How to Sound "More Native" in English

Hello everybody, and welcome back to English With Dylan! You’re listening to episode two: How to sound “more native” in English. I hope you’re having a great day so far, and thank you for spending a little part of it here, listening to my podcast. I’m your host, Dylan Kingwell, and I have to say that I am really excited about today’s topic. Actually, I have to thank you guys, the listeners, for the idea for today’s episode! A few days ago, I did a survey on my instagram asking everybody what they wanted to hear me talk about, and the most popular response was something along the lines of “Tips to sound more native in English.” Oh and byy the way, be sure to go follow the podcast on instagram, @englishwithdylanpod, so that you, too, can contribute your own ideas for future episodes!

And speaking of the instagram, I just wanted to mention one thing before we get started. It has been so lovely for me to see all of your comments, messages, and feedback about the first episode of my podcast. To everyone who listened, I really cannot thank you enough, and the same goes for everyone listening to this episode right now! It means the absolute world to me. Now, I have been thinking a lot about my goals for this podcast, and the truth is that the possibilities for the future are endless, which is great. But there is one thing that I am absolutely certain of right now, and that is that I would love for there to be a huge sense of community surrounding this podcast and you guys, the listeners! I want to let you know that I will be as active as I possibly can be on the instagram account, because it brings me so much joy to see and respond to your comments and questions. So please, I invite you all to always leave your thoughts in the comment section after every episode! Whether you strongly agree or disagree with something that I said in a recent episode, or you have a question, or an idea for future episodes, I would love to see you all interacting with me and with each other! And my promise, like I said, is that I will be as active as I possibly can, responding to comments and dms as much as possible. At the end of the day, we’re all here because we have a passion for foreign languages, and I just think it would be fantastic to use that shared common interest to create a big, active, positive community. Don’t you?

Now, without further ado, let’s get right into today’s topic! Just a quick reminder that if you want, you can actually change the speed of the podcast. If you’re listening on my website, you can make my voice faster as a challenge (maybe you think I’m speaking too slow and so you want to make it a bit more difficult) and if you’re listening on Spotify or Google Podcasts for example, you can make my voice faster or slower, whatever you like!

So the reason that today’s topic interests me so much is because, as someone who has learned a few languages myself, I really understand why this topic is so important to you guys! I mean, who doesn’t want to sound more native in the language that they’re learning? Now, I believe that there are two different ways to answer this question: there are general answers, strategies, and practice methods that one can use to attain a more native level in English (or any language), and then of course there are some words and phrases very specific to English that I can give you. So I’m going to start with the broader, more general answer, and then in the second half of the show I will give 5 of the most important tips that I can think of to sound more native specifically in English.

So, how can we sound more native in a foreign language?

Sometimes when you’re learning a language, it can seem like no matter how much better you get, how much studying you do, or how much new vocabulary you learn, the gap between you and a native speaker is still extremely large. I remember about 6 months into learning French, I had reached a level that I would define as conversational fluency. Now, different people have many different opinions on what constitutes conversational fluency, but I like to define it like this: you are conversationally fluent in a language if you have few or no problems speaking, reading, and writing about a vast range of topics with native speakers. Some of you may have different opinions. The truth is that defining any kind of fluency in a language is very difficult. It’s more of a spectrum, not a single defined point. But if so, if you do have different opinions, be sure to leave them in the comments on my instagram! I look forward to reading them. This is simply how I like to define it, and for the purpose of this podcast, that is what I will mean whenever I mention conversational fluency in the future. Anyways, I was conversationally fluent in French at the time. I mean, I used it every day for a bunch of things, from speaking with friends and teachers to applying for University in France, and I had little difficulty. That is to say, I only occasionally didn’t know or understand a word or phrase that I needed. Despite that, whenever I would try and watch a French TV show, for example, I found myself in a world of difficulty! It was very frustrating because I knew that I had a good level of French, I mean I was able to do things like call people on the phone in French to talk about relatively complicated topics such as University applications and even renting an apartment in Paris. And of course I was also able to have regular day-to-day conversations with friends too. And yet, there was just so much that I still didn’t understand! After spending a lot of time thinking about it and talking about it with some friends, I came to a conclusion that really changed my perspective on language learning as a whole. I realized that this level of “conversational fluency” is actually MUCH lower than we usually think, compared to the level of a native speaker. What do I mean by this?

