The Fastest Way to Sounding Natural

And we'll, of course, get into specific things you can do today to start to sound more natural and feel more comfortable when you speak. If you want to follow this episode more closely without missing a word, I highly recommend that you read the transcript of this episode, which is in the description. So go and click on that to really take advantage of this time and retain much more than you would if you just listened. Okay, let's do this. You are listening. Okay, let's do this.

You are listening to episode 22 of season two of English with Dave. Hit it. Okay, we have officially started the show, so let's talk about sounding more natural in English. The first thing we need to understand is what we mean when we say more natural. We know natural when we hear it, but what elements or factors actually play a part, que factores influyen, what factors play a part in sounding more natural? So sounding natural isn't really that much about having the right vocabulary or grammar.

It's a combination of intonation, rhythm, using the kind of everyday expressions that native speakers use, and how you structure your sentences. Basically, it's about blending in to sound like you belong in the flow of the language. That is what we perceive sounding natural to be. There are some vocabulary and grammar components, of course, and we'll cover those, but let's focus on the most important ones for now and how we can work on these.

The first one we're going to cover is mimicking native intonation and stress patterns. For me, this is the most important aspect of sounding more natural in English, and it's also the area in which you can progress the fastest. The rise and fall, la subida y bajada o caída, the rise and fall of your voice plays a huge role, un papel enorme, plays a huge role in sounding more natural.

Actually, there's research that indicates that learners who practice shadowing tend to sound more natural than learners who don't. If you haven't heard me talk about shadowing, which I feel like I've been talking about a lot recently, it's basically repeating after native speakers and mimicking their pitch and stress. By pitch, we mean, of course, the changes in your voice and tone, if your voice goes higher or lower, as well as the musicality and melody of the language.

I did some digging or some research, digging the verbo cabaret to dig. I did some digging and I found a paper published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that talked about a study that was done regarding the contribution of speech rate, rhythm, and intonation to perceived non-nativeness. The conclusion of the study was that among different factors, entre otros factores, among different factors, intonation reigns supreme.

To reign supreme means to be the best or most powerful or important in a particular category. Reign escrito R-E-I-G-N, R-e-I-G-N. So intonation reigns supreme. The way your pitch rises and falls can really determine if you sound natural or what they're calling foreign. Non-native intonation patterns were the strongest cue for perceived non-nativeness. So people perceiving how you're speaking as non-native and I guess therefore less natural.

In addition, the study found that improving intonation alone made speakers sound significantly more native and by extension more natural. Even when the other features stayed non-native, that's important. Even when the other features stayed non-native, just changing your intonation made a big difference. So this study echoes what I mentioned before. Working on your intonation will give you the biggest benefits. So, how can we work on your intonation? The melodic aspect of English.

We mentioned shadowing already, and that's the best one, I think. So watch a show or a movie and say random lines after the characters. Say them. Don't wait, just copy them. Copy the melody, copy the pronunciation, copy everything. Go back to a part that you liked and repeat it a few times. Have fun with it. Obviously, be alone for this. Then there's recording yourself reading a text with intentional emotion. Okay, with intentional emotion. Here's what you do.

Pick a short dialogue from a movie, show, or an article, and read it as if you were acting. Exaggerate the emotion and intonation as if you're in an actual movie scene. Not presenting in a classroom or at work as if you were an actor or actress delivering a really emotionally charged speech. This works great because acting forces you to use pitch, rhythm, and pauses naturally, even if the words are scripted. So you're practicing musicality, not just pronunciation.

Remember that musicality is what we're after. You can even do this with a single line. Take the sentence, are you serious right now? Try saying it sarcastically, then try saying it angry, then shocked, then bored. Exaggerate the emotions with your pitch and don't be afraid to get silly with it. Be ridiculous. Some of you will have a harder time than others letting go, getting loose and being silly and overly theatrical. And if I just described you, then you need to do this more than anyone.

