Hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from Englishfulltime.com
and in this video I'm gonna talk to you guys about how to speak English like a
native speaker and more specifically how to sound like a native speaker okay so
that when you speak English people actually think that oh wow are
you a native speaker and maybe they they're not sure because you you speak
English so well that you sound like a native English speaker but obviously
since it's your second language or third or tenth I don't know how many languages
you speak you know you're still gonna mess up in certain areas with the
grammar it's just inevitable but you can get to a point where you speak English
so well that people might actually think you're a native English speaker and I
know because this has happened to me in Spanish I learned Spanish I started
learning when I was 14 years old and then I went to study Spanish in
Argentina I ended up living there for about like four and a half years and you
know I got to a point where people thought I was a native Spanish speaker I
mean maybe they wouldn't think that I was a native Spanish speaker from
Argentina sometimes they would actually this this is really funny native Spanish
speakers that were like from Mexico or Spain when they would hear me speak
Spanish they'd go oh wow she's from Argentina but the Argentine
people because they know exactly how their accent sounds they would hear me
and they would go oh are you from Costa Rica are you from Spain where are you
from and so it was really funny so people really do think when I speak
Spanish a lot of them think that I am a native Spanish speaker okay so you can
achieve this with English one I want you to know that that's possible but there
are a few things that you're gonna have to do in order to achieve this and
you're gonna have you may have to change the way you think about English okay so
the first thing you can do to start sounding more like a native speaker is
focusing on phrases that we use in English that native speakers use so
rather than focusing on individual vocabulary words focus on phrases and
putting phrases together to make sentences now everything that I'm gonna
be telling you guys in these videos is based on my experience of going to
Argentina and going from being like basically I spoke
Spanish with a very neutral accent and my vocabulary was very neutral
previously I had only learned Spanish with grammar books and you know in in
classrooms and stuff but my Spanish was very neutral I didn't sound like a
native Spanish speaker so I'm basing all of this on my own personal experience
okay and one of the first things that I realized when I went to Argentina is
that people would use the same phrases over and over and over and over again so
I just started adopting the same phrases that people from Argentina would use and
this means that I also had to drop phrases from my vocabulary there were
certain words and phrases that I learned in my grammar classes where the teacher
said hey you can say it like this and then I went to Argentina and I was like
whoa no they don't say it like this I need to change my vocabulary and change
the phrases that I use to sound more like a native speaker so that's one of
the first changes that I made okay and then I realized that the intonation in
Argentine Spanish is different from the intonation in other types of Spanish and
the same is true for English there's you know different accents as you guys know
UK Irish American southern American there's so many different accents in
English but what you'll notice if you focus on a particular accent is that the
intonation is generally always the same the way that we ask questions the flow
of our words the way that we express ourselves the way that we share ideas
you have to start thinking about English like music okay music has rhythm it has
patterns it has flow and you're gonna start to hear that okay and I want you
to pay attention to that and you have to adopt those patterns of intonation and
you have to speak with those patterns now a lot of people never achieve this
and they never do it because it forces you out of your comfort zone now in your
native language you have patterns too and those patterns are so deeply
ingrained into your mind into your way of speaking that not using those
patterns and using new patterns it feels intimidating
and sometimes we can even feel embarrassed but you're going to have to
get over that and you're just gonna have to start using the patterns that native
English speakers use this means that your mouth and your tongue and your
throat are gonna move in completely different ways than they move in your
native language okay you're gonna have to get comfortable with this okay I
noticed this when I was in Argentina and I was just like okay if I really want to
sound like a native Spanish speaker from Argentina then I'm going to have to
change the way that I speak Spanish change the way that I ask questions
change the way that I make statements or commands etc so that I sound more like a
native speaker now the last tip is that you're going to have to learn our
pronunciation okay you can't take the vowel sounds for example from your
native language and then try to speak English with those vowel sounds okay so
maybe you speak a language that's very nasal you're going to have to learn to
speak English without being super nasal okay because if you do that that's when
native speakers can hear your accent okay when you're taking sounds from your
native language that don't exist in English and then you're incorporating
them into your English speaking okay we can hear your accent because you're not
using our sounds you're using sounds from your own language so again you just
have to think about you know language as being music listen to the music I was in
choir for several years in elementary school and in high school I also learned
a few instruments I didn't get super great or anything but I did learn how to
play the violin the saxophone the piano and you know it that helped me develop
an ear for music and a lot of times I was honestly too lazy to learn how to
read the notes and play the notes so I would play by ear I would just listen to
something and then I would try to play it back myself you can do the same to
sound like a native speaker listen to the way that I speak English okay
practice shadowing my videos if you want to just put them on replay and just
say what I say as I say it read the subtitles do whatever you have to do
you're gonna notice that I use the same patterns all the time when I speak okay
I use the same phrases the same intonation patterns the same type of
pronunciation k and by focusing on this you're really going to start
sounding more like a native speaker and I have one more final bonus tip for you
okay if you really want to sound like a native speaker you're going to have to
focus on a specific kind of English from a specific region okay now in order to
achieve this this might mean that you're gonna have to tune out certain regions
okay certain like let's say you're following a bunch of you know native
English speakers from the United States you're also following some from the UK
and Ireland well having and hearing all that English it's a good thing because
you're learning how to understand so many different types of English but if
you are really trying to focus on sounding like a native speaker you may
have to tune out other native speakers from other regions for a while while you
focus on the dialect that you want to speak with okay because by focusing on
one dialect your ear is gonna become accustomed to just that dialect you're
gonna learn how to speak with that okay and you're gonna improve a lot faster
than if you're learning and listening to so many different types of English and I
know this also because previously when I was studying Spanish in the United
States I had teachers from Spain from Argentina from Mexico and that's why my
Spanish was neutral that's why I didn't sound like a native speaker because I
was just you know speaking I was learning from so many different kinds of
native speakers that my Spanish was just a neutral Spanish so again if you want
to sound like a native speaker you have to focus on a specific kind and when I
was in Argentina that's when I really really learned how
to sound like someone from Argentina because I was so just I was hearing one
type of Spanish all the time all the time so again if you want this for your
English you're gonna have to hear one type of English all the time until you
feel like yeah okay I finally feel like a native speaker
from California or the UK etc so anyways I hope this helps go ahead and leave a
comment and let me know what kind of dialect you are focusing on for
improving your English and if you have any other tips to add if you also have
gotten to a place where you finally sound like a native speaker in English
let us know what your tips are and share them in the comments so that other
people can learn from you as well anyways that's all for this video thanks
guys and we'll talk soon bye hey guys thanks so much for watching
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