Hello! I’m John Russell.

Let’s continue our exploration of common words, phrases, and questions in American English.

In recent lessons, we explored this common phrase: excuse me.

We also explored this common question: do you speak English?

Today, we can work on putting them together.

How should we put them together? I like to use an activity called acceleration. The basic idea is to say something extremely slowly. Then you say it a little faster.

This is just like pushing a little more on the accelerator of a car. You want to slowly increase your speed. You don’t want to push the accelerator all the way down – the results could be bad.

Let’s work together.

We will start very slowly.

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

Then we can accelerate a little bit. Repeat after me.

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

One last time. This will be the fastest. Note how I connect some of the words.

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

Please note that you should never try to speak too quickly. But you do not also want to speak extremely slowly. The goal is to find a nice middle ground.

That's all for today! Keep up the good work!

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