🎵 Pitch & Intonation | Core Training with Hadar

Foreign. Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to our third, third day in the pronunciation training. English pronunciation made simple. I am very excited to be here with you today. How are you doing? Let me know in the comments. What is up? How are you feeling? How's your connected speech? How are the sounds? How is everything? Let me see, who do we have here today? We have people from Tampa and Mexico and let me know where you're from. And we have from Spain and Brazil. Hello. Hello everyone. Colombia, Singapore, India, Iran, wherever you're at, Calgary, wherever you're at, wherever you're joining us from. Welcome and I'm thrilled to have you here with me today. Today is day three of the pronunciation training. So today we are going to talk about pitch and intonation. Yesterday we talked about connected speech. On day one, we talked about sounds, we talked about syllables, we talked about how to identify your priorities. And here we are starting to talk about the music of the language. And I'm happy to, to be here to guide you in understanding how this whole thing about speaking second language and using the intonation works. Okay. Okay, good. So we have people from Miami, Argentina, Egypt, Brazil, Italy, Vietnam. Ah, you guys are amazing. Oh my God, so many comments. Okay, good. All right, so before we actually go into the training, I want to let you know that I've opened registration for a masterclass that is going to happen next week on Tuesday and on Wednesday. And the reason why I wanted to share it with you because I feel like this masterclass is going to complete everything that we're doing here. While in the five day pronunciation training, we're focusing on pronunciation, effective practice, understanding how to learn pronunciation in a simple and easy way and how to practice it. There are a lot of additional aspects in learning a second language and definitely in speaking a second language that we need to take into consideration if we want to reach limitless fluency, where you feel like you like yourself when speaking in English. You don't judge yourself, you don't edit yourself, you don't feel artificial, you feel like you can say whatever you want to say. And even if it's not perfect, you're not hard on yourself, you're not self conscious about it. To me, limitless fluency feels like speaking without even noticing what language I'm speaking in. Is it my first language? Is it English? Is it another language? I don't know, I'm just speaking. I'm not worried about transitioning my thoughts into the language that happens naturally and this is what we want for ourselves. So in this masterclass, I'm actually going to give you more strategies that are going to help you do that, that are beyond pronunciation, because we all know that pronunciation is not enough. Pronunciation is amazing, but it's not enough. We have to work on our mindset. We have to have a learning strategy. We need to know how to focus. And this is what I'm going to teach you. We're going to talk about some of the bad advice that we hear out there and very common things that you might be hearing and maybe even doing. So how to avoid that, how to not do it, because these are things that I haven't done. And that what has helped me get to where I am today, where I feel like I can speak English with fluency and confidence and freedom, internal and external, because I feel loose and free. So if you go to the chat, Amar is going to pop in the link for the training. It's absolutely free, by the way, and I hope that you can join me. How to go from avoiding English to speaking with impact. It's going to happen twice on Tuesday, next Tuesday and once on Wednesday. So I really, really hope you can make it, put it in your calendar. You can go ahead and register right now so I can, you know, you'll be able to see there and complete the journey that we've started here. All right, so today we're going to talk about pitch and intonation. We're going to ask the important questions. What is pitch? What is intonation? What is tone of voice? Hadar, what is this? All of those things that you're talking about. And we're going to talk which is the most important part here, how to deliver a clear message using pitch and intonation. So talking about delivering clear message, there are a few elements that are important when it comes to that aspect. Conveying a clear message, being persuasive, speaking in a way that is interesting, understanding people better. And we talked about connected speech and we said that it's helpful. Today we're going to talk about pitch and intonation, which is the music of the language. And tomorrow we are going to talk about rhythm, which is also not less important when trying to deliver a clear message. Okay, so this entire training is designed to help you simplify big concepts of pronunciation and prosody, a less popular word. But it's all the aspects of speech that are not the speech sounds. Intonation, rhythm, stress, connected speech, phrasing, so on and so forth. So all of that is not less important and sometimes even more important than the accurate pronunciation of the R sound. And we are simplifying difficult concepts or challenging concepts so you can think about it in a different way. And then when you understand it, how it works, and we break it down, we dismantle all these big topics, then it's easier for you to hear it. And when you hear it, you can make it. Because if you can't hear it, you can't make it. Okay. If you can't hear the pitch changing when people speak, there is no way you'll be able to do it. And if you can't do it, then it might affect how clear or how clearly you speak. And then when you do shadowing exercises or when you try to practice and you're like, ah, the way I sound is not exactly the way it sounds in my head. When you experience that, it creates frustration. So basically in this training, you're getting the tools to think about things in a different way. It's like you're adding new vocabulary that you can, you know, and, and that develops more clearer thoughts. Okay, good. Just looking at some of the comments here. Okay, good. We've been getting such amazing comments below the videos and in on the website and over email of people saying that they really enjoyed the training. And I just wanted to say that if you reached out and you told us that we are reading all the comments and it makes us feel very, very happy and proud and, you know, this is the purpose of why we do what we do. Okay, let's move on to the first topic for today, which is pitch. You guys, what is pitch? Let me know in the chat. What do you think pitch is when you think about a pitch? So of course there