Hello
Hello. Hello. I don't think this thing is working. Hey naturals, what's up?
It's your American English teacher Gabby Wallace here for go natural English
And in this video you are going to learn how to improve
Your phone skills to sound more like a native
Natural English speaker. I know these days that everybody prefers to text like does this thing even work for phone calls anymore?
I mean everybody just
texts
but there are certain situations when it just makes more sense to have a phone call or you
Have to have a phone call
Like maybe you have a phone interview
Or maybe you have to make an appointment and you need to actually speak
With your voice on the phone and in that kind of situation
you need to sound like a
clear natural
confidence
fluent English speaker because we can't rely on things like gestures or
Lip-reading or the written word like we can for text so I'm gonna teach you a lot of things in
This lesson about how to speak more clearly more
naturally on your next phone
Conversation so this is gonna be super helpful and I want to invite you if you would like to learn more with go natural
English with our ebook the English fluency formula
I have a free sample for you to check out so you can click right up there on
The card to get your free sample. Oh my gosh
and in that for example
You're going to learn so many strategies to help you to improve your English and speak more naturally
So a week ago
this video presentation from Google's sundar Pichai came out where he was presenting the new
Google
Assistant and it blew my mind. I was insane how
natural this
Robot sound I mean really the Google assistant not a real person
but she sounded just like a real person to me and to
The real person that she was calling so I thought we could actually take a look at this video clip
It's sure and analyze. What makes this
robot this machine
sounds so natural because if we can analyze that and if this machine can sound like a
Natural native English speaker then obviously, so can you because you're a human right?
So if this machine can do it, then you can definitely do it. Okay, so let's take a look
Let's say you want to ask Google to make you a haircut appointment on Tuesday between 10:00 and noon
What happens is the Google assistant makes the calls seamlessly in the background for you?
So what you're going to hear is the Google assistant actually calling a real salon to schedule the appointment for you
Let's listen
What time are you looking for well at 12:00 p.m
We do not have a quality available. But closest we have to that is a 1:15
Do you have anything between 10:00 a.m. And
12:00 p.m
Depending on what service she would like. What service is she looking for?
Just a woman's haircut for now. Okay, we have a 10 o'clock
10:00 a.m. Is fine. Okay. What's her birth name?
The first name is Lisa
Okay, perfect. So I will see Li five ten o'clock on May third
Okay, please Thanks great. Have a great day. Bye
Hi, so the first word that we have here is just a simple greeting
Hi, but let's pay attention to the intonation
It goes up and down and it sounds very friendly. You can even repeat while you're watching this to practice with me
Hi, so it's different than just a flat intonation. Hi, that sounds a bit
gruff a bit aggressive a bit
Not very nice, actually. So if we go up and down hi, it sounds so nice
so our first thing to focus on is
intonation
next we're gonna take a look at how we can stress words blend sounds together as a sound more native-like in our
pronunciation and
Use intonation again in order to indicate that we have an open
kind of
Question that we're inquiring about in this conversation. We're asking about booking a haircut
So again, the question was or is that it's not even a question
It's a phrase but it's it's it's stated in a way where the intonation goes up at the end. So that sounds like a question
I'm calling a book a woman's haircut for a client
For a client so the intonation is going up and this is sometimes referred to as up
Speak because this is not actually a question. It's a question would be something like
may I book a
Haircut for a client and of course at the end of this question
The intonation would go up because we're asking may I but this is a statement, but it's phrased
Like a question because we're ending the statements in an upward intonation
So if you're calling to inquire about an appointment
Or you're asking to set a certain time or you're kind of asking permission
Like can I may I if that's the intention even though that's not the way you phrase the sentence?
Well, then your intonation can go up and that's quite common in the United States in North American English
Haircut for a client I'm calling a local woman's haircut for a client
So let's look at how we're pronouncing the words and how they're blending together. I'm calling
book
We don't say I'm calling we say I'm calling to book call in to book a woman's haircut
for a client we don't say for a client for a client so
Those words that are not
Stressed get blended and the sounds change slightly
so because we're stressing other words like
haircuts and
client and of course the main verb
Calling and book then other words are not stressed and those sounds get a bit mushed or blended together
So I'm calling
to
book a
Haircut for a woman's haircut, it's but again haircut is stressed more than women's
for
Clients so stress words are really important to say more
Strongly so louder and longer than the non stressed words
Which kind of get blended together and that's part of what makes this machine sound so natural
I'm looking for something on May 3rd. Um
this little pause is so
important and it's kind of ironic because most language teachers would tell you not to say
Um when you're speaking English when you're presenting or when you're practicing English, don't say it
Um, it's a filler. It doesn't mean anything. It's not academic
Well, you know what? It may not be good for your presentations
I mean academically speaking and it doesn't mean anything but it makes your speech sounds so much more natural
um, I think it's a good idea to use, um every once in a while because it is a
it is a marker of
Natural English speech so if you want to sound more natural use, um, not all the time
But every once in a while you notice in conversation, it's only used once I'm looking for something. I'm a third
I'm looking for something on May 3rd. So we're using words like I'm looking for something on May 3rd
Looking first so this is a common way to express
What date you would like or?
something that you are
Searching for I'm looking for something on May 3rd. So why do we say something?
