LIVE Q&A with Colin from English Language Club

but I just double share this doesn't know it's starting now it's nothing starting now should be so you don't have to press go like no there we go we alive hi guys welcome back to my channel or if you're new here then hello and welcome to my channel my name is Emma and this is Colleen and what's the name of your channel : I am from the English language club do you see yourself I see that quite a lot of people are already in the comments so hello and welcome do tell us where you're from cuz as always I do like to know where people are from sir hello I saw that someone said before where was it there from Chile I know that was just in their name yeah that was it from North Yorkshire hello Abraham from North Yorkshire North Yorkshire I won't say Leonel from Costa Rica that's really nice we've got ha seen really sorry for mispronounced that from Algeria don't read a few some people yeah somebody says good day mates that's Fabio I'm not sure if he's from Australia today yeah you're from us from Australia I shouldn't do that have a terrible terrible interesting I think we should clarify because Previn says hello mom I want to join your English language club so just to clarify English language club is my youtube channel and pronunciation with Emma is yours we are collaborating on this live stream and the one that we just did a few minutes ago on my channel and I hope they will do some other collaborations in the future yes I hope so well we'll see how this one goes it may be a disaster but yes so we did do a live stream on Colleen's channel about half an hour ago so if you want to go and check that out go and check out his channel I put the link in the description below and both our channels are about teaching English but we do have distinctly different sort of you know approaches so it's worth subscribing to both if you aren't already if you want yeah so going back to a couple of people here offers from Peru hello Arthur nice to see you again Nina's from Holland that's the first time I've ever seen anyone from Holland in the comments yeah yeah I'm from Albania Wow we've got someone from Swindon after said are you in Bristol well yes and no we are not far we're in a top secret location [Laughter] the view from the window where we're in London now where we're pretty much in Bristol yeah I'm still in Bristol anyway got some people joining from the English language club from your channel so that's really nice hello to you new people that's nice from Dubai it must be late in some people's countries like India what time is it there must be I don't know a few hours ahead yeah in the future what's the future like is it good coz brexit happens yeah no it was so be waiting we'll be doing another live stream in two years ten years we'll still be waiting great so lots of people joining in debt so in today's you see in today's video just rolls off the tongue doesn't it right when you doing live streams and stuff in today's life we're gonna be talking about your grammar and pronunciation questions so I did ask you guys on social media what questions do you have about English whether it's about grammar pronunciation whatever Colin and I are here to answer those questions or going to try some people said it's nearly midnight in their countries Wow yeah it's quite late well thank you for watching thank you for staying up yes maybe there maybe they're in bed with a Horlicks what is Horlicks it's a very English drink it's a bit like a hot chocolate but it's not chocolate I don't know what it is it is malt it's malt yeah let me talk that in the comments for you guys then you can translate that but yeah it's made with with malt and you add milk or water and it's typically like a drink that old people have it's a bedtime drink they'll be in bed with their whole lives now in Dubai ok so what I'm gonna do firstly guys is answer some questions from Instagram because there were some really good ones on there so I want to pick some of those and then if you've got any questions during this live stream put them in the comments and we will try and answer those as we go along so let's see there is one here diana has said how to use at in and on in english it's difficult to say that and it is yeah I mean I still just read that question because I got so many add in on yes and that it is a huge topic prepositions are a very big subject that lots people have lots of problems with and it's very difficult to kind of come up with rules that that will because there's always going to be so many exceptions there are rules out there that you can follow that you can look at but there's always gonna be so many exceptions so that's what makes it difficult so it's not something we can just answer quickly in a you know quick live stream like this no there's no we need a whole well we need a whole series of videos and even then there'd be edge cases that we leave out so with that yeah I don't think I'll say any more about that other than watch this space I guess it's something it's something I want to get into I do want to do some more good series on and prepositions things the thing is is when people ask me you know am i of problems with prepositions they don't specify the kind of prepositions because there are different types of prepositions so you have for example prepositions of place so like is it on the table on the floor on the wall is it in the bag is it in the wall and so on are you at the door are you on the door you know things like that so that's more preposition of place and that can sometimes be tricky because you can say oh well it is on the tables on the surface or it is even because it's inside act because it's a general location but then you've got those confusing ones like are you on the corner in the corner at the corner because all three are possible but they all mean different things so it's something and then obviously that's prepositions of space but you can also use in at on same prepositions in the context of time on time in time at a certain time and then it's you know the same words but in a completely different context with a completely different meanings so that's the other confusing thing that we use the same words in different contexts with completely different meanings yeah just and then you've got the horrible one where is just prepositions that go with verbs and there's literally no rule for it you've got things like phrasal verbs where you literally change the preposition and it changes the meaning entirely you know get up is different to get on get off get over get under so on and so yeah that can be a bit of a disaster I tend to find