hey what's up Stefanie the english coach here from
EnglishFullTime.com in this video i'm gonna give you
five bad speech habits that i recommend avoiding and i also have a bonus tip for
you so here's the deal as you guys are
learning english you are imitating native speakers you want to
sound fluent in english and so you listen you listen
very closely and you imitate what you hear now the point of
this video is that not everything you hear is worth
imitating there are some bad speech habits that native speakers have
probably in all languages and these are things that you don't
necessarily want to imitate or at least i don't recommend
imitating them so we will go through this list but before we do that i just
want to let you guys know that my team and i
are preparing a really cool program for you to help with all aspects of your
english your listening your speaking vocabulary
grammar pronunciation etc it is going to be super affordable and
actually by the time this video goes live we may have already opened
this program i'm not sure so check in the description
i will give you guys all the information there i am super excited about it
and i know you guys are going to love it okay so
uh without further ado let's talk about these five
speech habits bad speech habits plus the bonus that i recommend you
avoid okay so the first one is speaking too
quickly now as you're learning english you might
think oh my goodness i need to speak fast because if i speak fast i will be
fluent and people will respect me as an english
speaker you want to fit in with other english speakers maybe who are speaking
quickly i actually wrote about this on my
twitter recently sometimes you might feel like you have
to speak super fast to prove yourself as a competent english
speaker but let me tell you good communicators
don't speak a mile a minute they are more
concerned with their message coming across
clearly and being understood so that is the gist of this idea when you
speak so fast and if you have a heavy accent
on top of that and if you're still struggling with
pronouncing certain sounds and certain words that could really make your speech
very unclear and difficult to understand so i
recommend avoiding it and i also want to tell you a quick
story about a student that i spoke with a couple years ago
i did a coaching call with him and he was fluent in english he spoke very well
he was studying in the usa but he spoke so
fast like his words would just run together in a sentence
and i was there thinking like why are we talking so fast what's the hurry
and i asked him about it i'm like you know you're speaking really
really fast like why do you speak like this and basically
he told me that his friends in college all spoke like that he had friends and
they would play basketball together and his friends would speak very fast
and this is actually something that a lot of native speakers
do especially younger people tend to do this
they speak very very quickly however when you speak like that
it's not always easy for other people to understand so he just wanted to
fit in he wanted to be like his friends and like the people he was hanging out
with but it actually worked against him because
one the conversation that i had with him felt very rushed
and we were talking about important topics we were talking about his english
his goals his career etc and that's not a conversation you
want to rush and beyond that it was difficult for me
to understand him so there are times to speak quickly or
phrases that maybe you want to say quickly but overall you don't want your
speech to be super rushed because your goals should be
communicating clearly and being understood remember
that is what good speakers focus on okay the next bad
speech habit that you want to avoid is the overuse of fillers fillers are
words like you know like um etc
so using these words once in a while can be okay
because they help you connect your sentences and ideas in a natural native
like way however the overuse of fillers
is very distracting to your listener and it can get very annoying
if someone is using you know you know it's like you know
um you know all the time in their speech you're gonna be like oh my goodness
get to the point what are you trying to say just say it
okay so like i said these are bad habits that native speakers have
and you might want to imitate them thinking
hey if i do this then i will sound more like a native speaker
okay but this is like i said these are bad habits so sometimes i
overuse the phrase you know and i probably pick this up from my mom
because she does this as well and sometimes Ren has to call me on it
and he says hey Stefanie can you please just stop using your nose so much and i
tend to do this when i am explaining an idea
that i have not fully thought about in my mind and i don't
know exactly what i think so when i'm communicating the idea
i'm like you know it's like you know and i'm not thinking first
and then speaking i'm trying to think and speak at the same time
and that's why it comes out like that so it's often a better idea to
think first know what you think and feel and then
communicate and i do have a story for this one
as well one time i interviewed a brazilian woman
she was from brazil but she spoke other languages like spanish and english and
she spoke them so well she sounded like a native
speaker in every single language and the cool thing was she learned these
languages as an adult and it's very rare to meet people like
this so of course being the english coach i was
like hey can i interview you that would be so awesome and she said yes
so we did the interview and i wanted to share it with my students
unfortunately she used you know so much in the interview that it was
incredibly distracting and even when we edited the video
to try and take it out all that did was make the video super choppy so i never
actually got a chance to share it with my students it was
way too distracting and i felt like i couldn't really use the interview
now in her defense maybe she was a little nervous
about being interviewed and sometimes we tend to use fillers more when we
are nervous but it's just something to be aware of try not to use it when
you're nervous try not to use it when you're not nervous
use it the appropriate amount of time um don't annoy people with it okay the next
