Advanced British English

1. What you will learn: Hello and welcome to my advanced pronunciation course. My name is Julian and I will be your teacher. In this course, you're going to learn sentence stress, word stress, connected speech, and intonation. Now, these are all really important aspects of natural speech. So if you would like to speak more like a native and understand Natives better than this is the course for you. I look forward to seeing you in the first lesson. 2. Word stress : In this lesson, we're going to look at something that's really important in spoken English. This is going to help you to speak clearly and also to understand Natives. And that thing is word stress. In English, all words are made up of syllables, which are vowel sounds. Now a word cutout, one syllable, it could have five syllables. But if it has more than one, then each word will have stress on a particular syllable. If you put the stress in the wrong place, you might find that people don't understand you. So let's now have a look in more detail. To understand word stress, we need to understand syllables. So as I mentioned earlier, every word is made up of an amount of syllables. What our syllables, well, that units of sound that contain a vowel sounds. Remember it's not necessarily a vowel as a letter, but it's a vowel sound. So if we take three example words here, we have fruit, which has one syllable. So there's no stress in words with one syllable. But if we take the word apple, there are two syllables. And notice how I put the stress on the first syllable. Apple. We don't say paul. We say apple. If you notice here, we've got a stress mark just before the a or the stressed syllable. And in most dictionaries, you will see this mark, which is our guide as to where to put the stress. If we look at our final words, engineer, you'll notice that it has three syllables and gin and ear. But we put the stress on the final or the third syllable. Engineer. Engineer. So what is stress exactly? What do we do with our mouths and the sounds? Well, there are five aspects. The first one is that we make the sound longer. The sound is usually louder. We make it clearer as I did then. We will also have more exaggerated face and mouth movements to make it clearer. We might also raise our eyebrows. We might open our jaw more. Our tongue might be more tense. And finally, the pitch also changes. So usually when we put stress on a word, our pitch actually rises. So it goes up, just like I said, that rises. Now, unfortunately, there are no 100 per cent rules when it comes to stress in English. So instead we're going to talk about patterns, things that are generally true. But of course, there are always many exceptions. So for most two-syllable nouns and adjectives, the stress is on the first syllable. So if we look at nouns like table, curtain, ceiling, we stress the first syllable. You can see the stress marks there. And the same for adjectives with two syllables. We say, happy, clever, special. We don't say table, curtain, ceiling. So pattern to, we stress the second syllable for many to syllable verbs and prepositions. So let's look at example words we have admire approach between. So notice for those words, the first syllable was very quick. Admire approach between pattern three. For words that can be both verbs and nouns, we usually stress the first syllable for nouns, but the second one for verbs. So if we take a noun like contracts, the verb would be contracts. If we take a noun like object, the verb would be objects. Listened to the noun record. And the verb is record. Pattern for, for compound words, which are basically two words together. We usually put the stress on the first syllable. Listen to the stress in newspaper. It's on the first syllable, like in football and seafoods. Pattern five relates to suffixes, which are the letters at the end of words. For those words ending in IC, IC or Shun, which is either written T-I-O-N or S, O n. We usually stress the penultimate syllable, which is the last one, the one before the end. We say economic. Economic, pronunciation, pronunciation, conversion, conversion. Pattern six. For abbreviations, we usually put the stress on the final syllable or the final letter. For example, we say the UN. We don't say the UN. We say the UN. We say the UK, not the UK. We say the UK. We don't say the BBC. We say the BBC. Notice how the pitch of my voice rises when I say BBC. Bbc, Can you hear that? Goes up? Okay, so now it's time for a quiz to test what you've learned. So have a look at our first word here. Is the stress on the first or is it on the second syllable? Question two. What about this word? We've got four syllables, but where is the stress? Think about the patterns that we've learned. Question three, this is an organization. Where do we put the stress first, second, or third syllable? Question four. What about this word? Think about what type of word is, and that should tell you whether it's the first or second syllable. And our final question, question five, we've got another long word. But where is the stress? Think about the patterns that we've learned