Master English Pronunciation | Exercises for Perfect Habits

1. In This Course: Hey, welcome to the course. It's great to have you. I'm glad you signed up. I hope you're ready to take your pronunciation to the next level to master natural, fluent pronunciation. As I said, my name is Luke. I'm an American English teacher. I will be your teacher throughout this course. Now, before we get into our first real lessons, be practicing a lot in this course. Before we get into that, I'd like to tell you what this course is going to cover. What you're going to learn in this course, how much you're going to learn. Then I'll give you a few things to keep in mind before we get into our first real lesson. Okay, so what are you going to get in this course? This course is all about mastering techniques and building habits. Think about anything you're good at. How did you get good at that thing? Well, you learned how to do it, but that's not enough, is it? Because learning how to do it doesn't make you good at it. How do you get good at it? You do that thing that you learn how to do many times until it becomes a habit. So we'll learn the techniques for natural fluent pronunciation and then practice building the habits. And why is that important? Because you don't want to be thinking about how to pronounce a word when you're speaking English. I'm not doing that right now. I'm speaking English. I'm pronouncing words clearly. I'm not thinking about how to pronounce them. I don't want you to do that either. But you can't get there until you've built habits and you build habits through practice, not just any kind of practice. You have to practice in the right way. That's what this course is all about. And I will be your guide throughout the course, but you have to be ready to put in the work to practice so that you can build up those strong pronunciation habits. Now we're going to cover a lot in this course and you're going to be learning some pretty advanced stuff. But we won't start with really advanced stuff. We're going to go step-by-step to build up a foundation with the simple stuff at first. And once we have that strong foundation to build up toward the more advanced pronunciation, so don't worry, it's going to be step-by-step. You'll get there step-by-step. We'll start with the essential sounds. Essential sounds like vowel pronunciation and consonant pronunciation. Not quite as simple as you might think, but we need that in order to build up the foundation to then focus on subtler sounds. Now, these are sounds that require you to have very sharp listening to be able to hear the differences between two sounds that are very similar, but not only hear the differences to be able to make both of those sounds, even though they're very similar to know what to do with your mouth. Exactly. And that requires you to have self-awareness, which is something that you're going to be developing and learning throughout the course. Then with the skills and the habits you're developing will go on to challenging sounds. These are sounds that are challenging for different reasons. Maybe it's a long word, maybe it's several words together to be able to say them very fluently so that they flow. How do you do that naturally? Maybe sounds that are difficult because of what you have to do with your mouth. Putting two sounds together which are very different. That's a challenge. We're going to be focusing on challenging sounds, which will be difficult, but we're going to be building toward that step-by-step so that when you get there, you will be ready. Then we're going to focus on pronunciation challenges. And these are exercises that I will teach you, that we will do together that will allow you to master everything that you've learned up to that point in the course. And then to use those exercises beyond the course to continue building strong pronunciation habits, to continue taking your pronunciation to the next level even beyond the course. Now for the first half of the course, we'll be learning sounds within words and then words within full examples, because we don't usually say words by themselves. We put them in sentences. In paragraphs, we speak them together. They have to be able to flow naturally. So everything we practiced in the first half of the course, we'll go into a larger example so that we can practice speaking fluently using the words and the sounds that we've learned. Everything in this course is going to be example based. The best way to learn pronunciation is by example, you'll be able to hear me throughout the course. I will leave a space for you to repeat after me. So you'll be practicing with me and everything that we learn will be based on real words, phrases, and sentences. You need to learn real english because you need to speak real English, it's the only way to become really fluent. I also want to mention that throughout this course, you will see me just like this. I'll be taking notes on the blackboard like this. You'll see my face, my mouth, be able to see my body language, my facial expressions, because that's really how you should learn pronunciation. That's how you should learn English. To be able to learn pronunciation, especially, you have to see the shape of the mouth. What I'm doing with my face and my mouth, to say that sound naturally, to say correctly. So you will see me throughout the course just like this. I know that there are some other courses out there where you see the teacher for the first lesson, maybe the second lesson. And then they disappear and you just hear their voice. And you see some words on a screen. Not this course and not my other courses. In fact, it's very important when you're learning a language to have communication. I'm communicating with you. I'm not just talking at you. I'm communicating with you in the same way that I would if we were sitting in a room and I were talking with you directly, we were having a conversation. That's how you should learn. Because learning a language is for communication. I think that's very important to keep in mind, okay, So that's what we're going to be learning and practicing in this course. In the next one, I'm going to give you a few things to do and keep in mind throughout the course so that you can get the most out of it so that you can actually achieve natural fluent pronunciation. Then we'll get into our first set of examples. So I will see you in the next one. 2. How to Take This Course: Before we get started with our first set of examples for this course, I'd like to give you a few things to do and keep in mind throughout the course so that you get the most out of it. I want you to achieve your goals. I want you to have natural fluent pronunciation, and I will be here to help you. I will be your guide throughout the course, but you have to put in the work That's really important. So I'm going to give you a space as we're practicing. To repeat after me will be practicing sounds, words, full examples and exercises. And I will always leave a space for you to repeat after me. So I want to make sure that you do. If you put in the practice, you're going to see the results. If you don't put in the practice, it's going to be very difficult to improve. Of course, I would encourage you to practice after each lesson as well. But if, at the very least you repeat after me throughout the course, you are going to make progress. It's also important to remember that this is a practice course. This course is all about practice. So you have to practice. If you don't practice, how can you expect to get better? So put in the work and if you do, you will see the results. Practice makes perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. Also in this course, we're going to be focused on listening rather than rules or symbols. We'll talk about a few rules, we'll talk about a few things, but mostly we'll be focusing on listening, developing your ear, because that is how any native speaker of any language learns pronunciation, learns a natural pronunciation through the ear. You have to develop that along with self-awareness. If you want to actually have natural sounding pronunciation, if you learn a bunch of symbols for how to write down pronunciation. Congratulations, but can you say this word naturally? No. Then why did you learn the symbol? What's the point? Can you make the sound? Can you say the word correctly? Can you say this whole sentence naturally? That's the question, not how do you write down these sounds with symbols? No. It's going to be about developing the ear, the sounds of the words. Because if you develop that really like having a superpower, it really is also like your piano teacher said, it's very important to first master something before you do it quickly. So don't give yourself any breaks. Don't say, OK, good enough, and then increase the speed once you've learned something, because you haven't learned it. So why would you increase the speed if you do that? Actually, you're just learning bad habits. So then you have to go back and fix the bad habits before then building up good habits. Don't give yourself a break. Piano teachers will tell you, get the piece right First slowly. Then if you want to increase the speed, go ahead. Now I want to also mention speed is not fluency. Fluency is not speed. This is my natural speaking speed. There is this idea that if you speak quickly, that's fluent. No, that is not true. Many native English speakers do not speak quickly and they still have that fluent and natural sound. It's not about speed if you're a naturally fast speaker, okay, that's fine. You can speak quickly, but just make sure you've really mastered sounds, the words, the sentences before you increase the speed and don't give yourself a break. Now, what about practicing throughout this course? This is a practice course. I would like you to, when you're practicing, record yourself, maybe not during lessons, but when you're practicing after record yourself, video is better so that you can see yourself. Audio is okay too. If you just record your sound, just record your audio. But why do that? This is a great way of very powerful way to develop self awareness. Maybe you take a full example from one of the lessons and you record yourself reading through that as naturally as you can. Because you recorded it. Now you can listen back. This is a way to see that more objectively. To be more objective means to see it outside of yourself, like you are giving someone else feedback. So you review the recording. Maybe you take some notes. The th sound, not quite right. Remember it's fathers that sound, the OU sound, they're not quite right. It sounds like instead of 0, should be 0. Okay? Make a note there. What you're doing is noticing things that you might not have noticed if you were trying to listen to yourself. This allows you to be more objective. But then when you're practicing later, you're able to remember those things. Oh, yes, the th, oh, yes, the OU sound. Remember those things as you're speaking? To pause, make a self-correction, and then say it correctly. That's building better habits. Then when you're practicing, you might catch yourself doing it another time. The th, the th, say correctly, correct yourself. Your habits are getting better, getting stronger, you're building good habits. Then over time you start to notice those things as you say them before you say them, so you catch yourself. Okay. Correct. That maybe you don't even need to correct it because you didn't say it, but you pause for a moment, make sure you say that correctly, that word correctly, that sound correctly. Then continue. You're starting to build even better habits. Then over time, the correct sounds just start to come out naturally without you having to think about it. Because you've built up the habits and recording yourself, giving yourself feedback by taking notes, by reviewing your recordings is a very important part of that. Because you're developing the self-awareness that you need to start noticing some of those things that you didn't notice before. Finally, throughout the course, I would like you to focus on what is challenging rather than what is easy and make your own small exercises based on what is more difficult for you. There will be some things in the course that are easier for you and some that are more challenging. You can practice the easier things. But that might be very comfortable. Don't focus on what is easy and comfortable. Focus on what is difficult. So there's a tough sound for you. This sound is really difficult for you to say correctly. So you write down five or six or ten words that have that sound. And you practice those, you make your own exercises. Maybe you write a few sentences that include those words to see if you can make those words sound natural within a whole sentence. Can you make it flow naturally? So by building your own exercises based on what is more challenging, you're actually going to be improving faster. Don't be afraid to challenge herself. That's actually what you should do rather than focusing on what's very easy for you. Yeah, practice what's easy, but focus on what is challenging if you do these things throughout the course. If you keep these things in mind throughout the course, you're going to thank yourself because you will see the results of your hard work. Okay, That's it for the things to keep in mind. I hope you are ready and excited to jump into our first set of examples for the course. I know I am, I'll see you there. 3. Short Vowel Sounds Part 1: A - E - I: With almost any course about pronunciation, it's really important to start with the essentials, even if you already know them, because we need a strong foundation to build on. So we're going to start this course by practicing, by doing exercises with the essential sounds of English. We're going to start with the vowels a, e, I, 0, and u. Those make different sounds in different situations. It's very important that we start with those, that we practice those first, that we master those. So that then we can go into more difficult things and make sure that we're getting the basics right, that we're building up on a strong foundation, having mastered the vowel sounds. So let's start with this. We're going to start with short sounds, and then we're going to do some exercises with the long sounds. Now, just as a review, let's talk about what short sounds are. Well, you know the vowels a, e, I, 0, and u. But you may know they make different sounds depending on which words therein. That's right. You probably know e.g. you probably know, you probably know a, you probably know those things. Well. And those are short sounds. That's the short sound. When the sound is the same as the name of the letter, that would be the long sound. And we'll be talking about those next. We'll be practicing those. Next lung sounds, a, e, I, 0, and u or 0 depending on the word. But we're starting with the short sounds. These are in some ways more difficult. Now, the really important thing that I want you to master for these and throughout the course is awareness and the ability to hear sounds and then make those sounds with your own mouth. And if you just try enough different things, you can match any sound that anyone else is making. So I'm going to be saying these sounds. And I want you to be trying to get as close as you can to me. I want you to feel that in your mouth and to be able to hear the difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying. That doesn't quite sound the same. What can I change to get it right? What can I change to make it sound the same? Then once you've got that okay, practice at many, many times until it becomes a habit. So we want to work on listening. Very important to be able to hear the sounds. And we want to work on habits. So that once you learn the sounds, once you can make the same sound with your mouth, that you can practice that many times until you don't have to think about it anymore. Very important. You shouldn't be thinking about each sound when you're speaking. You should be just doing it because it's a habit. So I have to repeat things many times. Okay. Now the last thing that I want you to keep in mind before we go through these words is that it's not about the words. It's about the sounds. Words are just combinations of sounds. That's what they are. And I want you to focus your attention on the sounds and not the words. Because if you think in terms of words, have to learn the pronunciation of this word and that word and that word, but hundreds of thousands of words. But if you focus on sounds, there aren't as many sounds to learn. So if you have mastered the sounds, you should be able to say any word. You just need to hear the word and then you can say it because you've mastered sounds, That's the difference. So we learn sounds through words. Words are the examples that allow us to learn the sounds. So let's get started with this. We're going to start with a and then E and then I and then 0, and then you. Now what I want you to do is listen carefully to the a sound. Listen to the whole word of course, but listen very carefully to the a sound for this first one. And note that it's not the same in all of them. The short a sound, it's not exactly the same in every word. Listen carefully, then I will point out a couple of the differences, but I want you to notice it first. I want you to see if you can hear it first and also try to follow along with me. This is a practice course. This is a practice lesson. So I'm going to say each word twice, once, slowly, once at regular speed. Say it right after I say it, I'll leave a space for you to say it after me. So listen carefully. Don't say it at the same time as me. Listen to mine. Then say yours, then listen to my second one. Then say yours. That's how we're going to do it. Okay. Then we're going to look at a full example where we put all the sounds together so that we can read something continuously and make the words flow naturally from one to the next. Alright, so here we go. Twice for each one of these, ready? After after Alan Alan Athletics Athletics, attic attic, Hard hard call. Call. Okay. So if you noticed anything here, which ones of these are most difficult? What are you noticing about the sounds? Well, for these, after Alan athletics, attic, we can hear the same sound that's in sound. Notice that the mouth is a little bit wider, right? The mouth is a little bit wider than it is tall. Not too wide, not a mouth shape is so important for, especially for vowel sounds. So you might have noticed that and then you notice, wait a second. This is different. This is different. This isn't Cow. Wow. It's called, Hey, that sounds more like a short 0 col, col. Or the shape of the mouth is a little different. The mouth is a little bit narrower, not so wide, still open, right? Or our call, call. Very interesting. And also this one, Hi, hard, hard, hard. That's not that haired. Sound. Like after, after. It's not as wide, it's also narrower. More like an 0 sound, a short 0 sound. Very interesting. Hard, combined with the R, which is the same pronunciation as the letter, are hard, but each sound is an array. So you've got to try to notice those differences. Is there anything else here? Notice this one. Alan. Alan. I'm not saying Alan, am I. So this is another thing where it's very quick. It doesn't really sound like an, a. Not really sure what it sounds like. Alan Lin Lin, it's almost nothing there. Well, this is something that we can call a schwa sound. We're going to practice more later in the course. And the schwa is an unstressed syllable. So this word has two syllables. Two syllables. That means beats in the word. If you want to hear the syllables, you just say the word with your mouth closed. That's to athletics. Oh, that's three. Okay. Alan has two syllables. We stress the first one and then the second one. We don't. So we don't need to say it like a clear a sound. It's unstressed. That is called the schwa sound. It's not really clearly any specific vowel and all of the vowels, AEIOU. And in fact, why can make that schwa sound, that unstressed kind of sound? So pay attention to that too. Alright, so we've practiced that. Now let's go on to E. Let's practice these. Pay careful attention to the e sound. I'm going to read through these as before, twice slowly and then regular speed. Then we'll talk about anything interesting that we noticed, but I want you to try to notice those things first. That's why I'm mentioning them after. Because I want you to try to notice things. Pay careful attention to the sounds. Okay. 1010, bed. Bed. Let's let's steps. Steps. Expect. Expect. Okay. How about that? For a lot of people, the short e sound is a bit easier than the a sound. For the e sound, the mouth is a little narrower instead of a or. It's a. It's a bit more relaxed. But the mouth is still stretched a little bit wide. It's not like this. The mouth shape is clearly. Okay? So we have to notice that one of the most important things that makes vowel sounds what they are is the shape of the mouth. And that's the key. You have to pay very careful attention to the shape of your mouth to make sure that your sound is matching my sound to match the correct vowel sound. But if you look at each of these, they're pretty much all the same. Ten bed Let's not too wide. E, That's different. That's the long sound. Not too narrow. So it has to be exactly the right shape. Steps. Same thing, but this one now a two syllable word. Expect. Expect. What is going on here? What's that expect? Well, this might be the E sound, but it's very quick. I'm focusing on the second syllable. It expect much more than the first syllable. The second syllable has the stress of the word. So that might mean that this e is actually the schwa sound as well. Expect it's not a clear e sound, isn't expect. Okay, so always look out for that. Pay attention to that. When you have words with more than one syllable, 23456, often there will be that schwa sound, that unstressed syllable in the word that we're going to practice more later. Okay, Let's go to I. Now, pay attention to the mouth shape. It's not the same as E, but it's pretty close. Are you ready? Here we go. It It minutes. Minutes. Finished. Finished. Width. Width, equip, ment, equipment. And I should note here that this one will sometimes be pronounced instead of it as it it without making the sound. Just it. If to stop your voice. It oh, I know it. I know it. I know it. So you're often not hear the clear T sound. Okay. Just be aware of that. Okay. Now, what are you noticing here? Well, what's the shape of the mouth? It, it, So let's compare that to the short e sound. What's the difference in the mouth shape? Notice that it's getting smaller and smaller with each time at a slightly more relaxed or slightly narrower. And also, you might not be able to see it. But the bottom jaw is pushed just slightly forward. It's a good idea to put them side-by-side like that. Because then you can compare them. And to do that many times is to be able to find the differences so that you can make sure that your mouth is in the right place every time. Now look at this one here. This one is combined with you. Quic, quit. Okay, So there's like a W there. Quit equipment. But if you really look at that sound equipment, oh, that's just the short I sound. So even though it's combined with another letter, in this case, you, here, it's still the short I sound. It's still the same thing with all of these. It minutes finished with equipment. They're pretty much the same sound. You might say, finished. Some people will say that as the schwa sound, nist, nist, nist. Not really an eye. Some people will say finished, finished and actually make it as the i sound. People say it both ways. The best thing to do is to listen to different pronunciations because not all native speakers say everything exactly the same. Absolutely not all American native English speakers say every word in exactly the same way. So you have to listen to different pronunciations and decide how you want to say it. Some people will say that as a clear short I sound. Some people will say it as a schwa sound. It's really up to you. 4. Short Vowel Sounds Part 1: O - U: Let's go to 0. Notice the shape of the mouth for the vowels. The shape of the mouth, of course, is the most important thing. Here we go. On. On Oscar. Oscar. Not not Boxes. Boxes. Probably probably. Mom. Mom. You noticing anything there? What's the shape? Well, generally it's the 0 shape, right? Ah, ah, mm, mm, prob, prob probably pop up boxes. Not, not, not, wait a second. Isn't that the same as call call call. Who? If it's not the same, it's very, very close. But what about this on? That's a little bit different. Oh, oh, oh, that sounds more like a W or AU. Are all on. All are on. Okay, Very interesting. So there might be some slight differences depending on the word e.g. if you have oscar, Oscar and not, not that those might be slightly different. Maybe because this starts with an 0. You have to pay attention to those slight differences on, on not, not. And people say this in different ways. Some people will say this more as an 0, like not, not. Some people, many people, especially in American pronunciation, will say this more like this call, not, call, not very similar sound. And that different from this on, on, on Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. Okay. So just pay attention to the shape of the mouth there. If we put them together, the ones we've done so far is ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, similar to this in words like call, call, call. And in words like not, not, not, right. So okay, that's very, very similar. If not exactly the same. But then sometimes this is all 0, which is kind of like are all very, very close if not the same. So we're often taught, okay, this is the pronunciation of the short I sound. Alright? Yes, Usually this is how you say the short 0 sound, okay? Yes, usually. But there are slightly different ways to say many different sounds, not just vowels. And it's important to practice those slight differences and find the specific mouth shape and pronunciation of each one. And the best way to do that is to listen to an example and try to match your voice to that. Exactly. Okay, so now let's go on and do you Here we go. The last set of go through these twice, once slowly, once regular speed. Note the mouth shapes. Here we go. But but enough. Enough. Dun, dun, lugging, lugging up. Just as with the i T1. Sometimes this is not but, but is instead but, but you're just stopping the voice. That's important to note. But I want to, but I want to, okay, so sometimes people will say it like that. Often people will say it like that. What is going on here with the sound? Well, the mouth is very relaxed. Isn't it more relaxed than any of the other ones? We have? We have air, we have we have and now we have a so what's unique about this one? It's very relaxed. That jaw is kind of loose. The mouth. We're not stretching it in any way. It's just kind of open. But it's open like a board expression. Like you're hearing the most boring thing you've ever heard. Like that. It's the kind of thing that you would do if you just woke up in the morning, right? That's it. Relax the jaw and just let the sound come out without doing anything special with your mouth. Notice here. Oh, you can make the same sound. Ow can make the same sound. That's why it's important to remember. We're not focusing on words here. We're learning sounds through words. And you can't say 0. 0 is always pronounced the same way I learned how to pronounce 0, and that's how it's pronounced. No. It really doesn't work like that. In this case, the OH is pronounced in the same way as the short u sound. Now if you're looking for a simple rule, isn't really a simple rule. You can remember. So the best thing you can do is develop your ear, develop your listening, your awareness so that you can hear. Oh, done is not pronounced, don't. That's what it looks like, but it's not. That's actually the short use sound that I learned, which is 0. So I should say dun, dun, dun, not, don't, not done, but done. So okay, that's interesting. Sometimes 0 can make that sound. And 0, u2. Ina enough. Oh, very interesting. So never allow yourself to get stuck on one letter. This is always pronounced the same way. I have to always say it like that. Never do that. You always get into trouble when you find an example that isn't pronounced that way. The key, the secret to it all is to develop the ear and master the sounds. Master the sounds. And you'll always be able to say a word correctly after you hear it once. Oh yeah, I know all of those sounds. I'll say it like that easy because I've practiced and I've learned how to make the sounds. Okay, so that's it for the vowels. But we're going to put all of these together into one composition. We're going to read through it for practice. We're going to look at this so that we can make sure that we're not just able to say words individually or sounds within words individually, but we can actually speak something continuously, several sentences so that it flows and sounds natural. So let's do that next. 5. Short Vowel Sounds Part 1: Full Example: Now let's do our practice example for vowel sounds. For this one, it's very important to follow along. It's also very important that we try to make sure what we say is natural and flows from one word to the next. So we're not just trying to master the vowel sounds, are trying to master the vowel sounds within words, within sentences. So what I'm going to do is read apart. And then I want you to try to copy that. I will leave a space for you to read that part so you have to listen very carefully. I will stop when there is a pause. So then when I pause, I want you to try that part as well. Okay, here we go. It will not give us much trouble to fold this stuff after dinner and put it on mom's bed. Okay. Starting here. But with all the other hard work still left to do, 10 min is not enough. Okay, Let's start here. Let's get the clothes finished and after that, get the rest done. Okay, from here. Lugging Allen's heavy old athletics equipment boxes up the steps to the attic is probably going to be the toughest job. Okay. And the last one. Expect the to-do tomorrow to be longer. Okay. So how is that? Now I know it's a bit of a challenge to make it flow naturally. The key here is the exercise of shadowing. Shadowing is where you listen carefully to someone speaking. You don't focus so much on the words, you focus on the sounds. And you listen to it in pieces, like I read it in pieces, in chunks. And then you try to copy exactly sounds. Now you may have to listen a few times, 34567 times, maybe more to really, really get it. You have to pay attention to sounds, not words. But once you start to get it and you can read the whole thing naturally, you start to notice that when you say those sounds, you're not thinking about them as much because it's starting to become a habit. So foreshadowing, I'm going to read the whole thing. So don't worry about doing it right now alongside me. Maybe go back and listen to it a few times and then try it yourself. After that, I'm going to read through the whole thing one time. Then we're going to go on to the next lesson. Here we go. It will not give us much trouble to fold this stuff after dinner and put it on mom's bed. But with all the other hard work still left to do. 10 min is not enough. Let's get the clothes finished and after that, get the rest done. Lugging Allen's heavy old athletics equipment boxes up the steps to the attic is probably going to be the toughest job. Expect it to do tomorrow to be longer. So use this for shadowing. Listened to it a few times. Try to match the sounds. Focus on sounds, not words, and you will start to notice the difference. You'll start to notice your listening getting sharper. And then you can notice the differences in sounds. And then you'll notice that your awareness starts to get better so that you can notice the difference between your sound and the sounds that you're trying to shadow. So that you can then try to make adjustments and make those sounds correctly, really match those sounds. Then you'll start to notice that as you repeat this exercise, your habits continue to improve and you start to sound more and more natural. This is really the key to better pronunciation. Alright, so now that we've practiced this one, Let's go on and talk about our long vowel sounds. 6. Long Vowel Sounds Part 2: A - E - I: We've practiced short vowel sounds. Now it's time to practice long vowel sounds. Remember we're talking about vowels, of course, a, e, I, 0, and u. Now we can say that generally the lung sounds for each of these is the same as the name of the letter. So a is a and e is e and i is i, and 0 is 0. And u is sometimes you and sometimes e.g. my name L, E is not lee UK, but as Lu Bu Luke, which is the same as the 0 in food or moon, e.g. same sound. We'll practice it. Don't worry, we will practice it. So that's what we can generally use to remember the pronunciation of the long vowel sounds. But I think we really need to go through a list of words or go through some words to pull out some of the unique points about the pronunciation. And I want you to note the spelling that because we're focused on sounds, we have to notice when maybe a completely different letter, combination of letters can make another sound that we might not expect. So we'll see some examples of that as well. Let's start with a, Let's start with the a sound, the long a sound, and read through these twice. First, slowly follow along than regular speed. Are you ready? So here we go. Let's go through these one at a time, starting with a 88. Made, made, amazed amazed. Estate estate Angel. Angel. Right? How are those now note EI that says a yeah, same pronunciation exactly as ATE. Exactly the same 88. That's why we always focus on sounds, not words. Note the spelling. Remember the spelling. That is very important. Oh, now I know that EI can make that sound. But don't learn the wrong thing from that. Don't say to yourself. Oh, okay. So whenever I see, I'll say no, no, no, that would be the wrong lesson because EI can say a but doesn't always. The key is to learn and master the sound. Say, Oh, that's one way to make that sound. Remember that. But be open-minded to the idea that EI or any other letter or combination of letters might make other sounds too. Because that's true. In fact, combination of letters may make many different sounds and you just have to learn them. Learn them by learning the pronunciation of different words. Okay, so now let's look at a few other things here. Well, here's a pattern that's when you probably already know. Aid eight. Okay. Amaze a's. Okay. So if there's an E here at the end off and I'm going to make the long sound. You probably already know that, but if you have a silent e at the end, and then a consonant, d is a consonant, not a vowel. And then another vowel. Before that, it's often going to make the long sound a maze without the D would be the same kind of thing. But what about the mouth shape or shapes for this one? Did you notice are you paying attention to my mouth when I was saying a a you might notice, Oh, I see the mouth is a little wider, but then it changes and it goes even wider. But a little narrower this way. Like I was going to say the y sound. Yeah, yeah. So when we have a word like Mayor, then we say May. Oh, that's quite natural. But what if I take out this part? The OR and I just say May. May. Okay. Well, what if I take out this part, the M and I just say a, a, that's the name of the letter. So when I say it, It's like saying AY really. We don't say we don't keep the mouth in one position. It moves. So a word like May. When you say the a, you're going a a 88. Yeah, same thing. Amazed. This is, this is the short a sound or maybe the schwa sound. So that's different, but that a there is the same thing. Estate, angel, same thing. Remember when you do the a sound to go. And then E, E, like the y sound, a, a. And if it helps you to remember, maybe try may or may your and then cut off that and cut off the mirror and say it many times until you have mastered it. Okay, let's now go through the e sound. We'll go through them each twice as usual. Remember to repeat after me. Then we'll talk about some of the interesting things about the e sound. Here we go. Retired. Retired. Either. Either. Now you may think, okay, I've heard that set is either can I say it that way? Yes. That's another way to say it. Both are correct. Gene, yes. Jeanne? Yes. He he details. Details. Okay. Well, what's the shape of the mouth for this one? Remember we learned the short e sound. Make it wider. E, E, like the end of a E. Yeah, pretty much the same mouth position, but we're keeping it in the same place. Not moving, right? E, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e. Detail, same position, stretched wider, showing your teeth, smiling when you make the sound. Now for this one, people will say it in two different ways. Some people say retired. So that is Re E. Some people will say retired, retired. So that would be a schwa sound. Remember the unstressed syllable, schwa. So if you say it as retired, remember to make that smiling face. This is EI, like we learn EI here, except this EI is either, but sometimes it's either. So are we learning that EI can say a and E and I? Yes, That's exactly what we're learning. It can make different sounds. Now should you say either or either? It doesn't really matter. You can choose. Some people do it one way. Some people do it the other way. Now when we say this one, we usually stretch it out a bit. He he instead of heat. It's usually not very short. It's usually he and we kind of drag it out a little bit. Now let's go to the long I sound, the long I sound. We're gonna go through these, of course, twice, follow after me. Are you ready? I, I, my might. Price says prices. Finance. Finance. While, while. Okay. So what's the long I sound? Well, let's say it by itself, which is the letter here, i, i, i, 0, r. We also ending with a y. Yes. Well, what's the beginning of that? What you might notice is the similarity to that short a sound that we learned. Remember, ah, ah, like call, call and far, far father, but also that short 0 sound that we learned. Remember, not not not mom, Mom. It's that open. It's different than a because a is a little wider and this one is a little narrower. But then it changes. It goes from the sound to the y sound again. So that would sound like this eye. And then it goes to that wide position. I, I, that's how to make i sound. But you have to hear that. My but we say it faster might. But you're doing the same thing with your mouth. Says, but it's faster prices. So you have to really master that sound. It has to be a habit so that you don't have to think about that, you have to really get that right. This is a very commonly mispronounced vowel sound. So you have to really make sure you're hearing the difference between that and your own sound. Really listened carefully so that you can master it. 7. Long Vowel Sounds Part 2: O - U: So now let's look at the long 0 sound. We've talked about the short, Whoa, let's talk about the long 01 at a time, twice for each one. Here we go. Don't don't gold. Gold. Most, most. Only. Only. No. No. Same pronunciation for those. All though. Although okay, so what about the 0 sound? 0. 0. 0. Is the mouth changing at all? Yes, it is. Listen to this. Don't don't what am I doing? Am I keeping my mouth in one position like e or like is it staying fixed in one place? No. No, it's not. Don't don't the name of the letter 0. 0. So I start here. Oh, oh, oh, it's kind of shaped like an OH, right there. You're going to remember it that way. You shape your mouth like an 0, 0, 0, but then it doesn't stay like that. You move your lips forward and close them slightly. Like you were going to make a w sound. You know, the W sound, wind and whistle. We'll talk more about that later in the course. So it's a 0 and then I go from one to the other. Naturally, it's not a 0000, okay, so that's the sound you have to get. So when you hear a word like most, most, it's going quickly, but it's actually doing two different things. Moving from the a to the woo, woo, it's very important that you do it. Otherwise, it won't sound natural. It's often a little bit stretched when the sound is at the end of a word. So this one, e.g. although, although though, oh, it's often stretched a little bit longer. You don't have to, but often it is because it's at the end of the word. So that's the long 0 sound. Now finally, let's talk about you. So let's do each of these twice. Here we go. Dude. Dude. Assume, assume huge, huge. Sue Burr. Super few, few. Spelling interesting. Ew can make the use sound. Yes. Yes, It absolutely can. So what did you notice about the shape? Did you notice anything interesting about that mouth shape? Well, there are two different things because this a little bit different from this, right? Did you notice that difference? If I say this, dude or if I say this, assume when am I changing my mouth for this one, e.g. when I go to the m pronunciation for that 00 sound, you can see my lips are stretched forward. Okay, that's one thing. Remember that stretch your lips forward, close them together. Not totally. But hold that there. That's that specific sound and it's not moving. Okay. Same with this dude. Then I changed when I make the sound. Do. Okay. So where's the difference? Well, look at this. When I say HU GE, I'm not saying who age, MI huge. