Speed up your English by learning relaxed pronunciation. I will teach you how to say questions with ‘do’ and ‘did’ in a natural, flowing way. The secret to speaking fast is that there are no clear word boundaries. Whole syllables may be missed completely („elision”), individual sounds may change („assimilation”), or completely new sounds may appear („intrusion”). No matter whether you are a beginner or an advanced speaker of English, I’ll break down the pronunciation for you in the clearest possible way. I’ll also teach you a little IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), so that you can be sure that you are saying each question phrase perfectly. Learn to say all the question phrases in this lesson and you will speak fast — like a native speaker of English. If you want to improve your accent and speaking ability in English further, take my accent course!
LEARN MORE ABOUT MY ACCENT COURSE: https://www.engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourse
TRANSCRIPT
Hi everyone. I’m English Jade and I teach English over here at EngVid. But did you also know that I’m an accent and clear speech teacher? And I have a really important question for you: I want to know if your accent is your weakness. If it is, be sure to watch until the end of todays lesson because that’s when I’m going to tell you all about my accent training course, Clear Accent, which teaches you how to speak in a really clear and natural way. But first of all, we’ve got to do today’s lesson, so let’s get started.
Hi, everyone. In this lesson I’m going to teach you how you can speed up your English times five, and I’m also going to teach Ratty, here, Ratty the kangaroo how he can speak much faster because since… Since he’s moved over from Australia he’s realized that he speaks too slowly, so that’s why we’re doing this lesson today. You’ll get some tips to speed up your English.
All right, so we’ve got some question phrases in this column, and here we’ve got what those question phrases sound like when native speakers are talking in a relaxed way, and here in this column we’ve got the IPA transcription. Don’t be afraid of this. Ratty… Ratty doesn’t know how to read this, so I’m going to explain it as I go, but this column here is important because this tells us exactly the way to say it, whereas using just the English letters I can’t write down the exact thing that I’m saying because we don’t have letters for all the sounds. So we’ll use the two columns, and together we’ll speed up your English times five. Does that sound good? Ratty says it sounds good.
Okay, let’s start with: „How’s it going? How’s it going?” If I want to say it really slowly, which I don’t, I would say: „How is it going?” Take me all day to say that. But when a native speaker says it, it’s: -„How-zit goin? How-zit goin? How-zit goin? How-zit goin? How-zit goin?” -„It’s going good.” -„How-zit goin?” If we look at the transcription here: „How-zit”, „How is it” becomes two sounds: „How’s it going?” If we look here, where’s the „g”? It’s not: „How’s it going?” because it takes me more time and care to say the „g”. When I’m just speaking in a relaxed way, I say: „How’s it goin?” And also to notice here is that the „s”: „How’s” becomes a „z”. „How-zit goin? How-zit goin?” And where the „s” would be here at the end of: „How’s”, it joins the next syllable, it joins „it”, „zit”: „How-zit goin? How-zit goin?” Does that sound good? He says it’s good. He’s a little bit faster.
Let’s look at the next example: -„How’s your mum? How’s your mum? How is your mum? How’s your mum?” -„She’s good, she’s in Australia. She’s having a good time there.” -„How’s your mum? Howz yuh-mum? Howz yuh-mum?” So what changes in this sentence? „How is your mum?” First thing that stands out is „your” becomes „yuh”: „yuh mum”. „How is yuh mum? Howz yuh-mum?” We’ve got a similar thing happening here with the „s” becomes a „z”: „Howz”, „Howz”. „Howz yuh-mum?”
Next example: „How’s Tom? How’s Tom?” „z” instead of „s”: „Howz Tom?” And this symbol here is the „?” symbol. It looks like a backwards „a”, and I should point out this symbol as well. We’ve seen it in the previous examples. This is: „?”, „owl”, „owl”, „owl”. „Howz Tom?” ? is a diphthong. A diphthong means when two vowel sounds blend one into the other, so this symbol here isn’t two separate sounds. It’s one sound changing into another quickly: „Howz Tom?” Okay, I need to move you to my other arm. Is that all right? Said: „It’s good.”
Next: „How do you get there? How do you get there?” If I’m speaking really slowly… Really, really slowly like Ratty speaks: „How do you get there?” Ain’t got time to listen to that. -„How-jew get there? How-jew get there? How-jew get there?” -„By plane?” -„How-jew get there?”