and keep watching for the answers. Okay, so let's go through the answers. So for question one, the stress is on the first syllable because it's a compound word. We say workshop. For number two. This word ends with the shin suffix. So the stress is on the penultimate syllable, which is the fourth organization. Organization. For number three, this is an abbreviation. So we say the WHO, we put the stress on the third syllable. And question number five, we say a range. So we put the stress on the second syllable because it's a verb. Summary. Let's look back on what we've learned. So stress is essential to speak clearly and be understood. Even for natives, there are some situations where people might not understand us. Maybe we're talking on the phone or maybe it's very noisy. Or maybe the person we're speaking to is not familiar with the way we speak. So by using stress and using it in the right place, we can make sure that we're saying words correctly and giving the person listening the best chance of understanding what we're saying. The other thing to remember is there are patterns or general rules, but there are always exceptions. And by learning about stress marks, which are found in most dictionaries, we know that we can look up any words and we can learn exactly how to say it. While I hope that was useful. And I will see you in the next lesson. 3. Sentence Stress : Hello again. Now, it's really important to pronounce all the sounds of English correctly. However, if we don't get this next part right, We might find that people struggled to understand us. And if we really want to sound more natural and more like a native, we really need to get sentenced stress, right, and understand how it works. So let's have a look in a bit more detail, which you like to go out to dinner. Would you like to go out to dinner? Would you like to go out to dinner? Did you notice that each time I said the sentences, I put the stress in a different place. Listen again and try to work out which words have the stress on them. Which you'd like to go out to dinner. Would you like to go out to dinner? Which you like to go out to dinner. For the first one, the stress was on the word you. For the second sentence, the stress was on, go out. And for the third one, I put the stress on the word dinner. We write. We're going to come back to this to understand why we might put the stress on different words and what that means. But let's first think about what stress is. Stress is basically making words louder. We make them longer, so it takes longer to save them, just like I did there. And often we change the pitch. So usually it's a higher pair. So we need to understand and think about the music of our voice and how our voice can rise and fall. It can go up and down. So what's the effect of using stress? Why do we need it? Why do we use it? Well, it makes our sentences clearer and we emphasize the meaning. Are there any rules for stress? Well, that is a general rule. That is, the content words are usually stressed and grammatical words are usually not stressed. So you're probably asking, what are content words and what are grammatical words? Well, content words are basically the ones that carry the meaning. So they include nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and negative auxiliaries. So that's words like calm. And grammatical words, which are also known as function words. They're basically the words that we need to use for grammar purposes, but they don't really carry the meaning of what we're trying to say. So they include pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliary verbs. Usually we can work out the meaning without these words. Okay, Let's look at another example. See if you can work out where I'm putting the stress in this sentence. Can you turn the oven off? Let me say again. Can you turn the oven off? Where was I putting the stress there? Think about the important words, the content words. Think about what I really want to say to someone. The main thing I'm talking about is the oven. So we put the stress on oven. Let me say it again. Can you turn the oven off? So if I didn't say that sentence with any stress, it would sound like this. Can you turn the oven off? And that is very unnatural. And when we speak unnatural English, we often find it difficult to understand because it's so strange. So imagine that you're shouting to somebody who you live with and you want to tell them to turn the oven off, they might not hear every word you say. You need to make sure that you put the stress on the important word or words. And in this case is oven. If you heard the sentence, the only words that you could understand was oven, then you could still work out what the person was saying from the context. You have a go at saying it. Can you turn the oven off? So notice how I'm I my voice went up when I said often, can you turn the oven off? If you think about the music of the pitch of my voice, it sounds like this. That data. That data. Can you turn the oven off? Let's have a look at another example. Where would you put the stress in this sentence? You put it on one word or