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hope you didn't say that. Incorrect. Notice what I said was huge. Huge. You you doesn't that sound like YOU? Yes, it does. So for this one it sounds like there's a yeah. Yeah. At the beginning followed by the oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, putting those two together. Yeah. The same sound we've been talking about and then add it to that the same as the double 0 sound. By the way, the double 0 sound also has a long and a short sound. One is in, one is 0, the longer one is the 00 sound. In words like food, tune. Luke. These are actually the same thing. They're all like this. But then you have this other type, like F, E, W, and H, You GE. And for these, you have that little y there and you can in your mind just add a little why they're few. Oh, that's that. Yeah. Few. Few. And this one huge. Huge. So just be aware of that. Again, there isn't a clear rule about when it's one and not the other. But if you just pay attention to the sound and you're aware that sometimes it's you and sometimes it's just like these. If you're aware of that and you have mastered it because you've practiced it. It will be very easy for you to pick up new words when you learn them. Oh, this word is made up of those sounds. I've got it. No problem. Okay, so that's it for our long vowel sounds. Now as we did before, it's time to practice them altogether. Let's look at a short practice composition for the long vowel sounds. 8. Long Vowel Sounds Part 2: Full Example: We've practiced the pronunciation of lung sounds, but now we need to put it all together. Let's go through our practice composition, our practice example for long vowel sounds. Now I'm going to read through it by part. So what I will do is I will read a little chunk or a piece of it. Not too long. And when I pause, I would like you to try the same. Okay. What I'm doing is I'm gonna go back and read it in my mind so that you have time to read it. I will try to time it so that you have that time to read through it like I did. Then I will go to the next then I will read through the whole thing. You want to listen back to the whole thing a few times and practice shadowing. That's what I would recommend. Okay. So here we go. I don't know for sure why Mike retired before he told you he might. Although I can only assume our conversations aren't usually related to finance. But a few details slip out once in a while. Okay. I know he made a huge fortune when real estate prices skyrocketed. Besides that, he has about $8 million in gold. He owns way more gold than most people either of us know. And remember there you could also say either of us, no. I'm amazed by the returns he's achieved. Mike is no angel, but he's a genius and a super nice dude. Okay, So how was that? There are a lot of long sounds throughout this passage, this example exercise. What did you think? Difficult when you're reading them together, when you're putting words together into a composition. If you find it challenging, the key is to practice. You have to practice reading it 34561020 times, as many times as you need to get the sounds right and to make them habits. Now what I'm going to do is read through the whole passage. I'm going to read through the whole thing. If you want, you can listen to it a few times. Try to shadow. And hopefully if you practice it enough, you won't be thinking about how to say all the sounds that will just come out naturally the first time. Here we go. I don't know for sure why Mike retired before he told you he might. Although I can only assume our conversations aren't usually related to finance, but a few details slip out. Once in awhile, I know he made a huge fortune when real estate prices skyrocketed. Besides that, he has about $8 million in gold. He owns way more gold than most people, either of us. No, I'm amazed by the returns he's achieved. Mike is no angel, but he's a genius and a super nice dude. Now you might be thinking, okay, but that's pretty slow still. Can you read it faster? What if I want to really get it down really, really fast, alright, for this one, I'll just try to read it fast. Actually, I wouldn't read it this fast normally, but I'll try it. I don't know for sure why Mike retired before he told you he might, although I can only assume our conversations aren't usually related to finance, but a few details slip out. Once in a while. I know we made a huge fortune when real estate prices skyrocketed. Besides that, he's about $8 million in gold. He owns way more gold than most people, either of us. No, I'm amazed by the returns he's achieved. Mike is no angel, but he's a genius and a super nice dude. So that's actually faster than I would normally say it or read it. If you want to practice at faster, I suppose it's okay. I would recommend, like if you're learning piano to practice a little bit more slowly and then speed it up once you really have mastered it. Because if you're speeding up something that's not perfect, then what's the point, right? You have to make sure the sounds are perfect. That's really the key. And then if you want to speak a little faster, you can have to first perfect the sounds and make them habits. Alright, so that's it for our long vowel sounds. In the next one, we're going to go on and talk about vowels combined with the r sound. How we put those two different things together. So I'll see you in the next one. 9. Vowels Before R: Part 1: We've practiced short vowel sounds. We've practiced long vowel sounds. Now it's time to continue to expand. We need to keep practicing. We're going to still focus on vowels. But vowels that go before the r sound. The, the r sound is a very important sound in spoken English, but it's not usually by itself, as it's usually combined with a vowel sound, like the e sound, like the i sound, like the 0 sound. And we need to really explore these through of course, examples. We need to practice these. So we're going to start by talking simply about how to make the r sound. Then we're going to look at a full example so that we can put everything we're learning together to make it sound natural in sentences. Okay, So let's talk about first, quickly, the R. Now I'm going to explain how to make the r sound. If you don't already know, how do we say it? How do you think you make the r sound? Is it like this? Like this, or how do you make it? Well, first of all, it's important to note that it's not the same everywhere. E.g. in British English, the r sound tends to be not as strong. It's not as clearly an r sound. In fact, it's often very similar to a vowel sound because the tongue, the tongue is more flat. It tends to be, in American English, the r sound tends to be a bit stronger. But how am I doing that? To make the r sound? I'm actually curling my tongue upward and backward. Now, you don't want to touch the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue. Still you have to have air moving over your tongue. That's very important. But the sides of my tongue will be touching the sides of my mouth. So when I roll it up and back, it sounds like this. And I can feel the sides of my tongue touching, but the tip of my tongue not touching anything or are now what if I were to flatten my tongue out and just make a sound with my mouth in that position. How would it sound? Oh, oh, oh. So you can see that the mouth is pretty close to being closed. Almost closed, but it's still open a little bit. So we don't stretch it as wide as we would to e.g. make the e sound or make a sound that we've talked about. It's usually narrower, not closed, but not too far away from closed. Look at the shape of my mouth. Oh, oh, oh, oh. What's the difference between those two? It's actually just my tongue. When I say 0, 0, 0, not moving my mouth, but my tongue is flat when I say or, or, or, my tongue is curled up and there's air moving over my tongue. So that's it. But as I said, it's not usually by itself like that. Now sometimes it is. But usually we have another sound, a vowel sound that goes with it, that we combine with it. So we have to learn how we combine vowel sounds with the r sound to pronounce words naturally. So what I like to do is like we did for the vowels. I would like to read through the example words. I want you to listen carefully to the differences. Now, note here we have different spellings OR EAR, AR, AR, EAR. I want you to note that while the spellings may be one way, they might be different in pronunciation, not quite what you expect. So you always have to focus on the sound. Developing your ear. Noting the slight differences. Then say OK, okay, this one's spelled like that. I can remember that because E a R T here is not pronounced the same way as E a R S here. They're not both air. They're not both are one is R and one is air. So don't get lost in spelling, as I've said before. Trust your ear, develop your ear and then try to match the sound. So I'm going to be reading each of these twice, once slowly, once at regular speed. Please follow along with me. I want you to be practicing this with me. Note that some of these will be our Some of these will be air, and you should note the difference in vowel sounds. We've learned both of those before. All we're doing is combining them with R. So here we go. Ready? Carl? Carl, arm, arm, sorry, sorry. Heart. Heart. And also heart. Barely, barely. Carry, carry. Pairs. Pairs. Now, you might be asking yourself a couple of questions. Wait a second. Is this the same pronunciation is P, R, S? The answer is yes, exactly the same pronunciation. Is this car the same pronunciation as CAR, but just an old at the end? Yes, car carl, car, carl. It's exactly the same. Now, are you noticing the two different sounds here for this one, CRL, ARM. So RR, why? It's not about the spelling, it's about the sound HAART. These are all R. R. Remember that a sound that we learned before, which is also close to, very close to, if not the same as the 0 sound. Remember that? Our, our car, arm, sorry, heart. So we have different spellings here, but all of them are making this same sound starting here and going all the way to here. Ear T 0, R R Y. Well that makes sense because oh, makes that same sound, right? Okay. Now what about these? Did you notice the difference? Barely, barely, barely bear air, air. Air, apple. Apple air, air at that one. That one. The sort of classic short a sound, bear, li, set the same pronunciation is be EAR, the animal. Yes, it is exactly the same. Bare, bare, bare. Okay, very interesting. But if you take the B off than its ear, so that's different. Kerry, Kerry, and here is a ERS pairs, pairs not peers, that's different pairs. Pairs, same pronunciation as this. So I hope you noticed the differences between those two different sounds. And I hope this also reminds you that just because something is spelled one way doesn't mean that it has to be pronounced the same way every time. Ear, EAR, EAR, or three different things. Art. Heart. Ear, EAR by itself. Ear e, That's an E. Okay? And PAR which is pair air, air. Okay? So just remember, spelling is not, spelling is not the thing that tells you. It's your ear that tells you you have to learn the sounds. That's the most important thing. Alright, now let's go to the earth by itself. For all of these, well, we have different vowels connected to them. All of them are just, are just the sound by itself or, or, or say it by itself, then combined with other sounds in the word. So let's go through these, listened carefully twice for each one, are you ready? Url. Url Over, heard. Overheard. Coworker. Coworker. Under under first. First. So you have an EAR, you have an ER and EAR AND, OR an ER and in IR, all making just the er sound. Not the same as these, right? Our air, this is just by itself. So this is pretty common. It might not be the most common, but it is important to be able to make that sound quickly when you need to make it e.g. with this one overheard, you have to be able to say it twice quickly over and then stop and then the H sound and unheard same exact sound on either side of the H over her or her. So it's the same thing on either side, it's like a mirror. Now, for this next set, listen carefully for two different sounds, two different vowel sounds. You should already be familiar with how to say both of these sounds. We've practiced them. So just listen carefully and try to repeat after me. You're ready. Veer. Viera. Ear. Ear. Beer. Beer. Hired hired. Tiring. Tiring flyers. Flyers. Sir. Sir. Now, this last one I threw in just to test you. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry, I tested you, but I wanted to see if you could hear the difference between this sir and this IR tiring or hired? Can you hear the difference? One clearly has the long I sound i i that we've talked about. Whereas this one is actually like these. Or it's just the R sound by itself. Under first sir, just the Earth's sound. There's no clear i sound that goes with it. But what about the other one? Viera? Ear? Can you hear the difference there? Which sound is that? That's the long e sound. Ee, ear, Viera, beer. Here it's spelled EAR, IR, Viera, that someone's name, BER. And then these, this group here, very clearly the long I sound hi, I, although for this one is spelled with a. Why? Flyers is often pronounced the same way as an I? Not always. Depends on the situation. It depends on the word, depends on where it is. But in this case, the y is pronounced exactly the same as the long I sound. Hired, tiring flyers. So that's the same I or II or III or sound, which is really, really common. But don't think for a second that it has to be e.g. an IR pronounced that way, Surin first or two examples in which it's not. 10. Vowels Before R: Part 2: Now for the next one, you're going to hear a vowel sound that is familiar to you. You probably already know how to say it. Still we need to practice it. But you're also going to hear one that might not be so familiar, one we haven't talked about yet, which we will talk about later in the course. This one is a little bit more challenging. What I want to do is see if you can hear the difference and just try your best to repeat after me. So here we go. Starting with an OR sound. Oranges. Oranges, portly, portly, poor, poor. Poured, pored. Hours. Hours. Flower. Flower. Alright, so where's the line here? Where should I draw the line to separate the groups? It's here, right? These all have the same or, or, or, or sound, or, or the 0 sound that we talked about, right? These do not. This is something else. So for this oranges, ow, ow, ow sound 0 ranges. Oranges, oranges very clearly, portly, poor. Or 0 or pore, pore. And this is the same, although it's spelled differently. Oh you are. Which is why I put this one in here later, 0 EUR, this one is P OU RED poured, poured. You might then ask, well, what if I remove the ED and just said PUR, is that the same as P 0 R pronunciation? Poor. Poor. Yes. It's exactly the same. What if I did PCORI? Pcori. Pcori. The same? Yes, that is also the same. Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor. Okay. Different spellings. Same sound. Okay, Now here I have, oh, you are an OU, our fellow EUR. But this FLO UR is actually the same pronunciation as FLO, WCR, 0, W, OU sometimes, often have the same sound, in this case, 0 sound we haven't talked about yet that we're going to work on more later. Oh, wow. Starts wide like a and then goes narrow at the end like this. Hoo, woo, hoo, woo, woo. And then you begin with the first and you end with the second. Often a very difficult sound for learners who end with that W position, like you end there. Oh, so hours, hours, hours. Wait a minute. Is that the same pronunciation as H 0, U, R, S? Yes. Exactly the same pronunciation. Okay, interesting. So QRS and QRS, they have the same pronunciation, hours, hours and FLO, UR and F, LOW, ER. They have the same pronunciation. The same, our, our sound, flower, flower, flower, flower. So just have to be careful not to follow the spelling too much, but still learn the spelling. I think those similarities are interesting. These, by the way, just so you know, are called homophones. And a homophone is when the sound of the word is the same. These are homophones. Qrs and ** you, RS. They are homophones because they sound the same, although they're not spelled the same. Okay, so now let's go to our last set. Then we're going to look at are longer example. We're going to practice that. Now for this one, I want you to note that it might be the same as something we've already talked about. Even though we're looking at some you are spelling here. Are you ready? Hurry. Hurry. Curls. Curls. Blurb. Blurb. Sure. Sure. For for now, if you're asking yourself, wait a second. That sounds like what we've already done. I know that ER makes just the earth sound. Often. Hear EAR. This one in IR. We talked about that, sir. It's just the Earth's sound and there's no other vowel sound. Where's the u vowel sound? This sounds just like the same as this one. Her, her hurry. Where's the EU? Kircher curls? Where's the use sound? I can't hear. They use sound. Blur or blurb. Sure. Sure. For for same thing. Where's the u? That's right. There's no use sound. So it's spelled with a U. In fact, this group belongs with this group. I wanted to talk about them separately, but in fact, it's the same r sound. You're not hearing any clear use sound because it isn't there. It's just the r sound. And that is typically how you are. Words work when there's you right beside an r sound. Now that would be different if there was a use sound after an R, e.g. run. Now we have a use sound Ra, That's a clear sound, so that's different, right? Typically, after the r, you're going to just say the vowel sound that you see. That's going to be the most common way to say it. So Ra, That's the clear short use sound. I can hear that run, run. It's often when there before the r that it's a little bit difficult. Should I say it? Should I not say it? So you might be able to see some patterns here, but don't get locked into any rules. Listened to words one at a time. Focus on the sounds and remember based on that, okay, Now we're going to do our practice. We're going to look at our composition, which includes most of the words that we've been practicing here, so that we can put it all together and make it sound natural. 11. Vowels Before R: Full Example: Now that we've practiced vowel sounds before the r sound, let's practice a full example as we've done before. Now, as before, I'm going to read a small section or a part and then pause and give you enough time to read it yourself out loud to practice the sounds. Try to get it close to my pronunciation. If you can. If you need to go back and do it again, that's okay. Go back a little bit, listen to it again, try it again. Once we get through the whole thing, I'm then going to read the whole example altogether, which you can use if you like, for shadowing if you went to practice in that way so that you can hear it all together. Okay, so here we go. Viera and URL. We're at the supermarket getting oranges, pears, beer, and some other things for the party tomorrow afternoon. Okay. Next part, near the register, a portly, tired looking man named Karl was carrying a carton of milk under his arm and pushing a cart of laundry detergent. Url, overheard him quarrelling over the phone about a co-worker who had just been hired. Poor Carl could barely keep the phone to his ear as he poured his heart out to the person on the other end. Okay. Next sentence. Okay. How's it going? They got to the register at the same time and nobody seemed sure who should go first? Next one. Finally, Berle said, sorry, are we first in line or were you okay? Never mind. Your cart is fuller than ours and we're in no hurry. Okay. So how did that go? You at least feel more comfortable with vowels together with the r sound. You have to practice it enough times for it to really feel natural. So if it doesn't feel natural yet, that's okay. Practice the words that we talked about in our practice section and then try this again. I'm going to now just as an example for you to listen to read through the whole thing continuously at my normal speaking speed. Okay? So you can use this if you want to practice shadowing. Once you've practiced the vowel r sounds together, once you've practiced the words that we've practiced enough and it feels like a habit, then you can try to use this example for the shadowing. The shadowing technique. That means you follow along with me. You can even watch my mouth carefully, try to pay attention to how it all flows together. And the individual sounds that I'm saying, alright, here we go. Viera and URL, we're at the supermarket getting oranges, pears, beer, and some other things for the party tomorrow afternoon. Near the register, a portly, tired looking man named Carl was carrying a carton of milk under his arm and pushing a cart full of laundry detergent. Url, overheard him quarrelling over the phone about a co-worker who had just been hired. Poor Carl could barely keep the phone to his ear as he poured his heart out to the person on the other end. They got to the register at the same time and nobody seemed sure who should go first. Finally, Earl said, sorry, are we first in line or were you never mind? Your cart is fuller than ours and we're in no hurry. So that's the normal reading speeds that I would have if I were saying this out loud. You can try it faster. You can try it slower. But of course, the most important thing is that it sounds natural. In order to make it sound natural, you've really got to make sure that the sounds, the individual sounds or habits. That's the key thing. Alright, so that's it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we're going to be practicing sounds made up of two vowels together. Also very important. We've talked about it a little bit, but we really need to focus on it. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. Two Vowels: AI - OU: What happens in English pronunciation when there are two vowels side-by-side, whether they're the same one, like 000, or different, like Oh, you like EI. Is there one rule we can learn? No, not really, but we can learn the sounds in there, of course, some common sounds for different combinations of vowels. That's what we're going to be practicing. Now, what happens when we put two vowels together? What you'll notice is two vowels together won't always make the same sound. There are different sounds that those combinations make. So let's go through these common combinations. If I can call them that, we're going to start with AI. Now as we've been doing, we're going to go through the specific words. We use words because those are examples that include the sounds we want to learn. The important thing is the sounds, to remember how to make the sounds, to notice the differences between sounds. Then once we go through these, we're going to go through another set as well. We're going to look at a complete example as we've been doing. Okay, so let's start with a pie. Now listen carefully. I'll do each one of these twice. Try to repeat after me. Use your ear, try to hear the differences. Then of course, as we've been doing, we'll talk about the differences. You're ready. Certain certain details. Details. Daily daily complains. Complains. Okay. Now what are you hearing here? Is this the same as this? The same as this. Really listen, what am I saying when I say certain turn, turn. Turn. Isn't that that unstressed sound? What was that called again? Yes. The schwa sound. That sound that's kind of like a short use sound. Certain, turn, turn, turn. Yes, this one is the schwa sound. Why? Because it's an unstressed syllable. So although it's an AI, we're not saying a. Usually when we see AI it's going to be the long a sound. Usually the long, long, a, long a, typically that's the sound. Now, there are some small differences there too that we'll talk about. But here you don't hear it at all. There's no tain, attain certain know, certain, know certain. And in fact many people will say certain, certain. So they'll stop the T there. There's no t sound and then just say directly, completely cutting out even the schwa sound. Certain, certain, I'm certain of it. I'm certain of it. Cert. Cert. Cert. It's just the n sound right after that stopped. T sound when we don't actually say the t. So either way is okay. You'll hear both of them. Now what about this one? Details, details tails, tails, tails. So there's the long a sound, the long a sound there. Listen carefully to the next one. Daily, daily. But even though this is also the long a sound, something seems different. Daily details. Daily details. Well, one is simply that there's more stress on day than there is on tails because it's going down. Now it's still the long a sound there. It's not tools, tools, tools. That might be a schwa sound. This one is tails, tails, tails so that a K, It's still there. But it's not as stretched out as this one. And it may not be as wide as this one because it's a stressed syllables. Day, wide-open, day, day, daily. This one tails, tails, tails. So it's faster and it's not as stressed, although the mouth shape is basically the same, people may open their mouths a little bit wider for this one, just because it's stressed. So we're stretching it out a little bit more. And then this is the same thing. Complains, complains. Actually the stress is here. The stresses on syllable to come planes. This CO, M, This is the schwa sound, complains a, so we hear the long a sound very clearly. Again, same sound as this one, but stressed. So there's a bit more focus on it. Okay? So that's what happens when we put a and I together. What about 0 and u? This one is not so simple. There are a lot of different things going on for this one. So listen carefully, gets your ears out. That's a thing you can do. And repeat after me twice for each one. Here we go. Bout, bout. Or it could also be about without the sound, just a stopped voice sounding. Sounding. Countries. Countries, around around wood. Wood count account. Okay. So how many different sounds are you hearing for OU? I mixed them around a little bit to see if you could catch which ones are, which. Where did you hear the sound? Remember when we make that 0, w 0 sound, we start with the eye that we learned and then it goes to the zoo, like the long use sound or like the 0 sound, 00, stretching the lips forward like a W, Well, like that. And then it goes from a to 0, 0, 0, again, we'll practice it more later in the course. Where are you hearing it about? Yep, there it is. Sounding out. Sounding about how you see my mouth doing that. Sounding about, about sounding, it's doing the same thing, right? It's also their countries. Countries. Countries. No, it's not there. Around around. Look at the shape of my mouth around. Yeah. It's there. There it is. Would would would know. It's not there. Account. Account. Account. Yes, there it is. So we have one about or about sounding around and account. This is where we have that sound. It's called a diphthong, and we'll practice it later. It's a specific diphthong where we change from a to 0.0. You often makes that sound. In fact, the word sound sounding has that in it. So what about these other ones? Well, listen carefully to this one. Countries, countries are short. Use sound, isn't it? So that's just the short u. Remember that short use sound with a very relaxed board expression. Then this one would, would, would. What's that sound? Well, we're going to be talking about it later when we look at these. So for this one, the lips are pushed forward slightly like this. Not so close together like a W, not like this. Like this. So pushed forward, but not so close together. Then you're moving your tongue forward in your mouth, your whole tongue is moving forward. And often at the end of the word it opens up a little bit. Oh, oh, oh, I'm actually moving my tongue forward. So that's that sound right there. Wood, wood and we'll practice it down here as well, would, would now because we have the W at the beginning, we start with wool. Wool. But if it's a word like Cook, Oh, Oh, Oh, it's moving slightly. The tongue is moving forward, but we aren't always starting with the war was sound, the w sound, and then account, it's the same sound, account. Now if these are difficult for you, this our sound, especially practice them again and again. They have to become muscle memory. Muscle memory. These are not muscle memory. Then you have to think about it every time. If you're also thinking about what you want to say, it's unlikely that you'll remember to say these sounds correctly, so you have to practice them many, many times. Repetition is very important for pronunciation. The danger is that you're repeating the wrong sounds. So then if you're repeating the wrong sound again and again, then you're building bad habits. So that's why your listening and your self-awareness have to be very, very sharp. That's why you have to be able to really hear the differences. 13. Two Vowels: EA - IE - OO: What are the different sounds that EA can make? I'm sure you know some of them. Let's practice them. Here we go. Twice for each one. Pleasant, pleasant realities. Realities, deal, deal. Reveal, reveal. Beach. Beach. Reasons, reasons. Near, near. All the same, all different. What are you hearing? You can start to pick out the differences. That's great. I hope you can start picking these out before I talk about them. That is my hope. That is my hope as you're listening and awareness improve. So for this one, pleasant. Sounds like just a short e sound. Pleasant, pleasure, play, play, play. Ea can just make the short e sound. What about this one? Rhea, rhea. Okay, so that's the long e sound. They're prolonging sound there, and then that's the short a sound. Rhea. What is that in the middle there? That's sounds like a little y sound. That's what we use to go from one to the next naturally, because these are actually two different syllables, re L at T. But if it sounds like that, r0, r0, it doesn't sound good, it doesn't sound natural. If we imagine that little y there in the middle, then it's yeah, Rhea, rhea realities. Okay, so that's one pronunciation of EA. Now what about this one? Deal? Deal? Is this DL that would be realities DL? Is it the same? No, listen carefully. Deal, reveal. So this is the long. Just use an L here for long. The long e sound here, the long e sound reveal E, D, E. But next one is not the short a sound. It's not all. It's not an L. It's not a sale. It's oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, reveal. So this is actually, the second part here of this EA is actually the friendly old schwa sound. Again, the same old sound that we've been learning about slowly over time. That's in a lot of words, that schwa sound that are unstressed sound. So actually the focus is on the e, reveal, reveal, and then the second part, oh, oh, it's just a little sound before the L there and before the L their deal reveal. What about this one? Beach? Ah, that's just the long. That's just the long e sound. Easy. Beach reasons near, near long, long, long E. All of these are the long e sound. So often, EA says the long e sound near reasons Beach. But often enough it makes other sounds as well. You really just have to listen out for that. One thing to note is that here is aligned between syllables and that's important. React, react to different syllables. Two different beats, deal, reveal. So actually those are lines between syllables. And that explains a little bit about why it's pronounced that way instead of like these, which are all part of the same syllable, beach. Re, reasons that e sound is in the same syllable, near same syllable. So pay attention to that kind of thing. Now let's move on to i e. We've talked about AEIOU EA. Now let's talk about E. Let's go through these. Repeat after me. Stories. Stories, friend, friend, friendlier. Friendlier, experiences, experiences, countries, countries, realities. Realities. We've talked about the first part of that word, but what about the second part? It's a very useful word actually for practicing. So what are you hearing? Stories? Friend ease, friend. Lear, E. Okay. Maria. Yeah. Yeah. Moon, that's two different things. Countries, ys, ys realities, tease, tease. Ok, So we're hearing a lot of the long e sound, stories, long e sound. We've learned that realities, long e sound realities. Now notice when I'm saying this, I'm not saying realities. You can say realities, but most people will change this t to a very light d sound, not as strong d sound like realities, but a very light d sound realities, realities. So this is a very useful word for practicing because we have to practice number one, putting that little y there between the E and the a, like we learned so that it flows naturally so that we don't stop the voice. Then for this one to continue the voice and make that light d sound realities. And then the E sound at the end with a z sound at the very end. Realities. Realities. You can say realities, It's okay, It's okay. What about this one? We learned the beginning part of this is a, what about the end countries? Also the long e sound, their friend. Friend, is that the long e sound friend? What am I hearing there? No. This is the short e sound for a friend. Friend, friend. Oh, okay. Friend, friend. Short sound. This is the long sound, long sound, long sound. This one is the short sound friendlier. Okay, so now we have two different IEEE sounds inside of one word, FRAND, a friend, and then LIDAR, Lear, Lear, Lear, Lior. So this is the long e sound, Lee, and then the r sound. We've practiced putting vowels with the r sound. So it's easier. But it's two syllables, not one. If it's just ER, usually it's just the er sound like we talked about. This one is ear, ear, ear, friendly year. So three syllables, friendlier. Friendlier. Okay, now what about this one? What's going on here? Experiences x r3, r3, r3. Okay, So on either side of the ER, That's the long, That's the long sound. But then right after it is the e. But that's not the long e sound. That's actually the short sound. So that would be so then we have an e sound. Now, like with realities where we use the small little y. We also have a little y between the I and the E. You can imagine a little y there to make it flow naturally. Because if you say e, e, e doesn't sound good. But if you say E, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, with the little y in the middle, that sounds much better. So the whole word should sound like this. Experiences, experiences. That's how it sounds and that's a tough one, but it's also a great word to practice with to make sure your voice is continuing and also having two of the same sound on either side of an r. That's a little bit challenging as well. So if you can master that, then you're really making progress. Now, let's look at in this set that we're doing, we have one other group to look at. Let's look at the double 0. The double 0. We've already talked a little bit about these last two, but I want you to pay attention to the differences. Let's go through them, repeat after me, then we'll talk about them. Ready. Gloomy or gloomier? Bed rooms, bedrooms, pool, pool, cook. Cook. Good. Good. You hear the difference. There is the line. These are similar sounds, same sound. And these are different. What's the difference? Glue, woo, woo. Remember that pronunciation, the long use sound sometimes is that 0 sound in words like gloom. But also in words like LU KE, my name, it's not leak. Remember it's just Bu Lu Luke. So you stretch your lips forward and very close to the w sound, except you don't make the w sound. Woo, woo, woo, and it's fixed in place. You're not moving it. Lou, glue, glue me or bedrooms. Now, that might sound a little different because we're stressing bed. So the stress is on the first syllable, bedrooms. So we're not putting as much focus on it, but the mouth shape is the same. What we do with our mouths is the same. Pool. Pool. It changes a little bit at the end only because we have to say the l sound. Puh, pool. If we didn't say the l sound than it would just be *** and it would stop their ***. This is another word. Then these two something different going on, the same as what we talked about here. This is wood. Okay? Well, this and this WO U L D W 0 D, are they different? Would, would, would, would. Well, you can't even tell which one I'm saying, right? Because they're the same, same pronunciation. What's the sound? To make this sound, you have your lips pushed forward, not as narrow though as woo, little bit more open and you push your tongue forward during the sound, That's the key thing. If you could see my tongue, you'll see it's moving forward a little bit. Oh, oh. Now at the end of the word you change the shape. Often change the shape of your mouth a bit. 0, 0, 0. If you can see that I'm stretching my lips out a little bit more, that's actually not necessary to make the sound because you could just say, oh, oh, oh, oh, without moving your lips. But often people will move their lips outward just a little bit when saying words like, Cook, Cook, and Good, good, good. See what I'm doing with my mouth during that sound. Cool. Oh, oh, oh, just a little bit of movement, but it's not necessary. The key is what is happening inside your mouth. Okay, so now we know how to make these sounds, but we're not quite ready for our full example. I want to look at a few more vowel combinations before we go into the full example and practice all of these together. 14. Two Vowels: EE - IO - OA: We're going to look at one more group or one more set of words that contain sounds made up of two vowels together. We've talked about quite a few so far before we look at our full example and put it altogether, we need to go through a few more. You're probably feeling pretty confident about your knowledge of how e is pronounced 0 E, that's, that's the long e sound, right? There are exceptions to almost everything, So I would say yes. But because there are exceptions to almost every single rule that you will find, that's language. That's the nature of language. So let's go through these. Feel, feel, need, need. Sleeping, sleeping, freelancing. Freelancing, re-entry. Re-entry. Did you catch the exception? Where is it? Okay. Well, this one is long e. E, e, e, need sleeping. Long, long e sound. There it is. Free ie freelancer who had lung. Where's the exception? There it is. Remember, we talked about words like reality, and we put the little y between them because they're actually two different syllables. Syllable is broken between the two vowels. Well, that's a common thing when you have these two vowels side-by-side, but they're in two separate syllables. You often get this thing where you put the little y in the middle or sometimes put a little w sound in the middle. For these, you wouldn't do that because they're all within one syllable. Eel, IID, IEP. He'll write it's all inside one syllable, but this one, Re is one syllable and entry is one syllable. Just be careful not to say re-entry, re-entry because that causes a sharp break. We don't want that to have that little y there right in the middle and that looks like a little face. That's nice. Re-entry, re-entry. So that's the long sound and that's the short sound. The second one is the short sound. So that's how those work. Now, how about Io? All the same? Maybe, maybe not. Let's explore. Million. Million. Mentioning, mentioning or occasionally. Occasionally. Same, different. What's going on here? What did you hear? For this one? We have a unique sound, e and then milli, and we can say that's the schwa sound. Sounds a little bit like the short use sound or the schwa sound. It's not the 0 sound, it's not eon, It's Ian. Ian, million, billion, trillion Ian, Ian. The first syllable is the E and the second one is the. But there's also the little y there. Because we don't say milli That sounds very strange. Can't do that. Million. Okay. But what's going on here? Also IO, totally different sound. Mention shunt, shunt, shunt, shunt, occasion Jin, Jin. This sound, the team makes an SH sound. And for this one, j1, j1, I call this the strange S, but it's kind of like SH only you add your voice, g and g. And we're really going to explore all of this stuff in more depth. So while these sounds are different here and here, that is actually the same. And that is actually the schwa sound, that, that neutral vowel sound that's kind of like a short use sound that's very close to that. Sometimes which can be made by every single vowel and combinations of vowels. That schwa is the second part of that sound, tion, sion, very common in English words, T-I-O-N, SiO. And these are very common endings, and they're pronounced tion, sion, ION, but not pronounced in the same way as Ian. Million. Okay. What about, oh, what about OLA? I'm sure you're familiar with the sound, but listen carefully. Repeat after me, see if you can note the differences and imitate these sounds. Ready? Abroad. Abroad. Overboard. Overboard. Grown. Grown. Okay, what's going on here? Oh, oh, where are you hearing? Oh, you probably seen words like oat and toast. That's just the long 0 sound, isn't it? Yes, that is right. It's the long 0 sound. What about the 0, w sub g ROW? And those are the same grown, grown, grown, grown, same sound. Those are homophones, homographs. Homophones because they're spelled differently, but sound the same. Board or, or, or we've learned that sound. That is also the 0 sound. Or, or with the art at the end, we've already learned how to say that. Well, what about this? Abroad? Abroad? Abroad, abroad. So what are you hearing there? Are 0, 0. Remember we talked about the AW and AU. That's the one that we have here. You'll see this in a lot of different words. This ROA, often ROA D, oh, as off. And also very often in words like this, grown and oat and toast, just the simple long 0 sound. So keep your ears out for those sounds when you hear them, try to remember it said with that sound. Now I need to remember that it goes with that word or I need to make that sound when I say that word. If you can do that, You can say anything. 