Show notes
O English Experts faz 7 anos no próximo domingo e aqui quem ganha o presente é você. Preparamos um podcast especial sobre a pronúncia do inglês americano. Adir Ferreira e eu conversamos com Rachel Smith do site Rachel’s English. O assunto: Como falar inglês como um nativo (How to speak English like a native English speaker).
Ouvir o English Podcast
Curso de Pronúncia
Gostou do bate-papo com o professor Adir Ferreira? Então conheça o curso que ele criou especialmente para o English Experts.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/680632475
Quero assinar o English Plus
Links discutidos no podcast
Stressed vs. Unstressed syllables: My New Bike!
American English Imitation Exercise: What did you do today?
Adir: Response Rachel
Video: Sound like a Native Speaker
Participação dos leitores do EE no face
Transcrição
Hi, English Experts friends! Welcome to this special edition of English Podcast. Today, in English, of course. I'm Alessandro Brandão from Brazil. I'm Adir Ferreira from Brazil and I'm Rachel Smith from New York City.
Alessandro: Today we're going to talk a little bit about "How to speak English like a native English speaker". So, stay tuned.
Let me tell you a little bit about our today's guest. Rachel lives in New York City. She was born and raised in Florida, went to college in Indiana where she studied Applied Math, Computer Science, Music and graduate school for Opera Performance in Boston. She loves being connected to people throughout the world through Rachel's English. Hi Rachel, it's a pleasure.
Rachel: Hi!
Alessandro: Thank you for joining us today.
Rachel: Sure... Thanks for having me on.
Alessandro: Great! By the way, how's Lucy?
Rachel: Lucy is doing well. Yep, she's holding up well, I just rode her around Manhattan this morning, so I'm happy to have her.
02:00
Alessandro: Great! Just to let you know, Lucy is Rachel's new bike, because her old bike had been stolen and she decided to ask readers for suggestions for a new name. Of course, I was rooting for "magrela". Here in Brazil "magrela" is a common name for a bike. Did you know that?
Rachel: Uh-huh… ... Well, I figured it out pretty quickly because many many people were suggesting that as a name.
Alessandro: We used to say also "Camelo" or just Bike in English.
Rachel: Hm-hum , yeah.
Alessandro: Rachel, let me introduce you my friend and partner, Adir Ferreira.
Adir: Hello, Rachel! It's a pleasure and an honor to have you with us today.
Rachel: It's nice to meet you.
Adir: Ohh fantastic, nice to meet you too. And as most of our listeners and readers know, I'm a huge aficionado of pronunciation studies and it is always a pleasure to feature your videos on my personal blog and on Transparent Language English blog for Portuguese speakers too, it's always always good to have you there.
Rachel: Well, thank you for doing that, thank you for helping to spread the word about my work.
Adir: It’s my pleasure.
03:07
Alessandro: I don't know if you remember, but Adir already sent a video response to you. It was a video about the question "What did you do today?" Do you remember?
Rachel: I do actually, I just watched it again today to refresh myself and it was a great video, really appreciated it.
Adir: Thank you!
Rachel: You're welcome!
Alessandro: Adir is the king of the pronunciation here in Brazil.
Adir: So you say. So you say.
Alessandro: That's why I'm so nervous today.
Adir: Ahhh, Don't worry.
Alessandro: So, Rachel you've been working on Rachel's English for over 4 years now. How did it all start?
03:42
Rachel: Actually I just had my five-year anniversary last… last month, so I guess I need update that information. It started in 2008, when I was living in Germany and I was studying at a language institute there to learn German and so I was hanging out with a lot of people from all over the world who were there to learn German and one person in particular that was in several of my classes ... was from Turkey and was interested in American English and, you know, Hollywood is such a great exporter of the way we speak and he found it very interesting and wanted to know how to sound more American so you know on the bus on the way to a field trip I just gave him few pointers, I mean, it was very informal. ( -Yeah! )
And and he thought that it was really helpful he said oh you're very good at describing that and I thought. Oh, really... well. I've been looking for an idea to develop maybe that should be it. And that's really how it all started.
