Hello! And welcome to Chat ENG, a podcast where people chat about how they learn and use English.  My name is Sam, I’m a CELTA teacher and a performer, and I have a particular interest in pronunciation and expression.   In each episode, non-native and native speakers will chat about their experiences with English, share their advice and, at the end, I’ll give some pronunciation tips for you to take away and practice.  So, ready?  Let’s get Chat ENG! This episode, I’m chatting with Fabi.  Fabi is originally from Italy, she’s an English Language Teacher, and she’s also a singer and a singing teacher!   We met online, as we’re in different countries, so there were some slight delays… but hopefully you won’t notice them too much!  We chatted about learning song lyrics, using a student’s 1st language to help them learn English, and sounding natural enough, but I started by asking Fabi to tell me a little about herself. INTERVIEW

Fabi’s ‘do something everyday for 5 minutes’ advice is key to improving your English.  Listen to something while your brushing you teeth, watch the news in English while you prepare dinner, or have a quick daily chat with a friend in English.  It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something! The Italian idiom Fabi translated as ‘swallow the toad’ is ‘eat the frog’ in English, not just the legs, as they do in France, but the whole thing! Literally, it sounds disgusting to me, but the idiom means that the frog represents a difficult project or some boring homework to do, if you ‘eat the frog’ as soon as possible, you complete the task and then you can progress to more fun things! Fabi also mentioned the Past Perfect. As a grammar structure, this can be difficult to use or understand. I think of it this way: You have 2 actions that take place in the past, and you want to identify which is action 1, the action that happens first.   Take this sentence:  I went to the station but the bus had already left. Here you have 2 actions in the past:  - me going to the station    - the bus leaving the station.  Which is action 1 and which is action 2?  From the grammar structure, we understand that the bus leaving is action no.1 because it had left. The past simple part, I went, is action 2.  In the show notes on my webpage, you can see 2 more examples! Example 2:  I offered Mel some food but she had eaten earlier. Mel eating = action 1, Me offering food = action 2 Example 3:  I hadn’t seen my friends for ages, so we organised a video chat last night! Not seeing my friends = action 1, Organising a video chat = action 2

So, this episode’s pronunciation tip is about words elide, how two become one!  Fabi said she learnt about these listening to songs and reading the lyrics.  An elision is when you put two words together to make one word when we speak by leaving out a syllable or sound. A good example is when we elide I and am to make I’m = no need for an ‘a’ sound! It’s pretty informal, so don’t write like this! I have 3 typical elisions for you to practice: First = Let us becomes Let’s. Try this sentence: “Let’s chat later!” Next: Going to often becomes Gonna. Try this sentence: “I’m gonna do it tomorrow!” Finally:  A tricky one to finish! Would have becomes would’ve.  Try this sentence: “You would’ve liked that film!” But, the tricky part is that it can be even shorter if you elide the subject (in this case, you) with would’ve to make you’d’ve. Try this sentence: “You’d’ve liked that film!”  Over to you to practice! So there we are! The transcript of this episode is available to read on the podcast’s webpage, so take a look! Join me next time for more pronunciation and grammar tips, more advice and, most importantly, more chatting! My thanks again to Fabi and, for her music, a massive thanks to the wonderful Mara Carlyle. Bye for now!