15. Two Vowels: AU - UI - OI: Now let's go on to AU and we're also going to do, you were gonna do these two together. And really there are just a couple of sounds to focus on, a couple of sounds to practice. And one of these we're going to spend more time on later in the course. I know you're probably tired of hearing me say that, but if we really are okay, so follow me twice for each one. Ready? Because because shot TO chateau. Usually usually unusual. Unusual. Okay. Now for one of these, I'm actually cheating. I shouldn't really include this one because it's a French word, chateau. Now we use this word in English. It's a pretty common word that people know and use. But in fact, a lot of English is actually French. There are many French words or words of French origin in the English language. So when you see something like that, it's going to be pronounced differently from a word like this, which is the sort of classical sound we've talked about the AW and AU. Can I call it a classical sound? Maybe I can't, but that is the same as e.g. this one abroad. Same sound fl AW, flaw. Because all are all, That's the sound. It's even more pronounced in the word caused by itself. If you just have the word cause, cause are all cause, it's even more pronounced because many people will pronounce this word BEC, use z with a short use sound instead of an 0 sound. The difference would be the short us because cars are just that simple, relaxed sound we talked about. Because, because, because because you hear the difference, us all our AWS, that's the difference. So in a word like this, yes, some people will say it. Cause the same way with the short view because I want to, because I want to. But if we're speaking naturally correctly, most people will say cause, cause. But those same people may vary often say because, because instead of, because I should mention both of these. Because this is a common pronunciation of because, because is a common pronunciation of because is that confusing? Does that make sense? Okay, Now what about these UAA and UGA here? Is this the same? Listen carefully. Usually unusual. Usually unusual. So there's a syllable break here. You are. And we add a little w in the middle instead of a y. You are, you are, you use, you use. So there's the long use sound there, that sound, and then the schwa sound because it's another syllable. Use your, use your unused. You are, you are, you, are you. That's that sound. But some people will say this as one syllable. Typically people will say it as two, but sometimes you'll hear people say usually. So that whole thing is one syllable and that's more like a short, a YuJa. Yuja usually, or unusual, unusual sometimes you'll hear people say that I don't want to teach you that pronunciation. I would like you to learn the pronunciation. Use you and unused you. Whoa, that's the pronunciation I think you should learn. That's how I typically say it. You're taking this course from me. So I went to teach you how I tend to say it and what we could call the correct pronunciation. Although I have seen the other pronunciation of this one, usually in some dictionaries. So I can't say very clearly, it's incorrect. It's pronunciation. These things are decided by culture in the language. What's common? What people often say, I need to just mention them to you and let you know. I typically say use you. Leave. Okay. Let's go on to We have two more to talk about. Let's go on to u i. Okay. I'm going to read through them. Follow along, repeat after me. Genuine. Genuine. Fluid. Fluid. Quit. Quit. Or quit. Quite, quite, quite, quite yet. Quiet or quiet. Okay. So what are the different sounds here? What can you here? What's the difference between genuine and fluid? Are they the same? Are you different? Flu. So this one is the long use sound. Or it's the same as the 0, the long version of the row, like food. That sound that we learned. The long use sound, Luke, luke, same sound there and also here flu. And then the next one is short. I sound ID fluid, fluid, fluid. Genuine in. So that's like an N and that's like an ID there. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh in. Now I've heard some people say genuine. Genuine. But usually that's just to be funny. Typically we don't say genuine. It's genuine, genuine and fluid. But as this one the same, quit or quit. Is that the same? No. Where do you hear the sound that longer sound. It's just the W sound there. So for this one we have a w and then directly to the short, I sound like a W. And then it i t. So that's like Whit quit, quit. In fact, we could spell that k w i t quit. That's the incorrect spelling. But the if we were going to read that, we would read it as quit or quit. Now what about the next one? What's different about this? Quite the difference is not in the w sound at the beginning is exactly the same. It's the sound, the W there. But this one has the long I sound instead of the short I. So instead of quit, It's quite high. We've learned the long I sound because we have the silent e at the end. That one makes the i sound lungs. So this one is quite or quite. That doesn't really look like an L, does it? That's an L. Let's now their lung sound. So quit quite. And then this one also different. Suddenly quiet. Quiet. So I here the W, you is that w sound. Alright. I, I'm hearing also a long I sound there. The long I sound there. What's the last one? At, at, at, at, at. Well, some people might say this as the short e sound or as the schwa sound. So if we give a little bit more stressed to this one, then it's the short e. Or it could be the schwa sound if we don't stress it at all. And both would be okay. So that's the schwa or the short e. But that means there are two different syllables here, right? Yes. So do we have that little y there? Yes. That's what makes it sound natural. If we say qy, qy, that doesn't sound good. Sounds very strange. But if you have that little y in there, if we stick a little y to y between the two syllables I and I and the short e and the i sound, then it flows naturally. Quiet, quite yet. Quiet. So that sounds a lot better, that sounds much more natural. So then these together would be quit, quite quiet. Quit quite quiet. Practice those, master those. It's actually a bit of a tongue twister, if you can say these with the differences, pretty quickly, workup to doing it. Making sure that of course, you do it correctly, then you can build up your muscle memory. Alright, for the last ones we're going to be looking at. Oh, I, we've talked about I0. What about OI? Listen carefully and follow along. Repeat after me of void. Of void, boiling. Boiling. Going going. Something seems different, right? This one definitely sounds like, oh, why, right? Boy. Oh boy. Void. Void. Void v OID boy, boy, boy, boy. Yeah, that's right. So we have that 0 Y sound there of voy, voy voice would be the same. E.g. Boeing. This would be boy, boy, boy, boy, Boeing. And then we just have to make sure you're not saying there. We don't make the sound. The back of the tongue. When you make the NG sound in things that end with I-N-G or OMG, or E and G, or U and G. Scott that at the end, but it's in the back of the mouth with the tongue moving up at the back, not the front. If it's in, in, in in than my tongue is going up at the front. If it's in, in, in, in, in, then it's going up at the back and blocking the air in, ing on, on, on oiling. Always going up at the back when you have the G. But we're not saying that of the G. We're not saying that we're using the G to make the tongue go up at the back. So avoid. And Boeing just like, Oh, why, oh, why? Now, listen carefully to the next one. Going. Going, okay, Now, uh, here, the ng sound there, the ing is there, in, in, in, but this sounds a little bit different. It's not putting them together in one syllable. 0.1 syllable, the whole thing is one syllable. Void. Well, is one syllable and void is one syllable. Write void. That's one syllable. This one is a bit different. Going here you have the break between the 0 and the eye. So it's different. This one is more like GO, GO or g. W, go, go with a w sound in the middle. So we can imagine right there between the two syllables, we have a small W instead of a little. Why? It's a little w sound that we say, go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Small w, go, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then we say the ng as a separate syllable. So we have that w there to remind us, hey, this is two syllables. It's not going. If it were like this than it would be boring. Void, void, going, going, going, going, it's two syllables, go wing, go wing. It's important to note those differences and make sure you break the syllables. But don't break your voice. Don't say going, going. Make sure that little w is they're going, going. Okay. So now we've practiced and moved closer to mastering vowel sounds when we put them together side-by-side. The next thing we have to do is practice it altogether. So let's look at a full example to practice these sounds completely so that they sound natural and flow from one to the next. 16. Two Vowels: Full Example: Now that we've practiced sounds with two vowels together in individual words, let's, as we have before, put it all together in an example. I'm going to read it part by part or section by section. Try to repeat after me. I'll leave a space and then we will go over the whole thing. Then I will read through the whole thing, which you can use to do the shadowing exercise. Here we go. Stories about living abroad usually go overboard on certain pleasant sounding details regarding daily life. Okay. Next part. Because people feel they need to avoid mentioning the gloomier realities that expatriates occasionally need to deal with, right? A genuine account of authentic experiences in countries around the world would reveal that. Okay, next part. Even people living the dream life, freelancing from their bedrooms and sleeping on the beach, have reasons to grown. This little mark here. Last one. My good friend in the Cooke Islands complains about the unusual shape of the swimming pool near his million-dollar chateaux. Now I'm going to go through the whole thing. So if you're struggling with each of these small sections, don't get frustrated. It's okay. It takes practice, practice them a few times, then try to do the whole thing altogether and never force yourself to do it. If you don't feel like you've really mastered the sound. Mastering the sound is the most important part. Here we go, the whole thing. Stories about living abroad usually go overboard on certain pleasant sounding details regarding daily life. Because people feel they need to avoid mentioning the gloomier realities that expatriates occasionally need to deal with. A genuine account of authentic experiences in countries around the world would reveal that even people living the dream life, freelancing from their bedrooms and sleeping on the beach have reasons to grown. My good friend in the Cooke Islands complains about the unusual shape of the swimming pool near his million-dollar chateau. Alright? So practice that one when you feel you're ready, don't force yourself to go too fast. If you try to go too fast, too soon and you haven't really got the sounds right. You haven't practiced them enough, then you might be building bad habits. And you really want to avoid that. Okay, So that is it for sounds that have two vowels together. In the next one, we're going to be talking about two consonants together. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about consonants yet, but we're going to be focusing on that next. So I'll see you in the next one. 17. Consonant Combinations: TH: Up to this point in the course, we've spent quite a bit of time talking about vowel sounds, but we also need to talk about consonant sounds. Now as a reminder, a consonant. Consonant is a letter other than a vowel. That's what a consonant is. Now we say that why sometimes acts as a consonant, sometimes acts as a vowel. So e.g. g, y, m is pronounced the same as j, i, m, right? So Jim and Jim, why is acting like a vowel? We don't need to get too much into how it's classified. Let's say consonants, letters other than vowels, B, C, F, J, K, T. All of those, right? I think you probably already know what consonants are. We're really here to practice. Now what we're going to talk about is combinations of consonants, not just how to say the individual letter, because most of the time consonants are combined with other consonants, we put the two sounds side-by-side. So we can't just learn the sound. We have to learn the sound next to other sounds, next to another consonant. Or perhaps two consonants together make a new sound. And that is also very common. I'm sure, you know, th, makes a new sound. It's not right. That's not how we say it. It makes a new sound. So we have to learn how to pronounce consonants together in different combinations. That's what we're going to be practicing. There will be vowel sounds in the words, but we're going to be focused on consonant sounds. Now some of these will be a little bit challenging. Some of them may be easier. I want to make sure you have a strong foundation to learn the essentials, to master the essentials in this part of the course. Because later on in the course we're going to be getting into some really challenging advanced stuff. We've really got to get these essentials right to really master them. Be able to identify two here and to say the sounds perfectly. Okay, so we're gonna start with the th, the th sound and go through the different sounds that it makes before going on. And this is our first group, are going to be focused on the consonant combinations. That will be our focus. Okay, So let's go through these th, words. Listen carefully. Try to follow my sound, tried to imitate my sound. So each one twice slower the first time, regular speed, the second, this is our first group. Then we'll go on to another. Here we go. They they width, width, adult, hood, adulthood. All though. Although they're they're them them thing thing that or that, or that the the or sometimes the, sometimes. Alright. Are you hearing the difference between e.g. this one and this one? What's the difference between these two sounds? They thing, they think, How does the th, differ? They're both Th one of them has the voice beneath it. One of them not Can you hear the difference? They thing with the mouth? You're doing exactly the same thing. There's nothing different with your mouth. No difference at all. No difference. The thing that's different is that one has the voice underneath and the other does not. Can you hear which one has the voice underneath? They thing? Yeah, it's this one. Now if you want to be able to really say this correctly, you have to be able to draw it out to say it a little longer. If it's like this. That's incorrect. It should be. I can say it for 5 s. It's a vibrating sound, vibration. It's actually a sustained vibration, which means it can continue for awhile. The voice is under it and it's not a sudden sound like that's not a sound you can sustain or continue for a long time. It's very sharp, but is not sharp. It's gentle. So you have to put your tongue between your teeth. Very important. Don't bite down too hard on your tongue. Just touch your teeth a little bit and then use your voice to make a sound when you want to change it to this one thing. You do the same thing here except you remove the voice, so you just turn this off. Okay. So how does that sound? You can see that there's nothing changing with my mouth. Right. But you can see that there's still air coming out. So you're still pushing air out between your tongue and your teeth. That's very important and also very important to have the tongue out. Now it becomes pretty challenging with words like M 0, N th s. It's a bit of a difficult one month. But all of the things are there. Mn. And then it's difficult because you have to then slide the tongue out month that voiced or unvoiced, unvoiced month. So that is voiced and then it's not and then is not what you have to quickly transition between them. Months, it's challenging. Then you have to figure out how to say it faster. Months, months, months. It takes practice. You have to practice it. You can't expect to be good if you just learn these things. You have to learn them and then repeat them with practice. So practice these, the difference between veins and width. Now some people will say with, especially if there's a voiced sound right after it. Like this, many people will say with us, When do you want to go with us, with us, with us. So that's okay. Often if there's that voiced sound right after it, then we won't say with us, you can, it's totally fine. Many people will say with us, with us just to continue the voice. But if it's by itself or if there's an unvoiced sound after it. Typically it's going to be width. Width. So either one can be correct. But this one, this one, this one. This one. And this one must, oh, yes, and this one, of course, those must always be the voiced sound. They, although they're them, that the, and you can also do if you want to focus on it a bit more, although that is not common. So there's these two types. So this would be thing, right? What's going on here? Well, this is basically two separate words, and that's why it's pronounced like this. You can imagine this as two separate words, not syllables, words combined together into something called a compound word. And the compound word would be adult, hood, adulthood, adulthood. So that's there to show that these are broken into actually in your mind, you can break them into, we can imagine that it's not really a th sound. Just because the T is beside the age doesn't mean it's always going to be th, in this case because we can sort of see these as two words. They're not part of the same sound. So we say adult, like we would say adult and hood, like we would say hood. So it's adulthood, not adult. Third, that would be quite strange. Alright, so that's the th sound. Make sure you're practicing that until you master it. 18. Consonant Combinations: Consonants with L: Now what I'd like to do is focus a bit on the letter L. I want to put the L sound besides some other consonant sounds, because this can be very challenging, not the same consonant sound. We're going to be looking at different ones. The common theme will be the L sound or the sound. Okay, so let's read through these first. Let's go through them first. Follow along, repeat after me, and then we'll explore these a little bit. Are you ready? Influence, influence, comfort, a bull? Comfortable. Problematic, problematic, struggle, struggle, close, close, circle, circle. Slacker. Slacker. Challenging. How do you feel about those? So let's explore the sounds a little bit. When you make the l sound, your mouth will be open like this. Pretty relaxed mouth. Not as relaxed as the u sound, the short use sound, but not stretched wide either. Then you bring your tongue up to the roof of your mouth, right behind your teeth. You don't have to put it right on your teeth. You could make the sound that way. But typically you want to put it right behind your teeth on that hard ridge on the roof of your mouth and your tongue, rather than being wide, should be narrow, not wide, but narrow. Then you let air pass on either side of your tongue. So it sounds like this. Oh, and you have to keep your mouth not totally shut but close to that because your tongue needs to reach the roof of your mouth. And my tongue might be and my tongue is just barely touching the back of my teeth that's touching the ridge right behind my teeth. So it's very, very close to my teeth. It's not further back. If it's too far back, then it will sound like this. Oh, that sounds strange and it will make it difficult to make other sounds with it. So when we say a word like influence, we have to get the sound ready when we're making the f sound. Full, full fluence influence. And that's common for the l sound. You have to be ready to flick your tongue into that position and then remove it right away. Why? Because then you have to make another sound. Bu flu, flu. So it goes like that. It flicks against the roof of the mouth right behind your teeth and then comes back to make the next sound, to make that long you sound. So it goes low. But then very quickly flu, influence. And it's the same for most sounds, but it sounds a little bit different at the end of a word. So this BLE, this is bull, bull bowl. Now this is a little bit challenging, not because you have to do something right after you make the l sound right at the end of the word, your tongue is in that L position. It's a little challenging because you have to go directly from a b sound to the l. So you have to have your tongue ready right there on the ridge of the roof of your mouth so that you can make it without saying all, we want to avoid that. So it should be bull, bull very quick with a pretty flat mouth, not an open mouth like this. Bull bull. Bull. Pretty relaxed, flat mouth. Like you're just sitting there making a noise. Oh, oh, oh, comfortable. Comfortable. Comfortable. Not comfort. A bowl. Now for that one you have the B beside the E, but the L is the last sound. So you can kind of relax and stretch the l sound a little longer. But for this one, the B is beside the L, and then you need to go directly into the e sound. So it's blemish, BLM. So again, it's very quick. Flick against the roof of your mouth, blemish, VLM, BLM, BLM. And then you're releasing your tongue and doing the m sound right after it. But it's very important that you have the air in the middle between the l and the m. So that would be problematic, problematic, problematic, problematic. Now it's similar thing with g. We have the BLE bull, bull. This is going to be similar except its goal, goal, goal. And you want to avoid that same thing. You don't want to say goal, struggle, struggle. That sounds strange. It's got to go directly from the G to the L without a space. So you have to have your tongue ready, Go, Go, struggle. Struggle. Now for this one where you have the hard see in front of you again, have to move your mouth pretty quickly, but start slowly. That's the hard. Call it the heart Csound or the K sound. And then all you have to go from unvoiced to voiced coal. Coal, coal, coal, and then to the 0 sound the long 0, clo, clo, close. And this could also be close. If it's a verb, you have to be able to jump between those sounds very quickly and do it smoothly so it doesn't sound awkward. If it sounds like Carlos, that sounds strange. So you have to do it until it sounds really natural, close or close. Now again, you have that coal sound except you can relax a little bit like this one because it's at the end. So circle, circle coal, coal, coal. Avoid saying Sir coal, coal like C 0 L E, it's not cold, it's cold. You have to be able to push that tongue up into the right position, right behind your teeth very quickly when ever you need the l sound. The last one right at the beginning of the word salt, salt slash, slash, slash, slash, Slacker. Slacker, Slacker. So that can also be challenging if you're not used to putting your tongue in that position. So you have to practice it many times until it feels comfortable. 19. Consonant Combinations: Consonants with R: Now one of the other difficult sounds in addition to L is the r sound. We've talked about the r sound by itself. And with vowel sounds, we've practiced that quite a bit. But what about with other Consonant Sounds? Like we did with L? We're going to practice this with combinations of other consonants. We'll start with BR and GR. So let's just practice these. Follow me, repeat after me. Get your ears out, tried to get as close as you can and then repeat them several times to really get the sound. Perfect. Okay. Brought, brought, grow, grow. Group. Group. Creating, creating, critical, critical. Friends. Friends, afraid, afraid, stressful, stressful, trusted, trusted, struggle, struggle. Strict. Strict, wrong, wrong. Prose. Pros, problematic, problematic, provide, provide. Okay. So how difficult is the r sound? We've talked about already? How to make the r sound. You curl the tongue backward and let air pass over the top. We've talked about how to do it. We've talked about it with other vowel sounds. When you put it with another consonant sound, it's very similar to L in a certain way, and this is what can make it a challenge. You have to be ready with it. And it's also a tongue position to put it in place and remove it quickly. Because if you don't put it in the right place at the right time, then you won't make that sound. And that's not good because that sound is needed to say that word, right? So you have to be able to make the right sound at the right time. But if your tongue stays there too long, well then you've got another problem, then you're not able to go to the next sound naturally. So like with the L, when you just put your tongue up there very quickly and then pull it away again, you have to be able to do that with R. For a lot of people, this is a challenge because it's kind of a complicated sound because you have to curl your tongue backward. All that I can say is the key is practice, repetition and muscle memory. Meaning that if you're the type of person who struggles with the r sound, you have even more of a reason to practice at many times until you can do it naturally without thinking. Until you can say it naturally without thinking inside of a word, not the r sound by itself, words with our words that include r, then it's going to be very difficult for you to express yourself naturally, to pronounce words correctly every time. So make sure if it's an issue for you to practice it a lot, to repeat it many times. Now for BR and G and C are, these are pretty much the same basic thing. You're really just making the BR sound in order the G and the r sound in order the C and the r sound. This is, this is, this is this is the hard Csound or the K sound, that sound. But the key is not. Can you do those sounds? Can you say? And the key is can you say Burr, burr, and have the, are ready. If you wanna do this, often, you can just put the r in place as though it's waiting for the first sound to finish the sound before to finish. So when I'm saying Bur, my tongue is already there waiting, it's already curled back and it's in that position. When I say Grr, Grr, when I say the g sound, my tongue is already in position, It's already waiting, it's already there, it's ready to go. So it's not like I say, go for my tongue is in position when I'm saying the g sound, so that it flows naturally from the G to the ER, from the b to the ER, brought, brought group, group. It's right there. But as soon as it finishes, I have to let it go because then I have to say or I have to say or I have to say, Oh, or I have to say it. So don't let your tongue get stuck and make sure you're used to the feeling of moving it there and then moving it away quickly. And these are great words to use to practice. It's no different for FR, it's no different for t are same exact idea. This is TR, this is WR, this is PR, this is PR for all of these. It's the same idea, even though the sound that comes before the r is different. You have the R in position ready to go when you make the sound that comes before. Then when you release the sound that comes before, the r will come out naturally, it will make the correct sound naturally. If your tongue in your mouth or in the right position, then you release that to make the next sound. Now the one that's a little bit unique here is the TR, the TR, the TR, stressful, trusted, struggle. Strict. What's unique about these? Well, in order to make the T-H sound, you need to have your tongue in a certain position for the t sound. And it's not the same as the r sound. To make the T-H sound, you need your tongue to do this against the roof of your mouth. So it's busy doing something. So how can you have the r sound ready? You can't. So you have to slide it back very quickly. That's the difference between the t and the rest of these 444444? All of these leave your tongue free to be in the position ready to go for. It does not, but it doesn't matter. You can just practice moving it into position as quickly as possible from the t sound to the r sound. Because actually are, are they sound different, but the tongue is not too far away. You just slide it back into the tr, tr and turn on the voice. Tr, tr, tr, tr, strict, struggle, trusted. Same thing. Now sometimes it will sound like this. Ch, trusted. Now sometimes, but let's not over-complicate it. Put your tongue in the T position and then quickly move it into the R position. For the r sound, it's always the same position. That's why you have to practice it a lot. Alright, let's look at our other group of consonant combinations before going on to our full example. 20. Consonant Combinations: Challenging Combinations: Let's continue exploring consonant combinations with another challenging set. Before moving on to our full example, we're going to start with S, but not just S, S that comes before another consonant. That's what we're going to be focused on. So the other consonant will be in this, in this position here. This can be a little bit challenging. So let's go through these. Follow me, repeat after me, and then we'll talk about it a little bit. Ready? Snap. Snap. Small. Small. Stability. Stability. Still. Still. Most most speak. Speak. Alright, so what are you hearing here? Notice when I say each of these that there's no space between any of them, whether it's at the beginning of the word or the end of the word, it doesn't matter. It's very important that the S and the consonant are adjacent, very, very close together. You can think of the other consonant being loaded like in a gun ready to fire right after the S. Because if there's a space, it sounds strange and this is one of the most common issues. If there's a space, it sounds like this. Sin nap. Well, I've added a sound there. Where's the what's that? Nap? No. Snap. Most not most. Now, I'm not saying you have this issue. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But it's important to make sure you've got it right because these are the essentials. We will need them to build up skills later. Most, most notice that they're side-by-side. The tea is ready to go, It's waiting, It's locked and loaded. I like to think of it that way. The next consonant is locked and loaded to common expression. It means it's right there ready to go immediately when you need it with no space. Because if you have a space, then it's going to sound unnatural. Suitability, nude, or stability. No voice between those two. St, st, no voice. Most no voice. Speak. No voice, right? Some, some some, some there's a voice there, but the is the first voice. There's no empty voice there, There's no. And then the right to the n is the first sound. Instead of having a space between where there's just a blank sound. So be careful about these if you don't have an issue with these, okay, but make sure you've got them before we continue in the course. Alright, now let's go on to CH, another potentially challenging, challenging sound. Listen carefully for any variations here. Listen for how the sound is made. Again, if you feel pretty comfortable with CAH, let's just make sure you've really got the essentials. Maybe it's review, but let's just make sure you've got all of the essential sounds. Okay? Are you ready? Follow me. Children. Children challenges. Challenges. Much much machine. Machine. Okay. Do you notice any differences there any variations? Yeah. This is like, SH shush. The rest sound different. Church, whether it's at the beginning or the end, same sound, right? So the CH sound can make the SH, the sound, but usually it makes the harder sound, the sound. How do we make that? Well, it's kind of like t plus SH. It's kinda like that. You start your tongue in the T position. Except right after the t sound, you go into a very short kind of S-H sound. It's not exactly the same because it's not as long. The SH sound is very long, but we don't do that for the CH sound. It's a very quick sound, it's a very hard sound. So the end of it is similar to SH, but a little bit harder. Make sure it has that hard sound when you're saying words like children challenges much. Because if you don't say it correctly, if it's not hard enough, then it can start to sound like children. What's that? Challenges? What's that? It's too soft. Mush. Well, that's a different word. Mush, SH, so make sure it has that hard pitch, sudden short, sharp sound. Okay, so when you're practicing that makes sure it sounds the same. Now let's just very quickly talk about three more. First, M, P. Let's go through these one-by-one. Try to follow my sound. Come companions. Companions. Crumple, crumple. So for these, notice that m sound goes right up into the p.ball. We don't have any space between. And then the voiced stops. It's very important to stop the voice right at the p sound, crumb, pole, Crumb. And so the sound actually stops your voice. That's the sound which stops your voice. Come canyons, come anions. Because if there's a sound in the middle, it can sound quite strange. People might not even be able to understand what you're saying. So just be careful with those. And then wh together. Let's try these. Reddy. Who, who, when, when. Why? Why? Notice any difference there? For these two? Were really just saying the w sound that we've learned, right? Y, when, Y, when, where. But then when we say who, who, who, something, something else is happening, there's more wind coming out, right? So for this one, when you say who, you need to add some breadth that comes out, your lips are still in the same position like that. When, where, why? But when you say who, you let some breath out, the only way I can say it is to make some wind. So make a little wind with this one. Who, who, who, who, and with these and most other WH sounds, you don't make that sound. Actually this one who is kind of an exception. Now there are some variations. Some people will say other words with more of a sound. But for the typical American pronunciation, these are always going to be just like the w sound, like that. Now finally, let's talk about L, D. Let's go through these first, see if you can hear any differences on your own, and then we'll talk through them. Listen carefully and follow along. Should should cold, cold, mild. Mild. Any differences? Should cold, should cold. I am hearing a small difference. Are you noticing that? Remember earlier we talked about would and would. Being exactly the same would, would, would, would. Well, if those two are the same pronunciation, there's no l there in front of the D. So that must mean that sometimes LD is said without the l and that's right. For wood, for could, for Should. All of these, when you say them, we say them without the l sound. We just say the d sound. But for most words that end with LD, most of the time, we do have the L there. So for these two cold, mild, cold, mild. Or if you have a word with an ED, like chill, CHI L, L E, D. Well that's the same basic thing. Chilled. Chilled. You're doing the same thing with your mouth. But what are you doing with your mouth? Well, you know how to make the l sound. All you're doing is putting your tongue in the L position at the end and then moving it slightly backward and making it wider so that it blocks the air, which is then the d sound. Chill, chill, chilled, cold, cold. So there's a clear l sound first, mild, mild, mild filled, hauled. All of those endings have the same sound with the L that moves directly to the D sound. But for these, for these, and for this one, we don't have that L sound. So just be aware of that. And when you're practicing, make sure that you're making the sounds correctly. Alright, let's now, now that we've practiced both groups of words, go on to our full practice example. 21. Consonant Combinations: Full Example: As we've done up to this point in the course, this should now be pretty familiar to you. We're going to read through our full practice example. I will read it in sections and then leave a space for you to repeat after me. So please try to do that. So if it's not perfect, your first try. So don't worry. If it's not perfect, but practice until you can get it. Perfect. Just do your best and trust your ears more than your eyes. Trust with your hearing over what you're seeing. That means don't focus on the words so much as you focus on the sounds. That's the key thing. Alright, so let's go through it section by section, and then I will read the whole thing from the beginning to the end. Here we go. As children grow up, who should they speak with when they struggle with the challenges of adulthood? Okay, Next, one. Parent's friends, creating a small group of close, trusted companions has pros and cons. Okay? It could be problematic if those friends or a negative influence. Okay. Although the right circle can provide emotional stability in stressful times, right? Most kids don't feel comfortable talking to their parents. They're afraid parents will be too critical or snap at them, done something wrong. Okay. I was brought up by parents who trusted me and weren't too strict. Even though I was a bit of a slacker. Actually not true. It's not me. Because of that. I always felt I could go to them with my problems. Here. You could say felt or you could say felt. Either one is okay, whatever you're more comfortable with. Sometimes I say felt and sometimes I say felt. Sometimes I still do. Okay. I hope it went smoothly. But again, don't stress out or feel frustrated. If it doesn't sound natural the first time, try it again, practice it again. Practice it again until it sounds natural. Now, I'm going to read through the whole thing so that you can hear what it sounds like all the way through. As children grow up, who should they speak with when they struggled with the challenges of adulthood? Parents, friends, creating a small group of close trusted companions has pros and cons. It could be problematic if those friends are a negative influence. Although the right circle can provide emotional stability. In stressful times, most kids don't feel comfortable talking with their parents. They're afraid parents will be too critical or snap at them if they've done something wrong. I was brought up by parents who trusted me and weren't too strict. Even though I was a bit of a slacker. Because of that, I always felt I could go to them with my problems. Sometimes by still do. Alright, so that's what it sounds like all the way through. Practice it until it sounds natural. Start slow. And then if you want to increase in speed, although you certainly don't have to. Speaking quickly is not a requirement for sounding natural. There are plenty of native English speakers who sound very natural and speak perfectly fluently with great pronunciation and they speak slowly. It's the wrong idea to assume that speed equals fluency or a natural sound that is incorrect. I generally speak pretty slowly. That's my natural speaking speed. This is my natural speaking speed. So don't force anything. Try to make it natural. It should be a natural progression. Practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. So make sure you're really putting in the time. Make sure you're very attentive. And never give yourself a break and say, close enough. Really try to get it right. Really try to master each sound. Alright, that's it for this one. In the next one we're going to be talking about hard and soft Gs and hard and soft Cs. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it. We'll talk about it. We'll practice it. Alright, I'll see you in the next one. 22. Hard and Soft G Sounds: We've started practicing consonant sounds in this section on the essentials of pronunciation. Now we couldn't say that we had really covered the essentials without talking about G, C, j, and s. And these are actually related more than you might think. But to talk about how they're related, we need to understand two words, hard and soft. We've talked about these words already, but what does it mean for these letters? Well, G and C both have a hard sound and a soft sound. Two different pronunciations, hard and soft. And there are some similarities in how we use those hard and soft sounds. And when we use those hard and soft sounds, the reason that we also have J and S here is that the soft sounds of each of these are the same as these two. The soft G sound is the same as J. J, and the soft Csound is the same as s. Now I know that S has different pronunciations, yes, that's true. Sometimes estimates the z sound and we'll talk about that as well. But it's important to keep in mind that there's an interesting connection between these four letters. But that also makes it a little bit challenging. So what we have to do, of course, is practice to get a feeling for the sounds. We're going to explore. The hard and soft sounds of G and C. We're also going to practice J and S. We have to practice J and S a little bit, but not just the basic pronunciation of s. Also, we'll talk about the z sound that S can make if you're feeling a little bit nervous about this based on my explanation, Don't worry. Going to go through it one at a time so that you can really get a feeling for how to make these sounds correctly. Remember, this is all about the sounds, practicing the sounds. Okay, so let's start with what do you think this is hard G or soft G? It's the hard G. Let's start with the hard. Let's call it the hard g sound. And I want you to listen carefully for the sound. Listen carefully. Because then we're going to explore the soft g sounds. You have to be able to hear the difference between them and say them correctly. Follow along with me on this first set. Repeat after me. I will read each one twice as we've been doing, once, slower and then regular speed, I will leave a space for you to say it along with me. Here we go. Are you ready? Golf. Golf. Go. Go. Got got Google. Google. Okay, so how are we making that sound, the hard g sound? Very simply, go, go, go. So the middle two back of the tongue comes up and blocks the air and then releases its not the front of the tongue, the middle to the back of the tongue. It goes up and actually blocks all the air. And then you use your voice to push outward. And it doesn't matter if it's at the beginning of the word or the end of the word, or there's another letter beside it. It doesn't really matter. It's always the same sound if it's the hard G. So here, golf, golf, golf guards the same sound, just has the 0 sound after it. For this one it's the long double 0. Ooh, same sound, goo, goo, goo. And then it goes to the G again. So it's just back to the same tongue position, the same mouth position. Goog, Goog, Goog, Goog, Google, google. If you have a word like AUG, it's no different. Bcg, BCG, BCG. Bcg. Okay. How about LAGs? Lag, lag. Lag, lag. How about GREE and GREE? Green. Green. Green, Green. Okay, so it's all the same thing. Now remember we talked about one exception where we have the I-N-G. E and G, U and G, right? A and G. This type of ending, then we're not saying that g sound. That's telling us at the end that we just need to bring the tongue up to that position with the back of the tongue going up. But without saying the sound, like going. So you can hear the gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. At the beginning, going, going, going. But at the end, you do not hear the sound. You put the tongue and the position but you don't release it. Going. Going sung, sung, sung, hang, hang, hang, we don't say Hangu. And even if there's another ING after it, you still don't say the GSM, e.g. H. And G. Ing There's a plant hanging from the hook. There's a plant Hanging. Hanging. Hanging for both of those. I'm making that same ng ng sound and no clear hard GSM, That's not the soft G. That's just a special case where you have this kind of ending that makes that sound without the clear good. Hanging singing. Hanging, singing. Not singing, not hanging. No, because it has that ending because it's going with the vowel. And then mg is that special thing. So just be aware of that. And I know we've already talked about it. So listen carefully for the differences in this sound. It is in fact, quite a bit different. The sound is not similar to the g sound at all. Ready? George, George, giant, giant, Jim. Jim. Energy. Energy allergies. Allergies. Urgent. Urgent. So what's that sound? Well, if you said to yourself, Hey, wait a second, that's the j sound. Yes, that's why it's here. Because it is the j sound. If we were to spell George, J EOR, GE, then it might be the same George. Same thing. Okay. If we were to spell it Jay. Jay and T, guess that would be the same. J-i m, which is a name, has exactly the same pronunciation as GYN. I know I've mentioned that before as well. So it's important to note that two letters can have exactly the same pronunciation, G and J. That would be one example, but only the soft sound, not the hard sound. Now, do you notice anything about the spellings? Well, gee, why? It's a GI, GE, g, g, g, y. Well, what about, what about these up here? Well, this is GR, okay, this is GAO. Gao. What you might notice is that when you have i, e or why after the G, it will often be the soft sound. That's i, e, or y. Now I don't want to say that's a rule because there are plenty of exceptions, of course. But if you have to guess, then you can say, well, generally it's going to have the soft sound if it has IEEE or why after it. So I'm going to guess that it's a soft G sound or a j sound, or maybe it doesn't have one of those three. Maybe it's got an r after it. Maybe it's got a u after it, like G, U, T, S. That's probably not juts. It's probably guts because it doesn't have an IEE or a Y after it, right? That's a general thing that you can use as a guideline. Nothing is 100%, of course, e.g. GIF t is not pronounced gift, it is pronounced gift. So that would be an exception. In fact, there's a big debate on the Internet about GIF. Some people say it's gif, It's GIF. It's GIF. Some people say it's just, it's just, it's JIF. It's something people argue about. Is it JIF or is it GIF? And I'm not here to settle the debate because it is a debate. I just want to point out that there are exceptions. 23. Hard and Soft C Sounds: So we've talked about the hard g sound, the soft G sound. Now let's get into the hard and soft c and we're going to start with the hard. See, pay attention for this one and the next one to similarities, common patterns. You might notice something interesting about these two that's similar to these two. Are you ready? Let's go repeat after me. Crazy. Crazy. Clients. Clients. Cancel. Cancel. Course. Course. Miracle Miracle cocoon. Cocoon cracks cracks certification. Certification. Okay. What do you notice? Well, the hard G has got this unique sound. Gaga, the heart see, similar, right? It's kind of like the hard g except no voice. What other letter do you know? Does that how about the k sound like broke be ROK II. Broke, broke K, hard k sound. Okay. Well, I guess if you spelled that with a C would probably be pronounced differently. But PRO KEK and the sea and crazy or miracle is the same sound. Exactly the same sound. Now you might notice there's a difference here. I said certification. So we have a hard sound there and this is the soft sound there. Cracks. Cracks. Okay. That's the hard sound there. There's an S there that sounds a lot like the same sound as certification, right? Very interesting. Here also, there's a hard sound, cancel, cancel hard sound. Soul, soul. This also sounds like the S there. The S there. But this is the soft sound here. Same sound as that. S, same as clients, right? Okay. So that's how we say it. It's the same as the K. What about the soft sound? Let's try it and see if you also notice the spelling patterns that's important to cycling. Cycling. Cynthia Cynthia accepted. Accepted. Center. Center. Wallace. Wallace. So you're probably noticing oh, okay. That's soft sound. It's the same as the regular S sound. The unvoiced S, the one that goes where you just put your tongue up against near the roof of your mouth and push air out. And with the K sound, you release air just like with the G, except there's no voice behind it. It's basically the same tongue position and the same action. Now, how about the spelling? Did you pay attention to the spelling pattern? Did you notice anything? You're probably did crazy. Clients cancel soul so that there's an e there accepted. Oh, there's a hard see there. That's a k sound. This then is the soft sound. Access said, Oh look, it's followed by any, I'll look, it's followed by any very interesting at the end of the word That's a silent e doesn't really count. But typically when you have this at the end, it's going to be that soft S sound. Oh, look, it's followed by a y. Oh, look, it's followed by a y. Very interesting. Same pattern. What about a word like this? It's pronounced city. Well, that's the S sound. So just like this, just like the GI rule, generally speaking, if you have i, e, or why, after the C, It's going to be the soft sound. Of course there are exceptions to that. And then other letters are going to be the hard sound, CLE coal, cocoon, 0, CR cracks certification, CA cation, CER sir Sir, certification. So you can see the pattern here. Never though, get locked into a pattern. Always remember the rule of this course and learning pronunciation in general. Trust your ears first develop your ears first. Really master the sounds and don't focus so much on the words. Don't focus so much on the rules. If there are rules. 24. S and J Sounds: Now, before we go on to our full practice example, I want to spend just a little bit more time focusing on specifically the S sound and the j sound. The j sound will be pretty simple because we've talked about it up here. We talked about it with the soft g, right? So we'll just do a few examples. But I want to spend a little more time on S because it's really important to get that one right. It's not just the sound. There's a little bit more going on as I'm sure, you know, as I know, you know. So let's go through S, listen for the differences, listen for three different things. Then we'll talk about those three different things. Are you ready? Saying saying clouds? Clouds, visiting, visiting reasons? Reasons. Course course. Spring. Spring, susceptible. Susceptible. Confusion, confusion. Usual. Usual. Okay. So are you hearing those three sounds? Let's just call it the, the basic s sound. Let's call it the z sound. And let's call it the strange S sound. We'll put that put a little check mark here. Where are you hearing it? Where did you hear that? Unusual S? Here? There it is. Right there. There it is. Right there. So when we say this one, it's the same as the soft seats. Like a snake, right? Sayings, saying, course, course, spring, spring, susceptible, perfect here because you have the S and the C right beside each other. The C is the soft see, so they should sound exactly the same. And if you listen carefully, susceptible, susceptible, any change between the S and the C sound? No, because they're exactly the same. Then you have the z sound, clouds visiting. Now this is a little bit shorter because it's beside the D. So it's pretty quick. Clouds, clouds, clouds. But it's not clouds. Clouds. Except we don't say it that long. But for this one visiting reasons, it's a bit longer, right? Reasons. This is one of our sustained. Sustained sounds. Sustained vibration sounds. When you practice this one, if you want to practice it correctly, make sure you can say it for at least 5 s. If you can't say it for at least 5 s, then you're not saying it correctly. If you say that Z and it sounds like visiting clouds, reasons, that's not right. It's too sharp. Try to make that longer. You can't do it. You can't. It's gotta be soft enough so that you can make it last at least 5 s. Now, what are you doing there? Well, in the mouth it's similar to the S position, but you're adding your voice to it. You should feel a vibration with your tongue vibrating near the roof of your mouth. And you can say it with your teeth closed, with your teeth touching, but you don't have to. If you close your teeth together, you'll definitely feel that long vibration. So maybe that's a good way to practice to feel the vibration in your teeth. But usually when people say at the teeth are just slightly apart and the vibration is happening with the tongue. But if I turn off my voice, what happens is there's really not much difference there in the position. This position is the same. I'm just turning my voice on and off between the S sound and the z sound. So make sure you practice that one correctly. Make sure you have that sound. Master it because it can be a tough one. Then for these two, J1, J1 and Jewel usual, that's a little bit different than the z sound. That's not. That's not x1, That's Joule, Joule. So instead of making it like the s sound and the tongue position, make it like the SH sound. So you put your mouth in the SH position, which we've talked about. She, she, she, she, she, she. Then you just turn your voice on xi, xi c. That's it. That's all you do. You make the SH sound and you turn your voice on. There's no difference Other than that. Now it's a little challenging to master that if you're not used to doing it, but it should also be sustained. Sustained means that it's not sharp. If it's too sharp, then it's going to sound like the j sound, Jew, which we'll talk about next. That's a very quick sound. This is a sound that you should be able to say for 5 s. That's sustained. See, there's air coming out. I can feel the air coming out and the vibration in my teeth when my voice is turned on, when it is voiced, and when I turn it off, and it just feels the same as that SH, sound. Okay. So really practice those. Really make sure you've got those there. So important to master because they're so common in spoken English. Now let's just quickly go over j. Listen carefully to these four words and follow along. This should be review, Ready? Just just adjacent. Adjacent major. Major. Reed rejected. Rejected. So what's that sound? Well, that's the same as the soft G sound we've talked about. Ju, ju, ju pushing the lips forward a little bit. You're pushing your tongue up and then releasing outward ju, ju, your tongue is more flat and the part of your tongue that's touching the roof of your mouth is closer to the front of the tongue. It's not the tip of the tongue, but closer to the front, not the back of the tongue. And that's actually touching closer to the roof of the mouth, toward the front, but not at the teeth. You might notice the spelling here adjacent. Is there any difference between having a DJ and at J major adjacent? No. In fact, you see words like Judge. And you realize when you say Judge, Judge, judge, that this DGE and this j have the same pronunciation, even though there's a D there. So actually there's a D in front of major. You could put a little d there in your mind. It's the same pronunciation. It is the same pronunciation. So when you see DJ together, you can say it just like J, which is the same as d, g, which is the same as the soft, G, which is the same as j. And now we're going around in a circle. So that's the sounds. Make sure you practice them. Now let's go on to our full example. 25. G - C - J - S: Full Example: Now that we've practiced the G, C, j, and S sounds in individual words. Let's practice with a full example as we've been doing up to this point in the course. Follow along with me. I will read in sections, then I will leave a space for you as usual to repeat after me. If you don't get it perfectly, it's okay. Just try your best and trust your ears. Then I will go back and I will read through the whole thing. You're ready. Here we go. There's a golf course just a few miles from the gym. I go to. Just go crazy cycling. That's a name you can tell because it's all capital letters, which is adjacent to a giant police officer training and certification center. So as I was saying, I occasionally take friends or clients who are visiting the city out golfing. Alright. If the weather is nice and of course, usually just in the spring and summer, not in the autumn because of my allergies. Okay. Recently, I've had to cancel a few times, but for different Reasons. Last Sunday, George Wallace from San Francisco and I were about to hit the links when we noticed sinister storm clouds. The links, by the way, means golf course. So another way to say a golf course. Then Cynthia and I decided to go out just yesterday, but called it off after I got an urgent call. I wish I hadn't accepted. Okay. Remember this one is a hard sound and this one is the soft sound separated. I may hit nine tomorrow if I have the energy for it. Alright, How was that challenging? Again, if it feels too challenging, just practice, practice, practice, practice. Make these habits until you can read through it smoothly. Now I'm going to go back and read through the whole thing one time at normal speed. Here we go. There's a golf course just a few miles from the GMI goto. Just go crazy cycling, which is adjacent to a giant police officer training and certification center. So as I was saying, I occasionally take friends or clients who are visiting the city out golfing if the weather is nice and of course, usually just in the spring and summer, not an autumn because of my allergies. Recently I had to cancel a few times, but for different reasons. Last Sunday, George Wallace from San Francisco and I were about to hit the links when we noticed sinister storm clouds. Then Cynthia and I decided to go out just yesterday, but called it off after I got an urgent call. I wish I hadn't accepted. I may hit nine tomorrow if I have the energy for it. Okay. Try to get close to that. Use the shadowing technique. Practice these until you've mastered them. These are essential sounds so common in the English language that you really need to master them if you want to have any hope of sounding natural when you're speaking English. Okay, So that is it for this lesson, for this example. And that is also the end of this section on the essentials of pronunciation. In the next section, we're going to be practicing something we've talked a bit about before. Something you should be familiar with, something we really need to focus on, specifically the schwa sound. Remember that I said we were going to talk about it later. Well, that's what we're going to do next. So I'll see you in the next one. 26. The Schwa Sound: Welcome to a new section of the course. In this section, we're going to be focused on mastering subtler sounds. In the previous section, we were practicing the essential sounds that we need to build up the foundation, the ability to listen, the self-awareness, to then be able to go on and do what we're going to do in this section and in the next section throughout the rest of this course, we need to start mastering. Now some of those settler sounds, some of those things that are a little bit more challenging to hear. Some of those things that take a little bit more practice maybe to say perfectly. Now, some of these things will be familiar because I referenced them in the previous section. So at least there will be some familiarity. We're going to start this section with a lesson on the schwa sound, which I know is familiar to you because we've talked a little bit about it before, but I want to do a dedicated lesson about the schwa sound. So let's get into it. Now if you remember from earlier in the course, we said that the schwa sound is a vowel sound, a kind of vowel sound, but one that is not quite clear which vowel sound it is. It's kind of like a short use sound. But it's often a little faster and it's with an unstressed syllable. Now remember the syllable. Syllable is the beat in the word, e.g. example, how many syllables does that have? Well, say it with your mouth closed. 33 syllables, that word has three. How about syllable? Well, that also has three syllables. But once we jump into the syllables, we have to notice some things. If we stress every syllable, it will sound very strange. Listened to me stress every syllable of the word. Example. Example. Example. It sounds quite flat and robotic. How about syllable, syllable, syllable. It sounds strange, right? So what allows it to sound more natural when we're speaking? A part of it is intonation, but also the stress that we put on syllables. And also sometimes even for a one syllable word like to, we might put more stress on it or less stress on it. Now there isn't always a rule about when we stress syllables, when we stress words. Not always, we're not really focused on that. Or we're here to master the sounds, right? How do we do this? How do we use stress to make this sound natural? Listened to this word, syllable, syllable. Syllable. Where am I stressing? Short, I sound. Sit, sit, low. That's quite low. Quite quiet. Not really. They're a little bit there. Bull, bull, bull. I kind of in the middle syllable. Okay. That sounds natural because there's some variation in the stress throughout the word. Example. Example, example. Similar to syllable in some ways, but here I'm hearing the a sound more clearly. So that seems to be the stressed syllable. This one is not really stressed. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Not really stressed that much. Maybe in the middle example. Example. Okay? So we get a sense for what makes these sound natural. It's this variation. And you really have to use your ear here to master that so that you can get the stress on words, correct, so that it sounds natural when it's important to be aware then of the schwa sound. The schwa sound is that vowel sound that is often usually in an unstressed syllable. Sometimes there's a line between the schwa sound and the actual vowel, e.g. example. Sometimes we can say that example, example with a clear short e sound. But that's often said example, example. It's barely there. And if I were to just isolate that part, but the relaxed sound, it's not really the short e sound, is it? Example, example. Syllable, look, look, look, look, look. It's not really the short a sound, is it? It's this kind of neutral. It's this kind of neutral vowel sound that's quite close to the short use sound. Remember when we make the short use sound, the mouth is quite relaxed. It's pretty close to that, but maybe even more neutral, maybe not so low as they use sound really in the middle, a really kind of blank expression and empty sound almost. And we say it when we're not stressing that syllable. Not always, but often. And you have to listen for it. And when you start to listen for it, you will notice it all over the place in natural spoken English. And it really is a very important part of what makes English sound natural. Now that doesn't mean once you learn e.g. that the a sound by itself, that the letter a can be the schwa sound. That doesn't mean it always has to be that way. Sometimes we say a like this, a tomato, tomato. We don't say a tomato or add tomato. Tomato. Well that's the schwa sound, but sometimes we won't say it like that. Sometimes it'll say a really interesting idea there and we'll emphasize the a sound. So it's not always about learning a rule, it's about getting a feeling for the language. How do you get a feeling for the language? You already know the answer. You develop your self-awareness and you're listening so that you can hear it. And here when you're trying to imitate it, the difference between yourself and what you're trying to imitate so that you can get closer so that you can master the sounds, right? So what we're going to do is look at examples of the schwa sound in words. Schwa sound for a, for e, for i 0, and for you. Then of course we'll look at a larger full example to put it all together. Okay, so follow along with me and listen out for the schwa sound. I'm not going to tell you where the sound is when I read them. Although this one will be quite obvious because it's only one letter. I want you to listen carefully and repeat after me and try to find it yourself. Then we will identify it. Okay, here we go. Apartment. Apartment, amazing, amazing. Tomato. Tomato area area acquaintances, acquaintances. Right? So we clearly have it there. I know I'm giving it away by saying it's a, e, I, 0, and u, but we have it there. Now which a is adhere, is it this one or is it this one? Clearly that's the long a May. So it's a amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. Then this one, as I said, we could stress it sometimes, but often we don't. So we say that's the schwa sound. And where is it here? Is it here? Area. That's a clear short a sound. So it'd be this one. Area, area, it's very short. It's very neutral right there. How about this one? Acquaintances? Acquaintances? We might have to here, we have one here. Queen are clearly AAA there the ai sound and then not tenses, not Thomas's tensors, acquaintances, acquaintances. So I would say we also have it there. Alright, so that's the a sound. Now let's take a look at E. Ready, decent, decent. Especially, especially budget. Budget. Legendary legendary necessity. Necessity. Okay, I think you're probably already starting to get a feel for this. To get the hang of it. We could say, decent, which one? There? It is. Not really a short e sound, is it? Especially? That's a clear short e sound, especially, especially clear shortly there, but here, definitely have a bit of schwa going on budget to set a short e sound. I don't think so. There it is. Legendary Jin, Jin, Jin, legend Jin Jin Jin, less clear, short e sound there. Lei Jun, Jun, Jun, Jun, done. Are there it is. Necessity, necessity, or the clear short e sound there. So our schwa is right there. Okay. We can identify it. Did you find it? Were you able to hear those? If so, that's great. That means your ear is getting sharper. You're developing, you're listening, you're getting a better feeling for these nuanced, these subtler sounds. Alright, let's go to the i sound. Here we go. Difficult, difficult application. Application directly. Directly. Necessity. Necessity. Discovered. Discovered. Okay. Clear I sent. But for a cult foot. There it is. For differ here the difference between those two app location. Listen to how strange it is. If I say that as a short I sound application, application, it sounds a bit strange to me, but if I say flip the application, that sounds more natural directly, directly. Now often the schwa sound is combined with an r sound, not only for IR, but it's pretty common. In which case, it's really just the R sound directly. Dura, dura, mater dura. It's not even there. There isn't really any vowel sound there. We're going directly to the R. Directly. This E is there, but the i sound is not there. So we could call that kind of schwa sound in a way in front of a Y. That's pretty common, not only for for IR, necessity, necessity. Well, we've already talked about it here. We have, we definitely have the schwa there set that's clearly the long e sound city. City. That city. Or is that city? Usually it will be pronounced as city. Necessity. City nephew said necessity. Clearly, the i sound it would be okay. It's more natural if we have the schwa sound right there for the I, then discovered, discovered, discovered, no, very neutral there it is. Do-do, do-do, do-do. Discovered the vowel sound is barely even there. It's just a space with the voice. They're very neutral. Okay, let's go on to the 0 sound. Coworker. Coworker connects, connects. Potential, potential. Obsolete, obsolete, or obsolete. Potato. Potato. Photography. Photography. Photography is one of my favorite examples for the schwa sound because it shows it so clearly. This is a short 0 sound. Are, are, are, are. We've talked about that. One of our essential sounds, right? This should be, it looks the same. It should be oughta, right? Or something like that. Or maybe if that were long oto, oto. But it's not because it's an unstressed syllable. So it's not any 0 sound. It's the neutral schwa sound for, for, for, for, for very flat, very neutral for top. Then we go to the 0. Photography. And potato is another great example. This is the clear long 0 sound. Oh, oh, oh. This one looks like it should be, but it's not. It's not potato. Potato, potato. So you can hear very clearly the schwa sound within the first syllable. Right there in that syllable, photography right there and that syllable here, we have another combination like directly worker, worker or we don't even hear the, oh, it's combined with the r sound. Here. It's the 0 in this one connects. You only owe in the word. So it has to be this one, but potential, potential just like potato, right? And then this one with two O's. The first one is stressed. Very clear 0 sounds. So this is sleet. Sleet right there. There it is. I hope you're getting better as we go along at identifying these, adhering them. If you can really hear the schwa sounds, if you can hear them the first time. That is a major accomplishment, that means you're listening is getting better. Finally, you, here we go. Successfully. Successfully. Curriculum. Curriculum. Okay, So where's the schwa sound here? Is it says Foley. Foley. That is the short use some full of Foley. Foley. So it's here. Right there. Curriculum you lump curriculum 0 is a here. No, that's the long sound. Lum, mum, Lum, l'm. Know, that's the short sound, lump, lump. It must be here. Another one which sounds like occur and directly and curriculum. Curriculum. It's barely there because it's beside the ER and because it's an unstressed syllable, okay? So I hope you have a pretty good sense for these now. I hope you're getting better at hearing them. I hope you're getting better at saying them. Now we have to practice them altogether. 27. The Schwa Sound: Full Example: Now that we've practiced schwa sounds in individual words, let's practice putting them together in complete sentences. I'm going to be reading this full example in sections or in parts. So follow along with me, read along with me. I'll leave a space for you to repeat after me, and then I'll go back and read through the whole thing. This is familiar to you by now. I think. Now don't get caught up on there being one word and assuming that it's not the schwa sound, it can be, it can be listened to that, but it can be. Am I think it can be. No. In fact, I'm saying it. That's the schwa sound, right? There. Can be, be Nope, that's not to find. Not to find, but to find a decent, a decent. So it's totally okay if a one syllable word like it too, and it's totally fine if those are schwa sounds, but you have to listen for them. You have to hear them. You have to really develop your listening here. But that doesn't mean that they're always schwa sounds because it doesn't have to be. It. It is also a correct pronunciation. If we want to say it that way or depending on the situation. Alright, here we go. Follow along with me. It can be difficult to find a decent apartment. Okay? Especially if you're on a budget. But I recently discovered an amazing application that connects potential renters directly with landlords. It provides a convenient way to find places within your budget. Okay. You can filter by area, amount, amenities, and apartment type. It makes the traditional way seem obsolete. And their customer support is legendary. I was able to successfully get a great place the day after I downloaded it. Okay. I never hesitate to recommend it to acquaintances like relatives or people in my office. Okay. My coworker used it to rent a condo and saved thousands. It's a necessity. Alright, Good job. How was that challenging? Keep practicing. Master the schwa sound. I hope you can hear them. When I say them. Not you need to keep working. Make sure you're really able to pick out those sounds when you hear them inwards. Alright, Finally, I'm going to read through the whole example. And you can use this, the whole thing together for shadowing. Here we go. It can be difficult to find a decent apartment, especially if you're on a budget. But I recently discovered an amazing application that connects potential renters directly with landlords. It provides a convenient way to find places within your budget. You can filter by area, amount, amenities, and apartment type. It makes the traditional way seem obsolete and their customer support is legendary. I was able to successfully get a place the day after I downloaded it. I never hesitate to recommend it to acquaintances like relatives, people in my office. My coworker used it to rent a condo and saved thousands. It's in necessity. Alright, so I hope you can practice it and get it pretty close to that. If you have any questions, let me know. In the next one, we're going to continue practicing and mastering the subtler sounds. We're going to be focused on diphthongs. If you don't know what those are, where you don't quite remember, don't worry about it. We will get into it. We will cover it completely. I'll see you in the next one. 28. Diphthong Practice: Part 1: In this lesson of the course, we're going to be practicing diphthongs. But what is a diphthong and why do I need to practice it? A diphthong very simply, is a sound that's made up of two sounds. Usually, these are two vowel sounds. And we put them together so that the beginning of the sound has one mouth position and the end of the sound has another. And during the sound, we move from one to the other smoothly. That's what it is. So we could say it's a vowel sound that includes two different sounds. And we have to change the shape of our mouth when we make the sound. That's really what it means, changing the shape of your mouth during that sound. Now, diphthongs, these sounds can be made up of only vowels. E.g. OU, we'll talk about how to make that sound, how it works, and some exceptions. When OU does not make that sound, you might be able to guess, but it's not that simple. It's not just vowels that make up diphthongs. You can see here, 0, w, You can see here, oh, why? You can see here EW. So it's not as simple as saying, Oh, it should be only made up of vowels. Know, often diphthongs are made up of vowels, but they don't have to be. And in fact, a diphthong could be a single letter. The letter I is a diphthong by itself. Has it. How can the letter I be a diphthong? Who we've learned the pronunciation of the letter I. And I want you to think about how to say it. Do you remember the long I sound? E? Those are the two sounds. It goes from the a, the E, E. So I'm moving my mouth during the sound. I, i. So it's a diphthong because I'm moving my mouth during the sound, two different mouth positions, moving naturally from one to the other. So that's what it is. Now, why are we doing a lesson specifically about these sounds? Well, they're just so common in the spoken language. They are everywhere. So you need to be really good at identifying them so that you can say them when you need to. Okay? So i is a diphthong because it's made up of and E i, i, which you already know. Well now you know it's a diphthong. Okay, great. What are the others? Well, let's practice them. We're going to start with a and then go to i. Then we'll practice oh, and then we'll practice some of the common vowel and vowel consonant combinations that make the most common diphthongs. In fact, when most people think of these, they think of OU and a W and Y and EW. That's what most people think of. They don t think of I or a, but in fact they are. Okay. So let's start with a. We're not going to spend too much time on this because this one is just the long a sound. That's all it is. So we're not gonna spend too much time focusing on, in fact, these first three. We've really already learned them when we talked about the long vowel sounds. So the long a sound, just to review, remember the mouth is wider and open. And then it goes to that position, the long e sound, a, a. So it's that open sound that then goes to the position of the long e, a. We don't usually stretch out the E part of it too long, but the mouth is changing from a to E, a, a, alright, so here we go. Let's just practice these. Onetime should be very quick. This is review, right? This is just review. Here we go. Angel. Angel, fire places, fireplaces, ray tracing, ray tracing. Then you might hear a little difference there between Ray and tracing where the sound is the same. This one maybe a little longer, re, often when it's at the end of the word, we'll stretch it out or let it last a little longer or emphasize the change in the mouth shape, a ray tracing. So the tracing, tracing is not quite as pronounced. We're not moving the mouth quite as much. It's a slight movement. It's still there, tracing, tracing, tray, sing, but it's not quite as much. This is pretty common when you have especially unstressed diphthongs, you put them in a syllable that is not stressed. The movement of the mouth won't be quite as much as if it is a stressed syllable, stressed diphthong, the movement will be a little bit more pronounced. We'll move the mouth more. It will be more, we could say more exaggerated. So that would be an example there where we would focus on the ray tracing and not focus on the tracing as much even though it is that same sound. Okay. I also review, right, let's do these fireplaces. Fireplaces. Inspiring, inspiring. Nice. Nice. I'm I'm, remember the positions for this one. You have the open mouth, like the short 0 sound. And then that changes to the long e sound, i, i, i. Now, it's not always that pronounced. It's not always stressed that much. So just be aware of that if you're saying it quickly, I I hi. You're doing basically the same thing, but maybe the mouth isn't stretched as wide. Maybe not stretched as tall, although it is basically the same sound. Alright, final review, 10000. The mouth starts like an 0 in an 0 shape, 0, and then goes down to what would be the w sound. Or perhaps we could say that long use sound or the 0, the 0 sound bu, except we don't stress that part. That's just where the mouth goes to make the sound, ow, ow. Oh, and if you want to test yourself, you can make sure that you say that w sound after like, oh, wow. Oh wow. I'm not saying do that. When you pronounce the sound. I'm just saying that's a good way to sort of check yourself to make sure you're finishing correctly. Anyway, this is review. So let's just quickly go over these first one. Over, over. Show. Show. No, no, no, no. This one. And this one have the same pronunciation, exactly K NOW and NO have the same pronunciation because NO is just the long 0 sound. That's all it is. Alright, so that's our quick review. Now, let's get into the ones that we could call classic diphthongs. 