3 Great Tips To Speak Fluently In English
Learn how to speak English fluently!
Hi, from Speak More Clearly!
In this training video I would like to give you some tips to improve your ability to speak more fluently in English.
Just before I do this, I want to talk about what fluency means.
Fluency doesn’t only equal how fast you speak.
Yes, when someone speaks a language fluently, they can speak it quickly, but fluency doesn’t only mean how fast you speak.
We often have students say “I want to speak faster. I want to be more fluent.”
If you speak more quickly, but no one can understand you, that doesn’t mean you are fluent.
If you speak quickly, but use the wrong rhythm in English, or stress the wrong syllable in English, then you won’t be understood easily, and that doesn’t mean you are fluent.
So fast speech isn’t the only thing that makes your speech fluent.
Speech fluency is a term that describes sounds, syllables, words and phrases when joined together. It refers to continuity, smoothness, rate, and effort in speech production.
Another way to look at speech fluency is smoothness of accuracy, rate, and prosody. Prosody being expression – so stress, rhythm and intonation.
All of these elements come together to create speech fluency.
Having said that, let’s have a look at some of the elements that contribute to fluent speech.
English Fluency Tip 1
First, let’s look at accuracy.
This means accurate production of sounds, syllables words and then putting these into sentences. It means learning to say your consonants and vowels clearly and accurately in English. Learning to especially make your vowels long enough for English, so that you are fluent and understood well, and so when you speak more quickly you don’t cut your vowels short.
Then, practicing these sounds till you can hit the sounds exactly in your mouth, even when you speed up your speech rate.
Because of this, we’ve included exact descriptions of how to make the English sounds in your mouth, and hundreds of sentences to practice with in our courses, so you can make your speech accurate.
English Fluency Tip 2
Next let’s look at rate.
This doesn’t just mean the speed with which you speak.
To have smooth speech rate in English also includes the ability to link words so you sound flowing and smooth and not choppy.
It also includes the ability to pause when you need, and to phrase or group or chain words together in a sentence.
We have training tips on these on our website under the English Pronunciation Tips tab here, and of course in our Australian, British and American pronunciation courses.
English Fluency Tip 3
And now let’s look at stress, rhythm and intonation.
As in any language, these elements are very important for speech fluency as well.
Speech fluency in English includes stressing the correct syllable or syllables in a word of more than one syllable.
It includes stressing or emphasizing the correct words in a sentence. As you stress a vowel in a syllable, your pitch will go up and down, which begins to bring correct intonation into your speech fluency as well. In some languages, the pitch just goes down for a stressed word.
Are you using intonation in English to correctly signal your meaning or intention? For example, using correct intonation to signal a question, statement, or if you’re not sure of something etc.
You have many sentences, dialogs and narratives to practice copying these particular fluency elements with our trainer in our courses, now that you know what you are listening for.
So, to speak fluently in English doesn’t only mean to speak more quickly.
It means smoothness of accuracy, rate, and prosody.
If you found this video helpful, please share it with someone who would benefit from it 🙂
Also, for more tips and practise materials, check out this video lesson on tips to improve English speech fluency.
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