would you put it on two words? Listen to how I say it. Your phone is on the table. You found is on the table. He said the stress should be on phone and table, then you would be right. Because there the important thing. So let's imagine somebody is looking for their phone. We want them to know that the thing they're looking for the phone is on the table. Your phone is on the table. I might just put the stress on table. Your phone is on the table. So remember that there are often many ways to say the same sentence. Let's look at another example. Where do you imagine the stress will be in this one? What would you like to eat? What would you like to eat? If you were listening carefully, you'd realize the stress is on e because that is a content words in this sentence, that's the most important thing that I'm talking about. Listen again to how the word t0 becomes longer. I said eat normally it would be a very quick one syllable word, eat. Eat isn't how it gets longer, and also how I changed the pitch. The pitch goes up. What would you like to eat? What would you like to eat? So I also exaggerate the vowel at the start of the word E, which is the e sound. So when we say the e sound, our, our lips are spread wide, like we're smiling. And I hold that for a little bit longer than I would normally. What would you like to eat? You have a go. As I mentioned, we can put the stress in different places in a sentence depending on what we're trying to say or what we're trying to stress or emphasized. So let's look again at our first example sentence. And let's just think about why we might put the stress in different places. So the first one, would you like to go out to dinner? Obviously, I'm stressing the word you. So why might I put the stress on you? Well, there could be a number of reasons. Perhaps somebody's asked me if I would like to go out to dinner. I might reply and say Yes. But would you like to go out to dinner? So I'm checking that the other person also wants to do the thing that I want to do. Another situation might be that I've asked one person in the room if they would like to go out to dinner. And maybe I want to check if another person would like to go out. So I might put the stress on you on that person. What about if I put the stress on go out? Why do you think I might do that? Well, a possible situation might be that two people are at home, maybe talking about what they're going to make for dinner. Maybe they're saying they haven't got enough foods. As a suggestion, one person might ask the other one if they could go out instead of staying in. So it's in contrast here to staying in. So instead of staying in for dinner, I might say, well, would you like to go out to dinner? For the third example, the stress is on dinner and that's probably where it would be most of the time. Usually when we're asking someone if they want to do something, we put the stress on that thing, which you'd like to go out to dinner if we're asking someone about any activity. So for example, we might say, would you like to play football? We put the emphasis on the thing or the activity that we're suggesting. Would you like to eat some fruits? Would you like to watch TV? Now I mentioned negative auxiliary verbs earlier. So their words like Kant didn't, haven't, wasn't. Now, these are really important words to stress. Why? Because if we don't stress them, then it's possible that somebody might think we mean the opposite. And it's very common that non-Natives sometimes don't make can and can't clear. For example, we would say I can't do anymore to really emphasize that we're not able to do something. So listen again to see how I'm making that word longer and clearer. I can't do it anymore. You have a go. In the second example, if somebody thinks that we knew something, we might want to stress to them that we didn't know. So we'd say I didn't know. And finally, if somebody thinks that were involved in something and we want to stress that we want we would say I wasn't involved. I wasn't involved. You try it. Now, of course, saying how we feel or describing how we feel about certain things is obviously really important to any language. In English is very common when we use intensifiers that we stress these types of words. Intensifiers are words like, so, very, really, extremely. We usually put these before an adjective. For example, I'm so happy or I'm very disappointed. So we usually use intensifiers before adjectives to make them stronger, to say how we feel about something. In a sentence, we often put the stress on these intensifiers to emphasize that we feel strongly about something. So let's have a look at some examples here. So in the first example, I might say, it's so hot today, isn't it? It's hot today, isn't it? So notice how I made the words so much longer, much longer than the other words. It's so hot today, isn't it? You try it. What about the next one? How do you think we would stress this sentence? The food was absolutely delicious. The food was absolutely delicious. Native speakers love to stress intensifies, especially words like absolutely. So you will hear this a lot if you