Speaking English: How To Sound Natural and Smooth

This video describes this new practice method for speaking English more naturally and shows me teaching the tool to two of my Rachel’s English Academy students! You’ll meet both of them, you’ll see their progress and I think you’ll be impressed.

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Video Transcript:

You’re going to sound so natural speaking American English. Hey, internet! So, I just taught a live class for my students in Rachel’s English Academy, and something kind of funny happened, and I wanted to share it with you.

As I was working with the student on her overall sound and how to sound more natural, I realized that it actually helped her a lot to sound really good and really natural speaking American English if she did this thing that I named the ‘monster voice’.

In case you don’t know who I am, my name is Rachel and I’ve been teaching the American accent for over two decades. I’m so passionate about helping non-native speakers of English sound the way they want to sound speaking English and I would love to give you my free cheat sheet that shows the mouth positions for all of the sounds in American English. So if you want to check that out, please scan this QR code or go to the link in the video description.

So I’m going to show you some clips from the live class. I actually worked with two students on this and I’m going to say if you imitate this and you get the monster voice, you absolutely nail it, you absolutely figure out how to do it and you do it a lot and get used to the feeling of it, and then you drop American English into that shape of the body that you have to make to make the monster voice, you’re going to sound so natural speaking American English, so please give it a try.

Here’s the first student I worked with. Her native language is German.

I actually thought it was better. Okay, do it again.

Two weeks.

Yes.

Just see what happens if we bring it down to an unreasonable pitch that we would never actually speak with, but just to see what it feels like in the body. Two weeks.

Two weeks.

Two.

Yeah. Like I, I can’t go lower than that as much as I would like to. Two. Oh, try that.

Two.

Uh-huh. So, that sort of has this openness to it. You know, I said the two weeks felt a little narrow when we go two. It’s like we have to open everything. Obviously, I’d be crazy to try to speak that way, but what if you worked on that feeling? Two. Two. And then tried to put regular speech into it.

Two.

Uhhuh. That’s mellow. I like that a lot. I think that would be an interesting exercise for you to work on. Two. Two. I mean, I feel like God, I just really have to let everything be open and relaxed for that. Two. And then okay, let’s put let’s put regular speech in that shape of body.

Two.

Uhhuh. Let’s try, let’s try that. Two weeks.

Two weeks.

Oh, let’s just do two.

Two.

You know what? I want everybody, I want everybody to work on their monster voice.

Two.

Feel just like really feel your body in that moment.

Two.

And now.

Two.

And now, two weeks.

Two weeks.

It was a little emphasis, but I actually thought it was better. Okay, do it again.

Two weeks.

Yes, that was smoother. There was less punch to it. I also love that you heard right. You’re like, you did it. And then you were like, no, no. That’s really what I’m wanting to build for all of you is the ability to when you’re working on something here that you there’s a tweak that you still want to make. Like that is a great sign. Um, okay. So, we’re going to find another phrase and I want to think about bringing the monster voice, that’s what we’ll call it.

Two.

That openness, that mellowness, that space is where we’re going to put regular speech. Is it, what time is it there? It’s the afternoon, early evening?

In Germany, yeah, it’s 4:17PM.

Okay. What did you do today?

Uh, today I’m pretty much still on vacation because as I told you, I had this intensive CELTA course and it was like 60 hours per week and five weeks and I’m pretty much running on fumes and that’s why I took a little break and yeah.

It’s like in the nose quite a bit. A little bit nasal.

I took a little.

Uh, monster. Uh, I took a little.

I took a little.

Yes. Wow. Let’s play it. Say it. That was very different, that was great.

I took a little.

I took a little break.

Yeah, that’s nice. It’s come down a lot. It’s much less nasal. It feels a lot more like it’s coming from the chest. What does it feel like to you? Does it feel like you’re just imitating something or does it feel like there’s a feeling you’re going for?

It’s a feeling because you know like one year ago I worked on my placement actually, but then I stopped it because it was pretty much not on point but it was, I had it down pretty much.

Yeah.

But now, I took a break from it and I feel that even now I’ve just felt it that it’s still sometimes too high so I think maybe I need to revisit it.

When you were working on the placement, what were what content were you using?

Oh, your videos and then I was also doing humming exercises like humming scales and putting the hand on the chest for the vibration, yeah.

Yeah. In the past year, I have created quite a bit of new content really focused on placement and it is the first three modules of the daily plan. I’ve redone the daily plan.

So, we’re talking about placement, which has a huge effect on how natural you sound speaking English. If you’ve never heard about this before, please check out this video on placement. I’ll also link to it in the video description. It’s so important to understand this if your goal is to sound more natural speaking English.