29. Diphthong Practice: Part 2: Now let's get into the ones that we could call classic diphthongs. These are the ones that you might already know as diphthongs. Well, knowing that there are diphthongs, that's one thing, mastering them, That's another. So let's, let's get into these starting with what many people feel is the most difficult one. Now we've, we've covered this a little bit, but I want to really spend time focusing on this one because it is such an important sound. Now first note that it's being pronounced 0 W, 0 U. That doesn't mean that every word with OU is pronounced this way. But many of them are. The sound is the same, whether it's 0, w, or OU, it's the same sound. First, how do we make this sound? Alright, here we go. We start with this sound. Ah, ah, ah, what's that sound? Well, that's the short 0 sound. And one way to say the short a sound in a word like Father, far or not. Not. Not. Right. Okay. So that's the sound we're going for to start and then we're moving down to put our lips into the position for w woo, woo, woo. So pushed forward and quite close together, stretched forward, woo, woo, woo. So we go from to Whoo, aah to woo. But it has to be natural. You can't say, Oh, you have to say, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh. You have to really master that. It's a challenge. You have to practice it and practice it until it's second nature. So let's go through our practice words here. Listen very carefully and try to exactly repeat after me. Here we go. Our side. Outside. Announcement. Announcement. House. House, counter tops, countertops. How how downstairs? Downstairs. Brown. Brown. Okay, challenging, easy. Remember learning how to make the sounds correctly. That's just step one, practicing repetition, mastering the sounds, making them habits. That's the real challenge. Make sure you're doing that as well. Make little lists for yourself to practice. Practice the words that are most challenging to you. A great practice word for the OU or 0 w sound is downtown. Why? Because it has it in there twice Downtown, Downtown, Downtown, Downtown, Downtown, Downtown. Look how much work I'm doing with my mouth. Down town. Both times it's the same sound. Data, our own down town. Town, down town downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown. Every time I'm doing it, but it's fast. How do I do it fast? Well, I don't do it fast by saying it incorrectly. I do it fast because it is a muscle memory habit for me. Now there are of course exceptions, e.g. COUNTA or WO UL D. We don't say out there that's could write a U there. That's not a W0. Could, could. Oh, that's that sound. Alright, well, forget about that then. Of course, don't focus only on spelling. Don't say every time I see oh you, it will be pronounced like that. Every time I see OWN must be pronounced like that. Don't think like that. Instead, use your ears to identify sounds when you hear words. That word contains this, this, and that sound. I've learned all of those. I've practiced them, I've mastered them. So I can say that word correctly because I know the individual sounds and there's a link between my ear and my mouth. Now let's focus on the a w sound or the a sound. Now, this one is a little bit odd in a couple of ways. You could say this sound without really moving your mouth. The sound would be all, all, all. So you can do that by moving your whole tongue forward in your mouth during the sound. Ow, ow, ow. Oh, so I can say that without moving my lips. Right. Okay. But the reason that we're putting in here is that usually when we say words with this sound, we are moving the mouth a little bit during the sound. As we say the sound. An example would be a word like authentic, are, are, are, are, are, are, are. So what I'm doing during that sound is taking my mouth from a wider position to a slightly narrower position and chest barely pushing my lips forward. When I say slightly narrower, I mean slightly narrower and really just a little bit pushing the lips forward so it doesn't have to change that much, but this would be all are all authentic. So note the movement of my lips in addition to the back of my tongue moving forward during the sound. So we'll get to that one. But let's start with this first word here. L a, W N, ready? Lawn. Lawn. Flawless. Flawless. Are inspiring. Awe inspiring, authentic, authentic. Claudia. Claudia. Now notice for some of these at the mouth shape is a little different because of the sound before e.g. when I say L, my mouth has to be here. Then all are. But I'm going up from the old sounds, so it's coal. Coal, so it's narrower because of the L sound that comes before coal. And then I do the thing where I move my lips forward a little bit while at the same time, I'm moving my lips a little bit closer together and pushing them forward. Claus. So I'm moving my lips a little inward while my mouth is opening wider. Clock, Claudia, Claudia, Claudia. Claudia. So that one takes a little bit of practice, and it is a bit of an odd one. For that reason, it's often not included in list of diphthongs because you can say it without moving your mouth. Although usually when we say it, we do. Which is a little bit weird, right? Okay, Let's go to 0, y. Notice that we also have two combinations here, 0, y, and 0. Notice for these common ones, we have several different ways to make the same sound. That's very important to note, not only one spelling for the sound, the sound can be spelled in different ways. Alright, so what is the sound? How do we make the sound? The sound is. So we have the lips pushed forward and something like the W position, something like the Lemieux position, like that. But when I say those often my jaw is not very far open like this. Right? But for this one, my jaw should be more open. So actually my mouth, my teeth are farther apart. My mouth is more open. Inside. My teeth are farther apart. But I'm closing my lips or close to closing my lips. Notice I'm stretching my jaw down. Then I stretch my mouth open and then wide into the long e position. So watch this very slowly. Or boy or a boy, boy oil. Okay, so let's practice it. Let's see if we can perfect the sound. First one, ROI. Roi. Annoy. Annoyed of voice. We avoid coin and coins. Okay. When you're making that sound, makes sure you're doing that every time the oil sound. Practice that until it's natural so that when you need to say, I'm annoyed by the coins, I avoided being annoyed by the coins. You can still do it even though you're speaking quickly. I'm not saying you should speak quickly. I'm saying practice it until it's automatic. That's what I'm really saying. Alright, the last one of these EW, but also you sometimes and maybe these are, maybe not. See if you can tell if they are or not. What's the sound? The sound is u, u, you. So we start this one with the y sound. It's like this. Why? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you stretch your lips forward into the lung you position or the double 0, 0, 0, U, U. U. Wait a second. Isn't that the name of this? Yes. The letter U. Isn't that the same as YOU? Yes. Yes, it is. It's a diphthong, you, you. And we've already talked about this sound, right? We talked about the long use sound. But what we focused on was the OU pronunciation and less on the u pronunciation because they're actually different. Remember I said you can pronounce this two different ways. Like my name, L, U, K, e, which is the same as wu, wu, which is the same as F 0, 0 D food. Luke, all you're doing is stretching the lips forward into that long. You sound woo, woo, woo. But this one is a bit different. This one we have a little y here, tiny little y there before the pronunciation. So we still do the 00 sound except put a little y in front of it. Then you have the pronunciation for this letter, the letter U, U, U, U, not ooh, you, and you have the pronunciation of this very common word, you, you, and then you take that sound and you put it e.g. right here, or you put it e.g. right here. Okay. Simple enough. But does it always work? If I have the EW, will it always be like that? No, it won't always be like that. If the spelling is like that. In fact, most of the time it won't be, It's less common than the other pronunciation for the same spelling. So I want you to turn your ears on and repeat after me. And this time, listen for sounds that are not this sound. Because a couple of our examples will not be the sound that we're learning. Alright, are you ready? Few, few. Mute. Mute. New, new new new clue. Clue. Okay. Where are you hearing it? Where are you not hearing it? Is it here, clue? No. There's no Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Use out. It's not clear, you know, just clue who just that long use sound. Ni, you know, it's new. So same thing, same pronunciation. New, new, just that sound. Same thing. Alright, so these three, No, just these two. And of course there are other words with that same sound. But more often than not, you will find this pronunciation, not this pronunciation. Certainly it's common. Certainly you will hear it. Certainly it's there in many, many words. But you have to be aware that this is not the most common way to say the long use sound. So the key to it is to have a developed ear so that you can hear when it's there and when it's not listening for that little y sound. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Before the 00 sound. That's it. That's all you have to do. Alright, so now that we've practiced our diphthongs individually, Let's go on and practice them in a full example. 30. Diphthong Practice: Full Example: Let's read through our full diphthong example so that we can practice putting all these sounds together inwards in sentences. Try to make it sound as natural as possible. Okay? So we're going to go through it part by part as usual. Repeat after me. Try your best, try your best, just try your best. Then I will go through and read the whole thing all together. Here we go. Roi and Angel hosted a house party in their new place. Over the weekend. We knew it was going to be a big event from the announcement, but didn't know how many would show up. It turned out to be a few hundred Huge. Andrew and Claudia brown even flew in for it. The house itself is awe inspiring. The kitchen has authentic granite countertops, and there are two downstairs fireplaces. Everything is so nice and knew. The pool outside is 1,000 sq ft and the lawn is flawless. I'm sure some of the guests were just a bit annoyed that the real reason for the party was for ROI and angel to show off. Alright, now I'm going to read through the whole thing continuously at normal speed. You don't have to repeat after me immediately, but try to listen out for those diphthongs sounds that we practiced and how they sound at normal speed. Alright, here we go. Roi in angel hosted a house party in their new place over the weekend. We knew it was going to be a big event from the announcement, but didn't know how many people would show up. It turned out to be a few hundred huge. Andrew and Claudia brown even flew in for it. The house itself is awe-inspiring. The kitchen has authentic granite countertops, and there are two downstairs fireplaces. Everything is so nice and knew the pool outside is 1,000 sq ft and the lawn is flawless. I'm sure some of the guests were just a bit annoyed that the real reason for the party was for ROI and angel to show off. Alright, so it's time to practice. Write down words that contain diphthong sounds that are challenging for you, and practice reading those word lists again and again until it is muscle memory, until it is habit, then practice the full example. And if you find yourself thinking, how do I make that sound again? As you're reading through it. That means you need to keep practicing the individual sound. That means that it's not yet muscle memory only when you read through the whole thing without having to think about the pronunciation, without having to think about the sounds. Have you really got it as a habit? So that's a good way to measure your progress. If you're thinking about the sounds as you make them, you need to keep practicing those sounds. They're not habits yet. Alright, so that's it for this lesson. In the next one, we're going to be talking about voiced and unvoiced neighbors. So I'll see you in the next one. 31. Voiced and Unvoiced Neighbors: Overview: In the last lesson, we focused on diphthongs and I hope you've been practicing those. It's very important to master them. In this lesson, we're going to be talking about and practicing unvoiced and voiced neighbors. Now you might be thinking, okay, well, what is that? Why do I need to know it? Don't worry, we're going to talk about what it is, how it works, and why you really need to know it. You need to be in fact, very good at doing it. What this really means is when we have two sounds together, but in two different words, using either a voiced sound or an unvoiced sound to really build up an understanding of voiced and unvoiced neighbors, we have to review voiced and unvoiced. And I think you'll remember this. But a voiced sound is one that uses your voice. Think of a word like run, run. Now, when you say that word, is your voice on through the whole thing, through part of it. What? Run? Run. If you put your fingers against your throat, you should be able to feel a vibration throughout the whole thing. Run. Run. Yes. Okay. So that whole word is voiced. Now let's take another word. Let's say the word hat. Hat. Hat. Alright. Well, when I say the h sound, am I using my voice? No. When I say the T-H sound, am I using my voice? No. Okay. So there are no voiced sounds in this word? Oh, that's voiced. So for this word, part of it's voiced. The middle is voiced the sound, but the first and last sounds are unvoiced, unvoiced. So it's pretty simple voiced and unvoiced voiced sounds. You use your voice. Unvoiced sounds. You don't. Voice sounds and more unvoiced sounds. I'm not using my voice. Okay, that's pretty simple. But what about this neighbors thing? Neighbors? Well, this is when we have two different words and then either the end of one word and the beginning of the next are both unvoiced or the ending of one word and the beginning of the next are both voiced. And when they're both voiced, we have to continue the voice between the words and when they're unvoiced, we often put them together or stick them together so that when we say it, it sounds more natural so that there isn't a long space in between. And certainly we wouldn't add any sounds if no sounds actually there. Okay, So let's take two examples from this text. And don't worry, we're going to go through the whole thing. Notice this time I don't have individual words because we're really looking at words that are next to each other. Here the thing is jumping from one to the next. So if last sound of this word is it voiced or unvoiced? Unvoiced. Thomas. Thomas voiced or unvoiced? Beginning sound. Unvoiced. Okay. So these two should be connected together. They are unvoiced neighbors. Alright, How about Thomas? Can't also unvoiced. Alright? So here we have three words which are linked together. Now there's no hard rule that says you have to stick them all together so that they sound like one continuous sound. No. But often what we'll do is take the end in the beginning and kind of stick them together. So at least they're very close. Not for all of them, but for many of them. Now, why would we do that? It makes what you say sound more natural. It helps you to flow from one word to the next. This is part of what makes native English sound so natural to be able to put words together, not speed. It's not about how fast, but about how words are stuck together, blended together, or linked together. So how might we say this? We could say, if Thomas can't or if Thomas can. Sometimes we have the stop sound and that would be okay too. We'll talk about that in another lesson. If Thomas can't, how would that be different if I said each word individually? If Thomas can't. Now, that's a small difference. But what I'm doing by sticking them together is eliminating any breadth that might come after a word. Thomas, a little breath in between, or any sounds that might be added. Some people might say, if Thomas, No, we want to avoid making any sounds. So at the very least, it can help you remove any sounds if you imagine they're kind of stuck together. So instead of if Thomas can't, we would say if Thomas can, if Thomas can. You hear the difference? Again, we'll go through this slowly piece-by-piece. I wanna do an example of voice to neighbors. Alright, How about this one? Can CAN ending sound voiced or unvoiced voiced? You? Yeah, voiced or unvoiced voiced. Alright, so those are voiced neighbors. Voiced neighbors maybe even more important than unvoiced neighbors. In fact, they are. Why? Because when you carry your voice through words from one word to the next, you suddenly sound much more natural. And again, it's not about speed, it's about an organic, fluent sound. I would say one of the main things that makes native English sound really natural in terms of the sound, I don't mean the pronunciation of individual words. I mean the overall sound and flow is voiced neighbors. It's really one of the most important things and it's actually quite easy. All you have to do is carry your voice between words that have a voiced sound between them. That's it. So there's a little bridge here and it will look, there's another little bridge here. Now, then these two, those would be unvoiced neighbors, right? Okay. So can you make notice my voice doesn't stop until the K sound right there. Can you make can you make, can you make? So it's slow, but it has that natural sound because I'm not stopping my voice between words when I'm speaking. Because if you break it up, when I'm speaking, when I'm speaking, then suddenly it sounds unnatural and strange. Okay, So this is the key to be able to stick words together that have unvoiced sounds and blend words together that have voiced sounds, means if you really master it, getting that natural sound. 32. Voiced and Unvoiced Neighbors: Full Example: Let's go through this text slowly and identify the unvoiced to neighbors as well as the voiced neighbors. What I'm going to do as we go through it is mark them. I'm going to use one line like this between voiced neighbors. And then I'm going to do two dots like that between unvoiced sounds, okay, now I want you to be able to identify the unvoiced and the voiced neighbors with your ears. And I want you to also be able to say them. Let's go through this slowly. After I read each little part, try to pick out which ones are voiced and which ones are unvoiced and then try to repeat after me. Alright, here we go. If Thomas can't see. If Thomas can't see. So we have one right there. If Thomas Thomas can and can't see. Alright, so those are all unvoiced now. Okay. How about the next one? Can't see iris this whole semester. Can't see iris this whole semester. See iris. That's a voiced pair. C, iris, this hole, this hole that would be unvoiced whole semester. We'll hold. Is that all voiced l sound and semesters unvoiced. Okay. So that's not a pair. He might transfer, he might transfer, he might, he might write that is voiced. Might transfer. Might transfer is unvoiced, but also the t's are the same, so they can share that sound. Now you could say might transfer, but that's actually more difficult than it needs to be. Easier would be might transfer, might transfer. So we pause there might and then transfer. Might transfer. Okay. I asked him to wait for graduation. I asked I asked both voiced. Right. Okay. So there's a voiced pair. I asked asked him I asked him notice there's a T cell not a decent not as good. Him asked him we still stick them together. Him to him to him to not a pair him and sound to wait, to wait. Okay. That is a voiced pair to wait. Those two both voiced. Wait for or wait for, I think wait for his better. It's a stop sound. Wait, wait, wait. For unvoiced pair. We stick them together. Weight for, weight for, for graduation. For graduation. The voice continues, even though they're very different sounds. For graduation, my voice never stops. They're very important if you want to have that flowing sound. But that seems unlikely. But that seems unlikely. But that, but that unvoiced pair that seems, that seems notice how they're stuck together. That seems not that seems that seems no breath between nothing in between. Smash them together. That seems seems unlikely. That seems as unvoiced and then seems unlikely. Seems unlikely is a voiced pair and it sounds almost like seam. And then x1 likely as a word, seem unlikely if that helps you to say it more smoothly to not think of the words in the way that they actually are written. Not as two separate words seems an unlikely, but as the sounds are broken down seem unlikely, if that helps you to think of it that way, that's totally okay. Now this is the end of a sentence, so we're going to pause any way your voice goes down. I should also mention that for this to transfer, I we probably wouldn't say because it's the end of a sentence, the voice has to stop. We have to pause for a moment and then continue. It goes transfer I, and the voice goes back up. At the end of a sentence, it goes transfer and the voice falls down. Okay? Can you make him think through this choice carefully? Can you voice pair? Can you, you make, can you make, this whole thing continues? Can you make up to the k sound, right? Very natural. Make him, make him okay, that is an unvoiced pair. Alright? Him think, him think, Nope, that's not a pair. Him think through, think through. Okay. That's an unvoiced pair. Think through. And then through this, through this. Through this, okay, that's a voiced pair through this, the voice never stops. This is a process of discovery. We read through it and you find it. You just have to be very self-aware. Paying attention to your voice, listening to yourself through this choice, unvoiced pair. This choice and choice carefully are both unvoiced pairs. Can you make him think through this choice carefully? Hose, doesn't it flow so nicely? If Thomas, obviously an unvoiced pair, Thomas chooses, Thomas chooses unvoiced pair, chooses to, chooses to not appear at all. A voiced sound and then an unvoiced sound chooses to stop to up to it's a voiced but then stop is unvoiced, not a pair. Stop classes, stopped classes. Instead of stop classes. It's a small difference, but it makes a big difference in terms of flow. Unvoiced parent classes that classes at, that it almost sounds like Z a T, right? Classes at classes that, that's a voiced pair at one. Okay. That's not a pair. One school, one school, not a pair. One and not a pair, okay? Transferring to another is not simple. Transferring to another is not simple. Transferring to, okay. Not a pair to another, to another. But I'm hearing a little w sound there. So we add a little w to make it blend better to another, to another, to another, to another is not 0. Again, we have a nice flow to another is not. So all the way up to this T-H sound, you have this flowing continuous voice to none. There is not. And then only at the TI does it stop. It starts with this T and ends with this t. And everything in-between is a voiced pair is not simple, then you have that unvoiced pair. And it's hugely expensive. And it's hugely expensive. And it's voiced pair and it's, it's hugely, hugely unvoiced pair, hugely expensive. Notice how the y goes directly into the e sound. Hugely, hugely, hugely expensive, hugely expensive, hugely expensive. And there's always been hugely expensive flows together so nicely. Even if we say it really slowly or if we say quickly, it also sounds natural. Huge Really. Yeah. Ben's very slow, right? So that's a voice pair. I watch him let his emotions manipulate his decisions. I watch him let his emotions manipulate his decisions. I watch by Watch. That's a voice pair. Watch him, watch him. Unvoiced pair him, let him, let, should be getting a feeling for this by now. Him let, him let voiced pair, let his, his, his unvoiced pair, his emotions, his emotions, his emotions voiced pair. His emotions, manipulate his emotions and manipulate emotions, manipulate a minute. That's a voiced pair there. Emotions manipulate right there. Manipulate his, manipulate his. So that's a stop sound. You can say manipulate if you want to manipulate his or manipulate his, we can count that as an unvoiced pair. His decisions, his decisions, his decisions, that is a voiced pair, right, is really just compress it down to those two sounds and you can really hear it. Okay. His decisions. And I just feel like something is wrong. And I just feel like something is wrong. And I just so, and I just voiced pair, voice pair that ends with a t sound. Just feel, just feel unvoiced pair. Feel like, feel like well it's a voiced pair but also you have to blend them together by making them share the L. So don't say feel like, feel like incorrect. Feel like, feel like if there's the exact same sound at the end of one word and the beginning of the next, they should share that sound. Don't force them to say each sound separately. Feel like No. Feel like one l, feel like make them share it, even if it's an unvoiced sound which she wished she so they share the SH sound which she wished she okay. So that's shared. Feel like something likes. Likes, likes. Okay. That's an unvoiced one. Something is wrong. From thing is wrong, thing is wrong. So from the th sound to the right up to there at the end of the sentence. That's a voiced pair and a voiced pair. I said to him. I said to him, I, okay, that's not a pair. Said to said to said to. They're definitely smashed together. They're definitely right up next to each other, stuck together. But that is a voiced sound and that is an unvoiced sound to him. To him. So two is voiced and then him is unvoiced. Alright. I know you miss her. I know you miss her. I know. I know. I know. That's a voice pair. Know you know you continuing That's a voice pair. You miss, you miss. You may use that's the voice pair. Miss her, I miss her. So that's an unvoiced pair. But please remember how much hard work it took to get to this point. But please please unvoiced pair. Please remember Xd, remember voiced pair. Remember how remember how not a pair are, or how much, how mom, how how much how much of that's a voice pair? Much hard. Much hard. It's an unvoiced pair. Hard work, hard work, hard work to work. To work hard work. Okay. That is a voiced pair. Work at work at it. Not a pair. It took it took now they're sharing a T, so it must be an unvoiced parent. Also, they have to share that tea. It took it took took to took to unvoiced pair. To get, to get voiced pair, there should be getting really easy for you to identify. By now. It's getting easier, I hope so. To get to get to get to, to get to, get to, get to, to get to, to get to get two shares at t. Alright, to this, to this voiced pair and then this point, this point unvoiced pair. Alright, We have one more sentence. I don't have much hope. Thomas will listen, but I have to try. I don't have much hope Thomas will listen, but I have to try. Okay. I don't okay. That's voiced pair. Don't have unvoiced, have much, have much voiced pair. Much help. Much hope. Unvoiced pair. Hope Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas. Unvoiced pair. Thomas will. Thomas will not a pair. Willison, Willison sharing the L's voiced pair with shared l's. But I have to try. Now this is a little bit unique here. In this situation, this T will be pronounced usually as a D. So if we're going to pronounce this T as a dy, then this, which wouldn't usually be a voiced pair, becomes a voiced pair. They become voiced neighbors, right? Because we're making that a d sound often to make it flow more naturally, when we have these voiced pairs or voice neighbors, we make that a light d sound. So instead of but I have, we say, but I have, but I have. So that sounds like Bud die, but it's not a strong d sound. It's not so strong. But I but I, but I, but I, my voice is continuing. I'm not saying Bud, die, but die. It's definitely very, very light. But I, but I, but I have to try. I have not a pair, have to, have to not appear to try, to try not a pair. So this is an interesting exception where if we're going to say that with the D, then it becomes a voiced pair or voice neighbors. And if not, which is not the common pronunciation, it usually is pronounced with a light d sound. If we say it with a t sound, then suddenly they're not a pair, but I, but I, that's not how we would usually say it. Alright, so I hope you're feeling more comfortable with this. This is extremely important to practice and master. You can use this text to practice it. That's why we're doing these texts examples, because I want you to be practicing reading them yourself. And I read them out loud as an example to you so that you have something to follow, something to check so that you can make sure that your pronunciation is getting closer and closer. If you want to check other pronunciations out there or listen to the pronunciation on pronunciation apps. That's totally fine. Find the pronunciation and then practice. Make your own examples or use mine until you can make it sound really natural. I wrote this example specifically for these voiced and unvoiced neighbors, these voiced and unvoiced pairs. So I think it is a good one to use to practice. But once you've mastered this one, don't stop, keep going, keep pushing yourself. Okay. So let me read through this onetime. If Thomas can't see iris this whole semester, he might transfer. I asked him to wait for graduation, but that seems unlikely. Can you make him think through this choice carefully? If Thomas chooses to stop classes at one school, transferring to another is not simple and it's hugely expensive. I watch him let his emotions manipulate his decisions and I just feel like something is wrong. I said to him, I know you miss her, but please remember how much hard work it took to get to this point. I don't have much hope that Thomas will listen, but I have to try. Alright, so practice this until you feel you can do it naturally. And then once you can keep pushing yourself, find other exercises to read, write them yourself. Really try to continue to push yourself so that you can get that natural fluent sound. This is one of the main keys to that fluent sound. So it is really important to master it. Alright, so that's it for this lesson. In the next one, we're going to be talking about letters that we don't say, also known as silent letters. So I'll see you in the next one. 33. Letters You Don't Say: Part 1: In this lesson, we're going to be practicing things. You don't say. Now, what does that mean? How can we practice things? You don't say? Well, I'm sure that you know that in English sometimes you'll see a letter there or a couple of letters there. And that's actually silent. Now, there are many, some of them are quite common. Some of them are not so common. In this lesson, we're going to be practicing words that have many of those silent letters or combinations of letters which are silent. And you'll notice some patterns. That means you'll notice some things that are common among the examples we've talked about. Now, of course, as a reminder, that does not mean every time you see e.g. GH together it makes this sound, No. We'll talk about some exceptions as well. But you have to be aware that sometimes GH together is silent. Sometimes GH together is, the H is silent, but the G is not silent. Okay? So we have to practice it, right? Let's do that. Let's go through our examples, starting with something that I'm pretty sure that you're familiar with. The silent k, but also the silent g. That's right, The silent k and the silent g. Now I'd like you to notice the combinations here. This K is with an N, this case with an N. This G is with an end, this G is with an end, this G is with an n. So then you say to yourself, a-ha, a pattern. I've noticed something. Whenever I see G and N together, the G is going to be silent. Just say the n sound, right? Maybe not. What about words like signal? We say sick, No, Oh, that's the G and the n. Okay, so it doesn't work every time of course, but hey, look, the g and the n are either at the beginning or the end of the word. So okay, you can start thinking about that. I don't want to promise you that this is always how things are pronounced. But I do want you to pay attention to patterns. It's okay to notice patterns. It's good to notice patterns because they can help give you a guess about how this might be pronounced if you don't know the pronunciation already, of course, the best way to figure it out is to just listen to how that word is pronounced in a dictionary that has the sound, you can listen to that. Oh, I know how to make those sounds and then say it, that's really the best, the best way. Alright, so let's go through the silent k and the silent g. Ready? Knife, knife. New, new. And I'm sure you know that this is the same pronunciation as NEW, new, same gnarled, gnarled. Sine. Sine design design. Alright, so there we go. The silent g and the silent k combined with the letter N. And for all of these, either at the beginning or at the end of the word. Okay, let's go on to the next set. What have we got here? Okay, we have a G-H combination, G, h, t, but which of these are silent? What's the silent part of this word? Sigchi, ING S. Well, the GH part will be silent, will just say that t. So it's a common ending for many words, g, h, t, or right before an ending like ING, e.g. and sometimes something like EN. Those endings are common after a, G, h, t. And when you see them, you're going to not say the GH, But you will say the t. Now, don't ask me why, why, why not very useful in my opinion to ask why things are spelled the way they are. It doesn't help what, what can you gain from knowing why it's spelled the way it is without make your pronunciation better? I don't think so. The best thing to do is just notice the pattern. Try to make the sounds, and practice until it's a habit. So let's go through these. We're just going to be saying the t sound for all of these. And we're going to not be saying that g, h sound. Then once we practice these, we're gonna be talking about another set which is similar in some ways and also different in some ways. Alright, so let's go through these ready. Sightings, sightings, frightening frightening. Flight. Flight or flight. Right? Right. Or right. Might might or might. A team. 18. Up, tight, uptight, caught. Caught. Okay. So what can we talk about here? Well, just one thing I really want to focus on. Notice for some of these that we might, instead of saying that sound as we've talked about before, we might replace it with a stopped t sound. So instead of saying flight, flight, you can, and many native English speakers will say flight. Most people say right instead of right or might instead of might. But it's very important when you say these two, stop your voice. It's so important because if you don't, it's going to sound like fly. Rye. My sounds wrong, right? Well, what am I doing exactly if I'm not stopping it with the sound, I'm stopping it back here and I'm actually putting a little force into it with my stomach. Kind of like that. You have to kinda push up against it and stop the voice with the back of your throat. Cut it off. Suddenly. There's a little bit of pressure you'll feel against your throat when you do that. Practice by using your stomach to push up because that will help you get the feeling for it. Flight. It can feel your stomach pushing the air out. That's just a way to practice it. I'm not saying always do it like that. But it has to suddenly stopped like that flight. Flight using my stomach there. That's what it is. Although it's not that strong when we speak casually, but that's what we're really doing. Now, for this one. It's a little bit different because we still have the t sound, but we'll stop before the t sound. So we might say eight. So that's the stop there, 888 and then teen. Then we clearly say the T-cell, that one will have the clear T sound. Same width up tight, except this tight at the end will be the same stopped sound. Now you can say tight, you can say tight. I think those are probably both very common. They are both very common. So it doesn't really matter which one you decide to do. If you're going to say with that stopped t sound, make sure you're doing that with your back of your throat. This one though, you have to pronounce the T-H because we don't start sounds with that sound, we only end sounds with it. Doesn't make sense to say. I don't even know how to do that. Caught. Caught. Caught. It's okay to say either one. It's up to you. For many of these, that stopped sound is more common. Just make sure if you're going to do it, that you do it correctly. What about frightening? Frightening. Lets the same thing. It's just a little bit more complicated Friday morning. So there's the the n sound right after the hook stopped sound. What about this one? Sightings. Sightings. Well, that one is actually closer to a light d sound instead of the instead of the clear sound or the stopped sound. Sightings, sightings. So there I've got a little bit of a D instead of the T. I have another course that focuses more on this. I don't want to spend a whole lesson just focusing on that for this course. But if you want to learn more about it, you can certainly check out that other course, okay? Now I said that there was another set with GH, but it's a bit different, different in that for these we don't have the TI, but the GH is still silent. So here we have also g h, but then some other G, Hs, which are different. This GH, I want you to note the sound and this g, h. Now this GH doesn't really count as silent. It actually counts as a new sound, new sound. And you probably know what new sound that is. I know it doesn't fit in the topic of this lesson, but we need to go over it because it is one of the pronunciations of GH. While we're talking about GH, we should, we should practice it a little bit because I wanted you to know all of the different pronunciations. Okay. So that one and that one, these are both, this one's got a silent sound. This one not but different from these. And these, are you ready? Here we go. All though. Although through through ghost. Ghost. Enough. Enough. So this sound and this sound both silent. This one is though, oh, oh, and this one is the long use sound or the double 0 sound. Ooh, ooh, ooh, through, through. Okay, but in both of them, they're silent. This one is sometimes spelled casually THR you like a drive-through. And that makes sense, right? That's a that's a U there. But the correct the correct spelling or the spelling that you're supposed to use. His is this one. Then Ghost? Well, which sound is silent? The H sound, there's no h there. Just the g sound. Goes gaga, gaga, gaga. Okay, silent H enough, enough, enough. So GH also makes the f sound a new sound. It doesn't count as silent. 34. Letters You Don't Say: Part 2: What about P S? And also mentioned S C. Now, I think SC, you already know we've talked about the Csound, the soft c, which is the same as the S. But what about P, S? Let's sound is silent there. Well, I think if you just listen, you will immediately know and maybe you already do. But let's practice these ready. Psi, cosas, psychosis, psychology, psychology, scientific scientific era, deaths and iridescent. Okay, sometimes, especially at the beginning of the word, the p is silent if it's right beside an S. Now at the end of a word, probably not e.g. M. A PS, maps. Oh, definitely a P in there. Right. But psychology is not psychology. Psychology, no, there's no P sound at all. So you have to disconnect your mind from spelling and sounds like we talked about right at the beginning of the course. Don't say out spelled there's a letter there, I have to say it. No, maybe not. Listen, use your ears, then learn the sound at practice it, make it a habit. So PSY lookout for that and remember that general pronunciation for PSY psi. Psi. Psi is that the same pronunciation as SIG age? Yes, psi, psi 0. And look, another silent pronunciation of g, h. What do you know? Alright, now how about this one? Well, this should be familiar. Look, you have a C and then an I, a C, and then an E. So we've already talked about that one that should be very familiar. The C is soft because it's beside the E or the eye, and so it sounds like an S. So we say them together both as an S. So is it really silent? I don't know. It's just an S sound. Maybe it's silent. Maybe it's not silent. Maybe they're just combined as an S. It doesn't really matter because they're pronounced either way. Okay, Next, let's go on to m and n, and also m B, m and n, and also m b. What do you think the silent letter is? Well, only one way to find out. Well actually, there are quite a few ways to find out. Let's go through these. You're going to hear for all of these, the simple M pronunciation. So no new pronunciation here. Just the, the m sound. Nothing special. The only thing to note is of course, the spelling. Solemn. Solemn. Him. Him. Same. Num, num. Climb, climb, comb, comb. Okay. Just the m sound here. When you have the M and the N together at the end of a word, notice end of the word, then it makes just the m sound. So the n is silent. Same for this one, same pronunciation as HIM, him, exactly the same pronunciation then these m b, m b and b. But be careful with this because you might say, oh, every time and B is there together, I'll say just the m sound and not the B. What about NUM BER? How should I say that? Well, that would be number. Number, that's a different word, different pronunciation. Okay. So that doesn't that doesn't work? Yes, because it's a different word. What if it's the same word but with a different ending? E.g. NUM B, and then adding an i-n-g at the end. Then it does. It's the same word, right? It's not a different word. Number is a totally different word. It happens to have the same four letters in a row. This is the same word plus I-N-G, so that one would still have the silent be numbing. Numbing. Numbing. What about this one? Cli and B, if this has an ER, well, if this has an ER, this is still the same word plus ER because it's a person who does that. So this one still has the silent be climber, not climber, climber. So it's not what the letters are after the sound. It's whether or not, in this case, whether or not it's the same word NUM BER is not a version of the word NUM be. It's not a version of that word with a different ending, a different form. But CLIA NBER is a form of the word climb. It's a person who climbs. It's a climber. Okay, So it probably keeps the pronunciation. Again. There are exceptions to everything but keep that in mind. And then ING. That would be combing. Probably. Combing. Combing. Okay, that's an activity. Alright, so that's the silent B with the M and the silent n with the m. We have just three more quick sets to go before we look at our full example, let's practice w. So the w is going to be the silent letter, and then the other one is going to be pronounced WR. Note that one is quite common, but then here, notice that w is in a different position. There is an earth sound, but not after the R. Instead it's before between S and ER. So listen to that one carefully. Let's go through these wrapped. Wrapped. Right? Right or right. Yes, same pronunciation. Wrong. Wrong. Answer. Answer. Now you might be thinking to yourself, Hey, wait a second, wrapped. I'm hearing the r sound so I get it. We say the R, But the w is silent, right? But the way that, that starts is like that wrapped right, wrong. So doesn't that have the w sound? Isn't that the w sound? Well, not really. You're putting your lips in that shape. That's true. But it's the same sound as the r sound. Any word that starts with are like REG, UIL, AR, regular, regular. So my lips are starting in the same place, whether there's a W there or not. So it's the r sound. If I wanted to add a w sound in front of our, than it would sound something like irregular, which certainly sounds quite strange, right? So it's not really the w sound, although the lips are in a similar position to w. But I'm not saying more like that. So we can say it's silent. We can say that w is silent. Now this one is a little bit different. This one we're just saying, Sir. Sir, that pronunciation. Sir, sir, sir. It's going directly to the Earth's sound. After the S sound, we can just basically ignore the w sound completely. That's just the way it's spelled. Don't ask, why. Don't ask questions about spelling. I know English spelling is kind of ridiculous. It's true. It's kind of ridiculous for a lot of very interesting historical reasons that maybe we can talk about in a different course. We just ignore the w sound in that word. Okay, so that's the silent w. Now let's talk about the silent Es. That's right. S is silent in some words, but not many. These are by far the most common. In addition to the word I, S, L, a, and D, which is actually another form of this word here. How do we say it? Well, let's practice that. Follow me. I'll I'll I'll I'll island. Island. Right? Are these the same? Are those homophones? Yes, they are. Same pronunciation. In addition to being the same as I. Apostrophe. Ll, i'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, it's the same pronunciation. Exactly. Those three. This one of course doesn't have an S. These two have an S, but are still spelled differently. And this word is a form of the word island. They're related. Those two are related. Different from this one though, which would be something at the supermarket. One, I'll IL-1, IL-2, IL-3. And then the last one just very quickly, this one is kind of on the edge of being not a silent letter. I put it here because some people would consider the d to be silent and some not. And honestly, as long as you know how to pronounce it correctly, it doesn't really matter so much. So how do we say this? Edge? Edge, ridge? Ridge. Now you might say, wait a second, I hear a D there. I hear at D there edge, ed. I would say yes, that's right. Now, why might we say that the D is silent when it's beside G? Well, if you really think about the G sound, I mean the soft G sound, the one that is pronounced like J. If you really think about that and try to feel your mouth when you're saying it, you'll note that it actually begins with the position of d. Say it to yourself. Ju, ju, ju. Right at the beginning. Your tongue is pushed upwards in the same position that you would have it in. If you were to say the d sound to go out, it becomes dy du. And then if you go inward, ju, ju, ju, and then if you go the other direction, ju, ju, ju wealth, then it's the soft G sound or the j sound. Alright, so that's the reason why this one is kind of on the edge. You can say that D is silent or not. Doesn't really matter as long as you say it correctly. Alright, so those are our silent letters or silent letter combinations. Now let's practice all of these together in our full example. 