at the end? Seriously?

I can't believe it. I'm expressing enthusiasm or excitement.

Some kind of surprise. The second one. Seriously.

There's some curiosity there. Seriously. That's interesting.

The third one, seriously. How do I sound there?

Totally annoyed. Seriously.

I can't believe they're asking that we didn't change our word choice.

All we changed was our intonation and the entire meaning.

The emotion that was expressed was different. As we go through this lesson,

I encourage you to practice with me. There are three ways you can do that.

Number one, you can use a mirroring method.

What that means is that you watch and observe. You listen carefully,

then you stop the video and you repeat what you heard.

This allows you to really focus on that intonation.

The second way is to use a shadowing method.

What that means is that you mimic what you hear me say,

and you speak while I'm speaking, it's simultaneous.

You don't turn off the video.

You try to repeat what you hear me say just after I say it

doing so allows you to focus on intonation and other pronunciation patterns.

You'll hear me use the third way.

You can practice all of this and improve your confidence at the same time is to

incorporate everything you learn here with my free,

How to Say What You Want in English training, which you can get at my website.

And now let's get started with intonation pattern. Number one,

rise to continue and hold attention.

Let's say you're presenting your thoughts on the pros and cons of moving your

PR our portfolio to a new company in doing so.

You could say,

we need to consider the risks of moving our portfolio to a new company and

starting over with a new team at this point in time. That all makes sense.

It's clear,

but there may have been some difficulty capturing the key points.

And there may have been times when you thought I was finished speaking,

but I wasn't.

I continued that confusion can be eliminated by introducing

intonation at the right time with these longer sentences.

If I want to let you know that I'm not finished speaking,

I have more to say, there are more details to come.

I can use rising intonation and we tend to do it just before a

comma. Listen to this example,

we need to consider the risks of moving our portfolio to a new company

and starting over with a new team. At this point in time,

there were two distinct places where I had a rise in my own donation on the word

company and team doing this.

Let you know that I had more to say there was more to come.

This is particularly helpful when there are multiple key points or if

you're listing items in a sentence. For example,

if you're highlighting the benefits of implementing a new solution,

you might say by following this plan, we will minimize costs,

maintain high quality work,

stay aligned with our mission and reap financial benefits.

Did you notice that slight rise just before each comma in my

list of benefits,

doing that allowed you to know that I had more to come and it discouraged

interruption. Let me say it one more time. By following this plan,

we will minimize costs, maintain high quality work,

stay aligned with our mission and reap financial benefits.

The second intonation pattern is rise for yes/no questions,

confirmation and clarification.

Listen carefully to how I say each of these questions.

Do you wanna review the details again? Can you meet me on Monday?

We're meeting on Monday, right? You'll have the final draft by this afternoon.

Won't you? What time do you wanna meet? Could you say that again?

Each of those questions does one of three things it asks for a yes,

no response asks for clarification or asks for confirmation.

And did you notice that at the end of each one,

I used rising intonation by doing that?

Not only do I indicate to the listener that I'm asking a question,

but it also indicates that I expect a response, whether it's a simple yes or no,

or some confirmation or clarification of details.

Remember with intonation pattern, number one,

I had that long sentence with multiple benefits.

Let's say that in a business meeting,

you got a bit distracted and you missed hearing that

sentence. So you need clarification in doing so. You could ask,

would you mind repeating the benefits again,

that rising intonation let's everyone know that you

need that clarification. You're expecting some kind of a response.

Our third pattern is rise to express strong emotion.

Remember earlier when I said seriously, and I had that excited,

enthusiastic, surprised response to an update,

English speakers often use this intonation to express

strong emotions of excitement, happiness, and enthusiasm.

For example, if you're updating your team on the launch of a new program,

you might say we've received hundreds of requests from clients who want to join

our program. This is our best response ever.

Not only does that rising intonation allow you to emphasize your excitement,

but it also energizes.

So if you're speaking to a group of people and you want to energize them with

something exciting, you can use that rising intonation.

