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you are now listening to the IELTS
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podcast learn from tutors and ex
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examiners who are masters of eye outs
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preparation your host Ben
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Worthington how does an examiner Mark
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your speaking test this is part two of a
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series and in this tutorial we will
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specifically on the pronunciation
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criteria okay and we're going to look at
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some common mistakes that student
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students make we're going to look at
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some useful tips or advice or exercises
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you can do to improve your um
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pronunciation and I'm going to give an
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example of anun how to enunciate as well
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because this is very important
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annunciate just basically means speaking
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then when we look at the pronunciation
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criteria we can break it down into three
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points we can look at the articulation
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sound which is how well you pronounce
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ounce the sounds of the language and if
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you link the words properly so this goes
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back to Connected speech which we'll
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talk about in a second word and sentence
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stress yeah can you single out the
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correct syllable in a word or the
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correct words or can you single out the
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correct words in a sentence and of
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is your voice rising and falling to
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enhance the ability or to
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communicate now a lot of people say that
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I can that I speak quite clearly and the
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reason why I can or why I do speak
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clearly is basically from years in the
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uh from years of teaching English I
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recognized that nobody would understand
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my Yorkshire accent yeah and um I wanted
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the the students my students I wanted
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them to be speaking in a neutral fashion
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uh which is what I aim for of course I
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still have some vowel sounds that come
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directly from Yorkshire and some people
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can identify them but overall it is
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quite clear the way I
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speak and so let's have a look at the
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most common mistakes that a student
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might make so the first
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using sounds from your own
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language instead of sounds from the
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English language yeah and different um
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speakers will have different challenges
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it's well known that in China the rest
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of Asia the r the L's sorry the L's uh
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it's it doesn't seem like it's a sound
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that's pronounced that much in that in
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that area in that continent so they
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really struggle with it it usually comes
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sound so that's one issue also uh with
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German speakers they uh they usually
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pronounce the s with a bit of a zed
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which makes it sound stronger and with
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Spanish speakers um it's the H they
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pronounced like hello like that and it
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should just be an empty a breathy H
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hello and there's lots of
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different sort of elements of your own
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native language that are going to impact
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English and I think being aware of these
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sort of like common pitfalls so to speak
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being aware of these um will definitely
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accelerate your progress will definitely
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improvement and of course just as we've
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got challenging sounds in the Eng in
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English which of course depends on where
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and what your native language is that's
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obviously going to translate into
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challenging words as as well so two
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steps one find out which which
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sounds are challenging for native
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speakers of your own language sorry of
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find out which sounds are challenging
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for speakers of English from your own
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native language and then find out the
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words which have those
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sounds and this way you can be more
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aware and you're going to improve faster
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now then the second Point accent a lot
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of students want a British accent for
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example or an American accent but what
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is a British accent if we look at
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Britain we've got Scotland Northern
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Ireland we've got Wales uh we've got
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England of course so okay let's narrow
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it down we're going to go for an English
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accent now what are we talking about are
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we talking about a scous from Liverpool
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a man a mancunian from Manchester are we
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talking um are we do we want to speak in
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received pronunciation which is like the
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queen there's lots of different English
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personally I think the best accent is a
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neutral one a one a one that can be
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understood you do not have to speak like
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or like Prince Harry or Prince William
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or whatever you do not have to speak
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like these people all you have to do is
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modify your accent enough to be
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understood and just as a side note um do
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not be ashamed of your accent as soon as
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I hear somebody with an accent I
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instantly have respect for them because
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they've taken the time to learn another
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language yeah um so do not be be ashamed
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of your accent you can work on modifying
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and improving your accent but um don't I
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wouldn't aim for going for a specific
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one your goal here should be understood
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glaswegian is speaking with a New
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Yorker I imagine that in the first
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minute neither of them are going to
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understand each other yeah even though
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they are both native English
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speakers okay so we get this situation
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they're both speaking grammatically
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perfect more than likely grammatically
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perfect English uh but they can't
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understand each other so what's the
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solution here well they both have to
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take steps in trying to modify their
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accent so that they can be understood by
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The Listener and this is exactly what we
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need to be doing as well
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also just one point that I forgot to
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mention um about your accent your accent
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is going to show that you've taken
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action to move to get out of to to
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change your situation your accent is
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going to show that you put in the work
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to learn another to to learn another
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language um your accent is going to show
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character okay so that's how you should
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be think thinking about your accent of
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course you don't want to be so proud of
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it that nobody can understand you that
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defeats the purpose but I wouldn't be
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paranoid about it if people can
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understand you that's fine okay that's
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fine and of course the more neutral it
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is the better people are going to
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understand you okay and there are ways
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which I'm going to share now in that we
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can make the comprehension for the
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easier right then let's get back to um
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the iots so your examiner is going to
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consider how frequently you mispronounce
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words and say something that's difficult
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to understand so this is why clear
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articulation is very important and we're
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going to look at an exercise that can
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help you develop this
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another element another piece of advice
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here when you're in the exam remember to
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will improve this will make you more
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relaxed and you're more likely to hit
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this natural intonation your intonation
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is going to sound more
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um ination is basically just the rise
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and fall of your voice when you're
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speaking I'll give you an example so