And the first three modules of that focus heavily on placement and can really help I think you discover new things about it. You know, also you said you were doing humming exercises and that feels to me a little bit like monster voice. You know, it’s like a similar kind of feeling. So, I can see how that would be really relevant and I would definitely invite you to, you know, this video of us working together will be in the Academy in like two weeks. Watch that several times. You know, as you’re working with the soundboard in the Academy, let’s say you’re working on a conversation, one of the conversations, and you’re working with the soundboard. I would say it would be interesting to even try it in monster voice. Like whatever your, you know, a little teeny tiny phrase, you hear it like let’s say it was ‘I took a little.’ and you’re hearing ‘I took a little.’ and you’re saying ‘I took a little.’ And you’re just really trying to work that relaxation in. If you are speaking from that body shape. I took a little. I took a little. There’s no way the placement’s going to be too high and up in your nose, but it’s going to take a while to establish knowing that body shape.

What do you think? Monster voice. Is this something you’re going to use? Is it something you’re going to try? Let me know in the comments below if you’re experimenting with it right now.

Here’s the second student I worked with. Her native language is Polish.

Austin.

The ending. I want to be.

Okay. Alright.

Let’s just do the ending. I just want to hear the ending.

Uh-huh. Even shorter.

You know what? Here, here’s what I’m hearing.

And here’s what I want.

So, when I’m imitating you,

I’m putting it there.

And when I’m doing it a different way,

it’s very here.

Let’s do monster voice like I did with Claudia.

Okay.

Faster.

Okay. Now, we’re going to try to lower the pitch with that.

Okay. Now, we’re going to take that feeling and we’re going to just bring it into the ending.

That’s better. Before it was very and now it’s more—

Let me hear it again.

Uhhuh. Right. Right.

Okay. So, what do you what like what’s happening in your throat when you do that?

I can hear the sound coming from my like almost from my chest. Yeah.

And my tongue is flat.

Mhm.

Like almost melted.

Your tongue?

Mhm.

Uhhuh.

Yeah. I love this. You and Claudia are both giving me like cool new words to use and to think about it. Mellow and your tongue is melted.

That’s right. It’s like we we’re not really engaging it very much. Okay. Now, thinking about all of those things plus your monster voice, let’s try faster.

Faster.

Yeah. Faster.

Faster.

Yes. That’s a lot less here. Faster.

Yes.

Faster. Okay. The other word is this word.

Radar.

Okay, yeah. This was just a mispronunciation. It’s actually radar. R.

Radar.

Yes. Exactly. If something’s on your radar. That word is radar. Like car.

I see.

Yeah.

Radar.

Exactly. So, it was just that a mispronunciation of that word. It wasn’t that you’re, you knew the pronunciation and couldn’t quite get it.

Okay. Then the last word I wanted to work on is this word.

Ah, reduction.

Yes. So, there were two reasons why I wanted to work on it. When you first said it, it was like ree. You know just like what we were doing with faster.

Reduction.

Monster. Reduction.

And then the other thing was your vowel was very a–  

Let me just hear you monster voice that uh, a little bit.

Bring your pitch down even more.

Yes.

Okay. Now feel that feeling. And now, keep that feeling.

Hold on.

I think we Let’s try lowering the pitch.

Yes. Now from all the way down there.

Just hold it out.

Yes.

I love, I’m seeing you think beforehand about the feeling. You’re locking in the feeling before you’re speaking and it’s the right sound.

Mhm.

That’s what we want to try to do.

Feel it in the body before we even start to phonate, before we even start talking. Obviously, not all the time, but just when we’re doing this focused work. Reductions, that’s a long word. So, we’re going to um, we’re just going to start by shortening it to the animal. Duck.

Duck.

Okay, hold on. That was a little bit, duck. Do you hear a difference when I say it like that?

Yes.

Duck.

Yes. Keep playing with it.

Duck.

Okay. I really like what I’m hearing. To me, it sounds like you’re saying duck and dog, you know, and which makes sense because when the O vowel isn’t played slow enough, it sounds more like the A vowel like in dog. A duck.

Duck.

Yes. Yes! Very different from duck.

Yes.

Yeah. So, that right there, duck versus duck, that change in body position is like the one overall overarching thing that if you could do that all the time and somehow get all the speech to fit into that, it would change everything. I mean, already you’ve changed so much. Um, like I said, when I was listening to your two recordings, I was like, the placement improved, the linking is now perfect. Um, and then plus all of these little things, but there is sometimes still the ‘duck’ kind of feeling in it.

Mhm.

And we can take that out. And just like I said with Claudia, sometimes we’re going to think specifically about placement like we just did.

Duck.

Other times you’re really focused on a reduction and by getting the reduction right, you’re automatically having to change that because you can’t really make the reduction.

Right.

In that highway. Oh, when you just said ‘right’, that placement was so good. So, I think keep approaching it from these many different ways. It sounds very good. And I think you know maybe do play around just like I said to Claudia, this is going to be my new thing. Do play around with that monster voice because it does sort of open up a new shape of the body which is so which impacts the overall sound so positively.

Yeah, I’ll do that.

If you want to join Claudia or Mon in my Academy, please check out RachelsEnglishAcademy.com. I would love to have you as a student. You can also keep your learning going now with this video and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on. I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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