that's the one people have more problems with yeah so you can see what kind of worms this is by kind of worms that you through those of you don't know I mean it's it's something that just gets worse and worse the more you think about it in the right way to be systematic and you know and I would say because there are so many exceptions try to just learn the basic core things rules and then don't at that at that point you have to stop trying to learn through because there is no rule for the exceptions you have to kind of learn the exceptions naturally yeah and then you just let them absorb as you as you observe people using them and then emulate that and it just takes time yeah that's it that's the main thing people want to learn English now no no no want to be fluent but it really takes some time doesn't it to learn any language I guess this leads on to a really nice question that Ahmed asked I've just lost did teachers believe oh sorry let me rephrase the question because it's phrased a little a little difficult me so basically I made is asking how should engage grammar be taught which is an interesting one because this is something that even academics can't agree on you know when I was doing my masters and academics were like oh it should be this way and then others were saying no no teachers shouldn't even really teach grammar they should allow students to simply absorb it and so you I don't know well what we got to remember is that each individual student is different and everyone's brain is wired differently and I think that there is a kind of scale there are the people at one end of the scale who are very think they think very logically and they and for those people it's kind of studying the grammar and understanding how it works or to what extent it works logically is useful and I'm more on that end but then there's other people who would not like that who that where they try and when they try and understand the rules and things it just doesn't make any sense it just confuses them and I get frustrated that was like me with German right so I've been there guys okay so for you it's pretty better to learn just more naturally through listening and and you know trying things out trial and error so I I think that I think it's a silly debate for the academics to have they need to realize there is no one right way to teach things because it depends on the student you know on the individual shoot it does yeah and also kind of why they're learning because I feel a lot of the time if you're studying for an exam maybe having the grammar like maybe actually knowing the term so things like you know learning the difference between past simple present perfect past perfect past perfect continuous present perfect continuous as soon as I start saying these words to some people they're like wow I don't know what these words mean and that's fine you know that's absolutely fine because they probably absorb to the language in another way exactly if you say those those words to a native speaker they won't know what you're talking because that is not part of English it's part of grammar which is I think the academic a cessation of English so it is useful as the kind of just as to study the language but you don't necessarily need to know it to be able to speak the language you know but but depending on how your brain is wired you might find it really useful but you might not and again the important thing is do what helps you if you find studying grammar useful then do it if you don't if it confuses you then you shouldn't feel that you have to keep persevering with it and I think that's a mistake a lot of schools make they force people to just try to study in a way that isn't the way that they learn know exactly that that's the problem with some schools that have like 30 kids yeah one classroom yeah you can't always there's no one sizes I'm gonna take a couple of questions from Instagram because I don't want people thinking she's forgotten about us on Instagram so yet someone asked earlier where was it they were asking about thinking in English so this person asked now Naro Joe I really don't know if that's their name but I am sorry so they asked Emma do I need to think in English in order to speak it do I need to think in order to speak it hmm are you asking me I'm asking everyone in the comments tell us yeah I bet this is quite a tricky thing actually because I get asked a lot how do I think in English firstly hmm and I think that's something that comes with time that's not something that I can train you to do necessarily I can't just say oh this is how you think in English and then you go home and you start thinking in English you need to start changing things in your life and your everyday routine that kind of start training your brain to start thinking in English so simple things like reading you know reading a book reading a chapter each day or switching your phone into English yeah little things like that that can definitely help in over time you'll start to think what you'll find will happen is you'll be speaking your native language I don't know if you ever had the same problem with Spanish I know I do but I'll be speaking my native language which is English and then I want to say something in English but the English word isn't there you know but the Spanish word is there and that's the moment when I realized like ah okay this is weird because now my brain is no longer going to the English compartment something is happening and it's starting to think in Spanish yeah so I don't know if you've ever had that because you can speak as well which can't you yeah a little bit I'm a little bit more maybe cynical about the whole concepts of thinking in English because I've seen it used as a kind of marketing marketing you know tagline yeah there was one school when I was working in Paraguay and they said if you come and learn with us you're thinking you weren't just speaking you're thinking English no just like it doesn't it doesn't work like that you know it's just I but but what I do think is thinking in English is kind of a level this is the level that you get to I mean yeah in Spanish maybe my Spanish it isn't good I think in Spanish so much but maybe when I was when I was living in Paraguay I did too I did think a little bit English but not completely yeah you mean thinking Spanish yeah that's one it yeah it does happen but I don't think it's something that we should be trying to do I think it just will happen when you're when your English gets to a certain level as long as you are in you know immersed in an environment where you're using English a lot and you're surrounded by English