Practice Shadowing a Business Presentation in English
English Teacher Claire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kyA8qGUIao

Transkript (automatisch erstellt)

0:00 Hello and welcome to another shadowing practice video with me, Claire, a native speaker from the US. I'm also a trained opera singer, so I've studied the
0:12 International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA. So, I've studied the correct pronunciation of sounds in multiple languages. In this video, we're going to
0:25 practice shadowing with a professional business presentation. Even if English is not your native language, you may need to use English at work or even give
0:37 presentations in English if you work for an international or US company. You want to be understood. So, even though you don't need to sound
0:50 just like a native speaker, pronunciation and intonation are crucial. And of course, knowing some key phrases or common business English
1:03 terms are also important to build confidence and overall fluency at work. So, I'll first read through the presentation at a natural pace. Then,
1:14 we'll go through some of the key phrases and of course pronunciation tips. Finally, we'll shadow it together so you can sound more natural and confident at
1:27 work. Let's go. English made easy with Claire.
1:35 Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here today. I want to walk you through our latest project and what the next steps are.
1:43 As you know, our team has been working on optimizing the user experience on our website. Over the past month, we've run several
1:52 tests and gathered valuable feedback from our customers. One key improvement is our new checkout process.
2:01 We've reduced the number of steps from five to three, which has already increased conversions by 20%. Looking ahead, we're planning to roll
2:12 out these updates globally by next quarter. That means we need to finalize testing and prepare our teams for the launch.
2:21 If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, and I'd be happy to discuss this further. Thanks again for your time.
2:29 All right. So, that was the initial read-through at a normal speaking pace. Let's go through it slowly together. So, we'll take the first section.
2:41 Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for being here today. That whole phrase can really be
2:49 connected. So, individually, we, of course, have the pronunciation of words like
2:59 for, being, and today. But, in natural, quick speech, we, in American English, tend to close down
3:12 some of the vowels or turn these vowels into the schwa sound. So, the schwa sound
3:20 is the uh sound. Like in the word banana. There's two schwas in banana. And that
3:31 happens in today. Today. Not too day, but today. Today. So, very rapid speech, those
3:43 vowels get dropped or, you know, changed into this schwa sound. And for becomes for in rapid speech. Thanks fer Thanks for being here today.
3:57 For the words that end in ing, we don't need to completely drop the g every time so that it's thanks for being here today.
4:07 That might come with certain dialects. But what we want to do is connect the ing sounds to the next word like with this connected speech. Being here. Being
4:22 here. Otherwise we have being here. And uh many native speakers don't speak like that. We don't have to
4:32 separate each word. But have this really connected speech which often then modifies the vowels like fer today.
4:45 Or we can elide sounds at the ends of words that squish on to the following word. So
4:55 shadowing practice is really helpful for learning full phrases that you might use. And this is a really common one. Thanks for being here today.
5:06 Because if you start a business presentation, that's a really polite way to start the meeting. Okay, let's keep
5:16 going. I want to walk you through our latest project and what the next steps are. So again, I wanna
5:24 That isn't just reserved for casual speech. You could be giving a business presentation and instead of saying want
5:33 to, say wanna. And most native speakers speak like that all the time. I want to walk you through our latest
5:40 project. So that's completely acceptable. Now walk you through Walk through is a phrasal verb, which means to explain
5:52 something step-by-step. And this is a great one to know for business English. I want to walk you through our latest
6:01 project. And what the next steps are. Okay, moving on. As you know, our team has been working on optimizing
6:12 the user experience on our website. Now, really important, when you have a comma, you always want to pause.
6:23 Don't just plow through the commas. As you know, our team has been work right, there's a
6:31 It implies a pause there. As you know, and then further, and you'll notice that my intonation goes up a little bit when there's a
6:43 phrase with a comma. And there's a little There's more phrases like this to come, and I'll point them out as well. As you know,
6:52 our team has been working on optimizing the user experience on our website. So, every time you have a comma, you can imagine the intonation going up at the
7:06 once you get to the end of the comma phrase, and then for the next phrase that ends in a period, the intonation goes back down. It happens again in the
7:15 next sentence. Over the past month, pause, we've run several tests and gathered
7:24 valuable feedback from our customers. Intonation goes down right before the period, and it goes up right before the comma. And this makes
7:36 it really clear the structure of your sentence. So, even though we can't see what you're saying when you're giving a presentation,
7:46 we understand the structure of the sentence because of your intonation. So, even if you don't pronounce all of the words exactly like me,
7:56 intonation is really, really important for this, for being understood. Now, in the previous sentence, we had a word ending in ing with the same concept of
8:08 eliding with the word after it. Our team has been working on working on. So, we don't need to drop the G completely, working on.