bad habit that i recommend avoiding is using
offensive language and cursing or rather the overuse
of cursing and using offensive language especially if you do not talk like this
in your native language so depending on what kind of
content you consume maybe in your native language you don't really curse you
don't really use offensive language but maybe you're following all these
vloggers that do or maybe you have friends at school that do talk like this
and so you feel oh well the people i'm around talk like this and
you feel like you want to fit in so you start talking like that
and it just doesn't feel like you okay plus by using this language it can get
you into trouble if you are a professional and you're
using this language in an interview or something like that
you know maybe you're not going to get hired so you have to know
what type of language is appropriate for what situation and you have to be
really really really careful with offensive language because one of the
last things you learn as a language learner
is the connotation of words how it makes other people feel the feelings behind
words okay so not just the word and the definition but
the attitudes associated with the word that other people might have so for you
to say something that might be really offensive like the
n word which i'm not going to say you might think nothing of it right
but for other people that could really be offensive
and you just want to be careful how you portray yourself and again
if you're not like this in your native language and you find that you're
surrounded with native speakers who do talk like that
don't feel pressured to be someone you are not
um i guess i have a story for this one as well i just remembered this when i
was in eighth grade i went to a school where the culture
and the community people around me they were very different from
me and the way that i was raised for example i was raised in a household
where we never cursed and we avoided using all types of offensive
language however at this school apparently the other kids were raised in
the opposite environment where it was totally okay
to use offensive language and to curse and so i started feeling pressured like
everyone is doing this around me so i should do it too so that i fit in
however it did not feel right and i remember that feeling that icky feeling
of this isn't who i am why am i trying to
be somebody that i'm not and so finally by ninth grade
i realized you know what that's not who i am that's not how i was raised
i don't believe in talking like that and so i'm not going to
do it okay now that's not to say that i never curse or anything like that i do
but i believe that that language is meant to be used sparingly if you
overuse it it kind of loses its meaning and its emphasis
so just something to consider okay the next
bad habit that i recommend avoiding is mumbling
so you might hear native speakers and maybe it's your neighbor
someone you go to school with someone you work with and they just mumble and
you think okay that's how i should talk because i'll
sound more like a native if i do that but
mumbling is a problem because when you mumble we can't understand what you're
saying a lot of the times i remember i guess i have a story for all of these
oh my goodness this is so funny i didn't plan the stories but they are just
coming out so anyways i have a brother-in-law who tends to
mumble a lot when he speaks now i've practically grown up with him in
our family because my sister got married when i was very young she was a lot
older and i'm used to the way he speaks so
it's not a problem for me however when i met
and married Renzo and Renzo met him Renzo would look at me
and be like what is he saying oh my goodness it was always such
a mystery what my brother-in-law was saying because
he would mumble and so that was really hard for Ren to understand now if
you mumble okay and on top of that any struggle you may have with
pronunciation uh your accent if people are not accustomed to it okay it's gonna
make it very difficult for people to understand
you and as someone who is communicating you want to be understood
okay you want people to listen to your ideas to value your ideas
and so that's why i recommend avoiding mumbling okay the next bad speech habit
that i recommend avoiding is speaking too loud
or too soft too quietly okay you really want to know what the appropriate
volume is for where you are at and some people have a habit of speaking really
loud when they are in environments when they should not be
speaking that loud or they're very timid and so they speak
so softly that you can't hear them right so you want to be able to adjust your
voice according to the environment that you're
in now as a non-native speaker sometimes you might feel a little bit
shy like oh i don't know if i should speak up and so you're really quiet and
i want to encourage you to use your voice and to practice
finding that power in your diaphragm okay to really
support your voice so that you are heard and so that you command attention and
you say hey i have an idea and it's a good idea and
i want to share it and it's worth listening to okay so
that is the kind of volume you want to use now obviously you don't always want
to use that volume it depends what situation you're in
but you just want to be aware of it and i have a little bonus tip related to
this and then i have my big bonus tip okay so my bonus tip
about volume is not reducing the volume at the end of your sentences this is a
very very bad habit that people have and a lot of
people do this when they lack confidence okay so the recommendation is
maintain the volume of your sentence throughout your entire
sentence from start to finish start your sentence strong and end your
sentence strong of course you can vary the pitch and the tone and the volume a
little bit throughout your sentence so that you
don't speak in a monotone boring way but overall do not start your sentence
up here and end it down here okay because again a
lot of people do this when they lack confidence both native speakers and
non-native speakers and they might say something like oh
i was thinking that um maybe you know we should just
whatever and then the sentence just trails off
and it's like do you want people to hear you
