How To Say Common English Expressions PART 2 Small Talk
Well hey there! I’m Emma from mmmEnglish!
In this lesson, we’ll focus on the natural pronunciation
of some very common English expressions.
We’ll study how a native speaker would
really use these expressions and practise saying them
together, exactly as a native speaker would.
Common expressions, ones that are used all the time,
are not often pronounced as you would expect.
As native speakers, we say them quickly,
the sounds reduce, they even disappear.
And even simple expressions become
difficult to recognise if you’re not used to hearing them.
In my lessons, you hear me speak really clearly
and a little slower than I normally would
and while that makes you feel good like,
‘Yes! I can understand everything she’s saying.’
you do need to listen to different English,
different accents, people who mumble.
When you study English, try to experience the diversity
by listening to a variety of different English speakers.
Another way to do this is to join online communities
and no, I’m not talking about online English language
communities, I’m talking about communities
around your hobbies and special interests
but where all the members are speaking in English.
Now this strategy is awesome for advanced
and ambitious English students and what I love about it
is you can personalise your English practice
and make it about something that you’re
really interested in.
You’ll learn vocabulary and expressions
that are really relevant to the conversations
you’re going to have.
So a few weeks ago, I received an email from Skillshare.
Skillshare is an online learning community and I thought
this is the perfect tool to share with you.
They have thousands of classes,
not only language classes
but classes on all kinds of stuff like design,
video production, illustration, crafts, leadership, cooking.
And all of these classes can be taken online
wherever you are.
So Skillshare asked me if I thought you could benefit
from taking these online classes
and of course, I said yes!
This is one of the strategies that I teach my students.
So firstly, you’ll learn new skills
from whatever course you take, right? Win.
But by taking a course in English, you’ll hear
common English expressions and new vocabulary
in an area of life that interests you
like your work or your hobbies, right?
The other awesome thing is that many of the courses
offered at Skillshare actually have a community
that forms around the classes
which would give you even more opportunities
to practise your English skills, right?
Now I want you to know that Skillshare
are sponsoring this lesson
which is great for me, they’re helping to support
me a little while I make free lessons for you.
But they have also agreed to give the first five hundred
mmmEnglish students who sign up
using the link in the description below
free access to their premium level membership
for two whole months!
So that’s two months of whatever courses you choose
in English for free!
Like I said, I’m a huge fan of this strategy.
Learning and using your English in different contexts.
So if you want to try it, then please be quick
to take me up on that offer.
I was only able to get it for five hundred students
so click the link that you can see below
to make sure you’re one of them.
Alright let’s get back to the lesson.
Since we’re focusing on common natural expressions
in this lesson,
I want to show you a short video clip
of a conversation I had with my friend, Sim.
Sim!
Emma! It’s so good to see you!
Fancy seeing you here!
Well I live here now.
What do you mean?
I thought you were living in Melbourne?
We just got a job and I’ve just moved in.
Really?
Yeah!
Do you need a hand?
Well most of our stuff’s already been moved in but
would you have a car that I could borrow?
Yeah I definitely do. We’ve got two actually.
I live in number twenty-three
so just come grab the keys anytime.
I’ll come down and see you.
It’s so good to see you!
So good to see you too!
You heard a few different expressions there.
Now I want to take you a little deeper
into some of them
so that you know when to use them
and how to say them.
Let’s go back to the very first thing that I said
when I saw Sim.
This expression is a common one but it has
two different meanings
depending on the tone used when it’s spoken.
So the first meaning is a genuine expression of surprise
when you meet someone that you know
in an unexpected place. It’s like
‘What are you doing here?
I’m so surprised to see you! I wasn’t expecting it at all.’
Now the second meaning is a sarcastic one.
So it’s a sarcastic greeting when you see someone
somewhere where it’s really not surprising at all.
Okay? It’s not surprising to see them there.
So here’s an example.
Every Friday, no joke, every Friday,
I go to this delicious bakery near my house
to get a phenomenally good pastry and a coffee.
Now I only allow myself to go there on Fridays because
it’s so good and it’s so close
that if I don’t have rules I would go there every day.
So Friday is the day I’m allowed to go.
And most people know that about me,
all of my neighbours know, all my friends know
so if they ever run into me on a Friday morning
at the bakery, it really won’t be a surprise.
They might say:
Well, fancy seeing you here.
Like it’s not a surprise at all. I’m there every Friday
but my expression was different during my conversation
with Sim. I was genuinely surprised to see her, right?
In a positive way. I didn’t expect to see her there
and you can tell by the tone. As women, we tend to
raise the tone of our voice when we get excited, right?
Very excited to see each other.
Did you notice that all of the words were stressed
when I said them?
