How To Say Common English Expressions! 💬 PART 2: Small Talk

Well hey there! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

In this lesson, we'll focus on the natural pronunciation

of some very common English expressions.

We'll study how a native speaker would

really use these expressions and practise saying them

together, exactly as a native speaker would.

Common expressions, ones that are used all the time,

are not often pronounced as you would expect.

As native speakers, we say them quickly,

the sounds reduce, they even disappear.

And even simple expressions become

difficult to recognise if you're not used to hearing them.

In my lessons, you hear me speak really clearly

and a little slower than I normally would

and while that makes you feel good like,

'Yes! I can understand everything she's saying.'

you do need to listen to different English,

different accents, people who mumble.

When you study English, try to experience the diversity

by listening to a variety of different English speakers.

Another way to do this is to join online communities

and no, I'm not talking about online English language

communities, I'm talking about communities

around your hobbies and special interests

but where all the members are speaking in English.

Now this strategy is awesome for advanced

and ambitious English students and what I love about it

is you can personalise your English practice

and make it about something that you're

really interested in.

You'll learn vocabulary and expressions

that are really relevant to the conversations

you're going to have.

So a few weeks ago, I received an email from Skillshare.

Skillshare is an online learning community and I thought

this is the perfect tool to share with you.

They have thousands of classes,

not only language classes

but classes on all kinds of stuff like design,

video production, illustration, crafts, leadership, cooking.

And all of these classes can be taken online

wherever you are.

So Skillshare asked me if I thought you could benefit

from taking these online classes

and of course, I said yes!

This is one of the strategies that I teach my students.

So firstly, you'll learn new skills

from whatever course you take, right? Win.

But by taking a course in English, you'll hear

common English expressions and new vocabulary

in an area of life that interests you

like your work or your hobbies, right?

The other awesome thing is that many of the courses

offered at Skillshare actually have a community

that forms around the classes

which would give you even more opportunities

to practise your English skills, right?

Now I want you to know that Skillshare

are sponsoring this lesson

which is great for me, they're helping to support

me a little while I make free lessons for you.

But they have also agreed to give the first five hundred

mmmEnglish students who sign up

using the link in the description below

free access to their premium level membership

for two whole months!

So that's two months of whatever courses you choose

in English for free!

Like I said, I'm a huge fan of this strategy.

Learning and using your English in different contexts.

So if you want to try it, then please be quick

to take me up on that offer.

I was only able to get it for five hundred students

so click the link that you can see below

to make sure you're one of them.

Alright let's get back to the lesson.

Since we're focusing on common natural expressions

in this lesson,

I want to show you a short video clip

of a conversation I had with my friend, Sim.

Sim!

Emma! It's so good to see you!

Fancy seeing you here!

Well I live here now.

What do you mean?

I thought you were living in Melbourne?

We just got a job and I've just moved in.

Really?

Yeah!

Do you need a hand?

Well most of our stuff's already been moved in but

would you have a car that I could borrow?

Yeah I definitely do. We've got two actually.

I live in number twenty-three

so just come grab the keys anytime.

I'll come down and see you.

It's so good to see you!

So good to see you too!

You heard a few different expressions there.

Now I want to take you a little deeper

into some of them

so that you know when to use them

and how to say them.

Let's go back to the very first thing that I said

when I saw Sim.

This expression is a common one but it has

two different meanings

depending on the tone used when it's spoken.

So the first meaning is a genuine expression of surprise

when you meet someone that you know

in an unexpected place. It's like

'What are you doing here?

I'm so surprised to see you! I wasn't expecting it at all.'

Now the second meaning is a sarcastic one.

So it's a sarcastic greeting when you see someone

somewhere where it's really not surprising at all.

Okay? It's not surprising to see them there.

So here's an example.

Every Friday, no joke, every Friday,

I go to this delicious bakery near my house

to get a phenomenally good pastry and a coffee.

Now I only allow myself to go there on Fridays because

it's so good and it's so close

that if I don't have rules I would go there every day.

So Friday is the day I'm allowed to go.

And most people know that about me,

all of my neighbours know, all my friends know

so if they ever run into me on a Friday morning

at the bakery, it really won't be a surprise.

They might say:

Well, fancy seeing you here.

Like it's not a surprise at all. I'm there every Friday

but my expression was different during my conversation

with Sim. I was genuinely surprised to see her, right?

In a positive way. I didn't expect to see her there

and you can tell by the tone. As women, we tend to

raise the tone of our voice when we get excited, right?

Very excited to see each other.

Did you notice that all of the words were stressed

when I said them?