or not because if you do if you really do
you can't do that you have to be aware of it and you might have to work on your
own mindset to really get that confidence to
start your sentence and finish it with the same
level of power and volume i know that i have done this and sometimes i even
maybe still do it as a spanish speaker okay and whenever i wasn't sure if i was
saying a word correctly or if my grammar was you know incorrect
in a sentence and i wasn't sure i would start the sentence strong
because i really wanted to share an idea and then it would just trail off
um because i was shy and embarrassed okay
so again be confident even if you are saying something and you're like i might
be pronouncing this wrong i might be messing up the grammar just say
it and embrace the journey as you go and all the mistakes
and have fun with it just don't hold back i guess is what i'm saying and when
you let your sentence trail off like that
it's because you're holding back rather than
letting it all out and being confident okay so my final tip my bonus tip and
probably the biggest most important tip of this entire video
is do not imitate without considering the attitude behind
what you are imitating okay so here's what i mean
you might hear a native speaker speaking in a certain way
and you imitate them word for word exactly what they say
as they say it and the tone you have spot on and it might be great you might
sound like wow she sounds like a native speaker he
sounds like a native speaker that's awesome
but what you don't realize is the native speaker that you're imitating is
actually being rude or condescending or patronizing or
impatient or maybe they are being dismissive or
judgmental or sarcastic okay and these are not great characteristics
and qualities when it comes to speaking and communicating okay these are things
that are offensive and it's up to you how you want to
communicate but of course i teach my students to not
communicate at that level and i teach professional communication and
communication that is just kind and considerate and gets good
results or better results for you so again just because you hear
a native speaker speaking in a certain way don't just
imitate blindly thinking okay that's how native speakers talk i want to sound
like that really listen to the tone that they're
using listen to the words that they're using
listen for exaggeration listen for these negative things
and ask yourself do i want to communicate like this how do i want to
be seen as an english speaker how do i want
people to perceive me because i will tell you that their
people communicate in different ways and depending on if they're having a good
day or not or what their personality is or their
character is like some people communicate in these
negative ways and you have to be aware of it and
i actually know someone in my life who in english when she communicates she
communicates very well and she comes across as kind
in spanish when she communicates she often comes across as very
bossy very rude very patronizing and i don't think she even realizes and
i don't think she knows that she comes across like this because
she can't hear herself but i think what happened is she worked so hard to
imitate the spanish that she was surrounded with
and she didn't really realize that the people that she was surrounded with
were being patronizing and rude and impatient
and dismissive and since she didn't make that connection
she ended up adopting that way of speaking
and i mean hopefully one day she will realize but it's a very sensitive topic
so it's not like i'm just gonna come out and be like hey
did you know you come across like this when you speak in this language so
anyways this is why i'm taking everything that i
learned from my experience and my students experiences
and just my observations and i'm sharing it with you and i really hope it makes a
difference in your life and i hope it gives you
something to think about and consider okay so with all of that said i just
want you guys to know that i do have other social media accounts if you use
other social media accounts feel free to follow me i use instagram and i'm on
twitter now as i said earlier and i um
i really like twitter that's actually where i have my smallest following but i
don't even care i love that i can just write an idea and
share it and tweet it and boom it's out there
and i don't have to worry about putting a photo together or editing a video
so it's really cool uh what else do i have i'm thinking of making a tick tock
but i don't have one yet um i use facebook also but what i post
on instagram is kind of the same as facebook
and of course i have my email list of subscribers
so i highly recommend getting on my email list if you want to be the first
to know about special offers we have coming up or anything like that my
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personal connection with me because i feel
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join the family show your support like the video if you enjoyed it hit the like
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and it is going to help you in so many ways with all
aspects of your english so go to the description to get more information
about this program and i will see you in my next youtube
video that's it i'll see you soon bye
And what was the other thing hang on
i always have these thoughts in my head and then getting them into the video i
it's like i forget as i go um there was another reason why speaking fast was a
uh not a good thing oh i wrote about this
on my twitter what did i what did i say and i
tend to uh how do i say this and i know hang on
and okay so anyways um i have a brother-in-law who tends to
okay there was a car hopefully he didn't hear that okay okay the next bad speech
habit that i avoid recommending wait
i can't believe i just said that i'm tired it has been a long day
but what you don't realize is the native speaker that you're imitating is
actually being rude or condescending or patronizing or
impatient or i have some others on the list
what is it maybe they are being dismissive
hang on dismissive okay maybe they are being dismissive
or judgmental i can't remember these maybe or maybe they are being dismissive
or judgmental or okay sarcastic
that's the one how do i want people to perceive me