Let’s imagine that proficiency in a language is measured in percentages, where someone who doesn’t know a single word or phrase is at 0%, and a native speaker is at 100%. In reality, almost nobody – not even native speakers – achieves 100% total mastery of a language (for example, I’m sure that there are still hundreds, maybe even thousands of difficult words and phrases in English that I wouldn’t understand), but to make it simple, we’ll place native speakers at 100%. I think that in general, we tend to imagine that to get to a point of conversational fluency in a language, it requires us to be around the 80% range. I mean, that’s what I used to believe, and that seems to make sense, doesn’t it? If you have very little problems communicating about an extremely wide range of topics, you should be within 20% of a native speaker, right? Well, no, not right! What I realized when I was struggling to watch a French TV show is that my problem wasn’t not being as good as I thought I was, but rather that I expected conversational fluency to be so close to the level of a language that you hear in a TV show, where there are a bunch of native speakers, speaking to each other at high speeds, and using slang words and phrases. I actually believe that conversational fluency would be closer to 50% on the scale of proficiency.

You might ask me,

“Dylan, how could there be a whole 50% difference between being able to talk about almost anything, and a native speaker?”

Well, allow me to explain!

The thing is, languages are very complicated things. We know this. One of the things that I find so fascinating about languages is actually the amount of opportunity that there is to be creative when speaking or writing. For example, in English, you can say that you have “bad” grades at school, and this is perfectly correct, and very common. But you could also say that you have: awful, terrible, lousy, poor, horrible, subpar, unacceptable, godawful, or atrocious grades. And all of those words would ALSO be perfectly correct, and relatively common. Do you see where I’m going with this? I personally believe, based on lots of personal experience, that it is precisely this vast range of – let’s call it – creativity that makes up the majority of the apparent 50% gap between a conversationally fluent speaker and a native speaker of a language. Conversational fluency seems like it’s very advanced because it means being able to talk about almost any topic you would ever need to with little difficulty. But what it also means is that you are probably only really capable of saying each thought or idea in one, maybe two different ways. When you consider ALL of the many different ways that exist to discuss any topic or idea in a language, and then you add factors like the speed at which you can speak and understand a language, the accent, and slang, I actually think 50% is a very fair and accurate number to describe the difference between conversational and native, don’t you? Earlier, in my “bad” grades example, I gave ten different possible ways to describe grades in a negative way. That means that the word “bad” actually only made up 10% of the possibilities. Now, remember that there are several more synonyms for “bad” that I could have used that I didn’t even talk about, especially when considering slang. And then apply this idea, which just covers one single word, “bad”, to an entire language worth of words and phrases. As I said before, I believe the 50% idea makes a lot of sense, when you consider all the factors.

So to bring it back to the question, “how can we sound more native in a language”, I think one of the most effective ways to answer it would be to look at the advantages that native speakers have over non-natives, and then try and figure out ways to close that gap. We have just determined that the biggest advantage that native speakers have is the fact that they are capable of understanding and using creativity, that is to say, many different ways to express the same words or ideas, in their language. And to figure out how we, as learners of a language, can attain the kind of creativity that native speakers have, we just need to ask ourselves why they have it in the first place! And the answer to that is quite simple: exposure.

Native speakers have spent every minute of their entire lives exposed to their language. They have either read about, seen on TV or the internet, or been directly involved in almost any kind of situation that you could possibly imagine in life, hundreds or thousands of times in their native language! It only makes sense that they would have so many different words and phrases available to them. So, the question is what can you, someone learning that language, do to make up for the huge gap in exposure between yourself and all the native speakers? Well, the answer is quite simple again: you must increase your exposure! I’m sure you could have guessed that. But the useful advice that I have for you is about how to increase your exposure; the methods that I have used, and that have worked for me.

I want to start off by saying that if you’re just in the beginning stages of learning a language, you don’t need to stress yourself out by worrying about things like the gap between conversational and native right now. In fact, aiming for conversational fluency is actually a fantastic and more beneficial way to spend the first stage of a language learning process. If you try and “bite off more than you can chew”, (that’s a great phrase which means to try to do more than what you are capable of doing) you will probably end up overwhelmed, and might even lose your motivation to learn the language (this has happened to me MANY times before). So my advice is to always start with realistic, smaller goals, and you’ll find that you advance much quicker! That being said, of course a certain amount of exposure is also needed to get from beginner to conversational. So, what are the best ways to increase your exposure to a foreign language?