We don't really hear any of those sounds reduce

down, we hear everything quite clearly.

In the multi-syllable words you hear one stressed

syllable that's louder and clearer than the other one.

The other one reduces down.

Now you might hear that /ng/ sound reduced down

to become the /n/ sound when it's spoken, right?

It's a little easier to say, right? So it happens

quite a bit in spoken English.

Hear how the pitch stays high?

Now in the sarcastic version, it sounds a little different.

It would sound like

'Well fancy seeing you here.'

So hear that tone changing? The meaning is different.

I'm saying that I'm not actually surprised at all

to see them in that place. The pitch is lower.

You'll probably need to add an eye roll there

just for maximum effect, right?

If you're a regular viewer here at mmmEnglish

and I recognise you in the comments, I might say

Jorge! Fancy seeing you here!

Like, I see you every week!

Let's look closer at another expression I used

during that conversation.

What do you mean?

I thought you were living in Melbourne?

I'm using this expression because I'm surprised

and confused.

At the time, I thought that Sim lived in Melbourne

so it was strange

to see her at my apartment building, right?

What are you doing here?

I'm surprised, right?

'What do you mean?' is a great expression to show

that you're a little confused.

It suggests that you need a little more information

to understand what's happening, what's going on.

Any kind of confusion can be cleared up

by asking this question.

What do you mean you're busy?

See? In all of those situations this phrase

is super helpful to clear away any confusion, right?

Now if you watched this lesson here,

another lesson about common expressions,

then you've already practised the pronunciation of

these three words with me.

Pronounced naturally, it sounds more like

The unstressed vowel's reduced down

and the words link together.

You might also hear these words expressed as

or

Right? Depends on the English accent.

Now, 'mean' is the most important word here

in this question so it's stressed.

We hear it really clearly

but all of the others reduce down.

It also helps if you put a confused face on as well.

So once I found out that Sim had only

just moved into the building,

I wanted to offer my help, right?

Like a good friend would.

Moving house is hard work right? Have you ever done it?

In my life, I've done it over twenty-five times

so of course, I know how arduous that task is

and like a good friend, I offered to help out.

It's a little more formal or more polite to say:

But Sim's an old friend of mine so I'm speaking

informally.

So this idiom is a really common way of

offering to help someone,

offering to give someone a hand is a nice way of saying

or

It's a nice thing to say if you hear someone

saying that they've got a lot of work to do

or they're stressed out or they're

struggling to do something.

And you can also use it to casually ask for help

yourself by making it a question.

Now just like in the last question,

we have the auxiliary verb 'do' and the pronoun 'you'.

Both are unstressed so when they reduce,

it sounds like

Or again you might hear that sound.

When I ask that question, Sim says that

most of their stuff had already been moved in, right?

Well, most of our stuff's already been moved in but

She's politely letting me know that she

doesn't need my help

but if she did want to accept my offer, she could say

can follow an offer for help.

Now, technically we already know that the person

doesn't mind because they offered in the first place right

But this is a nice, polite way to accept their help.

You know how painfully polite

we can be in English, right?

Right? Very polite. You can also use 'Would you mind?'

to ask someone for their help

before they've offered. Right? You can say

or

That would be so nice of you!

Notice that the main verb following this expression

is always using the -ing form, not the to-infinitive form.

Right? It's incorrect to say

Instead, make sure you're using 'subscribing'

Would you mind subscribing to my channel?

So to sound natural, very cool and relaxed

when you use this expression, you need to link 'would'

and 'you' together. So when 'would' and 'you' are linked,

again, we hear this sound come in.

Okay? 'Would' and 'you' sounds like

Can you hear that schwa sound at the end as well?

Because 'you' is the unstressed word.,

we reduce it down to the schwa.

So now I want you to practise a little.

Try using some of the expressions

that you learned during this lesson.

Write some sentences in the comments

so that I can check them for you

and give you some feedback.

Now I have to admit that after each video

here at mmmEnglish has been up for about a week,

it starts to get a bit tricky for me to give feedback on

every comment so if you want to practise

and you want me to review your sentences

then write them now. I'll definitely have time.

Feel free to watch this video again or many times,

the more that you listen to these expressions

spoken naturally,

the easier it will become to recognise them

and to use them naturally yourself.

Hey do you need a hand with any

other English expressions?

If you do, add them to the comments and I will

try and make a new lesson about them soon.

Who knows? You could even see your suggestion

here in a future video. That would be awesome!

Please subscribe to show your support for the channel

and then check out one of these lessons here.

We'll keep practising pronunciation and

natural English expression in both of these lessons.

See you there!