so it still may not even happen if you're living in another country even if your language does get to that point you might think when you might you might think in English when you are stuck you know studying with people when you are studying but then when you go away and you're with your other friends or your family you know you stop thinking English so yeah yes it's not really something I think people should think about I think you'll need what happen if it happens you shouldn't think about thinking English that's colleagues I'd advise guys yeah thinking about being good in English no but you're right people panic about things and they they pre occupy themselves with things that are just not important you know what I mean there's a good question here how can I recognize phrasal verbs easily if they are separable or in separate that's funny because that question was gonna be my next one right just before this one actually yes asked about this on Instagram so thank you Diego okay so how can I recognize phrasal verbs well but you mean specifically whether they can be split or not there's a rule about this which is quite I just can't remember off the top of my head what it is okay yes so I think it's something to do with let's take an example take off is it phrasal verb now an airplane takes off or you can take off your jacket or you can take your jacket off but a plane doesn't you can't take a plane off so it's it's separable in the context of a jacket but not separable in the context of an aeroplane now in the aeroplane context it you're not using the verb literally it's you're not taking its but with a jacket you are taking you are you take the jacket off it's more lit it's a more literal meaning and we're phrasal verbs have different meanings there's always one that's more literal and one that's more metaphoric yeah so I think as a general rule it's the more literal meanings that can be separable but again there's going to be lots of exceptions and you need to look at each one individually really yeah I do recommend that students when when they're reading I push reading so much because people do not do it enough they just neglect it and my next question is going to be about reading that's the more that you read and the more that you expose yourself to language so if you really hate reading have a look on Netflix you know there are some really nice plugins I can't remember the name of one plug-in that I use I can't I'll have a look later I'll put it in the description but there's a plug-in you can use where you can show two sets of subtitles so you can have the English subtitles and you can have the ones in your native language so when I'm watching things in Portuguese of course I have them Portuguese in English and that's how I'm able to pick up new words and phrases and things like that so what you can do when you're when you're reading and everything and everything whatever watching TV series is take notice of how they're using all these phrasal verbs in what context because if you're just memorizing lists of phrasal verbs that's not how we learnt them we learned them from doing exactly what I'm telling you we just watched TV shows and just maybe a star parents dad what does that mean oh just pick it up from the context exactly that's it yeah exactly there's a really good dictionary though if you're not able to get it from the context sometimes it can be tricky and I recommend the Macmillan online dictionary I'll put that in the in the chat actually not sure how to spell it actually I think you like this Macmillan it's completely free and it's the best dictionary I've come across for phrasal verbs but do be warned sometimes phrasal verbs have more than one meaning normally they do yes so just be aware of that make sure you also look at the different definitions and you don't just take the first one take the definition which best fits the context where you found that phrasal verb yeah so it's not so much a question of which phrasal verbs can you split in which ones you can't it depends on what context you're using them yeah as well yeah and you can only get that through just listening and reading and listening and reading this in a reading that's an input input input so that you're able to produce output that's a theory you know the more input you have the more you can produce output seems like a simple theory make sense so related to that someone asked me on Instagram are there any books that you recommend about British culture so not about books in general about British culture British culture Thanks there's a really good one called watching the English do you know about this so go watch it yeah maybe you'll heard about it through your Instagram didn't you put it on Instagram I did yes so if you go to my Instagram page you can see me reading sections of it they're watching the English is good oh there's another one called the xenophobes guide to the English can you think of any Bill Bryson he's a book called notes from a small island and that's a really good sort of Americans take on English so the differences between Americans and British culture not the language but the culture because he's actually lived for quite a long time in the UK but he's an American yeah and he's an excellent writer as well so I'd recommend that book if you were interested in culture yep but it's weird a British car I don't really think about British cars it's just it's so mixed isn't it when people yeah again there's there's lots of different cultures when people talk about British culture I mean I have friends who are who are from where they're from was from from Pakistan and so their culture even though their parents well I think their grandparents were from Pakistan then they moved to England their parents were born here and then there's my friend and then their culture the way that she talks about her life is so different to how I talk about my life and how I grew up in my culture I think many people think about Englanders you know we sit around drinking tea and yeah and there are stereotypes that are very old that don't really exist in the real world very much I think and a lot and Harry Potter if you look at the Harry Potter books they kind of draw on those very old old Britishness in a way stereotypical yeah yeah yeah there's a sort of Victorian it's just not really well you won't get that in the written if you come to the UK much these days they're quite posh only yeah very portion Harry Potter we don't normally speak like that do we it's a little bit weird isn't it it's like when people tell me that they want to speak like the Queen and I tell them no don't do that because no