English Pronunciation Tips with Rachels English

hi i’m vanessa from speak english with

vanessa calm today i’m here with a

special guest rachel from Rachel’s

English if you have studied American

English pronunciation I’m sure that

you’ve watched some of her super helpful

and popular videos Rachel runs the

wildly popular YouTube channel Rachel’s

English let’s see what she has to say

about pronunciation

hi Rachel thanks so much for joining me

today I’m really happy to have you here

you’re welcome it’s my pleasure yes so a

lot of my audience might already know

who you are if they’ve studied anything

about pronunciation I’m sure they’ve run

across you but can you tell us a little

bit about yourself and how did you get

into American English pronunciation yeah

definitely it’s been a while I started

my youtube channel back in 2008 and I

was living in Europe and I was studying

a lot of foreign language I was an opera

singer at the time since retired

um but yeah it was I was working with a

friend of mine who was in one of my

German classes with me and he wanted to

sound more American he was interested in

American English because of all of the

movies and the shows that Hollywood

produces and so I was giving him some

tips and I was sort of relying on my

singing background to to help me know

what to say and how to say it and he

said wow you’re really good at that and

I said oh well thank you and so I

started making some videos that’s

awesome so your singing background

really gave you the skills to know how

to use the certain muscles and to how to

explain it kind of gave you the language

to use to talk about pronunciation yeah

I think so it gave me a very different

take than an academic track of studying

teaching English

I was totally relying on my body what I

felt how I thought about things and

because of having Sun opera for so long

I was very tuned into you know all the

fine things that happen with the voice

yeah I think that’s one thing that makes

you really unique as far as

pronunciation coaches or teachers or

instructors goes is you’ve got a

different background you haven’t just

been doing pronunciation but you’ve also

got that opera singing background so

that adds a different element that I

think your your students probably really

enjoy yeah I think so yes yes so I would

like to ask you a couple questions about

pronunciation because you are the go-to

person for pronunciation and there’s a

question I get all the time that my suit

asked me and that is should I focus on

pronunciation how important is it what’s

your take on that question well the

answer there is how are you going to be

using English if you’re going to be

holed up in your room only writing

emails then know your pronunciation

doesn’t matter at all but most people

are studying in foreign language because

they want to speak it and they want to

communicate with it that’s the whole

point is communication so if your

pronunciation is terrible it’s really

going to get in the way of communication

I’m not in the business trying to tell

people you should not have an accent I’m

just trying to help people be understood

um that because that’s really what it

boils down to if you’re studying English

but no one can understand you then all

of that time is sort of wasted if you

study pronunciation as you’re learning

new vocabulary and learning grammar and

how pronunciation relates to grammar

then you’re really doing yourself a

favor because you’re not gonna have to

go back and correct anything and you’re

going to be able to be understood so I

think it’s extremely important yes yes

and that’s a huge boost for confidence

to when an english learner can say

something without being asked what did

you say that sounds great to just be

immediately understood so your goal is

to help English learners be understood

and sound as natural as they can not to

feel bad about their accent but to speak

as well as they can correct and for some

people that are living in in America

they do want to be able to speak and

sound totally American because they feel

like it’s getting in the way of their

communication with people people are

always noticing and thinking oh that

person’s not from here which I wish

wouldn’t matter to anybody but I know

does matter to some people so it’s

really the goal of the student do you

want to sound absolutely American you

know then there are ways to try to get

there it’s really hard but if your goal

is just to be understood that’s a more

realistic goal and there’s you know I

have a lot of videos to help people get

there definitely definitely and it seems

like a lot of your videos are also

gonna help people to tweak their English

enough to be able to be more understood

and maybe lose some of their accent but

to be clearer in general which is the

goal that’s the most important thing

right yes yes well I’d like to ask you

another question which is kind of about

problems that English learners some of

your students people who watch your

videos might make are there any problems

you think that English learners make

when they try to study pronunciation any

kind of mmm errors that they might run

across

well definitely there’s a huge

misconception I’ve found is that people

want sounds they think when I get all of

the sounds I’m going to be fine and that

is not even half of it I would say it’s

like a third of it maybe the sounds are

important to know and a lot of people

might be coming from a language that has

many fewer vowel sounds or something for

example so understanding the differences

in the vowels and how these make

different words it is very important but

you’re not going to be done when you’ve

learned the sound and you actually need

to learn much more about the character

as you’re learning the sounds then

people think long versus short the the

melody the cadence of the voice this is

really where my opera singing background

I think comes in handy is you know

hearing the melody talking about how how

we use the voice linking words together

what’s the character that makes up

American English I think when people