Another thing you can do that I think works great is again taking that dialogue or scene from a movie or a part of a TED talk or whatever you choose and saying it at the same time as the speaker or character. Make sure you are copying the pauses, the rising and falling of pitch, the emotion, the rhythm, etc. This works well because it kind of forces your brain to anticipate pitch, helping you internalize the musical pattern of English in a natural way.

I found that stand-up comedy, so monologue, stand-up comedy is an amazing resource for this. Maybe the best one out there. When you are delivering a joke to an audience, intonation is everything. The comedian has perfected the intonation of his or her material to really come across in a relatable and natural way that connects with people.

So take advantage of this, aprovecha esto, take advantage of this, and go find some comedians that you think are great, write down what they say and perform it with them. Discourse markers are words or phrases we use to organize our speech, to connect ideas, to show our attitude, and manage the flow of conversation. You can think of discourse markers as like the glue, the pegamento, the glue, or even the road signs, las señales de traffic, the road signs of a language.

Let's take a look at a few examples. Discourse markers to add ideas are things like also, and plus, what's more, etc. Maybe if you find yourself saying and a lot, consider substituting it for plus once in a while. You could also throw in and on top of that to introduce the next thing. And on top of that works well for when you want to put the icing on the cake, La Grinda del Pastel, something like they made us all come in early on a Saturday, and on top of that, they were all late. Beautiful.

And small things over time add up. Everything adds up. Now, discourse markers for changing the topic. Anyway, so yeah, before I forget, now that you mention it, etc. So yeah, is such an interesting one. So yeah, it's a great way to get back to what you were talking about before the conversation shifted, and taking advantage of an organic pause, una pausa organica, an organic pause in the conversation. And to my ear, it sounds supernatural.

You could say something like, So yeah, I think we'll end up staying here for most of the summer and then use our vacation days in September and October instead. I really like this one because it's just a casual reminder that you were talking about something else and less of a formal request to go back to what you were talking about, if you know what I mean. In a formal environment, you might say something like, just to circle back to what we mentioned before, or something like that.

If you're giving a presentation at work and you want to change the subject, maybe you could say something like, Let's turn our attention to, and then you mention the next thing. So yeah, I think so yeah, is an awesome way to change topics or bring back the previous one. Let's look at discourse markers for filling pauses by Rayena Arbausas. In general, I'm not a huge fan of filling pauses for the sake of filling them.

And I think it usually means that we're just uncomfortable and finding it hard to stay grounded and confident. But we all use them, so let's look at a few you can add to not just be like, eh. So you can add a you know a few seconds after you're done talking to invite someone to react, for example, just like sabes in Spanish. If you're someone that says sabes a lot, use you know, but not too much. You can add a do you know what I mean? Or uh if that makes sense instead.

If you want to introduce something like an opinion, you can choose a different discourse marker other than I think. You can say my take on this is, or I feel that, maybe something like the way I've been approaching it is, that one works great for a call or a professional setting.

There are tons of discourse markers being used all the time, and I think that being ready by having a few different options in the bank, so you're not always using the same ones, is a great way to sound more natural overall. Another important aspect that drives this whole sounding natural thing is connected speech. So when words are kind of mashed together in everyday speech. The classic ones are gonna for going to, I'm gonna grab a coffee and I'll meet you inside, for example.

Wanna is also a classic one, joining want and to. Do you wanna grab some food before we head in? Did you secure and did you? Sorry, I cut you off. Did you wanna say something? So did you? You'll hear that more often than did you want to say something? Did you wanna? Did you want to? So being aware of these connectors is also a great way to flow more when you speak. Let me is another one. Let me, pasa acid, lemme. Let me see that picture for a second. Let me, lemmy.

Practice saying lemming, lemmy, and see how it feels. Tell him, pas I said, tell him, tell him. So completely ignoring the H, tell him, and changing the vowel sound from him to um. Tell him, tell em, um. There are a lot of these floating around, but don't feel like you have to learn them all and get stressed about that. I want you to just be a bit more aware of them in general. This is why the exercises I gave you earlier in the episode are so great.