one speaks like the Queen besides the Queen you know you know you like that accent well related to that there's another question from Shaam at Kay who says as a non-native English speaker which accent should I prefer well you interesting you prefer what you prefer your own preference is your own preference but what you mean is which one should I and should I learn or which one should I focus on what do you think British of course no no like that answer this question it is learn whichever one you want to learn because at the end of the day you are not going to exit your English class and speak like a Brit you're still going to have your own accent let's imagine you are a Spanish speaker you are not going to sound British from day one your accent is going to be Spanish and there's nothing wrong with that exactly I was gonna say that's fine you should not be ashamed of it at all okay but it might be that what they're getting at is between American and British English that that may be more the dialect like what words should they learn so they've been learning pants or trousers or biscuit or cookie you know the thing is is just learn English just learn just learn it because even if they come to the UK and they say something like cookie we still know what they exactly the same if you go over to America and you say oh do you like my trousers people will be like oh yeah I like your pants you know I think British people will understand American better than Americans understand British because because of movies and music that is so dominated by Americans that we're obviously a lot more exposed to American English than theirs in day out of British English but that's you know it's a minor thing yeah so I mean it may be it depends a little bit about why you're learning English do you want to study in America maybe you should probably you should probably learn American English yeah but if it's for the UK if you learn British English but if it's not either of those things then I just I mean just learn whatever you prefer you exactly if you like us on YouTube then learn British English because that's what we're teaching we're in the UK but if you find another youtuber that you like more than us which you probably won't who's in America then you know you'll learn American from them but really just I mean you can learn both like it's the same it's the same language it's just slightly different vocabulary that's favored in one place to another and it's and I've talked about this before in a video that's talking about American angels talking about American English and British English is an oversimplification because American from New York is very different from American from Texas and that's very different from American from California British English from Bristol is very difficult different to London and that's very different to Scotland you know so but then there is what we call RP received pronunciation and that's kind of what I always try to teach and that's what I think my actual language since teaching has sort of become more RP and less London yeah I don't know about you has your accent changed you think you're the way you speak has changed definitely yeah because this is not how I normally speak if I spoke to my dad like this I'd be like oh you sound really posh so yeah this isn't how I would normally speak I had to change because when I was in Spain I remember I had a very strong accent and I once said to to to like a group of students something like oh when you go to pub and this one this one boy was like they'd said what is bull like ok I need to change my accent because he's finding it difficult to understand me but of course not everyone's gonna do that not everyone's gonna change that accent for you so yeah but someone did make an interesting point earlier Merce what about the difference is saying first for a ground floor it is different so it can be confusing if I'm honest natives even make this mistake there are times when even I've said oh it's on the first floor when actually I mean the ground floor yeah it's like I'm trying to think of some other examples like that but yeah I mean as a general rule in the UK we have the ground floor and then if you go upstairs one floor that's the first floor make sense to cyclists no because the first floor that you come into will be the ground floor logical in British yes well anyway but in America they talk about the they don't have a ground floor the ground floor is the first floor so but I yeah I've also when I was living in Paraguay I think actually some buildings it was one way other buildings it was another way is cockney accent used in formal speech did you ever hear any cockney formal formal speech sounds a bit of an oxymoron doesn't it but it's like the accent doesn't quite exist does it yeah but but but being your accent and whether your being formal you can be formal in any accent exactly this is what people are sometimes confusing is yes register so is the question is there can you have a formal cockney accent it's called you things that you can formal speech you can be formal in cockney yes if you just are yeah if you're speaking in a more formal way yeah which so what does it mean to be formal let's talk about that that's it's through your the choice of language it doesn't matter whether I speak with a Yorkshire accent or a more neutral accent it depends on the kind of words that I use that would that will convey the formality wouldn't it rather than my accent yeah and another thing is in informal language we tend to be less direct so we might instead of saying what's the time I might say excuse me do you have the time that's true so yeah as a general rule being less direct makes you more formal and obviously that's got nothing to do with whether you're talking there cockney accent or a Scottish accent they're very different things you can be formal or informal in any accent we have some really interesting questions coming through I'm not gonna answer it any more from Instagram because a lot of you guys are answering the same ones here in the chat so no more from Instagram there and so if you do have any questions let us know because there aren't so many questions coming through so we're so sorry for not able to answer all of them but there are a lot so yeah do be patient if we're not answering your question a lot of people saying what they prefer the British accent or most people saying they prefer British accent that there's unsurprising singers there on our make sense you have fallen pronunciation with Emma and she I yep is are from England I am from England had a problem conjugating there a lot of people have been