8:20 But, we do elide the sounds. Just it's a little bit softer than working working on. That helps with giving it a flow as well. Our team has been working on. Our
8:35 team has been working on. So, it all kind of flows together. Okay, next section. One key improvement is our new checkout process. I want to point
8:45 out the word key here, which I I think I've used quite a lot in this video already. And key as an adjective means important or major. So, one important
8:58 improvement is this, one key improvement. A word that we use a lot in business English. We've reduced the number of
9:09 steps from five to three. Again, my intonation just went up because there was a comma, so there's more to come. I'm not done with my
9:18 sentence. Which has already increased conversions by 20%. And then my intonation goes back down.
9:28 Again, we have the linking of the words which is already. Which is already increased. And this happens a lot with the word has. If we
9:39 are speaking in the present perfect, has increased, which is which is already, right? Which has So, because which ends with the ch sound, we
9:54 can elide that with the beginning h of has. Which is and has the vowel modifies to is. It's more of a clipped
10:09 vowel modification due to rapid speech, again. So, which is already increased conversions by 20%. It's kind of like when we have
10:21 contractions anyway, like we've reduced. We don't always have to say we have reduced. We don't tend to write out these contractions that we would say in
10:34 rapid speech, like which is increased, but we do speak like that. So, the same principle, we've reduced. That's all squished together with this
10:47 contraction. There is an unwritten contraction for which is increased. Looking ahead, we're planning to roll out these updates
10:58 globally by next quarter. Looking ahead, that is connected speech as well. Looking ahead, and we pause after the comma.
11:10 We're planning to roll out these updates. Roll out means to introduce something new and is often used in a business context. That means we need to
11:23 finalize testing and prepare our teams for the launch. So, again, in American English, a lot of the smaller words, the vowels are dropped or modified. We
11:36 need to finalize. To finalize, prepare our teams. Often the word our can sound like are in rapid speech. Prepare our teams.
11:48 That's also very connected. For the launch. So for instead of for. Again, those aren't really necessary for being understood, but that's for those
11:59 of you who would like to work on the American accent. And the word here launch means the beginning of something. Usually a campaign or a product in the
12:12 marketing world. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and I'd be happy to discuss this further. Thanks again for your time.
12:22 So we have the phrase feel free to feel free to, feel free to reach out, feel free to contact me, feel free to
12:32 write me an email. And it's a casual way to say don't hesitate to do something. So if you wanted to be more formal, you
12:42 could say don't hesitate to reach out, but feel free is a nice phrase to have. And right at the end, another great business
12:52 phrase we have thanks for your time. And that's used to acknowledge people's time. And it's a polite business phrase to use at either the beginning or the
13:03 end of a meeting or presentation. Okay, so a lot of what we covered in today's shadowing video was the concept of connected speech and maybe learning
13:16 phrases not as individual words, but together in a phrase where you can connect the speech to sound a little more natural and fluent.
13:29 We also talked about linking the ends of words with the beginning of the next word. Like we do this very often for words that end in ing.
13:40 Or if the sounds are similar at the beginning at the end and the beginning of the next word like which and has, which is. And we also covered a few
13:51 business phrases and phrasal verbs that are really useful to know, especially when speaking. So, now let's shadow the full presentation together. Try to match
14:03 my rhythm and intonation and word stress as well as pronunciation as best you can. If you want, you can pause the video after each section or
14:17 sentence and repeat after me. Or better yet, say the words with me at the same time and try and shadow
14:28 how I say it. Or maybe both work well. First, repeat after me and then afterwards try and shadow with me. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being
14:42 here today. I want to walk you through our latest project and what the next steps are. As you know, our team has been working
14:51 on optimizing the user experience on our website. Over the past month, we've run several tests and gathered valuable feedback
15:01 from our customers. One key improvement is our new checkout process. We've reduced the number of steps from
15:08 five to three, which has already increased conversions by 20%. Looking ahead, we're planning to roll out these updates
15:19 globally by next quarter. That means we need to finalize testing and prepare our teams for the launch. If you have any questions, feel free to
15:32 reach out and I'd be happy to discuss this further. Thanks again for your time. I hope this video was helpful and even if your goal
15:41 is not to perfect the American accent or try and change your own accent, it's still really important to practice the correct stress of a word
15:55 or the stressed word within a sentence or the intonation of that sentence so that the structure is clear. All of these things are really important for
16:07 being understood. So, take what you want from the video and leave what you don't, but hopefully you learned something new and it was helpful. Of course, if you
16:19 did think so, give it a like and subscribe to my channel if you want more videos like this. I have a playlist for shadowing videos and I'll be in your
16:29 feeds with another video next week. So, bye for now.