Shadowing Practice: 5 Ways To IMMEDIATELY Sound More American - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If your goal is to sound more natural in American English pronunciation,
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then one of the best things you can do is to look at the techniques
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that native speakers are using and start applying it to your own speech.
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And that's what we are about to do in this episode of Say It Native.
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My name is Jeff.
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It rhymes with breath, which is one of the four key concepts to achieving a more natural sound in American English.
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Today, I'm going to give you five examples of things
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that native speakers are doing that often English language learners are not doing.
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We're going to be doing this through a series of clips.
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As we do this, be sure to let me know any questions
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that you have about American English pronunciation or even some things
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that you noticed that maybe we're not going to touch on directly.
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Let's take a look at our first clip here.
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I haven't seen this book in a long time.
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Play that again.
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Take a guess at what I'm going to say about the pronunciation feature here.
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I haven't seen this book in a long time.
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Seen, and she says this, but how does she actually join those words together?
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If you're listening for that heavy TH sound in this, you might be a little disappointed.
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Pay attention to how she links the words.
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I haven't seen this book in a long time.
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She's not really saying seen this.
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She's really saying more seen this.
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I haven't seen this book.
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I haven't seen this book.
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This is a very common situation when you have a word that ends on an N sound,
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like seen, and then your next word starts with a TH.
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Very, very frequently what happens is that N sound gets repeated and that TH sound gets weakened, or it may even just disappear completely.
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I haven't seen this book in a long time.
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seen this becomes seen this.
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I haven't seen this book.
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I haven't seen this book.
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This is especially true when that th word is reduced.
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You can see this in other examples like and then and things like that.
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So see if you can start finding it in other examples of native speaker speech.
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Maybe you already do this in your own speech.
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You can let me know.
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Let us know also too if you're checking in like Shoke is.
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Hello to Shoke.
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Thanks for stopping by, man.
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It's always good to see you.
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Let's take a look at our second clip.
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Get an idea.
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What do you think I'm going to say for this one here?
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Okay, now we'll have a poem from Rameka.
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I'm going to play that one more time.
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See if you can guess what the pronunciation feature here is that we're going to target.
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Okay, now we'll have a poem from Rameka.
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She says, now we'll have, now we'll have.
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This is the contraction.
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And I want to highlight contractions because very often native speakers are using contractions.
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I was just talking about this in our Mission English group earlier.
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But a lot of times English learners are not.
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They're saying things like there is instead of theirs or when are instead of when are.
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In this case, the contraction is we will becoming will.
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And now we'll have a poem from Ramika.
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Desire, now we'll have, now we'll have.
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Typically, the contracted part two is usually reduced.
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It's a little bit weaker.
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It's not as strong.
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And these are all things you can do to achieve a more natural sound.
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Listen again to how she says, and now we'll have a poem from Ramika.
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I mean, no. What are some contractions that you use frequently in your own speech?
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Or is this something that you don't use at all?
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It would be great to hear about your frequency as well.
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Shoke already mentioned that she uses the first feature.
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That's cool.
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We want to know what you guys are doing with your own English.
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Let's get on to our third clip.
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Get an idea here.
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What is the technique that you can start applying immediately to your own speech to start sounding more natural in American English?
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Take a look.
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Just listening to Greg's.
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Play that again.
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Listen to how she says the word to.
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I think just listening to Greg's.
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Greg's.
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Notice that instead of saying listening to, she actually says listening to,
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listening to, like listening to you or listening to them, things like that.
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So very often the word to does not actually sound like the word to.
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In this case, it's getting reduced to to, like listening to, listening to music.
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Another common reduction that you'll get with the to as well is instead of to, you may even hear that T become a fast D sound.
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The D that's pronounced very quickly.
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It's like listening to can also become listening to, listening to.
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In this case, though, she keeps the T.
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I think just listening to Greg's.
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Keep takeaways.
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Don't pronounce the ooh like ooh instead of listening to.
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Very commonly, that's going to be reduced.
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guys if you're already getting value from this there's a couple things that you can do
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whether just liking the stream letting other people know about it
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if they're interested in american english or
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if you want to get this sort of analysis for your own speech
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you're like hey let's not analyze native speakers let's see what i'm doing what am i doing in my speech
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that doesn't let me sound natural well
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we have a program called mission english where every single day for 30 minutes a day we meet two times
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and we do pronunciation practice exercises together so
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So it's you, me, it's a maximum of three other students on screen.
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And we're just doing pronunciation exercises.
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Kind of like today.
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We listen to native speakers and then we try to copy them.
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We do exercises.
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So for instance, you can see today is Monday.
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So we just had our 8 p .m session.
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That's that 20 over on the left.
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We're going to meet again at 930.
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We meet also at like 1 .30 p .m.
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So these are all the different times.
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New York.
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So you can see all different times.
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We have morning, afternoon, and evening sessions.
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Each one of these classes is 30 minutes.
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And the best part is that you pay once
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and you can come to as many classes during the month as you want.
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All the classes are saved in the Facebook group too.
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So if one class is particularly helpful, you can watch it again and again and again.
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You can hear yourself.
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You can hear the other students.
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You can hear me and my feedback.
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We'd love to work with you in Mission English.
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Also because, I'm going to be honest with you guys, the things we focus on on this channel, placement, where you're projecting sound from,
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breath, how much airflow you're going through, pitch, like are you going high enough in your English? or you're also going low enough.
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And then lastly, trying to strengthen your vowel sounds, weaken your consonant sounds.
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There is no other English program out there that is targeting those things.