listen to how native speakers. In one final example, we probably say this sentence like this. I'm extremely disappointed. We might say this sentence to just tell somebody how we feel, but we might be complaining to someone. And so bye, putting the stress on the word extremely here, we're really emphasizing that person how strongly we feel. Now something else that's really important about stress is when we don't have any stress. Now I said earlier that that sounds very unnatural in English. But there might be certain situations when natives don't use any stress. If you think about this example, give it back now. What kind of meaning do you think I'm trying to convey there? What's the effect of not using any stress? Well, usually if we give someone an order, which we usually do when we're serious, we often don't use stress. So it makes our sentences much more direct. And that's why we use them when we're telling someone what to do. So in certain situations you might want to do that, but if you don't use stress that it can come across as being very rude. So we can use stress as a way of being polite because if we don't use stress, sometimes it can sound rude. Okay, so let's just look at a quick summary of what we've learned. So stress changes the emphasis of what we say. The same sentence can be stressed in different ways depending on the situation. And we usually stress the most important words, I, nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, content words. Remember that getting word stress correct will take some time. You really need to spend a lot of time listening to native speakers, learning and trying to imitate how they speak and how they use stress. Once you get sentence stress, right? It's really going to help you sound much more natural when you speak English. Well, I hope that was useful and I will see you in the next lesson. 4. Connected speach: Do you find that you don't always understand Natives when they're talking? Do you find that we talked to quickly? Well, in this lesson, we're going to look at why exactly that might be. The real reason is that when we're talking naturally, we don't always pronounce a free sound. Let's now have a closer look. Connected speech. In natural spoken English, we do not always pronounce every word the same way as we would in isolation. We often join words and sounds together, as well as missing out some sounds completely. Have a listen to the sentence below. Shall we learn about connected speech? Now? Have another listen to me saying it naturally. Shall we learn about connected speech? Did you hear the difference? I'll say it again. Shall we learn about connected speech? The natural way? Shall we learned about connected speech? You probably found the second way, the natural way sounded much quicker. And that's because we join or connect sounds together. Now sometimes when we do this, we miss out sounds completely. We don't pronounce them, and sometimes the sounds change. So in this lesson we're going to look at how natives really speak. This might be useful for you if you want to speak like a native. It may also be useful if you're doing a test light. I'll, however, remember, it's not necessary to speak like this using connected speech. In a lot of ways. It depends on your level. It's usually advanced speakers that are interested in connected speech. So there are several aspects of connected speech. The 12 we're going to focus on in this lesson are weak forms, something called elision. What are weak forms? A weak form is where sounds become unstressed, which often results in the sound changing to a schwa sound, which you may remember is the most common sound in English. It's just the a sound, probably because it's very easy to produce. Now, this usually occurs in grammatical words, which are the words which are not so important. So they include prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, articles, and auxiliary verbs. So we tend to say these types of words quite quickly. And with weak forms, we make them a little bit easier for us to say. So our first week form is the very common article a. And as you may well know, we don't always pronounce this a. As we said earlier, often when we're speaking naturally, we change sounds to schwa sound. Articles aren't really that important. They don't carry the meaning. So instead of saying, I've got a cold, when we're speaking naturally, we would just say, I've got a cold. I've got a cold. You have a go. And as you can see, we almost join or connect the sound, the schwa to the noun, a cold. I've got a cold. And in the second example, we don't say, shall we go for a drink? We might do. But more commonly, you will hear native English speakers saying, Shall we go for a drink? Shall we go for a drink? So the a becomes a schwa, and he joins onto the noun, a drink, should we go for a drink? So there are weak forms of many common words that we use in almost every sentence, like the word to. So instead of saying, would you like to go out to dinner? We would say if we were speaking naturally, would you like to go out to dinner? So the two, the long e sound is replaced with