Well, everyone knows that things like listening to music and watching TV or Youtube are fantastic ways to increase exposure, and by doing so, build a bigger vocabulary with more creative freedom. And hey, I will not dispute this! If you love music, I absolutely recommend that you check out the “Billboard Hot 100” songs right now: almost all of them are in English, and there are songs from every genre on that list. You are sure to learn a ton of new words and phrases! But what would be the point of this podcast if all I did was tell you guys things that you probably already know, and that I’m sure many of you already do? Instead, I’d like to talk about three things that I’ve done in the past to increase my exposure, things that I feel are not talked about as often as television and music. And by the way, these tips are fantastic because they’re intended for everyone, from beginners trying to become conversational, to people who are trying to close that 50% gap!

Changing the language of your phone. Guys, I cannot recommend this enough! One of the very first things that I do when I start learning a new language is set my phone to that language. Now, I understand that this is a scary thought for a lot of people. It was for me too! And it is true that your phone becomes a lot more difficult to navigate if you put it into a language that you aren’t fluent in yet. But I want to let you in on a little secret that I’ve discovered about the human brain: it works a lot better under pressure. When you switch the language of your phone, you have two options: learn all the new vocabulary, or be unable to navigate your phone. It’s as simple as that. For the beginners out there, changing your phone’s language forces you to learn a whole bunch of useful vocabulary that can really help you make the jump from beginner to intermediate. I mean, think of all the words that we use on an everyday basis that you can find in your phone! And it’s not just limited to technology vocabulary. Every-day verbs like send, receive, see, read, learn, open, close, find, search, and many more are very common in your phone. The cool thing is that, since the location of these words doesn’t change, just the language, you’ll know right away what it means! For example, on instagram, when someone has just read your message it says “seen just now” in English. When I switched my phone to portuguese and then opened up instagram, I learned very quickly that “seen just now” is “visto agora há pouco” in portuguese. In just a second, I learned the past tense of the verb for “to see”, as well as the word for “now” and the phrase for “just now”. Not bad, hey? And for when you’re conversationally fluent, having your phone in a different language helps a lot, too! This is because when you have your phone in a different language, social media apps like instagram and tiktok pretty quickly start to show you content in that language. Being exposed to trending videos in your language really helps add a whole new level to your language skills. Aside from of course learning new words and phrases, you get exposed to things like different accents, slang, and culturally important topics. All of this facilitates communication with native speakers of a language, giving you the power to understand a broader range of people and the things they say, as well as the ability to talk about more relevant topics, and even use some very trendy slang that makes you sound like a true native speaker!
2. Meeting someone who speaks the language. I know this might seem obvious, but the importance of this point cannot be understated. I truly believe that to achieve conversational fluency, and especially to go beyond that, it is absolutely necessary to have at least one person with whom you can speak the language that you’re trying to learn. But notice how I didn’t say “native speaker”, just someone that speaks the language! Obviously, if you have a native English speaker in your life, that would be ideal, as they are able to correct you if you make mistakes. But it is extremely valuable to have anyone to speak with, native or not. In the first episode of this podcast, I talked about how I spoke French nearly every day with my friend while I was learning. She is actually not a native French speaker! She did french immersion in school and has a very high level, but she still sometimes made mistakes and forgot words. That’s ok though, it didn’t matter though, because it gave me the opportunity to listen to, think, and speak in French every single day, and that’s what’s important. Now, I know it can be difficult to meet people. If you are in high school or university, there may very well be English-speaking exchange students in your class or year that you could introduce yourself to! I know exchange students are always hoping to make friends with locals, especially locals who want to learn their language! I, for example, actually only learned Italian because of an Italian exchange student that I met who became my best friend, and then I got very lucky because my family hosted an Italian girl for five months this year. Because of that, I met an amazing group of Italian friends. If exchange students aren’t an option, there are countless websites and forums out there with people exactly like yourself who are learning English and simply searching for someone to talk to. Of course, you do have to be careful on the internet, an in person connection is obviously ideal. But hey, it’s totally possible to find another trustworthy, like minded individual with whom to speak. And hey, you may just find a penpal, or a friend! Anyways, for beginners, having someone to speak the language with is essential for many things. I always recommend that people learning a language begin by texting in that language, as it allows you to grow your vocabulary. Then, as soon as you know enough for basic conversation, speaking with that person is helpful for things such as forming muscle memory (that is, getting used to how it feels to speak a language, this will help you speak at a quicker pace and with smoother rhythm), listening comprehension, going from translating in your head to actually thinking in the foreign language, and lots more. For advanced learners trying to close the 50% gap, it is essential to have a native speaker. With them, you will be able to refine your skills. A native speaker helps you speak and understand at a fast pace, exposes you to different ways to express ideas and words that you already know, helps you with slang and trending language/topics, and much more.
Last but not least, writing a daily journal. The great thing about this tip is that it is so easy to make it easier or more difficult, depending on your level. If you’re a beginner, you could start by simply writing about three events that happened to you during the day, and how you felt about them. Writing a journal is great because not only will it force you to look up words that you may not know (therefore exposing you to more of the language), but after finding them you have to write them down. It is scientifically proven that you are more likely to memorize something after hearing or reading it if you write it down afterwards. And then, once you reach a more advanced level, you can choose to write about 10 events, or about one event but describe it in lots of detail, or a random idea that you had, or anything else you want! The possibilities here are endless! Just make sure that every day, you choose a journaling topic that will challenge you. In order to learn, it is necessary to put yourself in situations in which you will need to discover words that you just don’t know yet. And if you’re shy, then journaling is a great idea, because you can put yourself in this situation without any social pressure from others!