Alessandro and Adir: Great, great history. Yes, great history.
Rachel: Thank you.
(som de transição)
Alessandro: Rachel, do you see any difference between Brazilian English students and other students around the world, I mean, pronunciation, rhythm and stuff like that.
04:58
Rachel: Yeah definitely every language has its own unique issues when studying
American English, so definitely I noticed that the patterns of Portuguese speakers are different than those of, say, Mandarin speakers, for example... and one of the benefits of having done this for a while and having interacted to a lot of people is I've been able to sort of get a general feel.
So, I've had a lot of Brazilian students. And so because of that I've been able to sort of put together topics that are gonna be more important for Brazilian students.
For example, in Portuguese you have nasalized vowels, but we don't have any of that in American English, so when we have an ending N, or NG sound or M sound, those are words that will often be slight problematic.
And I've also noticed that, my Brazilian speakers tend to have a problem with N versus NG, so rather than making those two distinctly different sounds, they sort of make a one sound that is somewhere in between. But in American English the N is very forward and the NG is made at the very back of the mouth. So those are just a few of the issues but, the short answer is yes. Every language has its own special things that make it difficult to learn English and Portuguese is no exception.
Alessandro: Great! American English speakers also has (oops!) difficult to speak words like pão...mão...
06:39
Rachel: Yeah! I'm sure I mean... anytime that you know... we're learning a language and we're coming across sounds that are not in our own language that's where it's gonna be difficult, so nasalized vowels I can totally understand how Americans would have a hard time with that. Especially, you know, if they're not at the very beginning, told about the sounds and how to make them I mean, they're really the building blocks of the words and if you're not comfortable with the building blocks pronunciation in general is going to be really difficult, I think and, I think that's one thing that's lacking in a lot of language learning programs is the building blocks at the sounds themselves. I think it's very important when you're learning a new language to look at what sounds here are new to me. (- Yes.) Then really try to learn how to make them and not substitute something that you are familiar with from your own language that is close.
Adir: Let me interrupt you here, so for example, (- Yeah.) Brazilians learning English have the hardest time saying words like think, thought, these... and then instead of that they say "fink" or "sink", you know, so that yet, so they transfer those sounds into Portuguese and that's (-Right) ...a real hassle for teachers, you know, because it's really hard to do and something I usually tell my students to do is to exaggerate at first, right! Then your articulation will get more... more comfortable with the new sounds and also your muscles will develop more it's like going to the gym right. ( - Right! ) So each day is another day.
08:13
Rachel: Yeah I know, I think that's exactly what I mean TH is one of the sounds that exists almost nowhere but English, so pretty much everyone has a problem with that one, and yet is so common to substitute F, V, S, Z and all of this things, but just like you said if you practice different methods like exaggeration or repetition and all you're doing is focusing on the movement of that sound with time it can become much more comfortable for you to the point where you can actually put it into a word in conversation.
But just like you said it's like going to the gym, it's a discipline and you have to make time. Specifically to retrain your muscles to get them comfortable with some of these new sounds.
Adir: Yeah, I was telling Alessandro today, we were practicing a few sentences here and then he was like "Ohh, man. I so frustrated because I can't get this right", then I said "ok, so first do it slowly don't try to rush it, don't try rush because you aren't gonna get it in one fell swoop". And know so you go like "tanann", and then you go, and then as you get more comfortable with it you'll be able to say this like very very easily.
09:17
Rachel: Right! Yeah. You know and for me when I was starting out so I didn't train obviously you know you're listening to my academic background I didn't study languages. I didn't study Education, I didn't study English a second language, so for me when I was sort of building my ideas for how to work on pronunciation I was drawing on my background as an opera singer and if I'm learning a new piece as a singer and there's maybe a long run with many notes it's quite complex I would never just sit down and do that whole thing over and over.
I break it up I look for (- exactly!) you know notes to go to notes to come away from maybe I'll just drill for notes together twenty times then I'll bring in the next set of four but it would never be beneficial to just take the whole thing and bang my head against the wall doing that over and over.
It has to be broken up into pieces and it gonna be more digestible and and drill individually.
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