Pratique du Shadowing: How to RELAX your ACCENT | Part 1 | Connected Speech & Linking in English - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo

Well hey there!

I'm Emma from mmmEnglish.

I've got an awesome lesson for all of you today!

What do you notice about the pronunciation of these two sentences?

I say them quite differently.

Same sentence, quite different.

The first time, really naturally.

Just like I'd say it to my friends.

The second was a little awkward.

Very clear but a little like a robot, don't you think?

Not how I would normally speak anyway.

Natural English pronunciation is definitely not spoken perfectly.

Words reduce, they contract and they link together.

These are the secrets of natural, relaxed and generally pretty cool English pronunciation.

Now I will warn you that this lesson is advanced pronunciation practice.

Now anyone can give it a go, anyone can practise but I want you to know that it's not easy.

It takes practise, speaking out loud, listening carefully to native speakers and imitating them.

Pronouncing English words correctly is absolutely necessary for all of you

but to really take your English speaking skills up to the next level, well we need to focus on your natural pronunciation so

that you can reduce your accent a little and sound a bit more relaxed when you're chatting in English.

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All right, let's get back to our lesson.

Let me say it again.

English pronunciation is definitely not perfect.

So we're going to rough things up a little bit this lesson.

I want you to loosen up,

let your hair down and go with the flow because you just won't hear a native English speaker say

I have got an awesome lesson for all of you today.

No, no, no, no, no. In English, words bump into each other.

Sometimes sounds change.

New sounds can get added in.

And sometimes sounds are dropped or just completely eliminated.

Natural pronunciation is not something that you can see, you can't read it in a sentence and know exactly how a native English speaker would say it.

So speaking naturally is really only a skill

that you can develop through practice by listening to native English speakers and by trying it yourself.

And that is exactly what we're going to do today.

We'll take a close look at linking, an important part of natural pronunciation and I'll explain how it works,

where it happens and how you can use linking to reduce your accent and sound more natural when you speak English.

Linking is an important part of connected speech in English and there are three main categories to it.

consonant -to -vowel linking, consonant -to -consonant linking and vowel -to -vowel linking.

Now there's a lot to cover here so in this lesson, we're going to go over consonant -to -vowel linking

and I'll go into more detail about vowel -to -vowel and consonant -to -consonant linking in another lesson soon.

Now if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, please do click the subscribe button and the bell so that I can tell you when the next lesson is ready.

And if you need to, just turn on the subtitles down there too.

The most important thing when talking about linking in English is that we're talking about sounds, not letters.

Sounds that you can hear but not the letters that you can see and this is really important to keep in mind.

We're talking about consonant sounds linking to vowel sounds in quite particular situations.

When a word ends in a consonant sound and it's followed by a word that starts with a vowel sound, we can link them.

Consonant -to -vowel linking happens all the time with phrasal verbs like this.

Now what happens all the time in English is that a word

that ends in a vowel letter on paper can sometimes end in a consonant sound when spoken.

Can you think of any examples of this?

If you can, write some of them in the comments.

So here, like and it can link together.

Now if we just look at the spelling, like ends in E, a vowel letter.

But the E is silent in this word.

So like actually ends in a sound, a consonant sound.

So with linking sounds, don't look for the letters, listen for the sounds.

This is the first clue to help you link words together when you're speaking English.

Alright, let's keep going.

With consonant to vowel linking, the sounds blend, they push together and this is how native English speakers speak so quickly.

We push our words together because it makes it so much quicker and so much easier to say them.

When one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word starts with the vowel sound, we can push them together,

the two sounds come together so that they flow.

So can you tell me, looking at this sentence,

where there is a word that ends in a consonant sound followed by one that starts with a vowel sound?

There are two examples here.

Both of these vowels are unstressed so the sound actually reduces to a schwa sound

and if you're not sure about what a schwa sound is, then check out this video next, it will explain everything.

But the sound from the end of like joins with the vowel schwa.

Hear how quick that is when you push those sounds together?

There's no space between these sounds.

Don't take a breath, don't do anything like that.

Just combine the two sounds together until they roll smoothly from the to the sound so it becomes like one word.

Now slice of follows the same rules.

You blend the from the end of slice and connect it to the schwa sound at the start of

which is pronounced of and so it's smooth and connected moving from one to the other.

Would you like a slice of cake?

Okay so I think the rules are pretty clear here.

Consonant sounds at the end of a word link to a word following that starts with a vowel sound.

Simple.

As long as you remember that you're listening for sounds rather than looking for letters, you'll be fine.

100

So right now, I want to practise with you a little but first,

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I want you to think of your own sentence that includes an example of consonant to vowel linking.

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See if you can write your sentence in the comments.

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Practice saying it out loud.

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And if you see other people's sentences down there, then try and practice with them as well.

105

Practice the linking between those sounds.

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Okay, so I'm going to put a sentence right here on the screen

107

and then I want you to listen to me say each sentence.

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Listen carefully because I want you to listen to how these words connect.

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Where do they link when they're spoken?

110

I want you to look at the sentence, listen to me say it and try and work out where this linking can happen.

111

You can write it in the comments so that it looks like this, using little dashes to link those words together.

112

Okay, ready?

113

It's hot today!

114

She ate a piece of toast with avocado.

115

Where are the linking opportunities?

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these. Did you get those?

117

Did you hear how those sounds push together?

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So the words move together in your sentence.

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Now speed it up, I want you to say it with me.

120

Are you ready?

121

Nice one!

122

Okay, did you get a new assignment?

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Say it with me.

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So where in this question can we link words together?

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Get a for sure, get a and new assignment, new assignment, new assignment.

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Did you get a new assignment?

127

Where are those linking opportunities?

128

Or even it might reduce down to waking up, waking up early, up early, up early.

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There are lots of opportunities to connect these consonants to these vowel sounds, right?

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It's really addictive when you start, isn't it?

131

You'll notice all of these opportunities to link words together all the time

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and you haven't even seen part two or part three of these lessons, right?

133

I've got more.

134

His room was on the south side of the campus.

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Can you say it with me? his room was on the south side of the campus.

136

So we're replacing the full vowel sound of with the schwa.

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Side of, the south side of, the south side of the campus.

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His room was on the south side of the campus.

139

Nice!

140

Well I hope that you've enjoyed this lesson so far.

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Remember that this is part one, there's more coming and while it may seem complicated at first,

142

this kind of linking is quite straightforward when you slow down and you think about it.

143

You'll notice that lots of small and very common words start with vowels.

144

Prepositions, articles, conjunctions, these are all great places to start practising linking and connected speech.

145

Remember to practise with your ears by imitating and copying a native English speaker.

146

This is a really great way to improve your linking sounds and your natural expression.

147

My imitation lessons are a great place to start practising connected speech

148

so you can check them out right here and with a little practice, you'll start feeling that flow and that rhythm in your sentences

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and it will start to impact on the way that you speak English naturally.

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Don't forget that part two and part three of these lessons are coming soon so in the meantime while you're waiting,

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why don't you check out these lessons here.

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That one in particular where I'll show you how to focus on your pronunciation and natural English expression through imitating.

153

Thanks for all of your hard work today and all of your comments that you've been writing down there.

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Make sure you say hi!

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You are amazing!

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I'll see you next week!

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Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?

Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.

Technique du shadowing : lire le guide complet étape par étape →

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