Alright, those were three ways to increase your exposure to a foreign language: putting your phone in that language, finding someone who speaks that language, and doing a daily journal. I think that these tips are great because they’re applicable to people across all levels, from beginner to conversationally fluent and beyond. I’ve done all three of these things in the past, and all that I can say is that it 100% helped me improve my language skills, faster.

So, now that you know some things that you can do to increase your exposure to English, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about something specific to English. What I wanted to discuss is something called contractions. Now, you may or may not be familiar with this term already, but for those of you that don’t know, a contraction in English is when we take two or more words and turn it into one, usually (but not always) using an apostrophe. For example: do not = don’t, would not = wouldn’t, etc.

I’m sure that many of you already know about and perhaps even use some of the simpler contractions (the ones with apostrophes, **that we DO write down**) but there are certain contractions that I’m sure are not taught in school anywhere, that don’t use apostrophes (**sometimes because we never write them down, they are only VERBAL contractions**) but are extremely common in every-day, spoken English, and so I thought it would be helpful to introduce you to them! Just a disclaimer, though: of course, none of what I am about to tell you is formal or proper English. For example, if you were doing a written assignment for English class, you would NEVER write down the contractions as they sound. Unfortunately, you do still have to properly write down these words with the correct spelling. But the fact is that in spoken language, these contractions are really common and are made up of phrases that you will use and hear every single time you speak or listen to English, so it is really important to know them.