asking questions I've seen like there the entire livestream about articles so asking about the urn I don't know whether that's the pronunciation or whether it's the use but we could talk about the use of that a little bit because it's been popping up by quite a few people so I mean when you're talking about something in general you would use up or earner let me type those in the comments for you so you've got ah and then you've got in if you have a consonant sound coming after the article then you will use uh so you have for example a table okay table starts with it it is a consonant sound so it's gonna be if I have a vowel sound then I'm gonna use and no notice I'm saying bowel sound not vowel letter because there are problems with students seeing for example the letter e and they think up it's a vowel but actually it's may be pronounced as a yeah sound and yet is considered a consonant sound in English yes yellow so if I say for example a European hmm okay a European I am thank you or a peon so even though it begins with an e it begins with a vowel letter it actually starts with a yeah like this yeah yeah European a European so yeah would be like sorry n would be like an apple but then that's when you're talking generally when do we use the the well so the if you're talking about something a specific thing as opposed to as opposed to N or yeah because you could have you could have an apple but they could be it doesn't matter which one it is but if you're talking about a specific Apple that that is the Apple that I ate no you wouldn't this is the Apple I I'm going to eat yeah yeah this one no not the other one you know there are some apples they're all an apple but this is the one that I'm gonna eat so that's why it's the definite article because it's more precise yeah you know exactly which one you're talking about that's basically it I think the one thing that confuses people is when we start talking about for example countries which have articles because in some languages they they have articles for countries and in English we don't build you have some like the Philippines the United Kingdom the Alps I know the Alps is a country but it's a geographical location and so this can confuse some people so yeah yeah you just have to learn there's no solid rule for those one person did tell me oh it it's if it's for a cluster like a group of islands or something or a group of something like a group of mountains but I found many exceptions to that rule so it's tricky to say any other questions guys Schank says love your voice I know that's my voice or your voice so any other questions about any topic can be pronunciation can be grammar if we've missed your questions then do feel free to put them in the chat again because we probably have missed them yes what's the best way to improve your speaking skills one person hears suggest just speak speak all of a sudden yes that is that is the best advice this is the only way yeah and some people and don't be afraid to make mistakes you know that's that's how you learn if you're not making mistakes you know trying hard enough and that goes for everything not just like not just learning a language if you're if you're trying to if a baby's trying to learn to walk you know if he never falls over it's not you know you need to push him but yeah this is the thing is um there was one analogy that I read that was quite nice I can't remember who who it was from but they were talking about making mistakes and riding a bicycle you know when you get on the bicycle the first time you don't know how to control your balance and so you fall you scrape your knees you hurt yourself but you get back on that bike and you keep going you keep going and you keep going you keep persisting language learning is the same just imagine falling off a bike is making a mistake you know you make a mistake but you get back on that metaphorical language by can you keep practicing and the good thing is when you make mistakes in English you're not likely to break a leg so yeah you know there's absolutely there's really nothing to be afraid of no the only this is something I keep saying to people make mistakes because you're not going to die no one has ever died from making a mistake and saying no no one has ever made a mistake when I don't know accidentally confusing tenses or something and saying I goat instead of I wish no one has died but it is an interesting point though because yes you need to make them fix but but you also need to be in a context where you will be corrected constructively because I work with a lot of people who speak English as a second language and they you know I hear I hear all sorts of mistakes all the time I don't always correct them because that will get annoying and it's not the right context in my day job which is completely unrelated to teaching yeah you know it wouldn't be appropriate but sometimes I do if I feel like it is you know is appropriate and it's normally quite well-received and people say to me our people never correct me I've been saying that for years yeah I'm saying that wrong and no one ever corrects me so I guess if you're in an educational situation if you're in a class or something then you're obviously your teacher should be correcting you and in that those are the times where you really need to be pushing yourself and you know just saying what's on your mind and and seeing if it's there they will correct you if it's right but what about in other contexts do you think people need to know you have absolutely no obligation to you to correct you know people think oh I understand what you mean so I'll just let that mistake it's only because I've taught English that I know that people who actually appreciate it when you when you correct them if you do it the right way but yeah if I was a you know regular person who hasn't taught English then I would be would be a little bit apprehensive of correcting people's English because I feel like they might be insulted if I if I do that so maybe you know let people around you know that you won't be insulted if yeah if they correct you and things like that just to kind of get that feedback sometimes as well people don't realize they're being corrected this has happened in some of my classes when students are said Emma why don't you correct me and like me I correct you all the time no you don't but their idea of correction is being literally corrected in that moment when they make the mistake so pay attention because what a lot of native English speakers will do is they'll basically read their like repeat back what you said so let's imagine call him you know he says something like Oh