We're not talking about a thing. We're looking for a time. We're looking for an appointment
So why don't we just say I'm looking for an appointment on May 3rd. Well
Natural English is sometimes really general. Sometimes people use words like
Something and sometimes and thing and that's really common
So again, you don't always have to use the more academic word
If you want to sound more natural more like a native speaker
You can use general words sometimes on May 3rd again
the intonation is going up because we're kind of asking for information here and May 3rd is
Stressed because this is the most important keyword in the sentence. They're like, give me one
The best part of this google assistant conversation was when she uses
the sound or the filler word
Mm-hmm, everyone cracked up because this is so
surprising from a machine because this is something so
natural and so human to use a filler
So another key takeaway is to use fillers sometimes as I mentioned. Um
Might not be something that your teacher would recommend but it's very natural just like. Mm-hmm
so when you're listening when you're waiting when you want to show that you are hearing your
Partner or the other person on the phone line use fillers like this. Mm-hmm
That means I'm listening or I'm waiting or what time are you looking for? Well
At 12:00 p.m. Next at 12:00 p.m. So I'm looking for some at 12 p.m
The intonation is going down to confirm and to say that you're looking for the specific time
Do you have anything between 10 a.m. And
12 p.m. Uh
Again, this natural pause and natural filler is something that distinguishes
humans from machines we use these natural fillers to think and to make our speech
More flowing so use these again not all the time every time but every once in a while
Um. Mm-hmm. It's gonna make you sound a lot more
Natural so we also are blending sounds together depending on which words are stressed or unstressed
Do you have anything between 10 a.m. And
12 p.m. So, do you have anything between 10 a.m. And
12 p.m
So you can see where the words are stressed and doors that are not stressed are blended and do not do
You but do you do you have anything?
Just a woman's haircut for now
Just is another very natural word meaning only or simply but we use it a lot
also for now is a nice way to
Confirm what you want at this moment, maybe next month
You want something additional just a woman's haircut for now and notice that we stress haircut. We're not stressing
Just or women's because they already know it's a woman
We're stressing haircut because that's the service that we want for now. Okay, we have a 10 o'clock
10:00 a.m. I'm
Confirming the time 10 a.m
Is fine when you're confirming information, you can drop your intonation down 10 a.m
Is fine and notice the way that we say fine, it's not fine. It's fine
So it's longer and we have that little up-down intonation today
I'm fine, and that sounds really nice and friendly unlike today. I'm fine. So
longer and up-down
Intonation sounds very friendly just like I mentioned in the beginning
When Google assistant said hi not high
You know, okay look their birthday
The first thing that believed that now this is interesting because we have up speak again the first names Lisa
It's because we're expecting to be asked more
Information. The first name is Lisa and I expect maybe the person at the hair salon would ask for the last name or the
Phone number or give me some additional information. So again, the upwards intonation indicates that the conversation will continue
It's not over yet. Okay
But this last sentence. Okay, great
Thanks has a downward intonation and that is confirmation that the conversation is
Ending and we have that upward downward information on grade. Okay, great. It's a bit longer
Thanks, so you can see how we can use intonation in so many ways to show our
Our attitude that we're nice and we're friendly we can also use intonation to say that we are
Awaiting more information or we know that the conversation is not over yet
we can use natural pauses and filler words like um, uh or
Mm-hmm to show that we're listening or to just sound more natural we can use
Stress to make sure that our communication is clear and we're getting the key words, really
strongly
clearly
communicated haircut
10:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m
Lisa
Those are all very important words in this conversation
So how can you improve you're in to sound more natural and have better phone conversations? Well, first of all listen to more
native
Natural conversations, it could be between Google assistant, which it's so weird to say that she sounds natural
But she does because so many
Linguists have put so much
research and
investment into actually figuring out how to make Google assistant sound natural and it's working so you could listen to these
Conversations and of course listen to real human conversations, which is something that we do inside the go natural English fluent communication
Course you can also
Practice because once you listen to the conversations, you're going to improve your knowledge
Really focus on what you're hearing. Not just the vocabulary word. Not just the
The words themselves, but really listen to the information
Listen to the stress. Listen to the pauses. Listen to the filler words that you're hearing and
Practice those now before you practice them in a real life conversation
I highly recommend one strategy that I use with my students which is
recording yourself
Listening to yourself and also sharing that with other people who can give you feedback
That's something that we do inside my course as well, but you can learn strategies like that that you can do on your own
No matter if you take a course or just study on your own and those are the kind of strategies that I teach
Inside the go natural English eBook the English fluency formula
So record yourself listen compare yourself to other
Natural or native English speakers, and then finally practice in the real world make a phone call
I remember the first time that I made a phone call in Spanish. I was so nervous
I was sweating from every pore of my body, but
practicing makes perfect practice makes perfect as they say is so
Make some practice phone calls make some just easy
and phone calls
I mean you could make a reservation at a restaurant you could cancel your reservation at the restaurant
You could make an appointment for a haircut just like in this example
You could call one of those customer service hotlines and ask questions about
An item or a service or product? There's so many ways that you can practice your English without really
feeling like
there's big consequences if you make a mistake, or if they can't understand you so make use of
Those little opportunities to practice and that's how you gain confidence and improve your fluency
Okay
so I hope that you enjoyed this analysis of the Google assistant and the tips for improving your
English on the phone for sounding more natural and native like if you'd like to get all my best tips strategies and
Practice for learning English should check out the English fluency formula ebook right over there
You can get a free sample when you click up there if you'd like to continue watching
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Notifications. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next week in the next English tip video. Bye for now