Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 546

In this episode, you will learn 10 advanced speaking verbs to improve your English vocabulary and speak with more confidence in everyday situations. 

This lesson is perfect for intermediate and advanced learners who want to use real English expressions in speaking exams, job interviews, and daily conversation. You’ll stop using the same basic words and learn how to speak English more naturally, just like fluent speakers do in real life.

Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry where we try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language. Today's lesson is all about speaking, different ways of speaking, advanced words that we can use to describe the way in which people speak. As always, I've got 10 of them for you in the list and I'll go through them one by one and give you examples. To mumble. Well, when we mumble, we don't speak clearly. Perhaps we don't have the correct words, we don't know how to form them, or maybe we're not comfortable about speaking out loud and projecting our voice. So the teacher will tell the boy standing in front of the class, now stand up there, give us the details of your project, but please don't mumble. Speak out clearly so people can hear what you're saying. And it's not so easy to do. If you're nervous or you're not sure or you've had no practice in public speaking, then you're not sure how people will react. So there's a tendency for you to mumble. You run your words together and nobody can hear what you're saying. So you have to speak out clearly, pronounce every syllable to make sure that you are very well understood. So mumble is speaking a little bit low, but a little bit unsure and lacking confidence to speak out and project your voice to the back of the room. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free trial lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. To mutter. Well, mutter is slightly different from mumble. When we mutter, we understand clearly what we want to say, but we don't want everybody to hear it. Perhaps what we are muttering is a little bit of an insult. And if somebody hears it, they'll be a little bit angry. So we often mutter under our breath. Yeah, so to mutter under our breath. So if somebody says something to you and you want to make a smart remark or some way of challenging what they say, you will mutter under your breath. Oh, I don't know what that's about. No, I don't agree with that. So you mutter something and somebody might say, do you have something to say? You say, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. No problem. So somebody who mutters really wants to make a comment, but they're not quite sure that they want everybody to hear it. Perhaps they just want to be a little bit insulting. So they mutter. They mutter to themselves. Old people often sit and they go, talking to them, I think I'll do that and I'll go that and I'll do this. So they mutter to themselves, almost like talking to themselves, to mutter. And then we have murmur. So this again is a little bit different. A murmur is often a noise you hear without being able to clearly distinguish what people are saying. So for example, when you go into the theatre and when you walk into the auditorium, you'll hear a lot of conversations taking place. So this is the murmur that you hear around the audience before the play or the theatre starts. So there's a lot of murmuring. They're not whispers, they're not mumbling, they're not muttering, but there are lots of conversations happening and you're not quite sure who is talking to who because it's just so many people around. If you go into a busy bar or a busy restaurant, the exact same will happen. Lots of people enjoying themselves, lots of conversations taking place, so there's a great murmur, great sound, but you can't clearly distinguish one from the other. Murmur. To blurt out. Well, this is a phrasal verb, so it's quite informal. And when you blurt something out, you usually say something that you weren't supposed to say, but you couldn't hold back or you're a little bit excited. You blurt out the answer before the teacher said and has time to finish the question. Okay, look, look, just wait until I finish the question. Don't blurt out the answer. If you want to answer, put up your hand. So that's the proper way to do it. Or the kids are playing football in the schoolyard and somebody kicks the ball a little bit too high and it breaks the window. The teacher comes running out. Okay, who did it? And somebody says, it was him, it was him. So they blurt out the answer. They point to you very, very quickly. So usually when something is blurted out or we blurt something out, we say it very quickly, even though we were not supposed to. We should have kept the information to ourselves. Or the teacher, as I said, says, don't blurt out the answer. Wait till I come to you and then you can answer the question that I put to you to blurt out. To confer, well, confer is a little bit more formal and confer is usually a group of people coming together to have a conversation. For example, in the Supreme Court, there may be three, five or seven judges appointed to a particular legal case and they look at the legal presentation, the documents, the evidence and they may then confer as to what their opinion happens to be. So