Now that we've covered multiple ways to use rising intonation,

let's look at falling intonation. In intonation pattern, number four,

fall for closure.

Have you ever had one of those situations when you responded to someone's

question, you gave them an answer and then you finished speaking,

but there was this weird, awkward silence,

and you didn't really know what to say. So you said, um,

I'm done that. That's all I wanna say. There's a much better way to handle that.

As my Fluency School students have learned and practiced in depth,

falling intonation allows us to signal closure. We're finished.

There's nothing more to say. For example,

imagine you're giving an update in a meeting and you want to make sure that

it's clear when your update is finished. Here's how you could do that.

Rogers trader Joe's and Heneman have all been emailed Rogers

trader Joe's and Heneman have all been emailed.

We're using rising intonation before the commas,

because we're listing the number of clients, but then to indicate closure,

to indicate that we're finished, our voice starts to fall,

have all been emailed.

Not only is that falling intonation helpful when you are the speaker and you

want to indicate that you finished.

It's also helpful to listen for in meetings when

others use falling intonation, they're indicating to you that they are finished.

And now is a great time for you to jump in, share your thoughts,

or ask a question.

The fifth intonation pattern is fall for certainty

and authority. I'm certain,

there are times when you want others to know that you have absolute

confidence in your ideas, your opinions and your solutions,

the best way that you can communicate, that certainty that you have,

and to also have some authority is to use falling intonation.

For example,

if your team is in a discussion to discontinue a program

and you have a very strong opinion that you should not discontinue it,

you could express that opinion with certainty, by saying,

in my opinion, we should definitely continue the program.

We've already invested a lot of time and resources.

Let's think about how that would be different. If I used rising intonation,

in my opinion, we should definitely continue the program.

I used rising intonation with program,

and suddenly I'm introducing an element of doubt.

I think that's a good idea, but I'm not really sure,

but if I am sure if that is my opinion and I am certain,

it's correct. In my opinion,

we should definitely continue the program.

Not only does it let others know that you have confidence in your ideas,

it also encourage is them to be confident in your ideas,

intonation, pattern, number six, fall, to get information earlier,

we highlighted that rising intonation with certain questions indicates that

you're looking for a yes, no answer clarification or confirmation,

but when we're seeking information or multiple details,

we use falling intonation. Listen to these questions.

How do you think we should respond to this proposal?

When do you need the final draft? What time do you want to meet?

Do you recognize that last question? What time do you want to meet?

I used the same question with rising intonation when I was asking

to clarify or confirm the time,

the word choice and the grammar structure are exactly the same,

but the change in intonation indicates whether or not we've already had

the conversation. I just forgot,

or maybe I want to make sure I have the details, right?

Versus we're having this conversation for the first time.

And I want to know what time is a good time for you to meet.

What do we want to do? What time do you want to meet?

I'm looking for information.

Here are a few more examples of questions that are looking for information and

that help get a conversation going. How did you get into your profession?

How long have you been a software engineer?

What do you do when you need to de-stress intonation pattern number

seven, rise, fall to draw attention or emphasize.

Remember that example? Sure. I'd be happy to help.

Not only am I demonstrating enthusiasm,

but I'm drawing attention or emphasizing that word,

I would be more than happy to help that little rise fall

helps us do that in longer sentences.

It can also draw attention to specific words that we think are important or that

we want to highlight. For example.

So you're saying we should eliminate the descriptions for each legacy service

and instead focus on describing the newer ones.

Did you notice there were three different times I used that is fall

to focus on specific words. Listen again.

So you're saying we should eliminate the description for all the legacy

services and instead focus on describing the newer ones.

I want to emphasize that this is something you are saying.

I'm clarifying that I'm also emphasizing the words,

legacy and newer services. Okay.

We have just three more intonation patterns to go over.

I recommend that you continue to stick with me and practice as we go so that you

can naturally incorporate this intonation into your English communication,

intonation pattern, number eight, fall rise,

to indicate hesitation,

uncertainty and doubt at the start of this lesson.

