Speak English Naturally: Use Stress & Pauses to Communicate More Clearly

0:00 Hi, everybody.

0:00 Welcome back to www.EngVid.com.

0:02 I'm Adam.

0:03 In today's video, I want to talk to you about communication.

0:07 Now, of course, we're talking in English and we're thinking

0:09 about how to express ourselves and understand people in English,

0:13 but what I want to stress in specific

0:16 today are stresses and pauses when we're speaking.

0:21 Because when we speak,

0:23 a lot of the things we say are communicated without even using words.

0:29 They're communicating by stressing certain words

0:32 or taking certain pauses that give a hint

0:35 or a cue or a signal to the listener that we are meaning something else.

0:41 So, it's very important to understand how the stresses

0:44 and pauses work in terms of the ideas that they represent.

0:49 So, I'm going to give you a couple of examples.

0:51 Look at this sentence.

0:52 "I wouldn't say it's his fault." I'm just going to make this a capital.

0:56 "I wouldn't say it's his fault, but..." So, if I say it very neutrally,

1:00 without stressing any particular word or any part of the clause,

1:05 it doesn't really say much.

1:07 But if I stress different words,

1:09 each time I use a different stress, it's a different meaning.

1:14 So, if I say, "I wouldn't say it's his fault",

1:17 somebody else might say it, right?

1:19 So, if I stress the word "I", that's what you have to focus on and understand

1:24 that it's not me who's saying this.

1:27 Somebody else, or I'm hinting at somebody else.

1:31 But, if I move the stress and put it here, "I wouldn't say it's his fault",

1:38 means you think that I would say it's his fault, but I wouldn't say it.

1:42 I'm negating your idea.

1:45 I'm saying it's the opposite of what you're thinking, right?

1:48 So, I'm stressing the negative, and then that's the idea there.

1:53 "I wouldn't say it's his fault",

1:55 if I'm stressing the "say", that has a different meaning, right?

2:00 I wouldn't say it out loud, I would just think it.

2:04 And maybe you'll understand, maybe you won't,

2:06 but I would never say it out loud and offend someone.

2:09 And then, again, I can keep going with every word,

2:12 putting the stress on every word,

2:14 and each time I change the stress, I change the sentence.

2:18 Now, another thing I want you to notice is the three dots, here.

2:22 "I wouldn't say it's his fault, but", now, that big pause that I took, here,

2:29 between "fault" and "but", already suggests to you

2:34 that there's something else involved beyond the words, here.

2:38 "I wouldn't say it's his fault, but" means, yeah, it's his fault, right?

2:45 Even though I wouldn't say it, even though somebody else might not say it,

2:49 everybody understands it's his fault.

2:52 And that's what that pause suggests.

2:54 Obviously, the word "but" shows that there's going to be a contrast,

2:58 but I don't need to go on.

3:00 As soon as I take that pause and use the word "but" together,

3:04 it's very clear what's coming next and I don't need to continue speaking.

3:09 Now, if you're just learning English and you hear

3:12 the word "but", you're expecting something else to come.

3:16 It's not coming, and it doesn't need to come.

3:18 You need to understand the pause says everything you need to know.

3:22 And that's where you have to pay a lot of attention,

3:26 not only to the words people use when they speak, but how they use them.

3:30 How they use their sentences, how they use clauses,

3:34 how they stress certain words and take pauses between words.

3:37 So, here's another example.

3:39 You could say that.

3:41 Very neutral, you could say that.

3:43 I'm not stressing any word,

3:44 I'm not changing my inflection at any point throughout the sentence.

3:48 Now, if I say, "You could say that", I'm not allowed to.

3:54 I'm the boss, I can't say anything that takes sides, but you can say that.

3:59 Right?

3:59 So, I'm stressing that you have the power, I don't.

4:04 You could say that, means it's possible, but maybe not.

4:10 Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

4:12 You could say that, you could say that, right?

4:17 Every word I stress, different meaning.

4:20 Now, let me say how sometimes it might be heard.

4:24 You could say that, you could say that.

4:29 What does this mean?

4:30 It means you shouldn't say that.

4:32 You could say that, but don't, right?

4:35 Because you might offend somebody, somebody may misunderstand.

4:39 You could say that, so I take a little bit of a pause,

4:43 and then I stress the word, and then it adds a different meaning.

4:48 You could say that, but it's not necessarily true.

4:53 Right?

4:53 So, again, I can do this with a thousand different sentences,

4:57 and every time I change the stress and pause,

4:59 you'll get not only a thousand, you'll get two,

5:02 three, four, five, six thousand different sentences.

5:05 Right?

5:06 So, that's the key to paying attention.

5:08 Remember that you're communicating with the words,

5:11 with the syntax, means how you arrange the words,

5:14 but you're also communicating with your tone of voice,

5:19 stresses, pauses, your hands, your face, your body.

5:22 All of this together works in communication, in spoken communication.

5:27 Writing, obviously, there's the text on the page,

5:29 and that's what you're dealing with, so keep that in mind as well.

5:33 Now, because this is more of a listening exercise,

5:36 I can't really make a quiz about it,

5:39 but you can certainly come and ask me questions on www.EngVid.com,

5:42 and I'll be happy to answer them.

5:44 And the main thing is, watch a lot of TV shows, a lot of movies,

5:49 and pay attention to the way things are said, rather than only what is said.

5:55 Okay?

5:56 So, if you like the video, give me a like,

5:58 and don't forget to subscribe to my channel, and come back next time.

6:01 I'll give you some more tips to communicate

6:03 in English with natives and non-natives alike.

6:06 Okay?

6:07 See you then.