yesterday I go to the shop I said oh you went to the shop so notice I repeated what he said but I corrected him and a lot of people do you model that's it it's so much less invasive as well yeah because English people we we don't want to we don't want to upset you I know you won't be upset but it's just how we are we don't like being direct yeah so we tend to go for this method so the listening and speaking go hand in hand yeah so listen listen carefully as well and try to emulate what you what you hear if it's different from what you would say yourself and then if it if it's right you'll kind of get a sense of if it's if it's been understood better than normal and then you'll then you'll know and hopefully that will you know become the way you do it hopefully there's not a good question here s for v1k says my accent sounds mostly German even though I'm not from any German country what am I doing wrong hmm that's really interesting because they said they sound German that means that they're making certain mistakes that German speakers would make so very typical ones are for example confusing at and err so a lot of German speakers they don't say Apple they say Apple because they don't have app in German so yeah they'll say things like het instead of hat like the thing you put on your head another mistake is the what and the ver so instead of saying things like village they'll say Williams another thing is like the th sounds but that's kind of a universal one you know changing them for Z and so instead of saying like that they'll say that you know things like that or even that it kind of depends with her from in Germany I think but so focusing on these these particular phonemes that perhaps are not used as much in German as they are in English and it's probably the case that those those sounds phonemes are not used in your language as they are in English in the same way they're not used in German and that's why people are confused with German so yeah focus on those and I always say pronunciation is physical if you're saying something wrong it's because you're doing something wrong with your your lips or your tongue so focus on that exactly it could also be a case of intonation you know maybe you you're kind of speaking in a way that Germans would in their native language so when Germans speak it tends to be a little bit more like this like they tend to go up and down a little bit more does the intonation sounded a little bit more Swedish but is this a similar kind of intonation pattern as well what's good to know is that German and English are both stress time languages so that's also good to have a look at have a look at some videos on stress in English sentence stress and word stress you could also be stressing it in the wrong way I do have some videos on my channel about sentence stress and word stress so that could be something to take a look at oh yeah have a look this person as well has been asking a lot through the through the live but I'm just lost like question it was something about linking vowels and vowels and so Khalid I said what about Val vowel linking in RP I need a book or a website no you don't need a book you don't need a website you're do you know much about linking valve are linking well to be honest this is this kind of this is the kind of level that my channel doesn't really go into yeah of phonetics but I think you probably do a little bit more because you focus more on on on phonetics I sort of dabbled in phonetics to the extent at which I think it's helpful for people learning English as a foreign language but it goes much deeper than that because it is a whole academic subject in itself and it's that that level is something that I wear you know is I'm out of my depth so it's not something like I know my way of saying yeah so basically when it comes to Val vowel linking what this person is essentially asking is it when you've got two words together in a sentence when the first word ends with a vowel and the next word starts with a vowel they link together okay so they link in three ways they can link with a were a year or a row so we yeah we'll start with that one first with the it tends to be when the first word ends with what we call a spread vowel now I can tell by callings face um a spread vowel is essentially when your mouth is spread so it's like these kind of what I call smiley vowels I do have a video about connected speech specifically about Val Val connected speech that I did with Sabra and she also called them smiley vowel so that's also they would be on the phonetic charts that I do use quite a lot they would be the ones on the left hand side no not always yeah because you got like the diphthongs as well well maybe the diphthongs are on the right exactly I mean some of them are yeah no but I mean the left-hand side of the valve section okay we we just use the vowels including the monophthongs and the diphthongs we use both of them so yeah diphthongs like a you know if I say try to think of if I have this ending like say it so say ends with a diphthong a say yeah okay I would say say yet say yet and I'd link it with a yeah yeah naturally say it the next one would work this is when the first word ends with what we call a rounded vowel so it would be sounds like and then diphthongs like oh oh so your mouth is oh it is this rounded shape so if I said something like go out go out then you read oh yeah yeah because you can't it's very difficult to say go well the wood is kind of go if I just said go unreleased what then it becomes a WoW when you when you add out don't go wow wow yeah you're kind of like half pronouncing a w aren't you with the first one and then the last one we're up so this tends to be one you have more relaxed vowels so ones like schwa so like as a doctor so if I say something like the doctor is you notice when I pronounce it separately I say the doctor is I don't pronounce that are at the end of doctor but if I say it together it'll be the doctor reigns the doctor is busy I've got a point a question on this what you all the stuff we've just talked about actually is it is physical this is why I always say pronunciation is physical and the reason we link these words these sounds is because at the end of saying go our mouth is in this shape physically and at the beginning of out it's you know and the actual sound that you make when we say well you know we do that is that's why we made a sound it's physical it's not something that we're trying to do it's just it's just the nature of the fact of the physicality of we're on the Mount the shape that our mouth is at one point and so what it is at the next point so really this