is a pitch. I'm going to pitch you an idea, could be a verb, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about pitch that is related to speech, sounds and voice. So pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound. We talk a lot about pitch when it comes to music or singing. Right? You, you're off pitch, you're not singing on the right notes. Right. But pitch in general. Yeah, some people, the tone of the voice. Tone, yeah, tone would be the closest thing, but if we want to be very specific, it's the highness and lowness of a sound. It is determined by the frequency of the sound waves. So basically, remember that we said that we have the vocal cords here. So basically a sound is created as you push the air out and then you vibrate your vocal cords and the sound is carried over your breath and starts resonating in the mouth. And when the vibrations of the vocal cords are slow, that creates a low pitch. And when the vibrations are high, that creates higher, frequent. A higher frequency. Then that's when we hear a high note. Okay, so this is the frequency of the vocal cords, and higher frequency waves produce a higher pitch sound. That's a high pitch right up here. High notes and very low notes. Now, if we're thinking of resonance and how the sound resonates in our body, usually high notes and high pitch resonates more here in the cheeks and the nose and all up here, the head. It's called head resonance. Hi, how are you? And lower notes tend to resonate more in bigger spaces in the chest. Hey, how are you? Now, we're not going to talk about the voice right now, even though I know the voice is important. Actually, in my program, New Sound, there is an entire training about the voice, how to use it in an optimal way, and how to find the right pitch, the optimal pitch for you that is not too high and not too low, where your voice is most comfortable and in. Because I think it's so important to feel comfortable and like yourself. So I do talk about it. And if you want to go deeper into this type of work, of course you can hear more about New Sound later on. Next week, I'm going to open doors for New Sound, but for now, I'm just going to say that ideally, you shouldn't be speaking only up here high notes and only down here. Right? Right. Our pitch varies from high to low, as you're going to see today. So there is the changing pitch that changes according to what it is that we're saying. And there is the pitch, the speaking pitch. That is where we keep the voice. Ideally, it should be somewhere in the middle. Not too high, not too low. Okay, so we talked about pitch, and now we're going to take the concept of pitch and we're going to discuss intonation, because intonation is the variation in pitch within a phrase or a sentence. Okay. So pitch is the note, and intonation is how you shift the pitch. So, for example, I could be saying this sentence on one pitch, one note. I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. So here my pitch is pretty flat. It's not varied. In some languages, this is the normal pitch. My first language, Hebrew, has a very monotone pitch. So if I were to be speaking in Hebrew, I would be keeping it like a low, more monotone pitch. When I speak in English, my pitch is a lot more varied. So there is no right and Wrong. There is how you're used to doing it, and there is how. What English is what is expected when you speak in English. So low pitch, monotone pitch is when the pitch doesn't really change. I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. And a varied pitch, which is what you would usually hear in English. I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. Can you hear the difference? I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. Now, how do you know what word, where you'd go up and where you go down? That's a good question. If you asked yourself that. We're going to answer this question today. Okay. But first I need you to recognize the difference between the two examples. Let's practice a few more. I want you to do it with me right now. Let's take the sentence and say it together in a very flat intonation. I think I know what to do. And now let's use connected speech and still keep flat intonation. I think I know what to do. I think I know what to do. Now you might hear me saying it like that. I think I know what to do. Right. It's perfectly fine. But you could also play with the pitch a little bit, and that might sound a little different to the person listening to you. I think I know what to do. I think I know what to do. I think I know what to do. I think I know what to do. I think I know what to do. Have you noticed Noticed the changes in pitch? Yes. So the ups and downs are really based on what you want to say. Someone left a comment. Absolutely. But first of all, before we go into when we go up and when we go down, I want you to hear that your voice, when the voice changes for people who have no idea what pitch is or how to change it. We saw a strange animal at the zoo. Again, there is no right and wrong. And sometimes you will hear even native speakers speaking with flat intonation. But what can we do to create more versatility in our speech and to understand how to use our voice to get what we want? We saw a strange animal at the zoo. We saw a strange animal at the zoo. Try to do it with me flat. We saw a strange animal at the zoo. We saw a strange animal at the zoo. So playing with your voice could possibly change the meaning and how people listen to you. And what do you think is more interesting? Flat intonation or varied intonation. So let's say if you had to listen to me, say, speaking for an hour, like you do today, and I only spoke like this in flat intonation, I would explain everything on the same note. Would it be as. Would it keep you as focused as when I use my pitch to make a point? Right. What is more interesting, Flat or varied? What grabs your attention more? Okay, varied. Because when we recognize a pattern, that's the human brain. When you recognize the repetitive pattern, it feels like the message is repetitive, and it's easy to tune out. Okay. It's easy to lose focus. Imagine you're seeing the same loop over and over and over again. At some point, you might be like, okay, you know, get tired. But if it keeps changing, it keeps you on your toes, you're more likely to stay engaged. So this tool of understanding how to shift from flat to varied intonation is important in any language, by the way. Now, there are some languages that intonation is a lot more varied, and there are some languages. What did I say? There are some languages where intonation is a lot more varied and some languages where you need to think about it and ask yourself, what is my