 Hello, students! It's Shayna from espressoenglish.net, and in today's lesson, I'm going to give you four important tips for speaking English faster. A lot of English learners notice that native English speakers tend to speak fast, so they think that speaking faster will help their English sound more fluent. But you have to be careful. It can be dangerous to try to speak very fast in English if you don't follow these tips. Why? Well, there are two reasons. First of all, if your pronunciation is not clear, then speaking faster is just going to make things worse, and other people won't understand you. And second, speaking especially fast can sometimes give the impression that you're nervous or insecure, meaning that you're not confident. Now this tip applies to native English speakers too. When someone is speaking a mile a minute, that means speaking very fast. It can make them seem like they're nervous or uncomfortable, or like they're not really thinking about what they're saying. So like I said, be careful not to go overboard. That means don't do too much in increasing your speaking speed. But there are a lot of English learners who speak slowly, or with a lot of pauses, and if that's you, then this lesson will help you develop a more natural speed in your spoken English. My first tip before you start trying to speak faster is to make sure you have nice, clear pronunciation. Can people understand you, or do they keep saying what, or asking you to repeat words, or write them down? The way to improve your pronunciation is by practicing it actively and regularly, and also getting feedback and correction. I have a pronunciation course that can help you do exactly that, and I'll put the link in the video description. Good pronunciation is the base, the foundation for starting to speak faster. Now there are two main difficulties when it comes to speaking faster. One is the mental aspect. If you're translating from your native language to English in your head, then it takes longer to get the words out. So my second tip is to learn to think directly in English without translating. I have a lesson all about how to do that, and I'll put that link in the video description as well. But thinking directly in English is easy to practice. You don't need a classroom, you don't need a partner, you can practice it anytime. And if you get into the habit of thinking in English, then it will automatically make your speaking much faster. The other problem is if you're thinking too much before you say anything, because you're afraid of making mistakes and you want everything you say to be perfect, this leads to lots of extra pauses and hesitations. So my third tip for speaking faster is to relax on this point. Just stop worrying about perfection and go ahead and say whatever you think is right. It's true that you'll make a few mistakes, but the fact is that spoken English is a lot more flexible than written English, especially when it comes to sentence structure. Small mistakes are just less noticeable in spoken English. And remember that the goal is to communicate successfully, and you can do that, you can communicate even with a few imperfections. So don't be a perfectionist, just relax and talk without overthinking everything. The other aspect that makes it hard to speak fast is the physical aspect. When you're speaking English, sometimes your mouth just doesn't seem to work and things come out wrong or pronounced badly. This is normal. And the way to improve it, and this is my fourth tip, is to practice shadowing. That means listening to and imitating native English speakers. This is just like going to the gym. You need to practice it not just once, but regularly over time. You can practice shadowing with any audio or video you find, but I also have a course to help you specifically in this area. It's called Shadowing with Shana, and you can take a free sample lesson if you click on the link in the video description. If you're having difficulty speaking English at a natural speed, make sure to implement these four tips. First, make sure your pronunciation is nice and clear. Second, learn to think directly in English without translating. Third, just stop worrying so much about mistakes. And finally, practice shadowing regularly in order to sound more like a native English speaker. I hope you found this lesson helpful. If you learned something today, make sure to like it and share it so that other English learners can benefit too. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.