How to Improve Spoken American English Sound like a Native Speaker
A lot of people ask me if it’s possible to
sound like a native speaker if you weren’t
born in the US. They want to know how long
it will take. That, of course, depends entirely
upon the individual. Really focused pronunciation
practice can yield great results. In this
video, I’m going to go over two different
ways to study English to perfect your pronunciation.
All you need is the audio or video of a native
speaker speaking.
First, we’re going to do a Ben Franklin exercise.
This is when you write down everything you
can about what you hear: whether or not you
hear words being linked, or if you hear something
being reduced, for example.
Now, we’ll do this together to help you get
an idea of how to listen to and analyze what
you hear. “A lot of people ask me if it’s
possible to sound like a native speaker–
A lot of people ask me.” So the first thing
I notice is that this T is a flap T, it sounds
like a D, “a lot of,” that’s because it’s
coming between two vowel sounds. I also notice
that I hear these three words as one unit:
“a lot of, a lot of,” with the stress happening
on the middle word. “A lot of, a lot of people
ask me–” I also notice that this word ends
in a consonant, this word begins with a vowel,
there’s no punctuation in-between, “a lot
of people ask,” and I do hear that L as really
linking to the beginning vowel sound: “people
ask.” Another thing you’ll want to note as
you listen is any sounds that you know are
difficult for you. For example, many of my
students have problems integrating the AA
sound into their speech. They know how to
do it, but they just don’t use it in speech.
So I would definitely, if was one of them,
mark this AA vowel, so that I’ll be sure to
note it, and then will hopefully begin to
integrate AA into my speech when I see this
word ‘ask.’ “A lot of people ask me.” Let’s
keep going.
“A lot of people ask me if it’s possible to
sound like a native speaker– if it’s possible
to sound, if it’s possible to sound–” So,
I notice the stress here: possible, first
syllable is stressed, “to sound,” I notice
that has stress too. “–if it’s possible
to sound–” The word ‘to’ is definitely reduced
to the schwa, so I may mark that so I don’t
forget to reduce it. “Possible to sound.”
“If it’s, if it’s.” Here’s another case where
one word ends in a consonant sound, the next
word begins with a vowel sound, “if it’s,
if it’s,” and I do definitely hear those connecting
together. “If it’s possible to sound.”
“A lot of people ask me if it’s possible to
sound like a native speaker– like a native
speaker–” I notice my voice goes up at the
end here, “speaker.” That’s because the sentence
isn’t over, the next word is “if.” I also
notice the stress is big, small, big, small,
big, small. “Like a native speaker.” DA da
DA da DA da. “Like a native speaker.” Also,
again here we have ending consonant sound/beginning
vowel sound: like a, like a. I hear the K
linking to the schwa. “Like a. Like a native
speaker.” Native – I hear this T as a D because
again, it’s a T coming between two vowel sounds:
will be a flap T, sounds like a D. “Like a
native speaker.” In the entire sentence, I
don’t hear and gaps or pauses between words.
So in some cases, there’s a very obvious link,
like when one word ends with a consonant and
the next word begins with a vowel. But even
when there’s not a very obvious linking sound,
there’s never a gap between the words.
“A lot of people ask me if it’s possible to
sound like a native speaker–” We’ve been
working for several minutes, and here we are
only half way through one sentence. This is
just an example of how you might take notes
from the audio or video clip of your choice.
After you’ve listened several times and taken
thorough notes, you then put the audio or
video away and, from your notes, try to speak
the way the native speaker was speaking. If
you can, record yourself, and then compare
this to the native speaker. This is how you
can figure out where you still need to work.
And now we’ll do an imitation exercise. In
this video, you don’t look at the text. You’re
not concerned with the actual words because
you do already have ideas about how words
should be pronounced. So in this exercise
you’re just listening. And I loop things three
times in an imitation exercise so that you
begin to think about the pitch changes and
the musicality of the speech, rather than
the individual words themselves. Repeat it
back exactly as you hear it, even if you’re
not sure of the individual words. It’s ok,
that’s not what we’re going for in this particular
exercise.
A lot of people ask me [x3]
A lot of people ask me
if it’s possible to sound like a native speaker [3x]
if it’s possible to sound like a native speaker
if you weren’t born in the US. [x3]
Because of the internet, there really is an
endless supply of audio and video where English
is being spoken by native speakers. I know
looping something over and over, as in the
imitation exercise, can be more of a hassle
on your own. That’s why, on my website, I
do have both Ben Franklin and imitation exercises
ready for you. So I encourage you to take
a look at these, or any other audio or video
clip that interests you, and turn it into
a pronunciation exercise: study it this way.
It will really take you far in your practice. That’s
it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.