tendency? Do I usually go flat or do I usually go very varied? I can make it a little bit more complicated, but I'll wait with the one more thing that I wanted to say. Okay? So I want you to think about it. I want you to play with it, and remember that it's a choice. Okay? There is no. It's really all about becoming more aware and knowing what you need to do again to get what you want. The delivery guy didn't get here on time. Flat. Let's practice with more pitch, with more intonation. Varied intonation. The delivery guy didn't get here on time. The delivery guy didn't get here on time. Good. Now let's practice different intonation patterns. Common intonation patterns that signal something very specific to the listener. For example, we have statements. Statements generally end where the pitch drops all the way down at the end. This signals a full stop at the end. Dan loves reading books. Books. Now, some people might keep it up hanging. Dan loves reading books. Okay? But I want you to practice dropping the pitch all the way down. Dan loves reading books. Ah, books. Books. When I do this, when I drop down at the end, it immediately signals a full stop. There are exceptions, and you can play around with it, but this is what people expect to hear when there is a full stop. Remember, intonation is like punctuation. It signals where the sentence Ends. And when something else is coming up right after. As if I just signaled a comma, raising the pitch at the end, opening the ending signals either a question. Dan loves reading books. Dan loves reading books. What? I didn't know that Dan loves reading books because I might want to get him something. So even if it's not formatted as a question, does Dan like reading books? Right. That would be the. The right way to write it. But you can just lift your pitch up and the sentence turns into a question just by changing the pitch. And by the way, that open ended pitch right where it goes up also indicates that something else is coming up. Dan loves reading books and magazines. Right. Books, comma, and magazines. Or Dan loves reading books. Question mark. Good. Okay. Now, even within questions, sometimes it behaves differently. For example, open questions. Wh questions usually sound like a statement. When did that happen? What happened? Drop down. When did that happen? Happen? What were you doing there? Where are you going? What's your name? What's up with the pink? Are you okay? Right. I dropped down. Now, when I raise the pitch up, it. It usually indicates a question that requires a very short answer, like a yes, no question. Did you take out the trash? Did you take out the trash? Are you hungry? Do you want to go? Are you okay? So as you remember, I used that question also as a statement. Sounds like a statement. Are you okay? Versus Are you okay? Let's try both to see if within the same phrase you can end it differently. Are you okay? Are you okay? So usually when the pitch drops down, it's a question that requires more than yes or no. Okay. Even if it's formatted as a yes, no question, the pitch. By dropping the pitch, you indicate that you expect a full answer of more than one word. And usually when you raise the pitch up, it indicates that it's a quick yes, no question. Are you hungry? Were you late? Okay, good. Now, even if you don't remember all of this, and it's okay if you don't, I just want you to use this time to practice with me to see how it feels to change your pitch. Especially. Especially at the end. Now, here's something that I'm going to tell you that you might not believe me. And this is why you might need to record yourself. Or just watch this part, or 20 minutes into the training, watch this part and practice it with me and record yourself. I've been working with students one on one for many, many years. And here's something that I noticed. What usually used to happen is that I would Say, okay, now raise your pitch. And. And they would drop their pitch and they would think that they raised their pitch, but they did something completely different. If you're not used to this type of work, your habits are going to be stronger than you. You're going to think that you're doing one thing, but your voice is going to do what you've always done or what you're used to or what's comfortable. And it's hard to notice if you don't have someone to give you feedback. And this is why it's important to record yourself and to match it to the a reference, whether it's me practicing with me here or whether you just pick someone speaking online and then you can notice their pitch and then practice it with them. It's called a shadowing exercise. Okay, good. Any questions so far? Now, here's another example of how we use pitch in a given sentence. Usually pitch the pitch. So, because we talked about, you know, okay, so we have those patterns for statements, for questions. But, you know, when we're speaking, we're not just, you know, making short statements or asking questions. So we need to create more versatility. We need more tools to know how to manage this whole thing. Let's take this sentence and say it out loud. Say it it out loud with me. Now, when we think of pitch, we want to understand also what words are important here. Because usually something happens to the pitch when there is an important word. When I want to stress a word, for example here, if I were to say it normally, just like, you know, a fun fact about me, My cat's name is Lila. My cat's name is Lila. So I would probably stress the last content word, which we'll talk about what that is in a sec. So in this case, I'm just going to stress Lila a little bit more. And notice that the word is is reduced. It's a function word. It's a little smaller. Not going to emphasize it. My cat's name is Lila. I could also decide to stress that my cat's name is Lila, right? Not my sister. Not my sister's. My cat's name is Lila. That gives you context even without me saying that the moment I stress my by raising my pitch. Try it with me. My cat's name is Lila. You immediately know that there is some additional information here. This is called focal intonation, where I put the focus on a different word to help you understand the context better. And I do it with pitch. In some languages, it's just volume. You might be saying, my Cat's name is Lila. Just saying it a little louder. And for some of you, that would be completely clear. For people who are used to English using, used to hearing pitch as an indication for stress, it might not be as clear. My cat's name is Lila. My cat's name is Lila. Not my daughter's name. My cat's name is Lila. Silly, right? You immediately know the moment I raise the pitch on the word cats that I mean cat and not something else. My