just the schwa sound and it connects to the word go. So we would say to go, would you like to go? And if you look carefully, we also have a two before dinner. So instead of saying to dinner, we would say to dinner, to dinner. So the two and the dinner would connect to dinner. So we've got to go out to dinner practicing now. Would you like to go out to dinner? Let's look at our next example sentence. We wouldn't say I went to work. We would say, I went to work. I went to work. I went to work at quarter past seven. You try it. And is of course, an extremely common words. So one of our favorite things to eat, fish and chips, but we don't call it fish and chips. We call it fish and chips. Fish and chips. So what's actually happening here? Well, we're replacing the app in and with a schwa, efficient chips. Let's see some fish and chips. You try it. In our second example. Instead of saying, this is a school for girls and boys, would say girls and boys. Girls and boys. This is a school for girls and boys. You say it. What about the word for? We wouldn't say Would you like to go out for lunch? So we've replaced the long o sound with and we join the word for lunch. It's not for lunch. It's for lunch. For lunch. Would you like to go out for lunch? Second example. What's for dinner? What's for dinner? You try it. Now for the word we, instead of saying the long e sound, we change it to a quick sounds. Weird. So we could say, shall we go to the cinema? But if we were speaking naturally, we would probably say, shall we go to the cinema? Shall we go to the cinema? So we're replacing we with width. Shall we go? And we could use that in any sentence that starts, shall we go, shall we go. In our next example, we would join we and got together, but we would pronounce it. We got we got we got home late. We got home late. You try it. What about the word bean? Have you been here before? Have you been here before? Did you notice what happened to the long e sound in between? It became a short sound. So I'm saying been not been have you been here before? Have you been here before? You try it? In our seconds. And in our second example we would say, I've been to the shop. I've been to the shop. What happens to the word off? Well, it often becomes of, of, it's a schwa and a sound. So instead of saying it's the end of the week, in natural spoken English, we would say it's the end of the week, end of, end of it's the end of the week. Please remember once again, that you do not have to speak like this. However, if you are an advanced speaker and you do want to sound more like a native, this is the way to do it. And it will also help you to understand how natives speak In lesion. So this is where we don't pronounce certain sounds when we're speaking naturally, we completely leave out some sounds. I know this may seem a little confusing, but elision happens in almost every language, so it probably happens in your language too. So let's look at some common sounds we miss out. So we'll start with the sound. So instead of saying, I must go out, we would say, I must go out. I must go out. So if we look at the word don't, in our second example, we would miss out the sound so it becomes dome. We don't believe you. We don't believe you. That's how we would say it If we were speaking naturally. Let's have a look at another example. Instead of saying, I want to sleep, we would say, I want to sleep, I want to sleep. So we've missed out the term at the end of one. I want to sleep. And if we think about why we're doing this, the reason is that the word to is a grammatical words. It doesn't really carry any meaning. It's just a word that we have to have. The stress is on the word sleep. So we move quickly to the word sleep. We joined the two and the sleep together, I want to sleep. That's the most important part of the sentence because that's the thing that I want to do. Instead of saying, I feel a bit tired, we would miss out the top. I feel a bit tired. I feel a bit tired. I feel a bit tired. You say that the dub sound is another sound that we often leave out when we're speaking naturally. We wouldn't say I used to live there. We would say, I used to live there. I used to live there. And in the second example, instead of saying I just can't stand by, we would join the stand and the buyer together and miss out the door. I can't just stand by. I can't just stand by. We also miss out the sounds. I've forgotten his name. I've forgotten his name. So I'm making it a little bit easier for me to say. So instead of saying, I've forgotten his name, I've forgotten his name. I've forgotten his name. And in the second example, instead of saying, I don't know him, I might just say I don't know him. I don't know him. Now we're going to look at some common words where we do not pronounce all the sounds. Now, these are words that students have English often struggle with because they try to pronounce all the sounds in the words. But when we speak naturally, we natives do not do this. It's not comfortable. We say comfortable. It's not vegetable. We say vegetable. Instead of saying Whedon stay, we say Wednesday. Instead of saying