master the character even if some of

their sounds aren’t quite accurate it

puts people at ease when they’re

listening because it’s really easier to

understand when the character is there

that person becomes easier to understand

and so that is the main issue I come

across is people focusing purely on

sounds and not understanding that sounds

are just part of this broader character

that needs to be understood right and

people want their personalities to come

through when they speak English so

getting the right natural intonation or

character as you said is going to be a

big point for that definitely yes yes

well I’m curious do you have any

cific things that english learners who

are watching this video can take away

right now what is something they could

do now to improve their pronunciation it

actually starts with listening

comprehension the two are linked very

closely um a lot of people have a hard

time understanding Americans we speak

very quickly but there are actually

tools that we’re using that are allowing

us to speak quickly but still be

understood and I’m actually publishing a

video on Tuesday that I’m working on

right now that goes over five important

tips for improving your listening

comprehension um studying reductions

studying linking there are specific

things that you can study that will help

you understand how Americans are

speaking so quickly we’re and once you

figure out how to listen for those and

find them then you can start imitating

them yourself so when your listening

comprehension improves then you know

what to work with a phrase with a

reduction if you hear the reduction then

you think oh this is a phrase I can use

you practice it over and over and then

the next thing you know your

pronunciation of that phrase is better

but it has to start with understanding a

native speaker saying it so you’ll - yes

yes and can you just to clarify some

vocabulary here could you clarify what

would be a reduction maybe for people

watching this who haven’t hurt you use

that term before yeah sure a reduction

is when a sound is changed or dropped I

always use the example of the word for

fo R and when we say in a sentence we

don’t say for we typically say fur and

it’s very fast it sounds like there’s no

vowel and we use this word all the time

this is for work this is for later today

and if you’re expecting to hear four and

a full pronunciation like that then if

you just hear fur so quickly you’re

probably not going to catch it so not

only will your listing comprehension be

off but your pronunciation will be off

because you’re pronouncing it for fully

and clearly in a way that Americans

don’t so that would be an example of a

reduction great thanks so much for

giving us that I think those are the

small things that

you listen to English if you don’t catch

those small things you might miss the

whole meaning so catching that first is

going to be the first step in using it

and improving your own pronunciation

right exactly

yes so I’d like to ask you a final

question about this awesome ebook that

you’ve got out can you tell us a little

bit about your American English

pronunciation book

yeah so I had been creating YouTube

videos for something like six years

before I started writing the book and

one of the questions that I always got

was where do I start you have so many

videos how do I work with them and I

realized that was a really hard question

to answer in an email um and so I

thought you know it’s important it’s

time to take all of these little ideas

that I’ve produced and come up with and

put them into something comprehensive

that someone can use to start somewhere

and then get somewhere get to where they

want to be so that was sort of the

inspiration for it and so that’s what

I’ve done it’s about 290 pages and I as

I was writing it I had my catalog of

videos there and I just integrated them

into the book so the book has text um

but then it links to a lot of the videos

that will further illustrate what I’m

talking about and then I’ve also put in

some audio about two and a half hours to

train a concept so when you learn the

concept by reading about it looking at

images watching the video then there’s a

little bit of audio that you can use to

do some listen and repeat with excellent

excellent so it seems like there is

reading listening and they can also

imitate after you and try to shadow and

speak and use it themselves that’s a lot

of material that’s going to be so

helpful for just organizing I think

that’s a huge thing you’ve got so much

material that English learners love but

having it so organized like that can

save time alright to know that they’re

following the right path they’re not

just spontaneously watching the next

video they’re following what you think

is the best order and method that’s

awesome

and then any video that they happen to

come across later they can sort of fit

it into their broader idea of the

concept of studying also I did work with

my friend Tom who’s been in several

videos and so the audio is both male and

female so that people can you know

sometimes males don’t like imitating the

female voice and vice versa so there’s

examples of both um in the in the audio

excellent thanks so much for telling us

about that and just for creating such a

great resource for pronunciation it’s a

important piece of speaking English and

I think you’re also so much for

explaining some about your background

giving us some pronunciation tips and

introducing yourself I really appreciate

it

sure my pleasure and I hope that we can

see you back soon to explain more about

pronunciation all link to everything

that you mentioned the listening

comprehension video your your ebook all

your information below this video so

everyone can check it out awesome sounds

great great thanks so much Rachel talk

to you later thanks bye bye to learn

more with Rachel click on the links here

on the screen or below in the

description I’m sure you won’t be

disappointed you will love learning

pronunciation with her

thanks so much and see you later bye if

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