cat's name is Lila, and this is Lila from this morning. It is a real cat. She is a real cat. Okay, so my cat's name is Lila. And now you understood a whole bunch of things about me simply by the way I used my pitch. Okay? So when we speak, we use our pitch to highlight words that are more important. And by doing that, we deliver our message more clearly. That is to say, if you're not even aware of your pitch or you don't know how to use pitch, then you might not be delivering your message to as clearly as you might like to. And even more so, sometimes when we listen to others, we don't notice nuances or the. The subtext or the context because we don't look for pitch. We don't listen to it. Remember, if you can't hear it, you can't make it. If you don't. If you don't notice it, you cannot understand what it means when you're listening to certain sentences or to the context. And this is where confusion comes in. But if you know how to listen to it, and I bet you know I'm going to give you homework to start paying attention to how people use their pitch when speaking. Now that you notice it, you'll be like, oh, my God. I never noticed how varied it is when people speak in English. But the next question that you're probably asking yourself but Hadar, how do we know what words to stress? Gosh, okay. But, you know, like, how do. Great. I know how to raise my pitch, and I know that I need to say my. But in general, when we speak normally, how do we know what words to stress? So this is where I'm taking you, to the part where we talk about delivering a clear message. And for those who already know this, you know, this is a good opportunity for a quick recap. And for those of you who are new to these two terms, I want to introduce you to something very, very fundamental. When it comes to speaking any language, English is comprised of two types of words. Any language. But we're talking about English right now. Content words and function words. Do you know what content words and function words are? Put yes if yes, no if no. Yes. Lila is beautiful. I'm reading some of the comments. Queen Lila, we call her. Okay. Content words are words that have meaning on their own. When you see the word. Okay, a lot of no's. Good, good. This is going to be good for you. My students, like when I'm with my students, so we just talk about content words and function words all day long. So it's refreshing to see that I can teach you something completely new that is oh so, so important. Okay. So pay attention. So even if you know this, this is another way to look at it. So it's going to be a good opportunity to review. Content words are the words that have meaning on their own. When you see a content word, you immediately know what it means. You can. If you know the word, you can visualize it. You can imagine it. You know what it means. Versus. So, for example, pig, last, blue, great, son, chair, mother, sister, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. For those who want the specifics, these are content words. Function words are the all the small words that connect content words. The words that have little meaning is of. They have little meaning and are the glue that holds content words together. So you cannot form a sentence without function words. But if you only form a sentence with function words, it's not going to mean anything. Okay? So you have to have both. But for clarity purposes, we need content words. So ultimately, content words are more important for understanding something than function words. But function words make sense of it. Let's look at this example. Dan was waiting patiently for his birthday. I should have written, Asia was waiting, is waiting patiently for her birthday. Because her birthday is in November. My daughter Asia, she's going to be eight and every single evening she wants to plan her birthday. She drives everyone crazy with her plans. That's it. I had to say it because that was a trigger. Right now, like every day. Okay, let's plan it. Same thing as yesterday. Same plan. Okay. Dan was waiting patiently for his birthday. So we. The words in bold are content words. Dan waiting patiently. Birthday. Dan waiting patiently. Birthday. A little rhythm practice. Daniel, prepare you for tomorrow. Dan waiting patiently Birthday. So even when you hear me say that without hearing the function words, you kind of understand what I'm saying. Dan waiting patiently. Birthday. Right. So like, I. I get it. But if I were to just say was for his. Doesn't make any sense. But we need those words to connect them. So was is a function Word for is a function word. His is a function word. Let's say it together. Dan was waiting patiently for his birthday. Now, the idea is that content words are usually more stressed than function words that are reduced. We'll talk more about reductions tomorrow because it's connected to rhythm. What we're talking about today and what we're going to be talking about tomorrow are intrinsically connected, but it's hard to understand both at the same time. So we're breaking it down. Okay, so Dan waiting patiently. Birthday. Dan was waiting patiently for his birthday. Function words and content words. So usually the pitch goes up a bit for content words and down for function words. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted help people. Community. Even without function words, it makes sense because it's all content words. This is why content words needs to be. Need to be clear. And. And that's why we raise the pitch and we reduce the word and lower the pitch for function words to help content words stick out. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Something else that you might notice about pitch is that it's constantly changing. I once heard a vocal coach called Roger Love talk about the pit, the voice in English. And he gave this image of going up the stairs and down the stairs, and I loved it. I think it's great. So basically every syllable is one step up, up, or one step down. This is varied pitch. So I want you to practice this with me. Now, listen, don't be shy. Don't say to yourself, ooh, I don't have a musical hearing. I can't hear this. You can all do these exercises with me. Okay, let's start. Actually, I'm going to do something slightly different. Unplanned. Let's start by counting from one to five, and for each number, we're going to go slow. Slightly higher in pitch. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three. No, that's off. One, two, three, Four, five. Okay, going up. One, two, three, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So we're going up and we're going down. And now I want you. Wait, let me bring this back. Paul wanted to help people in his community. It's okay if it sounds robotic. That's the purpose. We're breaking it down. Paul wanted to help people in his community. How does it. How does it feel? Paul wanted to help people in his community. So you raise the pitch a little bit for content words. Let's practice it a little bit more. Every time you see a word in bold, you're going to go higher in pitch. Read it to yourself first. We should celebrate your latest achievement. We should. We should. These are function words. Celebrate your latest achievement. We should celebrate your latest achievement. Say it out loud. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. Trying to reducing add. Raised my pitch more. Raised my pitch a little more so it's not monotone vegetables. Da, da, da. Into my. That slow pitch reduced diet. And I drop down because it's a statement. There is a full stop at the end. Reaching the end. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. Now listen, here's what might happen. You might feel like you're straining your voice, like you're pushing your voice. Put yes in the comments if you feel. Or me if you feel like you are pushing your voice. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. This is not raising your pitch. Okay. This is straining your voice. We don't want that. Pitch happens. Yeah. So we have some yeses and knees. Pitch happens effortlessly. It's really just the vibrations of the vocal cords. The moment you feel tension, that means that you're adding volume, you're adding stress, and then it feels forced. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. So think as if you're whispering. Actually, here's. Here's an exercise I want. Want us to do now. Every time we actually stress a word, I want you to go a lot softer. I'm trying. So you have to use pitch. I'm trying to add more vegetables into my diet. Go soft and see that you can still play with your pitch. The pitch has nothing to do with the energy that you invest. That's volume. And when you invest, when you add a lot of volume and also strain the muscles around the vocal cord and the jaw and the tongue, then that's when it feels strained. Okay. Does pitch happens in resonance? Well, resonance is where the voice vibrates. So when it comes to resonates to resonance, it's basically where the sound resonates. So that the place of resonance can usually indicate if it's a higher pitch or lower pitch. If the voice resonates in the chest, it is going to probably be a lower pitch. Okay. If a certain sound lower, right. And if a certain sound resonates more up here or in the nose, then it's going to be a higher pitch, but the quality is going to be different. I can use my voice here. That's one note and then it's the same pitch, but the quality is different, the resonance is different. And then, you know, if I drop down, I have to drop the pitch so I can play with a resonance and still keep the same pitch. But usually if I shift between chest and everything here, then you would notice that pitch changes as well. How do we manage between pitch and placement? So placement has to do with resonance, and that's where the voice generally resonates. So a lot of times, and you know, there is the, the pitch that you're using and obvious like, of course, that if you tend to use higher pitch, then your resonance is, is more here. Like the mask resonance, nasal resonance sometimes, but you don't want to be locked in any place. So usually nasal mask head resonance is associated with higher pitch. However, even if you have mask resonance, which is ideal, that means that the voice resonates here. You don't want to just be in the chest. I've seen some videos online that kind of like indicate that American English is lower pitch and you should resonate here in the, in the chest. And then what happens is that people totally change their voice and go off their optimum pitch level. And that's very unhealthy to your voice. Or people want to sound more authoritative so they would drop their pitch. But the voice doesn't have the ring that you want it to have. Every voice has a very specific placement or optimal placement, and we need to understand where that is. And by the way, just so you know, if you want to understand where your optimum pitch is, you could just hum to yourself. Usually that would be your optimal pitch, the place where your voice is most comfortable at where it rings the best. But you don't want to just speak here. And that's the difference between, you know, your general resonance, your regular pitch versus your varied pitch when you're speaking. Because you, you always want to go a little higher up and a little lower down, but you don't want to speak in one placement. Okay. Because then your pitch is not going to be varied at all. Okay. Even though it's low, it doesn't matter. Low is not better than high. There is no good and bad. There are American speakers or Canadian speakers or British speakers who have high pitch and others who have low pitch. English specifically doesn't have a specific resonance or pitch. It really depends on the person speaking it. Okay. You might hear accents that are more nasal. Right. Very nasal. And other accents that are not. Okay, So a quick reminder before we move on using pitch and Intonation can change the meaning of the sentence, but not every content word is equally stressed, as we said. Okay, so we generally want to go higher in pitch for content words, but we don't want to stress every content word the same way because then we're going to sound like a robot from the 90s. Robots now sound really good. So, okay, so how do we know which content words to stress in a sentence? So we get that we need to stress content words. We get that we don't want to stress all content words the same because then it's going to feel very tense. So let's go back to this. Remember what we said here. My cat's name is Lila. It really depends on the message. My cat's name is Lila. Usually when, with the, when the sentence is neutral, you'll usually notice that the stress falls towards the end. Lila. I'm not very hungry. I'm not going to go to the party. I had a salad for lunch. Right? So usually the stress falls at the end and it's slightly stressed. But so the, simply put, the main content word that is stressed in a sentence, the main content word that is stressed in a sentence helps you. There's an S missing. Helps you to convey your point and attitude. Okay? So you really need to choose the word that will help you express what you want to say. Let's go back to this sentence. Paul wanted to help people in his community, right? So we can say it in a neutral way and then the stress is going to fall mostly on the word community. But we could just say Paul wanted to help people in this community. So if we stress, if we call it an operative word, the content word that is stressed the most. When I was a student, an acting student, we talked a lot about operative word. What is the one word that will help me get my point across? I think it's important to understand that and notice how we do it naturally in our first language and also in English, you guys are already using it, you're just not noticing it. And here's the thing. You might not be just using pitch to stress that word. You might be using volume, or you might not be using any element to stress a word but in your head. Because you know languages, you know, what is the word that is going to drive the meaning, otherwise you would not have created the thought in your brain. If you created the thought, you know, what is the word that is more important here? And if you, if you want to break it down, then it needs to be a content word. And you know, and then it depends which content word it is. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Why do you say he didn't want. No, Paul wanted to help people in his community. I can also say Paul wanted to help people in his community to emphasize how much he wanted to do it, because wanted is important. And if I want to emphasize the word help. Paul wanted to help people in his community to. To show how much he, you know, he cared about them. Or maybe someone thought that he wanted to do something else. Maybe to sell to them or maybe to, you know, to hurt them. No, he wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Right. Maybe not the stray cats in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. But I could also say that, to emphasize how important it is that, you know, like, it was about the people. Paul wanted to help people in his community, not in other communities. He's not going to go abroad and do this type of work that's not important to him. He wanted to help people in his community. And notice that this is a function word. It's a pronoun, but you can stress function words if it helps you convey the message. Paul wanted to help people in his community. You know, like the community is stressed, and that feels like, you know, this conveys the message in the most in the best way. Right. It's about the community. Let's practice it again. Now, this time we're going to not. We're not going to talk about the meaning. We're just going to play with a pitch. The first sentence. I'm going to make it a little bigger so you guys can see it if you're on mobile. Hold it. Okay, so Paul wanted to help. Stressing Paul. Paul wanted to help people in this community. Say it again with me. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Now we're going to raise the pitch more than the rest of the words on the word wanted. Paul wanted to help people in his community. It doesn't mean that other words are not stressed, but we're playing with using pitch to stress one specific word. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Let's do it again. We'll do it like a quick sprint. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help people in his community. Paul wanted to help People in his community. Good. I think we are done with this sentence. I cannot hear any more about Paul. Okay, so intonation allows you to deliver a clear message. It helps the listener focus on what's important and even understand the underlying message, which is the subtext. And now we're going to do a fun practice to talk about subtext, an underlying message, even if the words are the same. And that happens because we simply change our pitch and voice. Are you ready? Is this going to confuse you even more? I hope not. How are you doing? Let me know in the comments. In the meantime, I'm going to answer the question. You are not pronouncing the T in the word wanted. Absolutely. You are right. I'm not pronouncing the T. It's not a mistake to say wanted. Okay, Not a mistake. Okay. You are okayish. Sarah. Yes. Good. Okay, good. The T after an N, when it's unstressed can be dropped, especially in very common words like wanted, Internet 20. And that's common in American English. Okay, good, Good, good, good, good. Now let's talk about tone of voice. This is fun. This is a fun exercise. And you have this in your first language as well. Maybe you didn't know that this is what it is. So some of you, when I asked you what pitch it was, you said tone. So here's the distinction between pitch and tone. Pitch is the highness or lowness of your voice. It's like the note of your speaking tone is something else. We also have tone in writing. It's a style. The tone of voice indicates the mood, attitude, and intention of the speaker. It is a combination of your intonation, pitch, and the quality of your voice. A certain sentence can be set in different ways in different tones of voice. For example, if we take that this phrase, I'm going to say it in flat intonation. And that's kind of like emotionless. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's great. Now, I could say it in a friendly tone, which is maybe like when you read it, you immediately think, oh, it's a good thing. Oh, that's great. And if you were to read it in a text message, you might be interpreting it as a. A positive tone, or you might be interpreting it as a sarcastic tone. Oh, that's great. That's great. Not at all as positive. Right? So this is the problem with texts because you don't have the intonation. You don't have the tone. Can you hear the difference between, oh, that's great. Two. Oh, that's great. Cool. Amazing. It's a little different. And what I'm doing is I'm just changing my pitch. My pitch is lower for the sarcastic tone, maybe a little fried. Oh, that's great. You know, versus up here a little higher. So the tone of voice can have a significant impact on how your message is received by others. And this is why, again, if you're texting and you're not clear, like, under. You have to. If you have miscommunications, let's say, at work and you feel like people don't understand you, it could be because you might be making a joke, or maybe even if you don't, you didn't put an emoji and they didn't understand that you were actually positive about it or negative about it. Okay, let's. Let's take this phrase, come over here, and say it in two different ways. Angry. Come over here. Okay, what is going on with my voice here? There's more volume. My voice, my, you know, resonance is down here. I'm not. Come over here. Right. But, like, it doesn't have the same effect if I'm angry. And I want to tell my girls like I did this morning to get them ready to school because they didn't feel like it and was 7:45 and my daughter was still like, I need to go to sleep. Like, it's time to leave the house. Come