First off, we have “what do you” which usually sounds like “whaddyou” or “whaddya”. A couple extremely common examples of this are “what do you think?” (whaddya think) and “what do you want?” (whaddyou want?) This contraction is formed by dropping the letter “t” in “what”, changing the “oo” in “do” and “you” to more of an “uh”, then saying it all really fast together. Again, they become, “whaddyou” or “whaddya.” The same kind of thing happens with “what does” (for example, “what does he..”). Here, though, you just have to drop the “t” in “what” and forget about the “h” in he. This sentence would usually sound, like I said, something like “whaduzee”. Like in “what does he want?” SO you got that? You have “what do you” as in “whaddyou think”, “what do ya” as in “whaddya want” and “what does he” as in “whaduzee want?”
Next, we have “want to”, which becomes “wanna”. I cannot stress enough how common this one is! I am absolutely positive that English speakers say “wanna” WAY more than they say “want to” in the proper way. I mean, you’ll hear “wanna” on television, in professional presentations, even authors sometimes write it down when a character is speaking! The point is, “wanna” is everywhere. For an example in context, we can actually combine this with the first two contractions that we talked about, “what do ya” and “what does”. A couple common phrases are “what do you want to do?” and “what does he want to do?” Furthermore, I know that when I’m texting with my friends and family, I often type “wanna” in my messages. I would almost never type “whaddya”, but wanna is extremely common. Alright, are you with me so far? We have “what do you”, “what does he,” and “want to”. Great!
Now, for number three, the same can be said. The contraction of “going to” which becomes “gonna” is extremely popular. For example, “I’m gonna go to the park!”, “He’s gonna do his homework”, and “are you gonna clean your room?” Again, just as a reminder, in a formal situation you would never write down “gonna”, but when texting with friends or family, I’d argue that gonna is much more common than “going to” in the English speaking world. We can do something funny by combining gonna and wanna by talking about something in the future tense. For example, “after staying up so late, are you really gonna wanna wake up early tomorrow?” Let’s look at that again. “After staying up so late, are you really going to want to wake up early tomorrow?” Great. Now that you guys have got that, let’s move on to number 4.
This fourth example is one that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot, possibly because it’s a little less common in everyday speech, but I can tell you firsthand that myself and many people that I know use this contraction quite often. It is changing the phrase “trying to” to “tryna”. For example, “I’m tryna figure out what’s happening”, or “He’s tryna study, don’t distract him.” Beware with this one, though, I would say it sounds a bit more “slangy” than the other examples so far. But nevertheless, it is fairly common to hear this in the media and in conversations with native speakers, so it’s good for you to know of its existence! Once again: “I am trying to figure out what’s happening” = “I’m tryna figure out what’s happening.” Or, “he is trying to study.” = “He’s tryna study”. Perfect! Now we got one more example.
And number five! So, this isn’t exactly a contraction per se, but it is a very useful tip that you can literally use every time that you greet someone in English, it’s that important. I’m talking about how the phrase “how are you?” becomes “how are ya?” Now, perhaps this one depends on the accent or region, I’m not actually too sure, but what I can tell you is that this is extremely common in Canada and I’m sure in the United States as well. And, I mean, it makes sense; all that you really have to do is change “you” to “ya”. It should be noted that “how are ya” is quite informal and friendly, personally I would recommend using this only with friends and family. For example, if it was my first day at a new job, I would probably greet my boss by saying, “hi, how are you?” and not “hey, how are ya?” It’s not so much that calling someone “ya” is offensive (as I said, it is EXTREMELY common in Canada), but rather that it’s just a very friendly way of greeting someone, and perhaps not the most appropriate way for a more professional situation. That being said, I don’t think a boss would ever get angry at you for talking to him or her like that, they would probably just think that that’s your way of speaking. Another interesting thing to be aware of with this phrase is how the intonation can change if you change “you” to “ya”. Listen closely: “hi, how are you?”. “Hey, how are ya?” Did you hear the difference? When we say “you,” the emphasis is always – well, ALMOST always placed on the word “you”. “Hi, how are YOU?” However, when we say “ya” the emphasis is ALWAYS placed on the word “are”. “Hi, how ARE ya?” This is quite strange, and please don’t ask me why it’s like this because the truth is that I have no idea. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say “how ARE you”, I personally wouldn’t usually say it like that, to me it feels awkward. Although chances are that no one would think that you’re weird if that’s how you said it. On the contrary, if you were to say “how are YA”, you would get a few weird looks, that’s for sure! The point is, if you are going to use this friendly little way of greeting someone, make sure you remember to place the emphasis on the word “are.” How ARE ya?

So there you have it! Three different ways to increase your exposure to English, therefore closing the gap between you and a native speaker, as well as 5 specific tips that you can add to your vocabulary to start sounding more native in English, TODAY! I hope that you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode of English With Dylan, and if so, I’d love to hear about it! If you’re listening on Spotify, I would really appreciate it if you gave my podcast a rating, from 1-5 stars. And if not, feel free to leave a comment on my Instagram, @englishwithdylanpod, and get the discussion started!

Oh and by the way, there’s one thing that I wanted to clarify before the end of the episode. If you are going to leave a comment on the Instagram account, I would encourage you to do your very best to do it in English! I will understand if you comment in French, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese, but I think it would be better for yourself and for the other followers of the podcast if all the comments were in English. That way, in case someone who speaks a different language has the same question that you do, they are able to understand your comment, and my response. And hey, don’t be afraid to make grammatical mistakes in your comments! We are all language learners here, we all understand how difficult it can be, and the best thing is that we can learn from each other’s mistakes. If, however, you have a question or comment that you really can’t figure out how to express in English, no worries! Feel free to send me a message in any of the four languages that I mentioned above, and I will do my very best to get back to you as soon as possible!

That’s all for today. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and I’ll see you next time! Bye bye!