FAST ENGLISH Native Speakers CANT Understand
Since I’ve been teaching American English
pronunciation, I have developed a theory
that if you take certain words in a sentence
and a native speaker hears just those words,
they’ll have no idea what they’re hearing. Even
though it was spoken by a native speaker so I
tested it and I was right. Even native
speakers can’t understand this. I mean
can you understand this? Or this? We’ll
figure out what’s going on in this video.
In every sentence we speak in English, we have
words that are more clear and words that are
less clear. Even they are more clear, less clear
these words were clearer but and words that are
wasn’t so clear. I said it like this:
and words that are
In every sentence we speak in English, we have
words that are more clear and words that are less
clear. That’s natural English. and words that are,
and words that are. And when I’m teaching this to
my students sometimes, they think no, no way,
that’s to unclear that can’t be right. But in
fact, it’s so unclear that even native speakers
can’t understand it and it is right! What?
How is this possible? One word, context. In a
whole sentence we understand every word, the
clear words and the unclear words. But if I chop
up a sentence and play just the unclear words,
even native speakers don’t always know what
they’re hearing. Isn’t that incredible? With
the context of a sentence, no problem, hear
it once they get it. But the words alone,
no idea. We’re going to test some native speakers
in a second and all you native speakers out there
watching, I want to know if you pass or fail. Do
you understand or not? But first, I just want to
point out from my non-native viewers, people who
are trying to learn to speak natural English,
this is a lesson in simplifying and
speeding through certain words to get that
contrast of long and short which is important
in natural, easy to understand English. So,
here we are at my parent’s house out on the back
deck. I’m playing part of a sentence. A couple of
unclear, unstressed words in a row. Let’s see if
my friends and family can guess what I’m playing.
This is the clip they’re going to
hear: Do you know what’s being said?
Put your guess in the comments
right now what is being said.
Let’s see if my parents and my
friends could figure it out.
This first one I think is a little
bit easier but I’m not sure.
Okay.
Okay, here it is.
Hear it again?
No.
Okay, hey this is what I was hoping would happen
It sounds like
Can you guys tell what it is? Should I turn it up?
Yeah.
Okay, I’m going to turn the volume all the way.
Jonathan.
You think it’s Jonathan? What do you think?
Hit me.
Don’t know. Something, don’t know.
You think don’t know, you think
anything, you think Jonathan.
Come again.
Okay, here’s the last time.
Jonathan!
Their guess is
Anything
Jonathan
Not a thing
Don’t know
None of those are right. Really they have
no idea what this native speaker is saying.
And I played it for then several times. Now
I’m going to play them the whole sentence.
You don’t have to face the
horrible pressures of this holiday.
You don’t have to.
Do you totally understand it without
hesitation when you hear it in a sentence?
Right, yeah.
‘Cause it puts it in context.
And they get it right away. No problem.
I’ll play the whole sentence for
you. This is a clip form Friends.
So let’s think about this. Natural spoken English
involves some words being so unclear that native
speakers can’t understand them alone, out of
context. You’re going to have to really simplify
your mouth movements to make your unstressed
words fast enough. When we have more than one
unstressed or reduced word in a row, I like to
call this a reduction string. A reduction is when
we change a sound or drop a sound. For example
the word “to”. We usually pronounce that [tə]
with the schwa said quickly that’s a reduction.
Example sentence: I’m about to leave. To, to.
Let’s look at the sentence from Friends.
You don’t have to face the
horrible pressures of this holiday.
Chandler said the first four words like this:
You don’t have to—
Let’s slow that down.
You don’t have to—
You. Very unclear. Don’t have. I don’t hear a T in
don’t and I don’t hear an H in have. Both dropped.
These are both known reductions, I’ve done
videos on both of these. The V sound changes
to an F because it’s followed by a T. I also have
a video on that. Have to becomes hafto, hafto.
You don’t have to becomes you
don’t have to, you don’t have to.
Listen again in slow motion then
we’ll repeat it. We’ll do this twice.
You’ve got to say it out loud to
get used to this way of speaking.
Now, speed it up. I’ll play it 8 times in a
row with a pause each time. You hear it, you
say it eight times over. As you do this, you’ll
make minor adjustments and be able to simplify
your mouth movements more. Just go with the
flow. It’s not clear and it’s not supposed to be.
How did you do? I know my students often can’t
believe just how quickly and unclearly they
should be making some words. Here’s another
one. Can you understand what’s being said?
Pretty tough right? Let’s
see what my family thought.
It was gonna.
I was gonna.
You think I wasn’t gonna?
“I was gonna” is what I thought.
We want to hear it again.
No idea.
I don’t know.
Ginny had a good guess. She
guessed “I was going to” or
“I was gonna”. I was gonna.
I played them the full clip.
Okay, let’s listen to the sentence
and see if it becomes clear.
I knew it wasn’t gonna work
out the moment that I –
Wasn’t gonna
I knew it wasn’t gonna
Yeah
It wasn’t gonna
I knew it wasn’t gonna. That’s funny.
Because it doesn’t really ch like that.
It can go either way in that sentence.
But when you hear the whole
sentence you totally get it.
You slow them
Right away. They don’t even need to
hear the full sentence. They understood
that “It wasn’t going to”.
One other thing I notice when doing this with
my family is they keep asking me to turn it
up. It’s too quiet. That’s another quality of
unstressed syllables. They’re not just faster,
they’re quieter. Just another way they contrast
with stressted syllables which are louder.
Let’s listen to that reduction
string in slow motion.
I wasn’t gonna–
Now that you know it, do you hear it better?
I don’t hear either T. Iwasn’t gonna.
And gonna is so unclear I don’t hear a very good
n. Gonna, gonna, it wasn’t gonna, it wasn’t gonna.
Listen in slow motion and repeat it twice, make
sure your lips are moving as little as possible.
And now, play it say it at regular
pace eight times. Focus on relaxation.
Now try to put that in the whole
sentence. Listen repeat five times.
Now, jump to my niece and
sister-in-law. I played them this.
Can you tell what you’re hearing?
This is just a. (laughing)
Yeah.
This is just a, your guess?
This is just a.
Okay.
Now let’s play the whole sentence.
Maybe it’s just a kidney stone.
Maybe it’s just a kidney stone.
Right. It’s so clear in a sentence, isn’t it? Like
you would never hear that like what is she saying?
Right.
When you hear just the fast words.
It is hard to tell. Listen in slow motion.
Maybe it’s just a kidney stone.
Maybe. Not so clear. It’s just a. I hardly hear
any vowel in it’s or just. It’s just, it’s just.
In the whole sentence though, we get
it. I want you to try simplifying this
too with the play, it say it. Here
it is. Unclear speech eight times.
Repeat each time, mouth
movement is minimal, simplify.
And not let’s try the whole sentence five times.
The next time you’re working with
my analysis videos like this,
I’ll link to some playlist with this kind of video
in the video description. Think about this: When
you’re working with unstressed or reduced words,
they’re simplified. In fact, they maybe simplified
so much that a native speaker can’t even
understand the words out of context. But
in a whole sentence, that contrast magically it
all comes together and everything becomes clear.
I love thinking about spoken English this way
and teaching you what I learn. Keep your learning
going now with video. Thanks for watching
and be sure to subscribe with notifications,
I make new videos every Tuesday. That’s it and
thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.