over here. Right, so you want to use that assertive tone. I wasn't angry. Have to say, okay, so angry. That's a certain tone of voice. But if I go down here, Come over here. Come over here. Right. I change my voice, I change the pitch, I change the intonation, and that changes the meaning. Play with me. Do it. Do it again with me. Come over here. Come over here. Come over here. Let's try another one. Saying something in a genuine way versus a sarcastic way. You're never late. Good for you. You're never late. You're never late. Yeah, because you are never late. You're never late. Can you hear the difference? It doesn't sound genuine. You're never late. So the pitch that is a bit more varied indicates something a bit more positive versus a lower tone, more monotone, which usually indicates a sarcastic tone. Can I get some coffee? Good, straightforward. The pitch is not going to be very varied. Can I get some coffee? Can I get some coffee? It's still varied because it's a question. Can I get some coffee? And I usually raise the pitch on content words. Can I get some coffee? Can I get some coffee? A friendlier Tone might be a little higher. Hey, can I get some coffee? Even without the word please, it sounds more friendly. Can I get some coffee? Can I get some coffee? Versus demanding. How would it sound? Let me hear you. Can I get some coffee? Hey, can I get some coffee here? Who's working here? Demanding. Can I get some coffee? Can I get some coffee? Right, So I like. The intonation is different, the quality of the voice is different and that changes the meaning. Now you have it in your language. It's not unique to English. Even though English would have liked it to be just hers. It is not. But I want you to recognize how you do it in your first language and give yourself the freedom to use it in English as well. And this is where we get to the most important part about today. Even though you know how to use your pitch, sometimes when we speak a second language and we feel insecure, we kind of want to hide. And when we want to hide, the first thing that pays the price is your pitch. We speak lower. It's kind of like we want to dial down the volume. We speak lower, the pitch becomes very monotone or very, very high because we're tense and stressed. So all of a sudden our voice is not the same voice as we are. We know from our first language because something happens when we transition to another language. And, and by the way, it has to do with your attitude towards English and your mindset and your habits. And I'm going to talk all about that in the free training that I have next week. It's not related to the five day pronunciation training. So if you, if anything that I said today about confidence, about mindset, about feeling like yourself resonates with you, I really urge you to join the masterclass. It's. I think you got an email about it today and also we're going to share it in the daily emails and Amar is going to put the link in the chat. So go to hadar shemesh.commasterclass and we will take this subject and dive deeper into it. But your voice might change when you shift to English and a lot of it has to do with confidence, with practice and the permission you give yourself to show up like yourself, to sound like yourself. Sometimes you have ideas about how you need to sound and as a result you're changing and it feels artificial and that makes you avoid speaking even more. So I want you to become aware of it and the practice that we do here is really important to allow yourself to give yourself freedom to use pitch in English. Okay, so we said you have to hear it to be able to recognize it. You have to learn how to. How it all works, which is what we did today. And you have to work on your confidence, on giving yourself the opportunity to do it, the permission to do it, so you can actually put it to practice and not shut down or stifle yourself or hide your voice because you deserve better. You don't deserve to be so quiet. You deserve to be heard. It doesn't matter if you. You might say, but hadar, I don't like my voice. This is a part of not liking your voice, okay? If you're changing your voice, you might not like it. Sometimes we have ideas about the voice because we think that we should sound different. But this is who you are, and this is your instrument. Not liking it is not serving you. Not liking it in English is preventing you from speaking because you don't like how you sound. And if you're not speaking, you're not going to get fluent. So what's the point? It's better to change the thoughts about your voice and do what you can to get to, you know, an optimal place using your voice, which is, you know, that is available to anyone. And as a result, see what that does to how you show up in English and in your life. Okay, good. You. To wrap up, my friends. As you can see, your pitch and intonation can not only change the meaning of your message, but also your attitude and intention. Therefore, it's key to understand how to use pitch, intonation, and tone of voice to get your point across. Prosody into nation rhythm. Stress is so incredibly important and rewarding when you learn it. Okay? It is so important. This is why in my programs, we spend a lot of time in new sound, which is my signature program. We spend a lot of time understanding it and using it and getting comfortable with it because the transformation is really significant the moment you start using it yourself. And when you do, of course, it helps you understand people and situations a lot better. Are you ready to wrap up? This is not wrapping up. Today we learned what pitch is, what intonation is, the variation of pitch in a sentence. We learned about different patterns of intonation, what tone of voice is, and most importantly, how to deliver a clear message in that. We learned about content words and function words. We talked about how to identify the key content word or to actually understand that you already know what is important and understand that you can use pitch to express that. Okay? Now in your workbook, you have homework. A few very fun, quick, short exercises shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes to fill out to complete. So go check it out if you have any thoughts about this training today. If you want to practice your pitch by speaking, I highly recommend for you to join the Facebook group of the pronunciation training. If you don't know where to find the Facebook group, if you're on the main website or on my YouTube channel, you can find the link in the description. You can find it on the website and join the Facebook group, make a video, share your story and put your pitch into work. Okay. Practice what you learned today. Give