family with just say family. Instead of saying interest, we just say interests. And instead of saying similar, we just say similar. And now it's time for a quiz. So I'm going to read three sentences. And each sentence is going to contain at least one week form. It might contain two. Your job is to work out where those weak forms are. You'll see the answers in just a minute. So number one, I've got to go home now. I've got to go home now. Where's the weak form? Number two, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Did you hear a weak form? Maybe you heard to. Finally, have you been to London? Have you been to London? Where was the weak form? Okay, so here are the answers. In number one, there was one weak form and that's with two. So instead of saying two, I've got to go home now, we would just say, I've got to go home now. So that becomes a schwa sound. I've got to go home now. And for number two, hopefully you spotted the two-week forms. What are we going to do? So instead of saying What are we going? We say we're going, what are we going again to, to do? To do, not to do? To do what are we going to do? What are we going to do? You try that. And for question three, Have you been to London? Have you been to London? So the bean becomes been. Have you been the two again is two. Followed by Schwab to London. Have you been to London? Have you been to London? Once again, these are examples of how many natives actually speak. Okay, now we've got three questions on elision. So I'm going to read out each sentence and you've got to work out which sounds are missing. Number one, I'm a little bit tired. I'm a little bit tired. Which sounds did I miss out? Number two, can you please tell her? Can you please tell her which sounds were elided? And number three, I miss the bus. Oh, I miss the bus. Which sounds did I not pronounce? Okay. So for number one, if you said that I missed out the tar in little under in bit, then you would be right. I didn't say I'm a little bit tired. I said I'm a little bit tired. A little bit, a little bit. This is how many natives would pronounce this sentence. Number two, We don't say Can you please tell her? Number two? I didn't say can you please tell her? I elided or missed out the hertz sound as we often do with words like him or his or her. Can you please tell her? Can you please tell her? For number three? I missed the bus, but I also missed out the sound and missed I missed the bus. So it's almost just sounds like miss I miss the bus. I missed the bus. I missed the bus. You can't hear the D and you don't need to say the D If you're speaking naturally. Okay, so let's summarize what we've learned. Weak forms. Native speakers connect sounds together when they speak naturally. Vowel sounds often become schwa sounds, which is the a sound. This mainly occurs in grammatical words as they are less important than content words. What did we learn about elision? In natural spoken English, we often do not pronounce certain sounds, typical sounds, we sometimes do not pronounce. We completely miss out or the to her and sounds. Remember once again, it is not necessary to use connected speech when you're speaking English. However, it will allow you to sell more like a native if that's what you want to do, if that's what stage you are at. And it will also help you to understand native speakers better. Well done. And I'll see you in the next one. 5. Intonation: In this lesson, we're going to look at intonation. So what is intonation? Every language has its own music. The pitch of the voice rises and falls, which gives it its own unique sound. In English, intonation is part of natural speech and can be used to convey different meanings. Intonation can vary depending on the speaker and the situation. So let's look at an example. I'm going to say these two words in three different ways. See if you notice how I'm changing the intonation and think about which one sounds more polite. So the first one is, thank you. Second one is Thank you. The third one is thank you. The second way. Thank you. Doesn't sound quite as polite, does it. And if I say, thank you, it sounds a bit rude, doesn't it? So hopefully in this example you can see that there are different ways we can use our voice and the pitch of our voice specifically to convey different meanings depending on the situation. So there are four main intonation patterns. There aren't strict rules, so we're going to refer to them as patterns. We have rising intonation, where our voice goes up. And we have falling intonation wherever it goes down. And then we have rising, falling, and we have falling rising. So first let's look at rising intonation. So we use rising intonation for yes or no questions. So those are ones that require a yes or no answer. For example, did you have a nice time? Did you have a nice time? Or would you like some more? Would you like some more? Notice how the pitch of my voice rises. It goes up. We also use this rising intonation pattern for tag questions that require an answer. For example, it will dance wife on you. Your dance wife on you. This is yours, isn't it? This is yours, isn't