You start to really find these and feel where they need to be for real. I can't stress this enough. Go record 20 seconds of a show you like, write what they're saying, and start reciting it with them. I'm never going to get tired of telling you to do this. It's literally the best way. There's more to cover about this topic. So, what I think I'll do is a part two to this episode. Maybe even a part three if you guys find it useful.

But for now, let's move on to this next part so the episode doesn't run too long. And I feel like I don't want to give you too much information, too many actionable things, and I rather you just take it step by step and start focusing on the things that we've talked about in this episode. All right, new section, listener questions. I put out a story on Instagram asking you to send your questions in, and a lot of you did. So thank you. I really appreciate it and I value your input.

Obviously, I can't get to all of them, but we'll cover a few. Juana asks, why is it on the bus in the car? And how do I know when to use each of them when talking about vehicles? Okay, this is a classic one that gives people trouble. It seems to not make any sense, but the way I like to explain it is like this use this as a rule of thumb. If you can walk around inside it, use on. If you can't walk around inside it, use in.

So you are on a bus, on a train, on the subway, on a boat, because you can walk around. So because you can't walk around in a car, use in. This rule doesn't work with motorcycles or bicycles or horses, but for those you can just use on because you're physically on them. I hope that helps. You're in a helicopter, for example, because you can't walk around in it. All right, next question. Someone is asking for unusual tips for studying the C1 exam.

The only unusual study tip that I have is one that I read about like 10 years ago. This person was talking about how our brains tend to link, unit tend to link what we learn to where we were when we learned it. And you can use this to help you remember things you study. This works best if you are in uncommon spaces for you. So if you're going to practice vocabulary, for example, go sit under your stairs and study from there.

This new environment makes it more probable that when you go to recall that information, there will have been a stronger connection made because you remember where you were when you learned it. Go sit in the grass under a tree at the park while memorizing phrasal verbs. I feel like this totally works. Hope that helps. And sorry, I don't have more unconventional or unusual tips. One more. Marcella wants to know what is something that bothers me that people say incorrectly in English.

Oh, Marcela, thank you for your question. Off the top of my head, there are two that come to mind. The first one is when people say, I could care less. People use this incorrectly all the time, especially in the US. What they should be saying is, I couldn't care less. No me podría importar menos, right? I couldn't care less. That makes sense. You'll hear people say, I could care less what people think. And they emphasize the less ahí además. It should be I couldn't care less what people think.

What they are saying is that they care at least a certain amount because they could care less. So algo sí que les importa. You might think I'm making this up, but be on the lookout for this because you will hear it. The other thing that really gets on my nerves is again something that I'm hearing more and more in American speakers in particular, and it's the double superlative. So saying things like, he's the most trickiest player in the league.

So you have the most in there, which means the adjective that comes next just needs to be the base form. So tricky in this case. Well, in reality, it should be the trickiest player in the league. But I'd also take, I mean, I said that yeah, I'd also take the most tricky player in the league. So every time I hear a sentence like that, the most fakest watch I've ever seen, it bums me out. It makes me sad.

I understand that this construction is used for extra emphasis and it's just used colloquially, but it still just really kills my ears. Thank you for your question, Marcella. I needed that. Well, and Juana and this other account with a random non-name with numbers and symbols. I want to keep this section going. So if you didn't submit a question this time around, I hope that you will for the next episode. All right, that's it for today. Thanks for listening as always.

I hope this episode was useful and that you got something from it. If you liked this episode, share it with people so we can keep this thing going and do bigger and better things. And yep, that's it for me. Go use your English, go try the exercises we talked about this episode, and let me know how it goes. Leave me a comment or write to me at English with Dane on Instagram and TikTok. All right, have a good week. Later, I'm gonna go to the house.