35. Letters You Don't Say: Full Example: Now that we've practiced individual words with silent letters or silent letter combinations, let's practice our full example. I'm going to as usual, read this piece by piece or part by part first. So follow along with me, try your best. Then I will go back through and read the whole thing. Are you ready? Here we go. Although I know ghost sightings are easy to write off as signs of temporary psychosis. There might be more to them. When I was 18, I had a frightening encounter. I was on a flight from De Moines watching a documentary about industrial design. This name, we don't say the S and Moines. We don't say the S, but for a different reason. Because actually these are not originally English words. It comes from French. Something caught my eye. Sliding along the aisle. Right toward me was a solemn looking iridescent woman with gnarled fingers wrapped around a huge butcher knife. I was on the edge of my seat. I looked nervously around for signs of shock from other passengers. Nothing. Then she was gone. By the way, no no silent sounds in that one. That experience was enough to make me less up tight and more open-minded about paranormal phenomena. Notice the spelling here. Through scientific investigation, we may learn what causes such things as ghostly encounters. Last one, I guess the secret lies in our psychology. Okay, now I'm going to read through the whole thing at normal speed. Here we go. Although I know ghost sightings are easy to write off as signs of temporary psychosis. There might be more to them. When I was 18, I had a frightening encounter. I was on a flight from Des Moines watching a documentary about industrial design. Something caught my eye. Sliding along the aisle right toward me was a solemn looking iridescent woman with gnarled fingers wrapped around a huge butcher knife. I was on the edge of my seat. I looked nervously around for signs of shock from other passengers. Nothing. Then she was gone. That experience was enough to make me less uptight and more open-minded about paranormal phenomena. Through scientific investigation, we may learn what causes such things as ghostly encounters. I guess the secret lies in our psychology. Psychology. Alright, so practice this one until you can get it. Nice and smooth. Practice the words with silent letters and silent letter combinations. That is it for this one. In the next lesson, we're going to be talking about sounds that vibrate. So I'll see you in the next one. 36. Sounds that Vibrate: V - Z: We've already practiced at different points in the course. Sounds that vibrate. We've practiced the z sound, e.g. we've practiced the g sound a little bit, but I want to put it all together in one lesson, the common sounds that vibrate, and to be clear, what I mean by that is you use your voice, so it's a voiced sound. And there's something going on in your mouth so that there is vibration happening, not just here, but also here. So would this be a vibrating sound? Ah, no, my mouth is open. There's no vibration happening in my mouth, although there is here. So we call it a voiced sound. But what if I do this? You see there is now a vibration happening here and here in two different places. So let's call these vibrating sounds or sounds that vibrate because there is a vibration in the mouth. Of vibration in the mouth. Now sometimes that means that the tongue is close to the teeth, e.g. the z sound we talked about. And sometimes it's for a different reason, e.g. with the v sound or the bottom lip is causing the vibration. So we're gonna go through these pretty quickly because we have practiced most of these sounds in different places around the course. So we're gonna go through these pretty quickly. I will spend less time explaining these. We're going to just practice them, our full example because I want to make sure we cover them all together. So let's start with V. Let's start with v. This is also a very common issue for many English learners, especially when it gets mixed up with the w sound, right? So very common issue. So let's practice this. When you make the v sound, all you have to do is place your bottom lip up against your top teeth. But it does matter where. You don't want to put it right on the teeth like this. You want to actually put it just inside of the lower lip here. I'm actually pushing my lips upward a little bit to make room for that. Then I allow air to pass through. That's very important. If it's too tight, then it's like this. Too tight. You have to allow air to pass through. If I don't use my voice than it sounds like this. Sound familiar. Well, that sounds like the F sound. Yes, exactly. So do the f sound with your bottom lip up against your top teeth, then turn on your voice. Now notice I can continue the sound for a few seconds. This is a sustained vibration. A sustained sound, meaning it's not short, should be able to say it for several seconds. And if you can't, that means it's wrong. Okay. So let's practice these villages. Villages visit, visit. Very, very. I've, I've even, even so one challenging one might be this one. Because you're starting with the i sound. I see. So you're stretching your mouth wide, but then you have to go back and close it a little bit and bring the lip up against the teeth. So that can be a little challenging. I write. So you have to practice that until it's natural. But if that's e.g. the w sound, it sounds wrong. If this one sounds like villages, That's wrong. People will not understand what you mean. If you say this one as wary that the w sound, that's a totally different word, not the same word at all. So that's why pronunciation is so important. Okay? So we've practiced those, make sure you've got that sound and make sure it's a sustained vibration. Let's quickly go on to the z sound. You already know how to make this one. When we say the z sound, also a sustained vibration, we should be able to make the sound long, 3456 7 s, as long as your breath can last. So it should be a stable kind of soft sound, not a very hard sound. Remember to do this one. You're putting the tongue in the same position as the S and then using your voice. You don't want to push too hard so that it sounds like the incorrect, you wouldn't be able to stretch it out to make it softer. Okay, so let's practice these sounds. Ready? Bizarre, bizarre. Theorise. Theorise, realize, realize fuzzier and fuzzier. So be careful to make that the z and not something like fuzzier and fuzzier and fuzzier and fuzzier. Don't add a little d sound there. Make sure it's very gentle, very soft, bizarre theorize, realize fuzzier, but also make sure it doesn't become the S sound. Alright, now, we're going to practice the S as the z sound and also the S as that strange S sound, which is g. 37. Sounds that Vibrate: The Strange S and the Voiced TH: To make the S sound as z, it's a sustained vibration. It's exactly the same as z to make the strange S sound like in this word. And like in this word, we say ssh. And then just turn on the voice and make it nice and soft. Zhe, remember, but also don't make it. There has to be a little g, has to be some vibration there. If it's just that's just our right. It's not quite there. You're not pushing your tongue up enough. There's no vibration happening in the mouth, right? So you have to really practice that one. Okay. So we see that here and here. And then also we'll be practicing S as Z. Okay, here we go. Occasionally. Occasionally. There's, there's unusual, unusual feelings. Feelings, losing, losing details. Details, grows, grows, fades in, fades. Tens, tens, villages. Villages. Because because was, was raised, raised. Reason. Reason is, is as as those those. Now I want to just note something about the strange S sound. Let's look at this word, deja, D, J, a, Wu. And just for fun, how about genre? Ge and RE think we've covered that one. Now these two are the same exact sound as this one and this one. Different spelling, same exact sound that Zhe, Zhi, that sound. And it's in quite a few words, a word like lesion, LES or vision V I S I 0 N. You see it all over the place. But it's a sound that doesn't get talked about or taught as often as a lot of other sounds. And that means it often gets missed. And I feel it's very important not to miss this sound, to be able to catch the sound and hear it and say it when you need to say it. So again, that's Sion Zhun occasionally and Deja vu. Deja vu. Deja vu. Same thing. Again for these two Jun, Jun, Jun lesion vision. And for this one, joule, joule. Unusual. Have you mastered this sound? If not, make sure you practice it until it's a habit. The last one we're going to do is the voiced th sound, which you're familiar with. So we've talked about S, We've talked about Z. Now let's talk about the voiced T-H sound, okay? As you know, when we say the voiced th sound, all we do is make the T-H sound and add the voice. And then it vibrates in the mouth. See how I can make it last. Well, what do you know? It's a sustained vibration sound. All of these are sustained vibrations. You should be able to make them last. This is the common theme for all of these that they are sustained vibrations, right? So when we say this th sound, the only difference with the unvoiced th sound is the voice because the mouth position is the same, the tongue is out. It's between the teeth a little bit. Very important to get used to putting your tongue between your teeth. That's part of spoken English. You have to do it if you're going to make the sound correctly. To make it last a long time is also very important. If it sounds like that's too sharp, that's too hard, that's not right. So then once you've got the sound, you have to practice it with examples. So let's go through these one at a time. Follow me. Here we go. There's There's this this that, that or that with the, with the, connect those two together. Now some people will say with the, so for the first one they'll do the unvoiced and then the second one will be voiced. That's okay too. With the with the with the with the with the either one is okay. You can do either one. Both of them are common. Without, without or without. Then then. All though. Although alright, How did those go? Practice those until you're very comfortable? And they are all habits and you don't have to think about them when you say them. Now let's go on and practice our full example. 38. Sounds that Vibrate: Full Example: You don't want to have to be thinking about pronunciation and what you want to say, and what tense you're using, and how to put the sentence together and what the other person might be thinking. And what you might say in five-minutes or might not say all of those things going on. You have limited bandwidth. So it's better if you don't have to deal with pronunciation. Have to make all this stuff automatic and practice, practice, practice. Such as this example, reading it over and over until you're sure you've got those sounds and you're not thinking about them when you say them. That's how you get there. Alright, so let's go through this. I occasionally get Deja vu. When I visit rural villages. It's bizarre. There's this very unusual sensation that I've been in that exact situation with the exact same feelings. Without losing any details. The feeling grows fuzzier and then fades. I've realized mine probably tends to happen in villages because I was raised in one. Although the deeper reason is still a mystery even to those who theorize about it, as far as I know. Alright, so work on those sounds. Write your own dialogues. If you really want to challenge yourself, assign yourself a task and practice speaking freestyle. And when you come across those sounds, see if they come out right, record yourself and listen back to it. Then you'll know where you need to improve. Alright, onetime I'm going to read through the whole thing. Here we go. I occasionally get Deja vu when I visit rural villages. It's bizarre. There's this very unusual sensation that I've been in that exact situation with the exact same feelings without losing any details. The feeling grows fuzzier and then fades. I've realized mine probably tends to happen in villages because I was raised in one. Although the deeper reason is still a mystery, even to those who theorize about it, as far as I know. Alright, so try to get yours as smooth as mine. Why does minds sound natural? Well, I've been making these sounds my whole life. I grew up around them. I was surrounded by these sounds right from a very young age, but there's no reason you can't get there as well. Really, it's just a matter of exposure, the ear habits, practice, all of that. If you want to challenge yourself, right? Another dialogue in addition to practicing this one, if you really want to challenge yourself, why not try to give yourself a free talk topic? Talk about it, recorded. Listen back to it. See how it sounds, which sounds are perfect, Which ones do you still need to work on? Okay, that's it for this lesson. In the next lesson we're going to be practicing d and t. Very important, of course, very common practice, practice. And I will see you in the next lesson. 39. The Regular D and Light D Sounds: In the last lesson, we focused on and practiced sustain vibration sounds. In this, the last lesson of this section, we're going to be practicing d and t. Now, as I've already talked about earlier in the course, we don't just have one T sound. It's not as simple as. And also y is t with d here. Well, there's an interesting connection between T and D because also, as I've already mentioned, sometimes t is pronounced like D, but not exactly the same as D, but very, very close to d, so we call it a light d sound. Alright, so these are kind of blended together in an interesting way. We have to explore d and t together because they're so closely linked. Let's do that first with examples going through these one by one, we're going to talk about the basic D sound, the basic T-H sound, and the different ways that we pronounce t. So let's jump into it. We're going to start, start simple. We're going to start with the letter D, Alright? Start with the pronunciation of the letter d. I know you know how to say it, but let's just make sure it's a way for us to have a baseline before we get into things like the light d sound, okay? So when you see D, you're going to say usually dah, dah, dah. Whereas the tongue, the tongue is behind the teeth. It is up against the roof of the mouth. It is not touching the teeth, right behind the teeth. Touching the roof of the mouth in the ridge, not too far back. If it's too far back, then it sounds like they're too far back. If it's too far forward than it sounds like the two thin touching the top of your mouth. You're touching the roof of your mouth and then you're releasing it outward. You're blocking all the air with your tongue and then releasing it outward. Duh, duh, duh. Often you don't release the sound after you put your tongue in that position. E.g. if it's at the end of a word like this, one, weekend, weekend. I'm not really saying weekend. Right. It's quite light, although it is there. And sometimes I'll just stop right at that d sound weekend. Weekend. Now often we don't release the sound like that. Often we don't have that little, uh, uh, uh, after the d sound in a word like redness. Redness. I'm going directly from the D to the n, red, red knit, redness, redness, redness. It's going directly from the D to the end. Same thing goes if you have a D next to a T, Very often, that will be something like Round Table. So you can't hear the D very clearly there, but it is there. I'm putting my tongue in the D position. But the table part is the thing that you hear more clearly. And I'm not saying Round Table Read nis. So be careful not to add it if there's a sound right next to it where you need your tongue to do something similar, like move over to an N or move to a T position. Okay, now what about at the end? At the end of a word that it's still usually there, but it's very, very slight, it's very, very faint. An example would be weekend, weekend. It's very light, you can barely hear it. Weekend, there's a slight release of that sound, but it's hard to hear. It's very faint and you don't want to focus on it too much because if you say we can do, that's going to sound very strange. Okay? So let's go through these one by one practice along with me each one twice. Here we go. Wide. Spread. Widespread. World. World. Did term men determine dominant? Dominant. Wedding, wedding, weekend, weekend? Doubt. Doubt or doubt. Okay? So notice there we have differences in how much emphasis we put on it. Sometimes it's a little louder, sometimes it's a little softer. But every time we're putting the tongue in that same position. So that makes the d sound usually pretty simple. Again, just make sure your tongue is in the correct place. If you put a too far back, it's going to sound odd. We want to avoid. It's sounding like or too shallow, right? It's gotta be right there in the middle. Now the reason we talk about D here along with T, We're really focusing on tea because of a sound that t makes, which is basically d, but much lighter. And we're going to call that the light D. The light D. And I want you to notice where this sound is in these words or in a word by itself, followed by other sounds or other words. Notice where you're hearing it. Sometimes when we say the t sound, instead of saying the t sound, we say this sound where we put the tongue up against the roof of the mouth in exactly the same way, except lighter where you're moving the tongue forward, it touches the D position and then it kinda flicks outward there. Today. My understanding is that that's very, very close to the r sound. In Japanese. There's this gentle flick of the tongue up to the D position. That same position, but not held there and not pushed too hard. Not like, uh, where you're blocking the air for a second before releasing it, lighter it, uh, the the, you have to kinda practice it and get a feeling for it. So listen for it in these words and try to repeat after me. Now notice we're not only talking about words, we're also trying to put some words together. That's right. Sometimes you'll see this when the t is at the end of a word, but the next sound is a vowel sound. And then you'll often have this light d pronunciation. Notice that the words that you see here are all followed by a vowel sounds. All of the t's are followed by a vowel sounds. And that's something to really pay attention to. Does that mean that every single time a t is followed by a vowel, that you should say it as a light D. No, I'm not saying that. Certainly wouldn't do that. E.g. at the beginning of a word, usually, but don't be afraid to notice the pattern. Noticing the pattern, that's a good thing. That means you can pick up new pronunciation more quickly. But never tried to make things very hard and fast, concrete 100% rules, right? Try to avoid that. Okay, Let's go through these light D sounds. Here we go. Notice, notice personality. Personality says society. Society. Relatives, relatives, parties, parties, quite a few, quite a few. A lot of a lot of notice saying that a lot. Notice how I'm saying it, that this sound is the same as D. But if you were to say it with a d, it would sound different. Node, this node, this node, this. See how that's a little harder. No disk is that's how natural. Know. But how about this? Notice notice notice that light flicking sound. Yes, that sounds natural. What if I say it as the t sound? Notice personality, society, relatives, parties. Okay. It's correct. It's not wrong to most people say it like that. No. It sounds very serious. It's sounds quite stiff. Overly formal. I don't know anybody who talks like that. Almost everyone is going to use the light d sound. One advantage of that is that if you have a word with a continuous voice where you're trying to jump from one word to the next and use your voice and not stop using it. You don't have to stop it when you see a T, If it's pronounced as a D, but almost never will use C, a, T pronounced as a D at the beginning of a word. And if it's at the end of the word, you're more likely to see t pronounced as the stop tea. 40. The Stop T and Regular T Sounds: This one is interesting, but we've talked about it already. We've practiced it a little bit, so it should be pretty familiar to you. And we just need to make sure we practice it so that we can get into the right habits. Remember, when we do the stop t, Notice that we have these at the end of words. Notice that the t sound is right at the end. That's usually how it goes with the stop t. Remember when we do this sound and you have to close the back of your throat to stop the air. Suddenly. It can't fade out. It has to be like that. To practice it. You can try to push with your stomach and then block the air. And that can get you used to the feeling. So try this, hook her leg, you're going to throw up. That sound. That's kind of what you're doing when you do the stop t. Now, can you do it every time? Again, I don't want to make a hard rule. It is very, very common though. Can you pronounce it as the regular T sound? Most, yes, of course, many people do. It's okay. But it's also very common to use the stop T. What if I want to use the t sound? Can I say quite? Yes, of course you can. People say quite. It's okay to say that, but it's just as common, if not quite a bit more common, to use things like the light D and the stop t. Now, before we read through all of these, let's just focus a little bit on the first word. Most people. Okay? Now can I say most people? Absolutely. Of course, go ahead. People say it like that. That's totally fine. Most people, very common. But what if I want to use the stop tea? Most people, Hey, did I do it correctly? Most people, something's not quite right. That sounds like the S is going right up to the p, right? So it sounds a bit odd. That doesn't sound natural. I can't hear the t. Something has to be there. What stopped t? Most people, most people. Most people. I'm not making the sound, but I am pausing. I'm stopping there right before the P and after the S sound there, it's not even a voiced sound, but you're stopping everything. And there's that slight pause that tells people listening. Okay. He said most and not most. Got it. I can hear that most people, most people, and that's actually easier to do than most people. Most people, because you have to do more things with your tongue there. Now, I want to mention that sometimes if you have the T at the end of a word and a sound after it, especially a vowel sound. And you're going to use the t sound. You can't use the e.g. light d sound, then it might still be pronounced as t, e.g. if I say instead of most people, most of AS well there I will typically pronounced the t Because the t there helps me to jump into the next sound. There. It's actually easier to say tough, tough, tough instead of most, of, most of that is actually a little difficult. A good way to guess which one to use is to ask yourself which one is easier. People tend to just use the one that's easier for the mouth to do. Most people is not as easy as most people. But most of us most tough, most of us, most of us is easier than most of us. That's actually a little bit difficult. So that's another thing to keep in mind. Okay, So let's practice the stop T one at a time. I'll do each one twice. Ready? And let's just do the first one with people, most people, most people, quite, quite. Subservient. Subservient. Result. Result. Dominant. Dominant. Remote, Remote Event. Event. Diff, different. Don't. Don't plan that planet. Doubt. Doubt. Now I just want to mention quickly before we go on to the regular T sound, that good old fashioned t sound, that this is not something that you have to do. That if you feel more comfortable saying remote or event or different, plenty of people say it that way. It's totally fine. You can pronounce the end of a word that has a t sound as the T-H sound quite. Most don't planet dominant result. Doubt. Fine. Absolutely fine. Okay. I just want to make sure you know how to do it if you're going to do it, because frankly, it is very, very common. Okay, let's go on to the last one. Our regular T sound, is that a T? I guess it's a T. Alright, here we go. You know how to make the T-H sound, right? So let's just get directly into the example words. Types. Types. Did, Terman, determined, structure, structure, relatives, relatives, rituals, rituals, water, water. And that one may also be pronounced water. The light d sound turmoil. Turmoil. Street. Street or street. But the stop T-cell. Okay. Now, I know I said it's the simple t sound. It's very simple. You already know how to do it. Let's just practice the words. But did you notice anything, anything different? Any variation in the way that I set it? Listen to these two relatives rituals. Relatives rituals. Determine structure. Sure, sure. Jules, What's this? So this is a CH, CH sound that you often get in some words. So you have to really listen carefully. Listen out for it. When you hear it. Make a little mental note, okay? This word, that t and that word is pronounced with more of a CH sound. Rather than that. That's simple t sound that types and determine sound that sound. There's a CH thing going on with structure, church, and rituals, tools. In fact, it's fairly common followed by an r sound structure, church sure. Or followed by a use sound, tools, rituals, rituals. What about the word TRE? Is that really pronounced a3? A3, or is it pronounced tree? Tree? Tree. Tree. Oh, that's actually more like the CH sound. So just be aware of that. You already know how to make the sound. Just be aware of that and listen out for it, and try to find patterns where you can and of course practice them, make your own examples when you find them so that you can build the right habits so that you can say the sound correctly without thinking about it. Okay? Now that we've gone through the pronunciations of t and d, let's go on to the full example. 41. Regular D - Light D - Stop T - Regular T: Full Example: Let's go through our full d and t example first, part by part, repeat after me, listen out for the d and t sounds. Try to make them as perfect as you can. Then I'll go through the whole thing. One time. Here we go. If you visit most countries around the world, you'll notice that quite a few aspects of daily life are pretty widespread. For one thing, personality types determine the structure of society. The result of a dominant personality. Among more subservient types doesn't need an explanation. A wedding, even in remote parts of the world, is a major event. With the relatives. And rituals. Still, a lot of things are different. Some places don't have clean water. Some have conflicts and political turmoil. Others have parties in the street. Every weekend. It's a diverse planet. No doubt about it. Okay. So notice there I said doubt about it. So there's the light D there. You have to be able to hear these. I want you to really be able to hear these different sounds. Now if you wanted to say clean water or clean water, either one of those would be okay. And you can make choices here. I'm trying to really get across the idea that this is not a final thing that you must absolutely do. But I would like you to know how to be comfortable with it. Okay. I'm going to read through the whole thing one time. Here we go. If you visit most countries around the world, you'll notice that quite a few aspects of daily life are pretty widespread. For one thing, personality types determined the structure of society. The result of a more dominant personality among more subservient types doesn't need an explanation. A wedding, even in remote parts of the world, is a major event with relatives and rituals. Still, a lot of things are different. Some places don't have clean water. Some have conflicts and political turmoil. Others have parties in the street every weekend. It's a diverse planet. No doubt about it. Alright, practice that. Make sure you've got these sounds down. Practice, practice, practice. This is the end of the section. So great job. We're making progress. You're building habits. That is fantastic. Keep working. We're getting closer and closer to the end of the course. We still have some work to do. In the next section, we're going to be talking about challenging words. Don't be too stressed about it. It's okay. If we do everything step-by-step. Nothing is impossible. Nothing is too difficult. It's really just a matter of trying your best, practicing and being dedicated to improving yourself and your pronunciation. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 42. Because of Syllables: Overview: In the last section we talked about and practiced subtle sounds, how to make those sounds perfectly, and then how to build habits around those sounds so that you can easily say them whenever you need to say them. We practiced full examples like we did in the previous section. In this section, we're gonna do things a little bit differently. We won't be looking at full examples for every set of words we talk about. In this section, we're going to be focused on challenging words. That means words that are kinda difficult to say. We're going to really focus on how to say those words. And through that practice, you're going to learn how to move your mouth in new ways, ways that you really need to master if you want to speak naturally, to have natural pronunciation. Now, each of the lessons in this section are going to have a kind of theme. We're going to be using a because of format. So e.g. in this lesson, we're going to be learning challenging, difficult words because of syllables, because of the syllables that are a little bit challenging to say. But we're also going to look at words that are challenging because of length. Words that are challenging because they're very complex. Complex does not mean long necessarily. It just means you need to do a lot of different things with your mouth in order to say the word correctly. So that will be the focus of this section. As usual, we'll be practicing things, of course, just not the full examples. Okay, now let's talk about syllables. You know what a syllable is? We've talked about it already. Do you remember how to count syllables? I think you probably do remember. Let's just review that. If you're going to count syllables, the best way to do it, in my opinion, is to say the word you want to say with your mouth closed and then listen to the beats in the word. So e.g. we'll take this word. Say that with your mouth closed. Okay. Pretty easy. That's the three syllable word, okay? Pretty simple. That is how you count syllables. Now, we're going to talk about a few tips before we go into our set of example words. But before we do that, let's just focus a little bit on why. Why should you master syllables? How is this relevant to pronunciation? Why do I need to practice this in order to sound natural when I speak? Well, there are a couple of reasons, the first of which is stress. If you're able to tell where syllables are, then you can place the proper stress in the proper place. Oh, that's a syllable, so I'll place the stress, they're not there. E.g. suffixes. Suffixes. Okay. So I can hear the three syllables. Where should I place the stress? Huh, huh, huh, huh. Okay, So the stresses on the first syllable, got it. That helps to know which syllable to place the stress on this stress is based on syllables. A word like this one might be even more challenging. M, S, a. I see. Now how many syllables does this word have? Mosaic? Mosaic that has three syllables, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Mosaic in which syllable carries the stress syllable to Mo, Zai, ic, and then the IC is either the short I sound or the schwa sound. But if you don't know that there's a syllable break there and you're not aware of syllables and you say Mosaic. That's actually two syllables and it doesn't sound right. It sounds strange. So you have to know that, okay. There's a break there. Most Zai and then IC 0. Those are three different sections. That helps. It's important to know also accuracy. To say things correctly when the word is really challenging, especially if it's a word you're not familiar with, or it's a word that has a lot of vowel sounds and not as many consonant sounds. So take this one, e.g. that's a tough one, right? This is the name of a place, a famous island, right? How do you say that? Well, let's, let's check the syllables. Okay. So that's not how, why? That's not a two syllable word, that's a three syllable word. It's how y, y0, Hawaii. So there's a Ye at the end. And you have to be able to hear that That's a separate syllable in order to really say it correctly. So for the sake of saying things accurately, syllables, very, very important. Now the last thing is fluency. That flowing sound we've talked about that's difficult to achieve. We talked about how we can connect the voice, not break the voice if we don't need to write. That's not just for between words, it's also inside of words. You don't want to break your voice inside of a word unless you need to. Syllables does not mean you need to break your voice. No, it just means the beat in the word Hawaii. Well, YE, that's all voiced, right? But those are part of different syllables. What about a longer word like this? Now, this one has only voiced sounds, so you're going to continue your voice throughout the word. Very important, but you still have to note where the syllables are so that you can say it correctly. Listen carefully to this one. First with my mouth closed. Tell me how many syllables you here. Meander, ring. Meander ring, meandering. So the key for this one is to connect your voice. That's what gives you fluency, but you still have to follow the syllables. You can't just blend it together and put two syllables together. If you say mean during a mean MEA and that's pronounced mean, right? In this case, no. There's a syllable break right there. Me yan, me yan. During. So during also continues to voice me. Yeah, there's also a little y sound there to continue the voice. The voice doesn't have to stop. Meander ring. Meandering. Just because there's a break, does not mean that you have to break your voice. Syllable break. Not a broken voice. Very important to keep in mind for that fluent sound. Okay, Now let's talk about some syllable tips before we go on to our example. 43. Because of Syllables: Tips: Now, there are just a couple of things related to syllables that I would like you to keep in mind before we look at our syllable word examples. One of them I've already mentioned, try not to break your voice between syllables, not only between words where there's a voiced sound at the end of one word and another voiced sound at the beginning of the next, e.g. loved ones. Loved ones, two words. Did I break my voice? No, I didn't. But also within words, I gave you the example of meandering. Meandering, okay, so that's one thing, but also a couple of things you might notice as you're speaking, as you're listening, as you're reading, that might help you to say words more accurately. Most suffixes are syllables by themselves. A suffix is a part of a word that goes at the end. A prefix is a part of a word that goes at the beginning. Pre is an example of a prefix, and Pro is an example of a prefix, and Khan is an example of a prefix. Now what about the ending of the word? This is called a suffix. There are a lot of common endings. I'm sure you're familiar with ones like T-I-O-N, very common ending, or an ESS, usually any SS, that means it is going to be a noun. And T-I-O-N, that's usually going to be a noun as well. And AL, that's probably going to be an adjective and LY, that one may be an adverb. But the important thing to note for pronunciation and syllables is that typically they are syllables by themselves. So think about a word like QUIC, K, LY. Quickly. Well, what if it's all voiced? Slowly? Slowly, quickly, slowly, quickly. Okay, both of those have two syllables, and the LEA at the end, that is a syllable by itself. Typically suffixes get their own syllable. Let's try a T-I-O-N. How about caution? Caution. Caution gets a syllable by itself. How about this one? Maybe magical, magical coal. Coal, that gets a syllable all by itself that ALL sound at the end. Okay? So that's a common thing that you can at least be aware of, which might help you when you're saying new words. Now, also note that ED is typically not a syllable by itself, but sometimes it is. So if you have a word like expired, we have the ED there to say that it happened in the past. So the two forms would be expire. That's the present tense or the simple form. And then expire. Expire. Am I adding a syllable for the ED sound? In this case? No, I'm not. Expired. Expire same number of syllables for both of those words. Even though I have an ED ending. How about this one? We might say, Oh, well walk is one syllable. Surely if you have an ED at the end, it's another syllable, right? Well, if you have an unvoiced sound in front of ED, like a K, e.g. then you're just going to add the sound at the end. So actually this is still just one syllable. Walked, walked, walked. It's not walk, kid. No, that would be two syllables but that's not the correct pronunciation. Walked, walked, walked, still one syllable. Okay. So ED, typically not a syllable by itself. By the way, this is because this is a t sound, because k is unvoiced. If you have the unvoiced sound at the end of the word than the AED will be pronounced as a T. And if you have a voiced sound at the end of the word, like the Earth sound that's at the end of the word expire, then it's going to be pronounced as dah, dah, just the d sound. However, if the ending is a D or a T, so a word like weight, and then ED, then it's going to be a syllable by itself. So that would be pronounced waited, waited. Now you might soften that to the light D. It would be weighted, weighted, but it's still a syllable by itself following that sound. Also, if it's a D sound, e.g. W. And D, E, D, wounded, wounded, wounded. So it's more like an ear, I D sound when we say it like that, and that gives it a syllable by itself. So that's a general thing that you can keep in mind, which might help you with endings, which when it comes to syllables, can be quite tough. Now, the last thing I want to quickly mention is that there is some wiggle room here. What do I mean by wiggle room? That means this isn't always a strict and hard rule that people pronounce things differently, that there is some room for flexibility. So some people might say this word as you're Zhuo Li, three syllables. And some people will say it as huge You Li. Four syllables. Are both of those. Okay? Yeah, yeah. I say usually that's the pronunciation I prefer. But there is some variety In the different kinds of syllables people use because it's language and language is very flexible. It changes a lot. There is no center, there is no. Okay. This is correct. English, 100% languages change, people speak differently in different places and that's what makes language beautiful, that it's constantly changing. That there is no one final, perfect way to say things. There is a lot of variation, even in one place like the United States, even in e.g. where I live in New York, you have this sort of classic New York dialect of this is New York. I'm walking my dog. I have a coffee. That is something you still here, even though it's becoming less common. And there are people who speak a lot of different ways in just New York. So never say now I've got it, This is it. Always continue exploring. Keep an open mind, allow for flexibility, and know that there is wiggle room when it comes to how many syllables are there in a word. Exactly, right? Some words, but said pretty much the same way for everybody. Some words. Not. So just keep that in mind. Now we're going to go on and look at our example, syllable practice, words. 