they come together to decide what the ruling should be. Or if you're in a board meeting and the members of the board decide that they need time to confer, to discuss the proposal put forward by somebody who wants to buy the company or buy the auditors, then they step outside into another room, a breakaway room, and they confer. They discuss it in private and then they come back to the meeting. So to confer is usually a number of people coming together to discuss something. And we get the word conference. Now, in an exam situation, the person in charge of the exam, the examiner, might say no conferring. So it means that you can't confer with anybody else. You can't talk to anybody else. You can't give them information. They can't give it to you. Otherwise, you'll be expelled from the exam. Or if you like TV quizzes, as I do, and if it's a team event, the person putting the questions will often say, this is a team question, so the members of the team can confer if they wish, but the answer must come through the team captain, the captain of the team. So to confer on the answers. The next two words are quite similar, growl and snarl. Growl and snarl. These are sounds that wild animals make, or vicious dogs growl when you pass by the gate or they snarl at you. They don't open their mouths, but they snarl. So to growl and snarl are the sounds that wild animals make. So if somebody growls at you, they're usually grumpy or in a bad mood. What do you want? Why do you come in? I'm busy. So, oh, sorry, didn't mean to disturb you. So somebody growls. Well, look, just get out, come back later. So they don't really want to talk to you. It's a little bit rude. Or if it's been a really bad morning and it's heavy rain and you get to the office and there's nobody around and then 20 minutes later, your colleague comes in and she's dripping from head to foot with water and you ask, oh, is it raining? And she says, well, what do you think? Look at me. I've got lots and lots of water. I'm completely wet. And say, oh, I'm sorry. You said, oh, I didn't mean to snarl at you. I just, I'm really, really wet. I got soaked coming from the railway station to the office. Yeah, so to growl and snarl is really to snap at somebody or to talk to them in quite a rude way and sounds a bit like that vicious dog down the street, growl and snarl. Okay? So to whisper. Well, when we whisper, we speak in a very low voice and people can hardly hear. They can hardly hear what we are saying. But people whisper because they don't want someone else to hear. We whisper to a friend so that nobody else can understand what we're talking about. We whisper in class so that the teacher won't hear us. And we very often whisper in the library because the notices on the walls around the library will tell us that we shouldn't speak and disturb other people. So please be silent. So whispering is a way of communicating with somebody so that somebody else won't hear it. Okay, you're not being rude. You're just keeping your voice down so you don't disturb anybody. Or if you have a secret to tell, then you whisper it. Okay, to whisper. Exclaim. When we exclaim something, we usually speak out loud in an excited voice. It's usually something surprising, something we want to underline, something we want to highlight, something we want to bring to somebody's attention. Oh, look, look, the sun's shining. He exclaimed, or he exclaimed his love. So, oh, I love her. I really want to marry her. So you speak in a loud voice and it's happy occasion. So if you look at the keyboard on your laptop, you'll find the exclamation mark. And that's, you know, when you put that exclamation mark, it's a sign that the voice goes up. Oh, what do you want? Oh, that's wonderful. Oh, that's great news. Oh, really? Yeah, so we exclaim in a loud, happy voice. Okay. And then finally, stammer and stutter. These two words are very, very similar. So people can stammer and stutter when they're excited. They can stammer and stutter when they're nervous, particularly if they're doing some public speaking for the first time. It's very difficult to get the words out. Yeah, well, yeah. So that's a little bit of stammering or stuttering is, and they find it difficult. They trip or fall over the words. Of course, when people stammer and stutter, it can also be a medical reason and often they need to get some help to help them, a speech therapist, if it's a really serious situation. Okay, so stammer and stutter. So we've got 10 examples of ways of speaking. And these are advanced words. So some of them, as I said, I'm sure you've heard of, others you may not. So try to understand them. Look at the examples that I've given. And if you have any other problems, just come back to me and we'll help you. So let me give them to you one last time. Whisper. To whisper. Mumble. Mutter under your breath. Murmur, the noise you hear when you go into the theatre. Murmur. To confer, the group of people talking together, to confer. Growl, snarl like the wild animal. Growl, snarl. Exclaim in an excited voice. Exclaim. Blurt out suddenly. Oh, to give the answer. Yeah, before you're asked to blurt out. And then finally, stammer, stutter. Stammer and stutter, exactly the same meaning. Okay, keep practicing those. I'm really happy that you've joined me. And this is Harry saying goodbye. Join me again for the next lesson.