yourself permission. Don't judge yourself. If you feel like you're pushing, just reduce the energy. Lay back, lean back. Okay. Soften your voice. Use pitch without pushing, without straining your muscles. Relax everything. Tell yourself it's possible for you to use pitch beautifully without feeling artificial. It is possible. Tomorrow we're going to talk about rhythm, which will complete everything we talked about today. So if you are still a little confused about content words and function words, what words to stress, how to deliver a clear message. If that part was absolutely new to you, then I really want you to show up for tomorrow's training. It's free day four, same time. So we can put everything together, wrap it up, and also sing a little bit, because we will as we practice rhythm. All right, my friends, any questions? Where can I get the workbook? So if you are on YouTube, then you need to click the link to sign up for the challenge. And then you get the workbook into your inbox and it's also on the main website of the challenge. But you only have access to the zoom links of the events and everything else when you sign up for the pronunciation training. Did I say challenge? I might have said challenge, but it's a training. But it's also a challenge. Okay, so we have a practice group to practice intonation with Jelena, right? Or with Christina. Jelena. Okay. Christina is right here. Okay, never mind. Do you wanna. Do you wanna say? What do you wanna say? It's happening tomorrow. Tomorrow is day three, practice group. And you can also check out the calendar to see that we have conversation groups. Today we had role play with Amar. You pretended to be very angry, which is good. It's aligned with the tone of voice practice of today. So everything is absolutely free. All the links, the zoom links are in the calendar. The calendar is on the the website of the training. If you don't have access to the website of the training, then look for the link and sign up for the training to get all the updates and access to all those incredible events. You guys are enjoying, those practice groups and the conversation groups. I love it. You are participating, taking advantage of it. You guys are serious. Very serious. Any questions? Let's see. How can we find some more of your videos on YouTube? Yes, absolutely. So I talk a lot about intonation, rhythm, stress, and all of that good stuff. All of it is on my YouTube channel. I just released a video, I think I told you about a shadowing exercise where I actually talk about intonation. I think we're going to post it to the Facebook group where I shadowed an entire monologue from the movie Barbie. It's really cool and a lot of fun. So this is where. And I explain intonation. So it's really aligned with what we learned today. So you can actually use it as your practice and you can make a video shadowing this monologue. Okay. Sometimes I'm afraid of talking. How do I get or learn new vocabulary? So these are actually two challenges. The fear of speaking and also how do I grow my vocabulary? Of course, the more you grow your vocabulary, you will build your confidence, but not necessarily. Sometimes people grow their vocabulary and are still afraid to speak. So first, if you want to improve your confidence, there needs to be a lot of mindset, work and thought work, understanding what is preventing you from showing up. Also, practicing English in a safe environment is really, really important now. And obviously you want a lot of speaking practice to help you get there. But there is a way to do it that makes sense and that makes you feel safe and that is effective. And I will talk about how to do that in the training on Tuesday. It's not related to the pronunciation training. It's a training about fluency, confidence, and freedom. Transforming your English. It's going to be on Tuesday, so you should subscribe if you feel like you want to get those strategies. In terms of new vocabulary, I have a video on YouTube on how to grow your vocabulary. And guess what? It's not about memorizing new words. It's not about memorizing at all. So I think you can. You would find it really useful. So after this session, I'm going to go to the Facebook group and I'm going to post all those links that I talked about today. Okay. So you can check it out. Pedro said today there won't be any more conversation groups. Thank you for keeping me updated on my schedule. Thank you. Oh, I like this message. I'm absolutely over the moon, by the way. Over the moon is a nice phrase that describes joy and excitement. I'm over the Moon. You're so excited that you simply jumped over the moon. How can I be a part of the conversation groups? Check out the calendar and just join the conversation groups that are available. We have two more days, so let's take advantage of those two days. Okay. Is it the same three days? Oh, great question, Carlos. The masterclass that I'll be teaching is the same over the last three. Like, over the three days I'm doing the same masterclass. That's a good question. I'm offering three different times for people who won't be able to join because they think joining live is really important. It's an opportunity to ask questions. So I wanted to give you more options. When you click on the link to look at to sign up, you have a button there that will show you the different times in your own time zone. So click on it. Make sure that you can actually join live. So choose the time that is right for you. Okay. Comments, questions. I tried, but I couldn't yesterday. Oh, the conversation groups. If you can't for some, join the conversation group, just either respond to one of the emails with a question or just ask it in the Facebook group. In the Facebook group is even better because there are members who can answer you and team members. You'll get a quicker response, I'm sure. Okie dokie. I think that's it. Now you're just, like, seeing me staring at the screen. But I am reading your comments. I missed a lot. I promise to catch up. Oh, time has been tight. I've missed a lot. Listen, you guys, I know for a lot of you, this is the first week of the school year if you have kids. So I really appreciate it if you're still doing it despite the busy week. I. Whatever you can, you can do. You have the replays. You know your limits. Even if you watch just a little bit, it's still extremely valuable. If you don't have a lot of time, just join the master class. It's 60 minutes where everything is going to be really packed with information. So that would stay still, help you get to where you want to get. All right, my friends, thank you so, so much. I will see you tomorrow as we talk about rhythm. All right, my friends, have a beautiful day. Bye.