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when we're speak when we're when we're
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collocation yeah collocation is whereby
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we find the words together in a by a in
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a higher frequency so we're more likely
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to see a group of words together than
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other groups of words this is a
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collocation and because
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um because the listener and the speaker
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knows exactly or has a
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good understanding of the next words
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collocation we tend to say them a little
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quicker and The Listener is almost is
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expecting them so that kind of gives us
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the permission to say them a little bit
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quicker as well and this is why
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collocations are really useful
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because they help you sound more natural
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and The Listener is expecting them as
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well so there's quite a few and
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sometimes they even take the form of
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phrasal verbs so if we just look at a
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few we can say do your hair do exercises
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take a seat make a suggestion make
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trip can you see that we don't have to
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enunciate every single part of that
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fragment yeah we don't have to say yes I
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went on a trip last week I can easily
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just push it together and say yesterday
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or last week I went on a trip and this
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is what we want to um be aware of when
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speaking dictation software is also a
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useful uh useful tool that we can use if
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we are keen on improving our
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pronunciation this comes as standard in
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almost every phone nowadays and all you
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have to do is just maybe open up a note
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application and then start reading what
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you allowed into the microphone of your
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phone and then checking what is getting
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transcribed more than likely it's going
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to butcher your you speaking it even
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me however if I talk in a very clear way
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and I put an equal amount of stress on
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each word then the dictation software
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right now I do not want you to speak
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exam cuz you probably going to scare the
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examiner if you do however the dictation
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software will help you
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identify which words you need to improve
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if it can get the pronunciation if it
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can get the dictation correct and
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transcribe it for you into your notes
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application then you're probably
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correctly if however it is not not dis
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it's not transcribing the word correctly
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then you probably have to modify your
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speech and this is this is good okay
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this is good because you're learning and
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you're going to be improving so just to
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summarize find a Notes application
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enable dictation into on your phone and
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then hold it to your uh mouth and then
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just speak and it's probably better just
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to read something that's in front of you
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so you're focusing entirely on
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pronunciation you don't have to think
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about the grammar you don't have to
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think about the vocabulary you can put
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all your energy and all your focus on
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pronunciation and then afterwards you
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will see which words you need to
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improve and then once you start getting
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the individual words pronounced
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then we can start modifying it and
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finding the balance between
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enunciating like a in a really
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patronizing fashion okay now what I'm
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saying is that we can find a balance
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between enunciating every single
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word and also speaking in a natural
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fashion this is what we want we don't
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want it to be too natural and relaxed
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incomprehensible but we also don't want
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so um fced and so how would you say
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manufactured that it sounds unnatural so
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this is why the balance is incredibly
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important singing is also a useful
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method um find a decent song that you
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like and then just keep singing it find
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the lyrics you're going to feel like an
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absolute imbecile the first time you do
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this this is just natural but it doesn't
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matter I mean maybe you won't feel like
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an imbe I'm just saying that I do feel
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like an imbe when I'm singing um but
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maybe you enjoy singing so that would
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probably be a good way uh to improve
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your pronunciation as well and then also
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just one final thing is speak aloud in
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your house you know I've talked about
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many times my Spanish friend who just WI
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his grandma around the park and he would
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just speak English at her she didn't
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understand a word but he needed to
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develop his speaking skills so he just
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spoke English all the time and if that's
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not possible in your situation at least
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try and think in English and you know
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supermarket you just try and think okay
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how do I say this in English and just
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like a commentary you
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getting to the end um just final few
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words I Els is a challenging
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exam there is not a magic pill or a
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magic way to get a high band score if
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you're English isn't good enough and I
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see this a lot I see students obsessing
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exam when really they should be
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obsessing over their English ability and
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the exam comes a lot
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easier so just bear that in mind that
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there's not a magic way but there are
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definitely systems for you to learn how
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to write an essay um there are processes
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to go through where you can improve your
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writing uh the online course we have is
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is a good example of this and as you
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know we're working on a framework for
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the speaking and of course
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for this speaking product that we'll be
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eventually um we will have to work on a
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way to improve pronunciation as well so
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it's going to so that's just a a clear
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reminder that we need to be focusing on
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most we need to be aware of all the
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elements of the exam not just the exam
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skills but also the language skills
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which in this this case is very clearly
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pronunciation and the framework for the
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speaking for example that would fall
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skills that's everything from me today
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we've got part two uh sorry part three
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in part four coming very
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soon and if you've got any suggestions
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please email them into to us if you're
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struggling with the I remember that we
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are here to help you um send us an email
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and we can offer you some guidance um
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remember feedback is probably the
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fastest way to improve so if you are a
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self-study student or maybe you're just
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fed up of this Mafia of language courses
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and intensive language schools intensive
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language courses which in my opinion an
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um then remember that the best way to
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improve proves to get some
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feedback um and even if you are a
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self-study student that you're not alone
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we are here and we can help you and
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we've helped hundreds probably even
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thousands of students now we've helped
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them pass the exam we've helped them
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improve the score we've helped them move
19:17
ahead we've helped them to start study
19:20
medicine to start studying medicine in
19:22
the UK to set up the permanent residency
19:25
application for Australia for Canada
19:28
with helped them before we can do it
19:30
again for sure so keep your head up high
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keep pushing keep working and you will
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get them that's everything for me and
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have a great day and thank you for
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listening thanks for listening to ials