I indicated this with that. Well, I think so.

Do you remember that by using that subtle fall rise,

I introduce some hesitancy. And if you remember an intonation pattern,

number five,

we highlighted the importance of falling intonation to indicate certainty

in your ideas and opinions.

I also shared an example of what it sounds like with rising intonation at the

end. You'll also notice that sometimes when there's doubt or uncertainty,

there's that slight fall rise. Let's see how we do that.

Using almost the same sentence we used before to start,

I'm going to use falling intonation to show that certainty

that confidence, in my opinion,

we should definitely continue this project. And now I'll say it again,

but this time I'll include that subtle fall rise and in doing

so, I'm introducing an element of doubt. In my opinion,

I think we should definitely continue this project.

Now not much has changed when we talk about the word choice or the grammar

structure, but intonation has changed everything.

And the first one, I am confident.

I'm certain that this is the right way forward in the second one.

Maybe I am confident inside,

but what others hear is doubt and uncertainty,

just because of that slight change, that fall rise.

I think project,

let me say the two sentences one more time so that you can hear them next to

each other and practice after me. In my opinion, we should,

should definitely continue this project. In my opinion,

I think we should continue this project.

That simple change will transform how others interpret the

confidence or certainty we have in our beliefs,

opinions or ideas. Now,

there are certainly times when we want to introduce some doubt or hesitancy.

There are times when we're not exactly sure.

And in those moments that fall rise is a perfect way to indicate that

it can also allow us to express doubt about commonly held beliefs

or assumptions. For example, you might be giving a presentation.

You decide to start with a rhetorical question that really gets people

thinking there's a bit of dramatic effect.

You could do that with a question like experts predict that sales will be down

next year. Does that apply to us? I don't think so.

There is that subtle fall rise on us

by doing so I'm introducing doubt about this prediction.

That sales will be down. That might be true for everyone else,

but it's not true for us. I'll say it one more time.

Experts predict that sales will be down next year. Does that apply to us?

I don't think so. Intonation pattern number nine,

rise and fall for indicating choice.

We've highlighted several examples of questions where we use a steep rise

and intonation at the end. Those yes,

no clarification and confirmation questions.

We also talked about questions where there's a steep fall at the end when we're

seeking information. But when we're offering a choice, we use both.

For example, would you like to meet on Monday or Tuesday?

Here's another one, which color palette do you prefer?

The one with green shades or blue that quick rise fall

clearly communicates that you're offering a choice and intonation pattern.

Number 10,

rise and fall to politely disagree disagreeing with others

can be a bit uncomfortable,

but we don't always have to use strong language to do that.

We can also use intonation as a very polite way to

indicate our opposition or disagreement. Here's an example.

Let's say that you are presenting a pitch and in doing so,

you're going to start by acknowledging a common understanding,

and then you're going to introduce some opposition.

Here's how you could do that.

Although a version of this product already exists on the market.

We strongly believe that this new version will be a sensation.

I haven't aggressively disagreed or oppose an idea.

I simply used intonation to highlight something that we all

understand to be true.

And then I used falling intonation to introduce my opposing

idea. And it also indicates certainty.

That confidence that we talked about in pattern number five,

even if you wanted to be more direct and to clearly disagree

with what someone else has said,

this is a great way to do so let's say that you don't agree with one of

your coworkers decisions in highlighting your disagreement.

You could say,

I understand how pooling all of our resources can accelerate the project,

but I believe this would be extremely risky.

Let me say it again.

I understand how pooling all of our resources can accelerate the project,

but I believe this would be extremely risky in this case,

that rising intonation on the word. But also I is some contrast.

It's a cue that I'm going to introduce an opposing or contrasting idea.

There you have it,

10 American pronunciation patterns you can use to communicate

meaning attitude and feeling at a much deeper level.

Don't forget to give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube,

and while you at it, subscribe to this channel.

Thank you so much for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you next time.