should just be happening subconsciously yeah we don't really think about it so should we be thinking should people be thinking about it when studying English yes and I'll tell you why but a lot of students they struggle with listening and they tell me Oh native speakers they speak way too fast yeah but actually we don't English is one of the slowest spoken languages the fastest are ones like Japanese if you're if you're talking about so there are two ways to measure the speed of language is it the message communicated or is it the number of syllables well you have to actually pick that one yeah so for example if you're talking about the number of syllables the fastest languages are like Spanish Spanish is one of the fastest English is one of the slowest I think below English is German so Germans are a little bit slower than English so English speakers actually don't speak fast we don't use probably speak way faster in your native language so when we listen and you you think oh but I don't speak fast I speak normal speed but it's the same for us we're speaking normal speed now if I were to spin like this was being incredibly fast yeah I'm calling even he couldn't understand so yeah the thing that people tend to tend to have problems with is things like connected speech ellipsis so when we remove words and when we remove sounds from words we cut them we use contractions so instead of saying do not we say don't and so on so it can appear fast but actually we're just cutting sounds cutting words adding sounds to connect words so sometimes sentences sound like they have one really long word but actually it's three or four put together that's why I think it's important maybe you think again like we said earlier it real depends on the individual so if you find studying this is really helpful then you should study it if you don't and you shouldn't worry too much about it unless you've got passed an exam or something like that yeah I think this sort of thing will just come when you learn you know you learn that if you learn all this this is why I focus on the main phonetic chart with the 44 sounds because you know those sounds and you're getting them right as you start speaking every all these sort of stuff will just fall into place but it is kind of interesting to think about it if you find it interesting yeah but not if you don't and so I don't think it's that necessary no I mean it's one of those things that is like on the to-do list when you're learning I think it's not one of the first things you should learn you know start with your basic phrases and your basic conjugation of to be and things like that and then as you start getting more familiar with the language I would say start looking at connected speech as early as you can I tend to recommend like intermediate level but yeah you need to get in quickly before you start making mistakes and fossilized errors and things like that anyway yeah see you've highlighted [Music] what's the difference between among although even though despite and in spite of Wow there's a lot of words yes there are a lot of differences between all of them yes so long and although and yeah so instead I think you yeah I said between when he'd written among I think he meant although yeah what's the difference between although and even though get some despite and in spies yeah I'll let you handle this one it's like that I think I talk too low in the last one although and even though so those are quite interchangeable army although I like chips I don't eat them every day even though I like chips I don't eat them every day you can use them exactly the same there although although has another Muse where you can say like what I just like I just used it then it's kind of like however yeah you can be used like and then despite an in spite in spite of highlighting that not to correct you but because people miss it yeah so okay yes well it's good that you've got the off cuz yeah that's that's important despite I'm just trying to think of an example question because then it becomes easier to explain it so despite the weather I still like England yeah in spite of the weather I still like England so that in that context they're very similar mm-hm despite despite and in spite of are pretty much interchangeable I did a live lesson about this I think it was last week or the week before there there is difference in terms of how they used I research the research just in case there was some special case or something like that but there's no difference between them which one of those do you think you use more often I think I definitely say despite more often than I would say in spite yeah I think I would but maybe that's simply because we're a bit lazy and it's just one might think maybe in spite of can be a little bit more emphatic you say in spite of that though it's a bit more emphatic than just despite that it's tricky isn't it because it all depends on context dependent stress how much do you emphasize that my despites done and then you're emphasizing it aren't you well in spite of that then you still emphasizing it in the same way I would I would say they're the same okay so another one the question is they're pretty interchangeable so don't worry about it too much we might have to make this last question this question our last one yeah we've gone on quite a long time with easily the question it is yeah that's why I'd like to finish off with this one but we could probably I accidentally talked about for another 20 minutes but yeah this one's a good one please suggest some British TV shows I'm talking about TV shows why aren't we earlier some TV shows that I really like some British ones I've recently started watching peaky blinders and we were talking about this and whether it lives up to the hype that's a good phrase I don't mind it right now it seems to be okay I see someone was recommended peaky blinders yeah the problem with peaky blinders is that the accent is from Birmingham and the accent in Birmingham is incredibly strong I have to have subtitles on because I find it really hard to understand what they're saying so like they were I was actually watching an episode today and then this one guy said something so fast I had to press the button to like skip back to ten seconds did you say yes I would say that's probably not the best show for picking up the English accent yeah because it's also set you know in in the past like and it's a kind of slightly antiquated Birmingham accent as well it's not necessarily modern well so that's not gonna be the best one I like Game of Thrones I think although it's kind of an American show it there's a lot of British