In this week’s presentation tips video, I’m going to answer a question I received from someone on YouTube named Ton Rod about intonation and, specifically, how to sound like a native English speaker when giving a presentation.
What the real issue is
Whenever somebody asks this question, it’s usually because you really care about your English presentation performance. You probably understand how important it is to give a good presentation in English. And you probably think that what is holding you back from giving a good presentation is your English speaking ability. But in my experience, the real issue is not so much your English ability, as it is the fact that you are presenting in English by memorizing a script.
Why that is a problem
Well, the problem with that is that your script was probably not written in a natural native English-speaking kind of way. It was likely written to be more, or as much as possible, grammatically correct and with the best vocabulary you could think of.
So memorizing it becomes an issue
When you memorize a presentation script that was not written in a natural way, there is no way you can deliver the presentation and sound natural. Not even a great actor could do that.
Another thing
If your audience is made up of non-native English speakers, then they likely won’t care that you don’t sound like a native English speaker. It would be impressive, though, and there are some ways to help you.
Here are 3 things you can do to sound more like a native English speaker…
1. Use simple vocabulary that a 10-year-old child can understand
Be sure to avoid complicated, overly technical or very advanced words and sentence structure.
The reason is because to sound more natural, you must use more common and natural sounding vocabulary and sentences.
2. Go to Hemingwayapp.com
Use it to check your presentation script for clarity, sentence structure and vocabulary usage.
This is a great app because it clearly points out how readable your writing is, which in turn, determines how natural sounding your presentation script will be.
3. Give yourself enough time to prepare
You need time to write your script and edit it to sound more natural.
Preparing for a presentation at the last minute or with little time to go over your script, is a recipe for a poor sounding presentation.
To wrap up
Remember that the most important thing is working from a good script. You should try to avoid sounding too academic. Instead, aim for being understood by your audience, as that is far more important.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Good luck and thanks again to Ton Rod!
This is great! Thanks for the tip about HemingwayApp – I’d not heard of that before, and I love how easy it is to use.
On your tip #1 (simplicity), I always advise speakers to use contractions like “it’s” instead of “it is”, and rarely use words of 4 or more syllables. For instance, instead of saying “You will find the definition in the dictionary,” you might say “You’ll find the meaning in Websters.” Using a few words of 4+ syllables is OK, but avoiding most of them’s a good idea. And recording your practice sessions means you can hear how natural or stilted they sound, which means you can make the language less formal and try again!
Hi Craig! Great to see you here again 🙂
Using contractions is a great idea! And I love that idea of using fewer syllables.
I find that many non-native English speakers have difficulty with using them because of pronunciation or whatever grammar “rules” they’ve been taught. I remember how hard it was to get my students to use them when I taught English in Korea.
Thanks always for the awesome ideas and support.