it? So we use rising intonation for any tag question where we need an answer. Like did you weren't year, isn't it? And so on. Now, falling intonation is the most common intonation pattern we have in English. So it's a really important one to learn and practice. So we use this for wh questions. So those are ones that start with when, what, where, why, who, which or even how. For example, where did you go? Where did you go? Or how was it? How was it? You can think of any question that starts with one of those words, and usually your intonation will fall, it will go down. We also use falling intonation for statements. For example, it was nice to see you. It was nice to see you. Or I need to go home soon. I need to go home soon. We also use the falling intonation for commands. Come over here now. Come over here now. Or don't speak to me like that. Don't speak to me like that. We also use the falling intonation for exclamations. So that's if we're excited or angry or we're saying something with strong emotion. For example, what a lovely view. What a lovely view. Notice how my voice is going down. And similarly, that's so sweet of you. That's so sweet of you. Think about the pitch of my voice. It's going down, it's falling. We also use falling intonation for rhetorical question tags. So those are ones where we don't actually want an answer. We're just saying something for effect. For example. He's so silly, isn't he? He's so silly, isn't he? Or she doesn't care, does she? She doesn't care, does she? So now we move on to rising, falling intonation, which is something we use for lists. So listen to how I say this list of three things. I say I bought some bread, cheese and Mel. I bought some bread, cheese, and milk. My voice went up. It stayed up, and then it came down. The second example, first we'll eat, then we'll go out. And then we'll make the call. First, we'll eat, then we'll go out, and then we'll make the call. So for a typical list of three things, or voice goes up at the start, it stays up. And then for the final item on the list, it comes down. By doing this, you will sound more natural and it will make it easier for people to understand you. Okay, We also use rising, falling, four choices. So for example, Would you like tea or coffee? Would you like tea or coffee? So whenever we're giving someone a choice of two things, the first thing that goes up, and for the second choice, it goes down. In the second example, shall we do it now or later? Shall we do it now or later? You practice saying now, first option goes up, the second option goes down. And we also use rising, falling for conditional sentences. So for example, if we play it again, I'm sure I'd win. If we play it again, I'm sure I'd win. An example two. If you have any questions, please ask. If you have any questions, please ask. This sentence in particular is a very common one in English, we would often use this at work, talking to customers or colleagues. So what about falling, rising intonation? So we often use this on single words. So if we're uncertain or unsure, we might say, Would that be okay? Well, I've always goes down and then up. You show. You show. We also use this information to be polite to make requests or suggestions. Shall I try later? Shall I try later? Or would you like to try some? Would you like to try some? We can also use this information to sound surprised or interested in what the other person saying. Rarely. Rarely. You try saying that. Okay, so now we're going to do a quick quiz to test what you've learned. So number one, what is the most common intonation pattern? Is it rising? Is it falling? Is it flat? Is it rising, falling or falling rising. Question to which pattern do we use for tag questions? Tag questions are things like, isn't, it, wasn't, it? Haven't they? And finally, question three, which intonation pattern that we use for rhetorical questions? Those are, of course, questions that do not need an answer. Okay, So for number one, if you said falling intonation is the most common than you would be, right? Well done. For question two, tag questions we use rising intonation. That's your book, isn't it? For number three, the answer is falling. So for rhetorical questions, the pitch of our voice goes down. For example, you're not impressed, Are you? Okay, so in summary, what have we learnt? Information is an important part of natural speech. What that means is this is how native speakers. So if you use natural intonation there, natives will find it easier to understand you because you're speaking the same way that native speak. Using it incorrectly might make it hard for people to understand you, and it could also sound rude. That's especially true if you don't use any information at all. That usually sounds a bit rude. Remember also that there are no strict rules, but rather patterns that we can follow to sound more natural. So if you'd like, you can go back and practice the intonation that I'm using. But definitely listen out for intonation patterns when you hear native speaking and try to copy it. While I hope that was useful. And I will see you in the next lesson.