44. Because of Syllables: Full Examples: Now that we've covered some of the tips and basics for syllables, let's get into our practice words. Now we're going to go in a specific order. I want you to note the number of syllables in each of these. 123456. There might be some here that could be pronounced two different ways. Maybe with more syllables, maybe with fewer, will practice those as we go. So let's start with one syllable words. Your first thought might be, wait a second. One syllable words look how long that word is. Never associate number of syllables with a word length. You can have a very short word like this, which may have two syllables, which it does. You may have a very long word like this, which may have one syllable which it does. So don't count letters, don't look at word length. What you should do is close your mouth and listened to the number of beats. That's how you do it. Okay, listen, use your ears. That's the key. Alright, here we go. Follow me. I'm going to read each of these twice as usual. Repeat after me first slowly and then at regular speed. Strength, strengths, scrounge, scrounged. Buzz, buzzed, doomed, doomed. Room. Room. Okay? Now this is probably the most challenging one. Because you have to go from the sort of like a k sound too, then the th sound too, then the S sound. Actually we're not saying string go for. So it's more like strength. So it's really in the k position and you don't have to worry about making a voiced sound their strength. But then you have to be able to make that mouth transition happen quickly where you go 2-6. It can't sound like it's gotta be strengths, it's continuous, it has to flow. And that takes a lot of practice and make sure you practice it so that it's very smooth. Now, what about this one? Scrounged out? How is that to scrap? Scrap. Only. Listen to it with my mouth closed. Scrounged. Okay. It's one syllable. So one syllable word. That's how we say it. I know it doesn't look like it, but it is be careful with this one. That is not buzzword. That would be two syllables, but that's incorrect. Buzzed, remember voiced sound at the end. So the ED is pronounced just the same with this one. Doomed, doomed instead of doom ID, right? Because voiced sound at the end of the word. Then E, D is pronounced just du. And then this one, be careful not to say var room because that would be two syllables via room. No, room. One syllable. Okay, so that's one. Now let's go to two syllable words. Here we go. One at a time. We're old world. Mirror. Mirror. Do stoic I or an iron I ion react, react to fill tool. Now for this one, some people will say that as tool, tool, tool, tool, one syllable word. So people will pronounce that as one syllable when I say it, and most people would say it as Turner tool. Tool. There's a two syllables there. Okay. Tau, wall, towel. What can this be? Only two syllables? Yes. Break throughs, breakthroughs. Fusion. Fusion. This one, well, that definitely it looks like three syllables wet. Next day, that's gotta be three. No. Wednesday. Wednesday. Two syllables. Alright. Let's go to three syllables. Ready? Oh, way, cis, oasis, myriad, myriad. Some people say that as myriad. Mere Riyadh, still the same number of syllables but pronounced a little differently. Reaction, reaction. E is the easiest. Were three here. Worrier, die, gram. Diagram by Lynn, violin. And low. You don't have to stress the P that much. Envelope. Be given name. Beginning. So tough one here. Oily or oily or. Now that one might also be pronounced as a four syllable word. If it's oil, and then Lee, and then eulggayo, Lee or Lee year. You'll hear it pronounced that way quite often as well. Oily or oily or oily or, but then if we just treat this as a boy, oh boy, and then Lee oily or oily or that's also pretty common. And that one has three syllables. So I think either one is okay. Now, worrier, the worry part, that's exactly the same as the regular Word worry. It's just adding that. So don't, don't get stuck on the fact that these are very close together and the first syllable is all of this. Don't get stuck on that. That's not important. It's about the sounds. Okay, let's go on to four syllables. Getting exciting here, right? I think this is exciting. Reality. Reality, realistic, realistic. Huge. You Li, usually dissatisfied. Dissatisfied. Am you niche and ammunition? Co per rate? Cooperate. You practice this one. Me, enter ring. Meandering. Bye, y'all. G. Biology. Try Yang. You learn. Triangular. How long this word is. Straight for word ness. Straight forwardness, very long looking word for syllables, five syllables, getting crazy over here. Here we go. You ready? That looks like a one. You get rid of that. Start there. Okay. Cree a e-tivity. Creativity. University, University, Calif for knee, California. Now this one also gets pronounced as a four syllable word where this E Yeah, Yeah. Is actually just pronounced. Yeah. Many people will just say cow lift foreign. Yeah. Cow lift, foreign. Yeah. So many people will say that as a four syllable word, Calif for knee, the five syllable version is also fairly common. Okay, next one. In div, bid you wall. Individual, prince. She did. Appreciated. Alright, getting a little longer here. Hopefully these are not too scary just because they're a little longer doesn't necessarily mean they're more difficult. E.g. I. Would say that the word strengths, which is a one syllable word, is perhaps more difficult than any of these words, which are, which are much longer and have more syllables. It's not the syllables which makes it more challenging. It's what you have to do with your mouth and where those sounds are in the word. That's what makes it challenging. So remember for these, the little y sound is there to make it blend together. Remember you don't want to stop your voice if you say creativity, that's broken. Creativity a little y sound. Or up here with this 14 syllable word, little w there, right? Cooperate instead of cooperate. Cooperate. Cooperate sounds broken, it sounds stiff, it sounds unnatural. So always remember if you can, especially inside of words where there are voiced sounds, don't stop your voice unless there's an unvoiced sound. Alright, Finally, we're going to practice long words. Later on in this section. Let's go to six syllables just to get crazy here. Getting crazy. Ready on mod p. Onomatopoeia. Ben Fish, she re, beneficiary. Whew, Man it, tear RI and humanitarian act to linearization, actualization. Now, this one people might just say char, location. So that one might become a five syllable words, sometimes actualization. It could be a five syllable word. Act to the u, u, that makes it six. Okay, and the last one, vein. Because T availability. So how were these challenging? Pretty easy. Some difficult, some not very difficult. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm happy to answer questions. You might have an otherwise practice, practice, practice, make these habits. And I will see you in the next one. 45. Because of Complexity: In the last lesson, we practiced words that are challenging or difficult because of syllables. We practiced 12345 and even six syllable words, and some of those really were quite challenging. So I hope you've been practicing. In this lesson, we're going to be practicing a different set of challenging words. These difficult because of complexity. We're gonna be talking about words that are difficult because they have a complicated th sound. We'll practice those. We'll talk about words that are difficult to say because they have a complicated th sound. Not just a th sound, but a complex use of the th sound. And then we'll focus on a set of words that's difficult because of what you have to do with your mouth. Let's call it mouth gymnastics. You have to really move your mouth and some difficult ways in order to say the words correctly. Now we're going to be moving pretty quickly through this lesson. This is all about practice. So let's jump into our first set. The first set, as I said, is going to be about difficult th sounds. And by that I mean, not just the th sound that, that, that's, that's the th sound. We've practiced that difficult because the th sound is with something else that we have to move from one sound to another. In most cases, that's why th is difficult. Now, that might not always be true in the case of e.g. something, that one can be difficult for other reasons. So notice here that we have the x both unvoiced followed by th. So we have to go very quickly, jumping from one to the next. And THS, you have to say all those sounds. You have to say all of them. There's nothing unique about each sound. It's that you have to put them together without making it sound awkward. That's the challenge. And you really have to practice that in order to get it, which we will do L, f, t, h. Well, that's difficult. Oh, don't worry. Don't have to practice this yet. I'm just giving you a sense for this. The S going from the voiced th sound directly to that z sound of the S. And then words that are difficult because you have the S right next to the th sound. That can be quite challenging. So just be aware that we're not making any new sounds here. We're not learning any new sounds. We're learning how to put the sounds we already know together in a way. This section and also the next section will be about taking what we've built, our foundation and doing things with it, taking it to the next level, challenging ourselves to really start making those more complicated sounds that are so common in spoken English. Okay, So let's go through these one at a time. And I'm going to go really slowly and then regular speed. Okay. Here we go. 656. Month, three months. Well, 12th. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. Okay. Now this one's a little different because it's challenging because we have an S sound and then a th sound. Some thing, something. Now it gets more difficult when you try to say it faster because you've already said the S sound, to remember the th sound. Easy to say something or something, write something, something, something, something you have to get your tongue into the th sound position quite quickly. This one's a little special. Clo. Clothes. Okay. So when I said that I did put my tongue there. The, the right. However, most people, when they say this word won't actually say clothe is they'll say close. They'll just say the word CLOSE-UP, the verb close. That's it. So it's okay if you just say that, that's totally fine. Maybe technically, according to the rules, you're not supposed to, but it really is the same sound. People say it the same way. Now some longer words with the S right next to the th. Don't be afraid of big words. We're gonna be talking about those next. Don't be afraid of big words, they're not that scary. And the z ya'll just anesthesiologist. Now, why is that difficult? Because you have to go from so you have to do the unvoiced S sound than the unvoiced th sound, Theseus. And then you go directly to the z sound fees. Fees. These that's difficult. That's a challenge. Anesthesiologist. Okay. How about this one? Last one here? Cal lis fan, Nick's calisthenics. Make sure you've got the th sound in there. It's easy to skip it for that one and then make sure you're going to the next sound right after it. Thin, thin, but don't say then x. Then x is not correct. So it's unvoiced and going directly to voiced, you got to get used to switching your voice on and off very quickly when you need to. Really practice these. Because if you can get good at saying these, then your mouth will be used to saying much easier th sounds. It's actually a way to further push yourself to develop the habit. You can say that when you do something really difficult and then you go back and do something easier, it seems even easier. That's not true for everybody, but it is true for many people who are learning pronunciation, okay, Now, what about words that are challenging? Not because of how to say them, but because when you see them, actually, what you see is not what it sounds like. They're actually many of those words in spoken English. Very interesting and complicated history about why that is. But it's a fact. Many words look different than they actually sound when we say them. So we're going to go through a few of these. Certainly, not all of them. Okay. How would you guess this sounds? ***, tap, CIO. Now, not quite. That's a soft sound. Alright, so let's go through these. This is where you really need to use your ear. I don't want you to trust your eyes. I want you to trust your ears, which should be getting sharper and sharper by now. More refined by now, trust your ears. Repeat after me. Dash xi 0, pistachio. Current know, kernel. Don't trust your eyes, trust your ears. Bare. Re Barry segue. Segue. Paid me a pity me. More. Good. Mortgage. We're all squirrel. Kein kein y. Okay. So yes, these don't look as they sound. This sounds like BER RY. Well, those are homophones. Actually they do have the same pronunciation. This sounds like. Segue way. Why? Yes, that's right. It's certainly does. This sounds like KERM EL Absolutely. It certainly does. I don't hear the you here. No, that's true. You don't hear the hue there. So all of those objections, you can just sort of toss away and say, Well, okay, that's what it sounds like. So that's what I'll say. And that actually can make life a lot easier, right? When you don't have to stress about, alright, this is spelled this way. I have to say it this way. Just trust your ears if you get good at differentiating sounds. It's like having an amazing superpower. Finally, we're going to talk about words that are challenging because of mouth movement. That means it's a little bit difficult to move your mouth in that way. Now I would say e.g. 12th is an example of that. An anesthesiologist is an example of that. You have to do some difficult things with your mouth to make it happen, to make it sound natural. But we're going to focus on some that are specifically a bit challenging to do with the mouth. So follow along with me. We've practiced this first one before. Dao, own town downtown. Act to really actually Nam knee anemone phenomenon. Phenomenon. Me and y yo meanwhile, fishes physically. Tornadoes, tornadoes, nerve wrack, King, nerve wracking. Okay. So e.g. this one, you have to put the v and the w very close together. And you have to go directly into that next sound. This one, you have to twice do. Oh, wow, wow, wow. That's a challenge. When you say this one, you start with this at and then you have to go and then act to. Alright, so that's pretty challenging as well. This one, you have to make a lot of different vowel sounds change very quickly. Or nan, ne, anemone, that can be challenging to get those mixed up if you don't move your mouth in the correct way when you say the word. And this one can be quite challenging as well because you're switching back and forth between an phenomenon, phenomenon mean while knew what, knew what directly from the N to the w sound, knew while, new while. So that movement can be a little challenging. Now for physically cli, cli, you have to be careful to go directly from the sea to the l and that can be a challenge. So physic and then directly into CLI. And instead of Kali. Now, if you say physically it's okay. But most people will say physically clinically. So you have to reduce that gap between the C and the L tornadoes. Tornadoes. So you're going from a simple sound of tour directly to the long sound of May. And then dose. So a dose, a dose, you have to switch very quickly between those two, which can be a challenge. So practice these until you can master them, until you can do them in your sleep, until you don't need to think about it until their habits. Work on those, let me know if you have any questions. In the next lesson, we're going to be talking about words that are challenging because they are long, kind of like this one. That's a pretty long word, anesthesiologist. But the ones we're going to look at in the next lesson or even longer. But you don't need to be afraid just because a word is long. It's not that scary. You'll see. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 46. Because of Length: Things to Remember: In the last lesson, we've practiced words that are difficult because of complexity. In this lesson, we're going to be focused on and practicing words that are difficult because they're long, long words. Now, I want to just cover a few things about long words first, before we look at a few examples. Just a few examples. In fact, we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about long words and you might be thinking, but why? I should know long words, right? Well, let me talk through a few points and I think you'll better understand why we don't need to practice this too much. But it's important to still to talk about it when you see a long word or a big word. But it's the same thing. You don't have to feel nervous because really big words, long words, they're made up of smaller pieces. And we'll see some examples now. There are a couple of exceptions of course, but most of the time when you see a really long word, they have parts. There are other words inside of that word. Let's take a word like greenhouse. Well, that's not a very that's not a very long word of course, but it's made up of two words, green and house, right? We also talked about prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes, little parts at the beginning of the word, like PRE, pre, which means before n. That can make a word longer. That's a piece or a suffix that goes at the end, like T-I-O-N. Like we've talked about. A lot of these things can make up longer words. When you see it, you say odd so long, it's so huge. When you see it initially, you might think, Oh, it's so long, so huge, I'll never be able to say that. But then after you really look at it, you realize, okay, it's not that scary. The other reason why we don't need to spend too much time focusing on long words, big words is that they're not particularly common. You won't come across nearly as many very long words as you will, short words and medium length words. So for that reason, we don't need to spend quite as much time talking about it and practicing long words. Finally, I just want to mention something when you are reading along word or saying a word that's really long, make sure you're focusing on the stress that you place on the word. Why is that important? Because if you don't focus on stress, especially for long words, stress of course, is important for short words, it's important for sentences, of course. But for long words, if you tend to keep your voice flat and don't stretch any syllables, don't make some syllables louder than others. Then you're going to sound a bit like a robot. And it can be tempting to kind of just keep your voice flat throughout the word. Avoid doing that. It's easier to remember when you're stressing different words, right? Or if there's a word with only two syllables, not as easy to remember. If the word is really, really long and it has eight syllables or nine syllables or 12 syllables. Okay, so just keep that in mind. Alright, now let's get into some example, long words, just for fun. 47. Because of Length: Examples: Now that we've talked about a few things to keep in mind when pronouncing long words are big words. Let's practice a few. Now. Remember, longer words are usually made up of smaller pieces. So there's nothing to be afraid of. And also, when it comes to learning the pronunciation of long words, there's really nothing special about how you learn it. Just like everything else. You develop, your listening. You hear it. You make sure that you have that self-awareness so that when you try it, you can tell the difference. And then you try to match that sound. It's important to develop the year if your ears well-developed, if you have that self-awareness, if you're able to copy those sounds, those are the only real pieces that you need to master pronunciation. It's just that, that's not an easy thing to do and takes a lot of practice. Okay, so here we go. Let's go through really just for fun. Let's go through our list of long words. Now notice these are long in length, not necessarily in syllables. This one is quite a long word here, but not that many syllables as we talked about in a previous lesson. Okay, so here we go. We'll do two at a time, two at a time to each follow me. Repeat after me. Pick sure. Fsck. Picturesque TO tau lit, tear RI, niches. Totalitarianism. Now you might think, oh, that last one is so hard, it's so different. Well, I want to point out something interesting is that they're similar length, right? But this one picturesque, that's only three syllables. How about this one? To tear RI, nis? Eight syllables, That's eight syllables. Similar length. So the thing that makes it challenging is just practicing saying those eight syllables together. Not that any sounds individually in that word are necessarily difficult. You see the word total there TO towel. Okay. Terry and like vegetarian? Yeah. Ism at the end. Oh, so those are the pieces. So just study the pieces and practice it until it becomes a habit. Now we're going to look at this ridiculously long one. That's not a habit for me to say. I don't think I've ever actually had to say it out loud before. I'm going to try for you. But when will you need to say that? Pretty much never. Now this is a special case and we'll talk about this word coming up that's from a movie. And it's something that's kind of out there in the culture. So let's go through a few more before we get to those. In cons. Quench show inconsequential bio luminescence. Bio luminescence. Prefix in. And then the next part is close to, close to consequence, consequence, consequence I know. And then a different ending, bio, bio, by the way, two syllables, bio. Luminescence is yes, somewhat more difficult to say. Luminescence is related to light. Luminescence. Okay, So if you can learn luminescence, then you just put bio in front of it. Bioluminescence. Really you're just adding pieces together. Okay, Let's try this one. Why no dependence, so just adding something in front of it right? In turn. D, pen, dense interdependence, pro crass determination, procrastination. Here we're just sticking pro PRO on the front of this part, cross-pollination, which I don't think has a meaning by itself. Agrid called Sure list. Agriculturalist. Non, trends for bowl. Non transferable agriculture. I know that word that's related to farming, right? So that's one piece. And then this ISTE ending, well, that's something I've heard before. Dentist. So an IST is often a person who does that. Yeah. So not only are you noticing the parts so that you can say the word more easily and recognize the pieces and just say the pieces. You're also, if you don't know the word, looking at the pieces as a way to guess what it means. If I know that East is an ending which tells me this is a person that does something related to this. Then I can guess that if I see agriculture before it going to be a person that does agriculture or does something related to it, right? Yeah. If I tell you that D and T means teeth or is it related to teeth? And then IST, oh, okay, that makes sense. So studying the pieces of words can be very useful for this one, non naught and transfer, transfer. A BLE, that's an ending which tells me that it's an adjective, right? Comfortable. Non transferable, common endings for different forms. Adjective ending, I know the word transfer, then none means the opposite. Oh, I'm learning both the pronunciation or how to say these long words more easily. And I'm learning about word forms and learning about how to figure out the meanings of words. Even if I don't look them up. Now we get into crazy town. Long word, crazy long words. Alright, for these, Let's do them piece by piece first because I don't expect you to remember the whole word that I say the first time. I'm going to pronounce a piece, repeat after me. Just say it one time. And then I'm going to read the whole word, Ready? Hydro, flora. Flora, carbon. Now you'll hear people say hydro chloro fluorocarbon, but most people will say this one. And this one has a schwa, sounds more like an, a chloride, chloride, chloride flora, flora, flora like that. So altogether it's slowly and then regular speed. Hydro chlorofluorocarbon, hydrochloric fluorocarbon. Okay. I'm not saying you need to know how to say this long word. It's okay if you don't, but don't be afraid of it. Now, this is kind of a special case here because it's from a movie and it gets its meaning from that movie. I'm not really sure what it means. The point of the word in the movie is that you just say it when you don't know what else to say. If you've ever seen the classic film, Mary Poppins, strongly recommended if you haven't seen it, it's a great movie. It's a classic. There's a song and they're called super Calla fragilis stick XB Ella doses. So it's kind of this made-up word that they sing about. But as in many cases, things from culture, movies, art seep into the culture outside of that movie or piece of art or song, right? So that's what's happened here. Most American native English speakers will easily be able to say super Calla fragilis stick SPL at doses. Because it's kind of a famous long word. And it's from that movie. And it's kind of a tongue twister, which is something we're going to talk about later in the course. Tongue twisters. It's kind of a tongue twister. So you would learn it just because other people know it. Not that you need to use that in a sentence. Nobody will use this word that I know. No one will use this word in a sentence because they want to communicate something that this word means. The point of this word is that it doesn't really have a meaning. It's just from this movie. But it's, we could say a famous word, a famous nonsense word. I think it would be a better way to say it. But really if you look at the pieces, it's not that difficult. The difficulty is learning how to say it quickly. And you can do that if you want to practice moving your tongue around and get better. Muscle memory, practicing things like this and tongue twisters can help muscle memory to build habits. So it can be a certainly a useful thing. Alright, so follow after me. Super Calla fragilis tick XB Ella dosha super color fragilis tick SPL at osha super Keller fragilis take XP Ella doses. Okay. Not important to learn that word. Not important, but if you think it's interesting, now one that's challenging for me. This may be the longest word in the English language or close to it. This is the scientific name of a disease. A lot of scientific names are quite long and clunky and don't sound very good. So they often have a common name. So there'll be a common name and then a scientific name that scientists will use to describe whatever they're talking about. But still it's just made of pieces. If you look at this long word, you'll notice other things inside of it that look kind of like words. And that's because that's what's going on. Pneumo, like pneumonia. Okay. Ultra, ultra microscopic. Microscopic. Silicone. Silicone, we're maybe silicon silica. Okay, I've heard that before. Volcano volcanoes in there. Now I'm not saying this is how to pronounce them. I'm just saying, hey, look, here are some pieces of words you might recognize. Don't be scared of such a long word. Not that you would ever need to say it, but when you come across long words, I just want you to lose your fear. And so I'm taking you to the top of Mount Everest so that you can see the biggest word. So that when you come across a long word, you can say, I know how to say the longest word in the English language. This one is no problem. I'm trying to acclimate you to high altitude, like taking you up to Mount Everest, so that when you go back down, you're a super, a superhuman. Alright? So here we go. By the way, I don't think I've ever said this word out loud before, so we're just going to try it. Alright, This is an exercise for me as well. So here we go. Part by part. Repeat after me. New mano. All tra microscopic. Silico, volcano. Connie osis. Okay. Let's try the whole thing. New Mano wall Trump microscopic silicone volcano can Neo cis? Let me try to say it faster. New mono ultra microscopic silico volcano candidiasis, did I say correctly? Pneumonia, ultra microscopic silicone, Volcanic Axis. I think maybe. I don't know, I have to practice it. So don't do what I did. Don't try to say it slowly for the first time and then make sure you got it right and then suddenly say it quickly. I was just doing that for fun. I'm not recommending you do that when you're learning words. Like your piano teacher taught you to play the piano. You play it slowly until you've mastered it. You've absolutely mastered it, you've got it down. Then you slowly start to increase the speed until you get up to your normal speaking speed. What is normal for you? And that's different for everybody. So don't force yourself to speak quickly or to speak slowly once you've mastered it. But until then, start slow buildup, develop the muscle memory, build the habits, then try to say it at regular speed, but always make sure you've got the sound right. That's the whole point of this course. To learn by exercise, to learn by practice. Okay? So that is it for this lesson about big words, long words. If you have any questions, let me know. In the next lesson, we're going to be talking about words that are difficult to pronounce because of origin. So I will see you in the next lesson. 48. Because of Origin: Things to Keep in Mind: In the last lesson, we've practiced long words like super Calla fragilis, stick XB acidosis. Don't worry if you can't say it yet, keep practicing. You'll get there. In this lesson. We're going to be talking about and practicing words that can be difficult to say because of their origin. Let me explain what I mean. Have you ever been watching an English movie or reading an English book and you heard a word that you thought sounds like not really an English word. Maybe another language like French, e.g. the word chandelier. That's a good example. And you thought to yourself, why are those English speakers saying that word? I think that word is a French word. Am I wrong? Well, that's what's interesting about language in general. And English is certainly no exception. Think about it like this. Here's a word and it's from one language. Let's say it's Latin. Now people don't speak Latin anymore as a language. We call it a dead language. So the people in Rome were speaking Latin and then the Romans spread out. And then there were all these different provinces. They were speaking Latin. But because they were so far away from Rome, they started developing their own local dialects. And then those things, those little dialects in those different places started to develop into their own languages. That's how it happens. It starts with a language and then it starts to change over time, usually because it's in a different region, far away from its, Let's say homebase. If we can say that over time, over a long period of time, it develops into another language like French, Spanish, Italian. And I don't have any more branches here, so I'll stop here, but this is how language changes over time. Now why am I telling you this? Well, it's important to understand if you want to understand any language. Because in any language there will be words borrowed, borrowed from other languages. Japanese, e.g. includes many borrowed words from English because that's useful. But when you hear that word in Japanese, it doesn't sound exactly like How it's said in English. And English also includes many words that come from other languages. Now often those are borrowed. So we'll take that word like espresso. That's a word we use an English every day, but it's not originally an English word, it's an Italian word. So we borrowed that and we use that in the language. But didn't want to make up a new word. Because, why make up a new word if there's a perfectly good word right over there for exactly that thing. Okay, so most coffee related words, Americano espresso, cappuccino, those are Italian words because the coffee is originally Italian style. Coffee makes sense, right? But just borrowing because it's useful. It's not the only reason. There are many other reasons why words might come into a language and it gets really complicated. One example might be an invasion. So this is getting into history. And we won't talk too much about this, but I just wanted to give you a sense for it. Invasion. In 1066, there was an invasion of England by French-speaking people. Their king was called William the Conqueror. And they came into England. And they ruled England for a pretty long period of time. And when they did that, they brought a lot of old French words into the English language. So that's why in English you have a lot of French words, ballet and chandelier. Both of those are, but it's not just French, and it's not just invasion. And it's not just borrowing. Many different reasons, many different languages. It's very complicated if you ever want to know where a word comes from, the origin of the word, you can go to Google or any search engine and you can search the word. And then etymology. Just search the word and then search the word entomology. And you'll get to know a little bit about the background of that word. Oh, actually, this comes from, directly from Latin, or this word was originally from Sanskrit, and then that became part of another language. Then from there it became part of English. So it's a really interesting thing to study. I'm not suggesting that you should study it. You have to study it if you're interested. Great. The takeaway, the point is that there are many words that English uses, which either are directly borrowed from other languages, like espresso or originally came from other languages. And what we're going to do in this lesson is we're going to practice some of these words. We're gonna be talking about words we use in English that come from other languages. Certainly not all of them because there are too many to possibly count. There are so many from so many places around the world, so many different languages, but we'll be going through a few based on different languages. If I don't cover a word that comes originally from your language, it's not intentional. I don't mean any offense by it. It's just that we have only so much time to talk about words. So I'm going to cover some of the common ones. The other thing that's important to keep in mind before we go through these words is that I'm going to be teaching you the American English pronunciation of those words. Think about a word that you use every day in your language that is actually an English word or comes from English, maybe it's borrowed. How is that pronounced? Is it pronounced exactly like the American English pronunciation? Unlikely. Probably is pronounced a little differently. Maybe because it has another form. Maybe it's been changed a little bit. E.g. that's very common in Japanese. It's actually spelled differently, but it comes from English. Well, it's kinda the same for borrowed words in English, we use those words and we have our own pronunciation for those words. So that's what I'm going to be going over with you. I won't be attempting to teach you the pronunciation of those words in their native language. That would be outside of the scope of this course and certainly outside of my area of expertise, right? So I'm going to teach you how Americans say these words. And so if you hear a word that sounds like it's been mispronounced because it's from your language and that's not how you say it. I get it. I understand. But remember, when a word is borrowed, it usually changes pronunciation to fit the style and the sounds of that language. And that's kind of how it works. And that's part of this beautiful process of language is changing over time, which I think is very interesting. 49. Because of Origin: India, Japan, Italy: Now, let's spend some time practicing the pronunciation of some words, very common in everyday spoken American English, but which originate in other languages. Now I want to say this one more time. I am not teaching you the correct pronunciation in the language of origin. I'm teaching you the pronunciation that American English speakers typically use. So if you hear a word from your language and your first thought is that that's not right? Pause for a moment. Yes. It's not right. Perhaps. I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't in your language, in that context. But I want to teach you how American English speakers use those words because we use them all the time. Alright, so now that we've said that, let's get into our words. We're going to be going by country and we're going to start with India. Now, we go by country for a few reasons. But one e.g. with India, would be that there are many languages in India. There are many local dialects, there are many different languages, different mother tongues in India. So it'd be a little complicated to break it down by language, right? Instead, we're going to focus on country specific to each country because each country has also its own dialects, we're really just focusing on big picture origins here. So let's start with India. Here we go. Guru, Guru, juggernaut, juggernaut, shampoo, shampoo, karma, karma, Nirvana, nirvana, pajamas. Pajamas. Bandana, bandana, Avatar, Avatar, all very common. Okay, now let's go on to Japanese. Sudoku. Sudoku. I've heard some people say Sudoku, but most people will say Sudoku. Raman, Raman DICOM. Dicom. The type of radish tycoon, Tycoon, mango. Mango, and the MAY animal, a karaoke. Karaoke. Now I know that doesn't look like karaoke, but that's, that's how people say it. They say with an e sound. Karaoke. And Anna Mae, like animal, same. And manga. A instead of manga, it's manga, manga. And this is one sound, di, di, di icon. Now let's go to a fairly large group and I want you to notice the focus on food here. A lot of food words that we use in everyday English or Italian. There are many food related words that come from Italian. Especially as I mentioned, coffee drinks, almost all of them. Cap, but she know cappuccino. Duet. Duet, or you could say duet with the stop t sound, duet. Diva, diva. Motto. Motto. Notice the light d sound their patio. Patio. Cello. Cello. Pizza. Pizza. Now notice I'm not saying Piazza. I'm having a stop sound. They're just like there's a T pizza. Virtue. Whoa, so virtuoso, graffiti, graffiti, balcony, balcony. Do, DO. Studio. Villa, villa. Grow tests, grotesque, salami, salami, barista, barista, casino, casino quarantine. Quarantine. A word that we're all used to probably by now, right now we have one more group to look at. But before we go on, I want to make sure you notice something. The American pronunciation still tends to follow a lot of things we've talked about so far in this course. E.g. here, pajamas. Well, that's the schwa sound because we're not stressing that syllable. Okay? And Nirvana, nirvana, that IR is just the r sound as it usually is, like SIR, sir, nurse or nurse. So whatever the original pronunciation is, there's certainly an American ish sound with the pronunciations of most of these, the same would be true for Raman. Raman. That's definitely the schwa sound, unstressed, unstressed. Also, notice what we're doing with the T's with these Italian words. Motto, others that light D, motto, motto, there's that light Di Salvo, patio, patio. That light d sound there. I can hear that duet, duet. That's that stopped t sound that we learned. So the point is here, a lot of these are following the same patterns that we've talked about earlier in the course. And that's because it's comfortable for American English speakers to say things in certain ways. And if those words came over in their original pronunciation every time, that would probably be difficult. Because there are sounds in some languages that are not in other languages. There are sounds in spoken English that are not used in other languages, e.g. the th sound is not common in many other languages in the world. So usually if there's an English word that's borrowed by another language, then it isn't. It's pronounced a different way, it's changed a little bit, and that's what you would expect. Here. Pizza. We're still practicing that stop t sound. That's kind of a weird one. But we have this imaginary tea in front of the z, Pete, Pete. Imagine there's a stop T there. Pete. Pete, pizza. Pizza. Pizza. Oh, okay. Quarantine. Remember that w sound after the queue? So try to get a feeling for these as imagined their English words that you're learning, even though they have different origins, practice those by yourself and now let's go on to practice another group. 