We don’t really hear any of those sounds reduce
down, we hear everything quite clearly.
In the multi-syllable words you hear one stressed
syllable that’s louder and clearer than the other one.
The other one reduces down.
Now you might hear that /ng/ sound reduced down
to become the /n/ sound when it’s spoken, right?
It’s a little easier to say, right? So it happens
quite a bit in spoken English.
Hear how the pitch stays high?
Now in the sarcastic version, it sounds a little different.
It would sound like
‘Well fancy seeing you here.’
So hear that tone changing? The meaning is different.
I’m saying that I’m not actually surprised at all
to see them in that place. The pitch is lower.
You’ll probably need to add an eye roll there
just for maximum effect, right?
If you’re a regular viewer here at mmmEnglish
and I recognise you in the comments, I might say
Jorge! Fancy seeing you here!
Like, I see you every week!
Let’s look closer at another expression I used
during that conversation.
What do you mean?
I thought you were living in Melbourne?
I’m using this expression because I’m surprised
and confused.
At the time, I thought that Sim lived in Melbourne
so it was strange
to see her at my apartment building, right?
What are you doing here?
I’m surprised, right?
‘What do you mean?’ is a great expression to show
that you’re a little confused.
It suggests that you need a little more information
to understand what’s happening, what’s going on.
Any kind of confusion can be cleared up
by asking this question.
What do you mean you’re busy?
See? In all of those situations this phrase
is super helpful to clear away any confusion, right?
Now if you watched this lesson here,
another lesson about common expressions,
then you’ve already practised the pronunciation of
these three words with me.
Pronounced naturally, it sounds more like
The unstressed vowel’s reduced down
and the words link together.
You might also hear these words expressed as
or
Right? Depends on the English accent.
Now, ‘mean’ is the most important word here
in this question so it’s stressed.
We hear it really clearly
but all of the others reduce down.
It also helps if you put a confused face on as well.
So once I found out that Sim had only
just moved into the building,
I wanted to offer my help, right?
Like a good friend would.
Moving house is hard work right? Have you ever done it?
In my life, I’ve done it over twenty-five times
so of course, I know how arduous that task is
and like a good friend, I offered to help out.
It’s a little more formal or more polite to say:
But Sim’s an old friend of mine so I’m speaking
informally.
So this idiom is a really common way of
offering to help someone,
offering to give someone a hand is a nice way of saying
or
It’s a nice thing to say if you hear someone
saying that they’ve got a lot of work to do
or they’re stressed out or they’re
struggling to do something.
And you can also use it to casually ask for help
yourself by making it a question.
Now just like in the last question,
we have the auxiliary verb ‘do’ and the pronoun ‘you’.
Both are unstressed so when they reduce,
it sounds like
Or again you might hear that sound.
When I ask that question, Sim says that
most of their stuff had already been moved in, right?
Well, most of our stuff’s already been moved in but
She’s politely letting me know that she
doesn’t need my help
but if she did want to accept my offer, she could say
can follow an offer for help.
Now, technically we already know that the person
doesn’t mind because they offered in the first place right
But this is a nice, polite way to accept their help.
You know how painfully polite
we can be in English, right?
Right? Very polite. You can also use ‘Would you mind?’
to ask someone for their help
before they’ve offered. Right? You can say
or
That would be so nice of you!
Notice that the main verb following this expression
is always using the -ing form, not the to-infinitive form.
Right? It’s incorrect to say
Instead, make sure you’re using ‘subscribing’
Would you mind subscribing to my channel?
So to sound natural, very cool and relaxed
when you use this expression, you need to link ‘would’
and ‘you’ together. So when ‘would’ and ‘you’ are linked,
again, we hear this sound come in.
Okay? ‘Would’ and ‘you’ sounds like
Can you hear that schwa sound at the end as well?
Because ‘you’ is the unstressed word.,
we reduce it down to the schwa.
So now I want you to practise a little.
Try using some of the expressions
that you learned during this lesson.
Write some sentences in the comments
so that I can check them for you
and give you some feedback.
Now I have to admit that after each video
here at mmmEnglish has been up for about a week,
it starts to get a bit tricky for me to give feedback on
every comment so if you want to practise
and you want me to review your sentences
then write them now. I’ll definitely have time.
Feel free to watch this video again or many times,
the more that you listen to these expressions
spoken naturally,
the easier it will become to recognise them
and to use them naturally yourself.
Hey do you need a hand with any
other English expressions?
If you do, add them to the comments and I will
try and make a new lesson about them soon.
Who knows? You could even see your suggestion
here in a future video. That would be awesome!
Please subscribe to show your support for the channel
and then check out one of these lessons here.
We’ll keep practising pronunciation and
natural English expression in both of these lessons.
See you there!