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So you're still going to have an accent if you're just focusing on mouth position.
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We talk about the things that actually give you a natural sound.
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So that would be great to work with you in our Mission English program.
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To find out more information about this, see our schedule and things like that, go to fluentamerican .com, which is right there.
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But let's go on to our last couple clips here.
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What am I going to say about this file?
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But also holding myself accountable to what I've birthed.
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Listen again to how you hear the word to once more.
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But also holding myself accountable to what I've birthed.
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What you're going to notice is he pauses.
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I know pauses have such a horrible reputation when we're learning a language, but native speakers pause all the time,
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but they do it in a way that sounds natural.
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So this is one technique that you can start applying to your speech to also sound natural is firstly, when you enter your pause,
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try to extend your breath a little bit.
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Listen to how he says to the first time.
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But also hold myself accountable to what I've birthed.
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You can hear he drags out the sound and he also keeps the breath flowing.
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So when you enter a pause in your own speech,
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try to hold the sound a little longer and try to keep that air flowing a little longer, too.
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That's going to give you a more natural pause.
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Then how do you exit the pause?
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Take a look at what he does.
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I'm also holding myself accountable to what I've birthed.
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The second time he says, too, the pitch is a little bit different.
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And it's also said a little bit faster.
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This is another technique as well that you can use when you pause is that when you pause, try repeating the word that you paused on.
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It's like to do this.
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Why left?
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You're coming.
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So notice that again, one way to make your pauses more natural, just repeat that last word you say and change the pitch a little bit.
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And that will immediately give it a more natural feel.
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I have one last tip for you guys
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if you're getting value here's one way
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you can help me out like what you're hearing let us know by liking
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and subscribe let us take listen to our last file here i mean
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i was really fast we're gonna play that again what did you say i mean
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this is a super common it's not really a filler word it's just a common a very common expression
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that you're going to hear native speakers use when you're seeking agreement from someone else you
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We want to make sure that everyone else is on the same page as you.
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You know what I mean?
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You know what I mean?
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You know what I mean?
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He's not saying, you know what I mean, or you know what I mean.
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You know what I mean?
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You know what I mean?
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You know what I mean?
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It's just vowel sounds.
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And this kind of highlights one of the features of American English where we really want to weaken consonant sounds.
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It's not, you know what I mean.
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It's, you know what I mean?
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You really just hear the vowel sounds taking over, and this is going to give you a much more natural sound.
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The other thing you're going to notice too is that because this is just a phrase,
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it doesn't have a whole lot of meaning on its own.
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It's really more of just trying to, again, get agreement from someone or to kind of just show that you're on the same page as them.
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So there's not really a lot of meaning here.
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So what often happens is the pitch is going to be pretty low.
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You know what I mean?
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The pitch is going to be pretty low.
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You know what I mean?
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Do you see how the pitch just went down when I said it?
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So this is a way that's going to help you achieve a more natural sound as well.
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Let's listen to that one more time.
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You know what I mean?
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Great.
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So those are five quick things that you can immediately start applying to your own English.
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Let me know how that goes.
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Let me know which of these is easiest, which one of these is hardest.
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And we'll get back into our American English pronunciation journey.
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Once more, my name is Jeff.
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It rhymes with breath.
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If you want to get this level of analysis for your own speech every single day of the week,
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we can do that in our Mission English program.
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I'd love to work with you.
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You can find out more information at fluentamerican .com.
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Thank you guys so much for your time.
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Have a good day.
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Have a good night.
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Good afternoon.
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Take care.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “5 Ways To IMMEDIATELY Sound More American”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: sound, english, listening, natural, word. This video has 203 sentences and 2044 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:08. The speaker talks fast, about 184 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pause noun | /pɔːz/ | A temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation. |
| pronunciation noun | /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken. |
| pitch noun | /pɪt͡ʃ/ | A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand. |
| breathe verb | /bɹiːð/ | To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases. |
| clip noun | /klɪp/ | Something which clips or grasps; a device for attaching one object to another. |
| technique noun | /tɛkˈniːk/ | The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements. |
| poem noun | /ˈpoʊ.əm/ | A literary piece written in verse. |
| accountable adjective | /əˈkaʊntəbl̩/ | Obliged, when called upon, to answer (for one’s deeds); answerable. |
| highlight verb | /ˈhaɪˌlaɪt/ | To make prominent; emphasize. |
| pronounce verb | /pɹəˈnaʊns/ | To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously. |
| rhyme noun | /ɹaɪm/ | Rhyming verse (poetic form). |
| reputation noun | /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/ | What somebody or something is known for. |
| horrible adjective | /ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/ | Causing horror; terrible; shocking. |
| helpful adjective | /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ | Furnishing help; giving aid; useful. |
| disappointed adjective | /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/ | Defeated of expectations or hope; experiencing disappointment; let down. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| drag out verb | To extend or lengthen excessively; to draw out. |
| get on to verb | To contact (someone) in order to raise or discuss a certain matter. |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| take over verb | To assume control of something, such as a business or enterprise, and sometimes by force. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What do you think I'm going to say for this one here?
- What am I going to say about this file?
- Then how do you exit the pause?
- You know what I mean?
- It's, you know what I mean?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't seen · I've birthed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is reduced · is usually reduced · be reduced |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | breath, which is · com, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 62 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we'll, haven't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, strengthen /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/, theirs /ðɛɚz/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, reduction /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/, contraction /kənˈtɹækʃ(ə)n/
- Long words — get the stress right: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, disappointed /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like pause, pronunciation, pitch.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.