actors most of the actors of British and it's mostly its films kind of all over the world but there's a lot of British actors so a lot of British accents so the accents in Game of Thrones are pretty good even some the American accents are kind of Anglo sizing their voice for the character so yeah I think from a language point of view Game of Thrones is quite good won Game of Thrones is good another one that I recommend that's very clear is the crown okay yeah I'm not seeing that yeah I've not seen that either cuz it's not really my cup of tea is the crown I don't know I'm not really into that kind of stuffs like Downton Abbey you know it's well Downton Abbey another good one again and then there you get to see kind of because the whole thing about Downton Abbey is to kind of the juxtaposition between the posh people upstairs and the workers the working-class downstairs you get to sort of see the two like they're two different accents they tend to be more like northern accent years well you know the people that were working under under the house in the basement someone suggested Monty Python that is something it's quite all this Monty Python though I'm trying to think of like more recent things but Monty Python is something yeah but the accents I don't think have changed they're very even though it's an old show compared to Downton Abbey the accents in Downton Abbey are deliberately antiquated whereas I think the language is is more modern in Monty Python even though it's forty years old yeah forty years old really maybe yeah yeah so didn't like sixties seventies yeah would be right yeah that's true someone recommended Sherlock now I don't mind Sherlock but it again is quite difficult he does speak incredibly fast that even I had to have subtitles on because he just spoke naturally fast so yeah yeah I found that tricky the office they were the British at the office yeah that's the humor though people might not understand the humor the office but make sure you look at the British Edition cuz there is the American one yeah one I definitely recommend though which has a mixture of accents is black mirror I really like black mirror but I'm really into like dystopian fiction I could never watch more than one episode of that once if you can't binge watch black mirror because that would just be too depressing you'd never leave the house and you to connect disconnect your internet so let me some suggested mr. bean but the whole thing about mr. bean is it's all visual yeah it's a great show but you're not gonna pick up much English from it exactly I use mr. bean a lot in my video with my videos in my lessons because it kind of forces the student to speak and describe what's going on because there are only actions that are going on but yeah someone recommended sex education I really enjoyed this is quite funny because it's very Americanized have you heard of it before it's on Netflix it's good watch it so it's basically about this this boy whose mom is a sex therapist and he's just like this this this really quiet shy boy and he doesn't like that kind of stuff you know and it talks about kind of his life but it's a little bit weird because everyone is British but it has a very American vibe to it so as people are watching it don't think that our schools and things are like with all the lockers and things like that like they have American schools it's very very Americanized I think what they did is they said you know what will help this get more views with the Americans some classy British accents and so they added those for some charm but it's very good [Music] watching Outlander I've not seen that heard of it not seen it Oliver Twist Inspector Morse really old one that was on in like the ninth inspector frost or something that guy with a moustache David Jason oh well it speaking the day with Jason then Only Fools and Horses yes he was yeah Only Fools and Horses is a good write that down as well someone's recommended Top Gear yeah if you're into cars Top Gear's one really Gordon Ramsay if you enjoy swearing Gordon Ramsay's one um but yeah I remember the one I just said before what was it Only Fools and Horses yeah but I mean TV shows there's so many different types you just gotta watch what you like really that's the thing yeah Pete I recommend stuff to students and they're like oh I didn't like that well you asked me to recommend you something thank you yeah I can only recommend what I like I'm not gonna recommend something I don't like happy City yeah so yeah watch what you like and and if your English ends up emulating that then that's absolutely fine yeah exactly yeah someone recommended Peep Show The Inbetweeners I also want to add IT Crowd that's really good yeah I love IT Crowd so much I think I've watched it three times like the whole seasons you know all the episodes I've only ever seen little clips but I've never really watched a whole episode but I know that I would okay I just don't never get something yeah that's life though isn't it never having time yeah we've kind of run out guys so I'm really sorry if we've not been able to answer your questions don't worry what you can do is put them in the comments of this video not the live chat coz a live chat will disappear but when the video is over when the live is over just put your questions down in the comments below and I'll try and get back to you and I'm really sorry that we didn't get a chance to use my big mouth [Music] pronounciation is physical will come into a future video of mine in the future anyway thank you very much for being a guest here so yeah go check out his channel guys it is English language club as I said at the beginning I will leave the link to his channel down below where you can also watch our live from earlier on Colin's Channel so we talked about well goals and things like that didn't we so go and check that out if you want a little bit more practice also yes I like cassia suggestion that's a really good one I can't say out loud because YouTube will be like blocked but yes that's a really good TV series don't say out loud you YouTube will is got a bad word in there guys I thought she was just really upset the live stream is ending oh it's the end of the world no it's a really good TV series I definitely recommend it and it's British okay well he's a dentist okay well thank you very much thank you guys I will see you a very soon bye bye bye bye

Channel: Pronunciation with Emma

Views: 5,831

Keywords: english language tips, learn english, english tips, learn english tips, learning english tips

Id: DFvi19DBN9o

Length: 62min 17sec (3737 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019