Practice English Speaking&Listening with: How to Improve Your Intonation | British English Lesson

hello everybody this is Elliot from ETJ

English and today we're talking about

probably one of the most important parts

of pronunciation or actually probably

one of the most important parts of

English in general intonation let's do

it your intonation is just as important

as the words you choose this is

something I have read in many books

about phonetics linguistics yes

vocabulary is important yes grammar is

important yes vowel sounds and consonant

sounds are important but intonation is

the heart and the soul of all of this

and we all want it all of my students

one of the first things they want is a

better intonation and yes there are

rules there are things you can learn

about intonation you can definitely

learn the techniques and tips of what

natives do but it's very very particular

and things can change and things can be

very specific but also very nonspecific

at the same time it's such a complex

topic and we all want it why because we

are human you my students are human and

humans always want the thing which is

the most difficult to get and that's the

truth there are lots of things I want in

life which are very very difficult I

could easily have something else but I

want the thing which is more difficult

and I'm sure you are the same anyway I'm

going to give you just a few useful tips

for improving your intonation some

things which you can do to make your

intonation better now of course the

first thing I need to mention is you

need to learn the rules you do need to

know the reasons why we use particular

tones and understand the names of

different tones just so you know how it

works and of course you need some stress

and rhythm these are all things you

could learn in my pronunciation course

or from an English teacher the link to

my pronunciation course is in the disc

in box below but it's not just that you

can learn rules but there's only a

certain distance that the rules can go

which leads me on to point number one I

want you to imagine intonation is a bit

like a song right imagine you're driving

in your car and you do this every

morning on the way to work and every

time you're driving into work the same

song seems to come on the radio is a

very popular song at the moment

everybody loves it it's really really

popular maybe you like the song maybe

you don't like the song no matter what

you're hearing it every time you go into

work because the radio keeps playing it

and then you find maybe after a few days

of hearing this song you've started

singing it to yourself you start hearing

it in your head because you're around it

so much a good way to describe this in a

native expression were to say that you

have the song stuck in your head ok

great expression there and this can

happen with intonation if you do the

right things so the reason why the song

is stuck in your head is because you're

hearing it all the time and your brain

naturally

just wants to wants to wants to replay

it and that's what intonation is if you

are listening to the accent a lot you're

hearing the tone the way that people

sing the song of English naturally

you're going to want to do it yourself

if no again because it's such a

difficult topic I can't just say imagine

English is a song hey now you have good

intonation that's not how it's going to

work there are lots of other things you

need to do as well

number two I want you to understand that

intonation is also your personality okay

my intonation is very different to my

sister's intonation my intonation is

very different to my girlfriend's

intonation or my dad's intonation

anyone's intonation the reason why is

because I have my own personality so

lots of people say that imitation

technique is perfect it's the best way

to improve pronunciation or intonation

yes it's fantastic but do you want to

sound like an actor or an actress no

imagine you the only person you've been

listening to is Princess Diana and you

really want to sound like Princess Diana

she did have a fantastic pronunciation a

great intonation but then imagine you

know you're trying to copy Princess

Diana but you are a 50 year old man with

a very deep voice yes imitate people

imitate the way that they go up and down

but remember you're not trying to be

someone you're just trying to copy the

techniques they use so instead of

thinking how they say this or how they

sing the song if you like instead think

about the technical side of it are they

going up at the end of a sentence by the

way we do that to show we have more to

say say or are they going down at the

end of a sentence we do that to show

that we finish speaking

think about those technical things once

you know the rules you can analyze the

way people speak be yourself use your

own tones and leads this leads me on to

my next point point number three be

playful have fun okay the more fun you

have with intonation the more you're

going to be again yourself for lots of

people the most uncomfortable part of

learning intonation is the fact that

British people go up when they speak

quite a lot you know in the middle of

our speech we might go up particularly

my Chinese and Russian students find

this very difficult they find it very

very difficult to go up the reason why

is because lots of people are used to

always going down every time they speak

they have to go down and there is no

tone in their voice but when you listen

to British people we're stressing worse

to show that they are important we're

using our tone as a tool to make

ourselves hurt to make ourselves sound

interesting and to

make people want to listen to us be

playful go up go down experiment with

different things and remember to mostly

play with your intonation around the

stressed words the words which are

important in your sentence

give them some intonation give them a

bit of up downtown

it's instead of saying it's really good

say it's really good good

okay an up-down tone is a fantastic way

of showing emotion some other really

useful things just some really important

words I mentioned this in a lot of my

videos and it's kind of becoming a meme

now it's the word patience but this word

is just as important and this word is

repetition repetition repetition you

need to be repeating lots repeating the

tones the waves the sounds that we make

and you can do this like I said through

imitation and you can also do this from

learning the rules so on one hand you

have patience right you need to take

your time understand the intonation in

particular not just pronunciation but

intonation takes a very very long time

so you have the patience if you also

have that repetition and you push them

together patience and repetition sorry

about my blisters I've been going to the

gym if you have that patience and that

repetition and you're using them

together you are on to a winner repeat

repeat repeat every day do some training

imagine it's singing practice okay and

finally step out of your comfort zone if

you go up to a native and you start

using some different tones which you're

not familiar with it might feel

uncomfortable because you are so used to

maybe always using a falling tone but

remember that's not normal to us so

you're learning something new which is

normal for us so using the thing which

is normal for us isn't going to sound

bad it's going to sound good it just

might feel uncomfortable for you in the

beginning you can learn everything about

intonation

and I guess speed the process up by

learning with me on my pronunciation

course I also give feedback on whatsapp

with voice messaging and WeChat from

only four members who join my course

okay is only available for people who

join the course you can join my course

by clicking the link in the description

box below if not I will see you next

time in my next YouTube video cheers

guys bye

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