50. Because of Origin: Germany, France, China: We've talked about words typically used in spoken American English that originate from India, Italy, and Japan. Now we're going to talk about in practice. For more. We have one more group to talk about and to practice starting with Germany. Now actually some people say, Hey, English is actually from German, right? No, actually that's not true. You might have heard that English is a Germanic language, but that doesn't mean it's from German. And in fact, what you could say is that English and German are cousins and they share a common grandma. And that common grandma happens to have a name closer to German. But really they're more like cousins, and they have a few other cousin languages as well, in the same way that Italian and Portuguese and Spanish are cousins and their grandma is Latin or am I guess you could say their, their mother is Latin. I don't know, Grandma, mother, proto Germanic and that's a little bit older. Anyway, that is beside the point. That is not what this lesson is about. We're here to practice pronunciation. So let's do that. Let's dive into our words that come from German. Here we go twice for each one. Pretzel, pretzel Zeit geist, Zeit geist, noodle, noodle. Zeplin, Zeplin, poltergeist, poltergeist, Uber, uber brat, worst, bratwurst, poodle, poodle, hamburger, hamburger, hinder, guard, and kindergarten. Okay, So for these, this one, but most people will say Brad, Brad, brad worst. This word, of course, has become very common. The name of a popular ride-sharing service, Uber, Uber, but maybe 15 years ago was not common in spoken English. Now is quite common. And also this word here, Zeit geist, is becoming more common as well. It seems like it was less common before. That's just my impression. Some people will say this as Zeit geist. And some people will say Zeit geist, the t at the end, and a stop, tea before the g sound. And then pretzel is the same thing as pizza. In a way, there's that stops sound before the sound. Prep, PrEP, prep. Pretzel pizza, pretzel pizza. It's the same kind of sound there in the middle. Alright, let's go on to France. Here we go. Follow me. Filet minion, filet minion. A chord. A chord. Facade. Facade, gallery, gallery. Foie gras. Foie gras are KD, arcade, beef, beef, Cirillo, wet, silhouette, chauvinism. Chauvinism. Terrorists, Terrorists, port trip, portrait. Kay, quickly on these. Notice here that we have a soft Csound. And actually you often see this one with a little accent thing. You are a little thing on the C, right? Because it's not originally an English word. So we learned before a we usually don't a soft see if it's followed by an a. In this case it's a soft see, fuss facade, facade. Facade. Also. You would think that would be Cade, right? But it's not, It's sod. And then this one is like this f sound. And then why? Floss? Floss, foie gras? And because it's a French word, that S is not pronounced like that. So in spoken American English, while we often have our own pronunciation, we also may obey some of the rules of the origin word. And French would be a good example of that. We often will not say the last letter if it's a French word and it ends with a consonant like Gras, in this case, or ballet, something like that, which ends with a t. Alright, now let's go on to Dutch from the Netherlands. Ready freight, freight, cram, cramp, Aardvark, Aardvark, E, So E, So landscape, landscape, ice berg, iceberg. Sketch, Sketch, slurp, slurp, furlough, furlough. Jin, Jin. So this G is the same as the j sound. So it's the soft G. Remember, we talked about that for this one, e, g, h, t, it doesn't matter how many letters it is that makes the t sound. It's the fact that it's the t sound. So just like WE i, g, h, t, it can be used with the stop sound. Usually will have the stop t sound at the end. Freight weight rather than freight weight. Now quickly I want to mention this. Sometimes you'll hear this one pronounced with the z sound. I hear people say sometimes easel, easel, easel and sometimes Esau. Esau. And that might be a regional difference. I know people who say it both ways, sometimes easel and sometimes easel. So I would say both are okay because both are common and we're learning here typical American English pronunciation. But just be aware, I think that E cell is more common. Alright, Finally, let's look at China. Words that originate in Chinese. Are you ready? Here we go. China. China. I think this one's really interesting because Chinese people don't use the word China when they talk about China. In Chinese, they use the word China when they're speaking English about China. But the word China does come from China. I think that's interesting. I think that's cool. Alright, here we go. Bok Choy, Bok Choy. Cat shop, ketchup, Kung fu, Kung fu, typhoon, typhoon. Walk. Walk TO fu, tofu. Cao, Cao, Cao, Cao CheA. Chea. Also some interesting things here, other than why we say China and where it comes from, you should look that up. It's really interesting. But we say this one. Tofu. Tofu, we focus on the second part. In fact, many other languages around the world borrow that word from Chinese, but it sounds a little bit different, used in each language or in each dialect, which I find very interesting. American English tends to emphasize the second syllable of that one. And for this one, the first Cao, Cao, Cao, Cao. Now this one is kind of changing. You'll hear some people say it as key. So some people will say it like this, k e key, key, key, or I guess I should just write KEY, right? Key like that. Some people will still say it like that. More and more people say it like this. Ch, CH e, CI, CI, which is closer to the pronunciation in Chinese. But it's a really interesting thing to get into where these words come from in these different languages. How they came into English, how they moved around, how the pronunciation changed. I find it really interesting. If you're curious about that, I would recommend doing your own research, really exploring, it can be a lot of fun, but of course, of course the most important thing is to master the pronunciation. So don't forget to practice, write down the ones that are most challenging for you and repeat them over and over and over until you've developed a habit muscle memory. So that's it for this section. In the next section of the course, we're going to be doing pronunciation challenges. These are things that will put your pronunciation to the test. You'll have the chance to practice what we've been learning up to this point. And really push yourself, really challenge yourself, so that you can master pronunciation and sound natural when you speak without having to think about it. So I will see you in the next section. 51. Why tongue twisters?: Hey, welcome to the next section of the course. We're actually getting very close to the end of the course. So congratulations on making it up to this point. We have covered a lot. We've talked about the basics, the essential sounds. We've gone into more challenging sounds, difficult sounds, how to say them, how to build the habits. In this section, we're going to be focusing on pronunciation challenges. So less of a focus on specific sounds within words and more of a focus on things that you can do to build better pronunciation habits, to develop muscle memory, and things that you can do on an ongoing basis to improve your pronunciation continuously going into the future. Okay, So that's what we're going to focus on in this section. We're going to be talking a bit about the shadowing method. I know we've talked about that already, but I want to make sure it's clear exactly what steps to follow. We're going to be talking about minimal pairs and a few other things. But in this first lesson of this section, we're going to be focusing on tongue twisters. Now, you may already know what a tongue twister is. In fact, you may have already practiced tongue twisters with me in a previous course, but we're going to spend some time focusing on this because it can be a very effective way to practice pronunciation. Tongue twisters are typically little poems, although they don't always rhyme and they don't always make sense, they're often nonsense, but they have sounds in them or words in them with sounds that are the same all the way through, e.g. at the beginning and the end or very close together, maybe there's a tongue twister with a lot of m and n sounds. And you have to say a lot of m and n sounds in the little poem, and that forces you to practice M and N very quickly. There's a classic one you may have heard. She sells seashells by the seashore. She sells seashells by the seashore. What's challenging about that? You have the S sound and the SH sound. They're quite close together. You have to go back and forth and say them in rapid succession, going back and forth. Right? So what's the point of this? Tongue twisters? It's true, are often taught to children, not only in English. Of course, many languages, perhaps most languages, maybe all languages have them. And children often like to practice them and see how fast they can do them. But why? Why do we teach children tongue twisters? Well, when they're growing up, they're young, they're developing their ability to speak and use language, right? This is part of that muscle memory. As I've been saying throughout the course. When you are speaking, you don't want to be thinking about pronunciation. In fact, that's bad. If you're thinking about pronunciation, then you haven't made pronunciation enough of a habit, right? So how can you do that? Well, you build muscle memory like you would with anything you want to get good at, which is repetition. What is one way to repeat? Should it be the same word over and over and over again. Downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown. Certainly you could do it that way. But you could also use tongue twisters. They might be even more challenging because you have to practice more sounds together with tongue twisters, it's important to start slow and you don't want to sacrifice or give up precision. As I've also been saying throughout the course, if you learn the piano, the teacher teaches you to play slowly first. And as you increase speed, you don't get worse. You're supposed to be just as good. And you increase speed only as fast as you're able to still play it well, well, it's the same for pronunciation. Don't speed up. If your pronunciation is not as clear when you speed up. Only speed up. Number one if you want to, and number two, if the sounds are just as clear as when you say them slowly. So when you're practicing tongue twisters, don't just try to say them quickly, immediately. That's not the point you kind of build up to it. And then of course there's a breaking point where it gets so fast that you can't say it and you just say I give up. So she sells seashells by the seashore. She sells seashells by the sea. I messed up. So that's too fast for me. So I say, okay, that's as fast as I can go. She sells seashells by the seashore. Oh, okay. That's probably as fast as I can go. But the other classic one, Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers, a pickup pickled peppers. Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? That one would be probably a little faster than the She sells seashells. Maybe because I've practiced it more, right? I can't do that the first time. I've said that one so many times in my life that I've just become a little bit better at it and I can do it a little faster without sacrificing precision. So that's important to keep in mind. And also these don't have to make sense. The important thing is that you're putting the right sounds that are close together, that are really challenging you. If you can't find a tongue twister and we're going to go through some. If you cannot find a tongue twister You like, that pushes you to practice things that are challenging for you. Make your own. It's fine. Take sounds or words with sounds that are challenging to you. Stitch them together into a little poem, maybe four lines or something like that. And then slowly increase the speed as you practice. Those. Don't be afraid to build your own, okay? So those are just a few things to keep in mind for tongue twisters. Now let's get into some practice. 52. Tongue Twister Examples: Part 1: We're going to now spend some time practicing tongue twisters. We have two groups to look at, but these are certainly not all the tongue twisters. You can make your own, as I said, you can go out and find more. We're just looking at some that are somewhat challenging. And I want you to note the things about each ones that are challenging. And remember, of course, when you're practicing these, and I hope you do practice them, start slow before you increase speed. Okay, now for this first one, what are the challenging sounds here? Where we have the S sound and then we have the c sound. But also this one is the CH sound. And we have to say these words in order. And because we have to switch between sounds quite quickly, even if we're saying it's slowly, it can be a bit of a challenge. So listen carefully. I'm going to say each one of these twice. The first time, slowly, the second time at regular speed, I'm going to say the whole sentence. Ready? Six, check cricket Critics. Six check cricket critics. Okay, now for this one, there's something you can do that might make it easier. Check cricket. So these two, because it's the same sound, check and cricket, It's the same sound. So it's okay if you put those two together, cricket critics, you can have the stop T there instead of cricket critics, cricket critics, cricket critics, right? That might make it maybe a little easier. And then the six checks might be the most challenging part because you have to go from x to x. And that's something to practice. That's why this one is a tongue twister. Six check cricket critics. Then you can work on speeding it up once you've really mastered it. For this next one, we're dealing with the l sound and the r sound, switching back and forth quickly between l and r, which is also somewhat challenging. So let's go through these. Really leery. Rarely Larry, really leery rarely Larry. Now, this is challenging because you're starting with R and then L, and then r and then L. And then the next sound after r is L. And then you start again with L and the next sound is our. And then you start with R and you say R again and then L, then L and then R. So that fast switching back and forth makes this one quite difficult. I don't know if I could say it much more quickly than regular speed. Really leery. Rarely Larry, really leery, really Larry. Close, but even that is a little bit too fast for me. I would slow it down a little bit. Okay, Now for the next one, we're also dealing with the l sound and we're dealing with the e sound. So mostly L and E, ready? 11 benevolent elephants. 11 benevolent elephants. Or you could say 11 benevolent elephants. So if you want to make the T-H sound there you can. For me, the challenge for this one is not following the same pattern here. This word is getting me used to saying 11, right? 11. So here I want to say the relevant, relevant because I said 11, I want to say vanilla event instead of benevolent. So kind of messes me up a bit. And that's one thing that makes tongue twisters difficult to, is getting you used to saying two words one way and then the next word being different. But because your brain is used to that, you say it, you're, you're tempted to say it the other way. I want to say vanilla Vint. I really want to say Bonilla event when I, when I see this after saying 11. But to have to force myself to slow down and say, benevolent Netherland, got it. Okay. Now here we have th, we have S, we have SH, and we have x. So this one is a challenge because we're moving back and forth very quickly between them. Here we go. The sixth sick, sheiks, sixth sheeps, sick. Now, careful with this one. The sixth sick. Sheiks, six sheeps, sick. Now, when we do it at regular speed, it'll be a little different because I was saying each word individually, and in fact, the S sound is shared there. So this is sheiks sixth, and this one is also shared. Sheep sick. So chic sixth and sheep sick. We're going to blend those together, right? So the sixth sick, that's also very challenging here because you're saying x sound to the th, to the Es. War. Very difficult to do, right? This may be one of the most difficult tongue twisters I've seen. Because you have that rapid change between very difficult sounds to switch between x, T, H, and S. And practice that slowly. Let me try this one at regular speed. The sixth, six Chic sixth, sheep sick. It's crazy difficult. That one's hard for me to say. Very hard. I definitely couldn't say it faster than that. The sixth, six Chic six sheep sick. It hurts. My brain, hurts my mouth. Okay. Now for this next one we're gonna be working with the Csound, the hard Csound, like the k sound, also m and n, and also r and l. So few different things happening inside of this one. How can a clam cram in a clean cream? Can How can a clam cram in a clean cream? Can that one not quite as challenging right here we're going to be especially focused on the th sound. Alright, here we go. 12 tenths months without a soothing bath. Little faster. 12 tenths months without a soothing bath. Now, we have months here, so that's unvoiced, then voiced without and then soothing voiced th and then unvoiced bath. So you're moving back and forth between voiced and unvoiced, which makes that somewhat challenging. Although I think at least for me, this one's a lot easier than especially this one. But I'm also aware that everybody is different. So if you find maybe this one most difficult, That's okay. Everyone is different. So practice that one more. And if you want to make your own liked that one, practice that what you're doing is getting your mouth used to doing things over and over close together, really challenging yourself. So that then it's a lot easier when you need to use those sounds in a conversation. You don't want to be thinking, right? Of course it's gotta be a habit. So practice these. We're gonna go on to look at one more group of tongue twisters. 53. Tongue Twister Examples: Part 2: Let's now practice our second and final group of tongue twisters that we're going to be working on for this lesson, for this course. Again, I would encourage you to go out there and find more fine ones that really challenge you. Now, for this first one, what are we practicing? What you can see a lot of T's and a lot of S's, but also notice the NTS sound. So the NTS and the ns, those are very close. So that might make it a little bit challenging. Here we go. Toast to ten tenths, stout saints, ten tall tenths. Now listen the second time at regular speed. And notice I'm putting together these two sounds. Notice I'm putting together these two sounds. And notice that I'm going to be kind of putting together these two because they're very close. Send toast to ten tenths doubts saints, ten tall tenths. Santos to ten tenths doubts saints ten tall tenths. So remember it's the sound, not the letter. Yes, there's an E here, but tenths, stout. Okay, so those should be connected together because they share a sound, right? Send and toast. We say send toast. We can blend them together because the d sound is very close to the t sound. Well, T and T, Those two are shared. So toast to or toast to, toast to ten tenths Stout, right? So making that flow together really does take some practice. Work on those. Now let's go to the next one and listen carefully to the m sound, that gee sound, and the n sound. And notice the slight differences between the sounds. It's important to get those right. And also notice the repetition for this one, we have this managing and manager, okay? And then also imaginary, imagine imaginary. And then Menagerie and menagerie. So we have some repeated words here, but that doesn't necessarily make it easier. Sometimes that makes it harder. In fact, here we go. Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing and imaginary menagerie. So for this one with the g sounds, are they all the same? Okay, So that's like J. J. Okay. So that's like Jay. Jay, Jay. Okay. All the same. Okay. Okay. But then this one is not it's the g sound. We learned, remember that? So it's not menagerie. It's menagerie. Menagerie. Menagerie. So we're moving back and forth between G and G. G and Zhou in addition to the m sound, imagine and Menagerie and manage, followed by different vowels. Which is what makes that a little bit challenging. Math and math. Math and math and math. So you have to switch back and forth with the vowels following the m sound and also the n sound. So let's try this one at regular speed. Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing and imaginary menagerie. That one's tough, that one's unique. It's unique because of all the repetition of the same words, right? Imaginary and imagine an imaginary again and then Menagerie and Menagerie again. So that makes it, I think, a little bit challenging. Alright, now let's go to the next one. For this one, we're obviously focused on the B sound. Notice almost every word starts with a B. You already a big black bug bit, a big black bear. But where is the big black bear that the big black bug bit? Now, this one, I think individually the words are not difficult. And even saying it slowly, I think maybe not as difficult as some of the others we've talked about. But maybe once you start to try to increase the speed, then you'll notice it starts to get difficult. A big black bug bit, a big black bear. But where is the big black bear that the big black bug bit. Notice here that I'm saying bid a big because this one is followed by the a. Remember then sometimes we have that light d sound, right? That makes it flow a little bit better. And when I say at regular speed instead of big black, we continue the voice. We've talked about this stuff and a lot of ways we're practicing what we've already learned. We're building on skills that we've honed and practiced earlier in the course, continue the voice of you can remember big black, big black, big black. The voice does not stop there for any of those. Okay. So regular speed. Here we go. A big black bug bit, a big black bear. But where is the big black bear that the big black bug bit? As I said, I think this one gets more challenging the faster you try to say it, I'll probably mess it up if I try it any faster. But let me just see a big black bug bit, a big black bear. But where's the big black bear that the big black bug bit? I did it. Yeah. That was correct. Any faster? A big black bug bit, a big black bear. But where's the big black bear that the big black bug bit tough. Now for the last one, notice we have the e sound, the long e sound, e, right? Okay, we have that. We also have the SSE sound, cheese trees and z breeze and frizzy breeze, right? We have that sound. We also have the th sound, pretty often th sound, and also F. And there's some flipping back and forth between different consonant sounds. Okay, soon as a bit of a challenge, Let's try it. I'm going to read through this one in parts because it's so long. So I'm going to read up to here and pause. Then I'll read up to here and pause and you can repeat after me. And then I will do the whole thing after that, the rest of it, I'll do it in three chunks, ready? Through three cheese trees, three free fleas, flew. We also have the R and the L flipping back and forth tree. Three free fleas flew. So the fleas and flu and free we have to switch back and forth as well. Fleas flew, frizzy breeze, blew for FRA and fluff bla, bla, bla and bro, bro. So the BL sound and then the BR sound and then the F L sound and the f sound. Something to also pay attention to. Now this one is a bit longer, so I'm going to read it in chunks. I will pause here for you to repeat after me. And I'll also pause here for you to repeat after me. Okay, here we go. Slowly through three cheese trees. Three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, a frizzy breeze, blew. Freeze the breeze made these three trees freeze. Freeze the trees, made these trees cheese freeze. That's what made these three free fleas sneeze. And also like we talked about, you can carry your voice between words while v is instead of while these, right? So now I'm going to go through the whole thing at regular speed, stopping at the same points. Okay. So regular speed tried to repeat after me. Here we go. Through three cheese trees, three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, a frizzy breeze blew. Next part, frizzy breeze made these three trees freeze. Last part, frizzy trees made these trees cheese freeze. That's what made these three free fleas sneeze. Alright, now I feel obligated to do the whole thing. Got to do the whole thing altogether, right? You have two through three cheese trees, three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, a frizzy breeze blew, frizzy breeze made these three trees freeze, freeze the trees, made these trees cheese freeze. That's what made these three free fleas sneeze. Challenging. Very difficult. This one is, this one is tough. It's tough when you put it all together and try to speed it up a little bit. So tongue twisters again practice these practice the ones that we've gone through here. But go out there and look for more. Find Peter Piper, fine. She sells seashells. And there are so many tongue twisters out there. Find them, practice them, get the muscle memory, build the habits. This is a great way for you to take what you've learned in this course, how to say all these sounds within these words and then build it into habits, long-term habits, with the goal of being able to say any sound. Anytime you need to. Practice, practice, practice, continue exploring. Don't stop here. Keep looking for more. Keep practicing, keep making your own. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 54. Minimal Pairs: Keep in Mind: In the last lesson, we practiced tongue twisters. I hope you've been working on those building up your muscle memory. In this lesson, we're going to be focused on minimal pairs, which will help you with something similar to tongue twisters. Muscle memory, identifying small differences between sounds, then building those up as habits in your pronunciation. But what is a minimal pair? What does that mean? Well, let's take a simple example. Two words, VET and w, e, t. Now, this doesn't have to be just two letters. It could be two different sounds. There's a lot you can do with minimal pairs. There are many different kinds, but you'll notice here that this at, at sound is the same. But what's different is this is the v sound obviously. And this is the w sound. Vet wet or vet wet. If we use this stop t sound. Now why would we want to practice this? Why would we want to do this? This is useful, especially when you have a problem area, a specific sound that's really difficult for you. It's the same thing if you're a scientist in a lab and you want to see which is more effective, a, or B, which one is more effective. So in the experiment, these two experiments, you want to keep everything else the same. Which one is better? Chemical a or chemical B? Well, the only way to know for sure is to make sure that all of the other factors are the same for both temperature in the room. Whatever else has to be the same. I'm not a scientist, but we do that here. We keep everything else the same so that we can just go back and forth between those two sounds, or sometimes three sounds. We have a pair because we want to put them close together side-by-side, that allows us to get a better feeling for them side-by-side. You can see them side-by-side. You're saying them back and forth. Listening carefully to what you say. Maybe recording yourself, listening back, listening to the differences. Trying to hear those subtle things that are different so that you can get the pronunciation perfect. Now, I'm not saying you struggle with v and w. If you struggle with these two sounds, then vet and wet might be good to use as minimal pairs, but it could be any other sounds. So what I just want you to keep in mind for these minimal pairs before we practice is number one, they help you differentiate sounds like a scientist of pronunciation. Number two, what we're going to talk about a fair number of them, those are certainly not all minimal pairs. In fact, I don't think there's a limit. Really. You can create as many as you want. So you can use the ones I've provided and we're going to practice together as a starting point. But then think carefully about what areas you struggle with. Really these are to help you practice differentiating and saying those subtly different sounds, especially the ones that you struggle with. So this should be unique to you. You should be making your own lists. You can find words out there that are similar. You can make up words if you want. It doesn't really matter. The point is not that these are real words. The point is that you're differentiating the sounds and practicing the subtle differences that maybe like a tongue twister, you can speed them up a little bit once you start to get good. So make your own. Don't be afraid to make them up. Don't be afraid to create ones that challenge you. And the key is that they challenge you, right? Don't just take my list and practice them directly. Maybe you don't have any issues with the ones that we practice, right? That's a starting point. Okay, so with those things in mind, let's jump into our minimal pairs. 55. Minimal Pairs Examples: Part 1: Like we did with tongue twisters, we're going to go through two groups of minimal pairs, each one with three sets, or we could say two sets with three groups each. It doesn't really matter. We're going to start with a vowel sound, minimal pairs, then T, H, and S, minimal pairs, and then CH and SH minimal pairs. Now, the sounds here should be review for you. We've talked about the sounds. We've practiced these sounds in this course. This is nothing new. It is a way for you to practice. And like I said, I want you to use this as a starting point and then make your own lists of minimal pairs and share them with me. I love to see them practice the ones that challenge you. So vowels than th and S, then CH and SH. Here we go. Short sounds first. This is review, definitely. Now for these, it's important to say in sequence, you want to say them side-by-side so that you can more easily here the differences. So I'm going to read through all five of these. Then. I'll read through all five of them again, first-time, slowly, second time at regular speed. Okay. So all five together. So here we go. Slower speed, repeat after me. Matt. Matt mid mutt. Mutt, Matt, matt, mid-month MUD. Okay, now, lung sounds. May meet. Might mute mode. May meet, might mute mode. It's kinda like a tongue twister, right? Kinda feels like a tongue twister. Similar sounds with other sounds that are the same. Yeah, there are some similarities. Absolutely. This can certainly help with your muscle memory just like a tongue twister. And I should point out for these specifically that if you wanted to say Matte met MIT, mutt, mutt and mate meat might mute mode. You could do that with the sound. That's not really what we're practicing here. It's really the vowel sounds, the short and long vowel sounds altogether side-by-side, whether you say the stock T or the sound, the regular T sound, that's really up to you. Alright, for the next set, we'll be looking at th and S, but actually not justice. We also have to do a Z, Y because in fact, I can't find a word that starts with an S that has a z sound. Maybe there is one, but it's very hard to make a minimal pair that has that. Usually the z sound would be in the middle or at the end. So these will be here at the beginning, the beginning sounds. And these will be the th and S in the middle, middle sounds. And these will be at the end, ending sounds. And of course this is actually a z, but hey, I make the rules. These are my examples. And when you make your examples, you can make your rules because I want to practice both voiced and unvoiced sounds. So th voiced and S voiced. Or in this case z and th unvoiced, unvoiced at the beginning, middle, and end. So I think this is a pretty useful set if this is something you struggle with. And it actually takes a little while to come up with these examples. It really does. But it's worth the work. Because then you have something that you can practice any time to build pronunciation habits. Alright, so let's go through these the first time I'll read through all four slowly, then repeat after me. Then I'll read through all four at regular speed. Here we go. These Z's thick, sick. These Z's thick sick. It's actually a pretty good tongue twister. These, these, these Z's fixed sick VCs thick sick, well that's tough. That's a tongue twister. Okay. In the middle, clothing closing. Cathy Cass see. Clothing closing. Kathy Casie. Okay. And remember that's the same sound as the Z. Z, Z, same sound. That's the voiced S. Okay, at the end now, Breeze, Breeze, moth, moss. Breathe breeze, moth, moss. Breathe, breathe moth moss also sounds like a tongue twister. We're making some good tongue twisters here. I'm proud of myself. I proud of myself. Okay. Last set in this group, CH and SH, soh, CAH, remember? And then SH, shush. Of course, CH can also make the SH sound, but we're trying to practice the minimal pair so that wouldn't be very useful. It's not about the letters, it's about the sounds, not the letters, minimal pairs. Don't worry about the letters. Worry about the sounds you struggle with. This whole course is about sounds, not words, sounds, not letters, sounds, sounds, sounds. So again, absolutely useless to use CH in a minimal pair with SH when CH has the same pronunciation as SH. So just be aware of that. Okay, so here we have again, beginning, middle and end ready. Chore. Sure. Chore, shore, watching, washing, washing, washing. March. March. March. March. Okay, so practice those. That's it for our first group, our first three sets. Let's now go on to our second and final group. 56. Minimal Pairs Examples: Part 2: For the second and final group of minimal pair sets, we're going to practice. We're going to work on F and V, L and R, 0, U, AW, and 0. These are the minimal pairs that we're going to practice. Now, note for these that I've actually made up some words, or at least words that are not things that you would probably find in the dictionary. Like TO and n, That might be someone's name. But remember also, when you make these up, It's not about Oh, it's a word or it's not a word. If you need to completely invented a word, because it helps you create a minimal pair. Don't be constrained or locked to the dictionary. I must find a word in the dictionary. That's not the point of the exercise. The point is the sound's practicing the sounds. So if a word does not exist, make one up, that's totally okay. It really doesn't matter. Because what you're doing is building muscle memory, not practicing words in the dictionary, right? Okay, So with that said, let's practice our first set of minimal pairs, f and v. We have beginning sounds, middle sounds, and ending sounds. First, I'll read both of these together slowly than repeat after me. Then both of these together at regular speed. Here we go. File vial, file vile, wafer, waiver. Wafer waiver. Now ending sound. Life, live, live, live. This remember has two pronunciations. The pronunciation as a verb which is live, and then the pronunciation is an adjective which is live, right? Alright, moving on to l and r, beginning, middle and ending sounds. And I like to make minimal pairs with these beginning, middle, and ending sounds. Because when you say sounds, you're not just saying them by themselves. You're saying them with other sounds. And so they're a little different if they start the word are in there in the middle of the word surrounded by other sounds, or they come at the end. Those are all slightly different things. So I would actually recommend if you're going to practice a sound, don't just practice the sound with one minimal pair. Practice that sound or those two sounds with several minimal pairs, three would be a good idea. Beginning, middle, and end. Alright, starting with the beginning. Lights rights. Lights rights. Alan, aaron, allan, Aaron mole, more. Mole, more. Now you might have noticed actually these are two different letters, E and I. Remember, remember the schwa sound. The schwa sound saves us. The schwa sound is the same pretty much for every vowel, right? When it's the schwa sound. So we're emphasizing at the beginning. And then it's run. Lynn, run, Ellen, london, London, Aaron run, run, run. So it's the schwa sound there. So even though they're two different letters, it's the schwa sound, so it's the same basic sound. Same sound, not same letters. That's what you have to focus on. Alright, last set, 0 UAW. And OH, here we go. Dawn down. Dawn, dawn down dawn. Dawn. Top down. Town. Dawn, Tarzan. Don tan, downtown dawn TA1. Those are fun. Now for these, I got creative. So don't lock yourself into saying, Okay, it must only be two yes pairs. That's two things, right? Remember at the beginning we focused on five in a row practicing vowel sounds. We call the minimal pairs. But you can really play around with this. I got creative here because I thought, well actually 0, 0, w and AW, those can be very close. If we have d and n at the end, those can be very, very close and that's quite challenging. So if you feel that there are four sounds that are very close together that you want to practice. Then make a set with four and practice those. Play around with them like I've done here. First, I just want to focus on the differences between 0, 0, w, and AWS, right? That's all I wanna do. So I'm going to keep the D and the end the same. And the only thing that's different is 0, w, and w. But then I want to really challenge myself, so I'll get more creative and I'll put two together because it's more challenging to say two together. And yes, I have the d t, d t, d t, Right? So I'm still kind of following the basic rules of minimal pairs. Not really rules, but the general guidelines of making minimal pairs. Because everything else is the same for each one. But I'm able to practice them together so that I have to say them quickly, which is more challenging, which helps me better build up my muscle memory and actually get better at pronunciation. So never get stuck and saying, Well, this was a rule, the minimal pairs rule, there is no rule. This is an activity that you make and you practice. The more important thing is that you're practicing what you need to practice to get better. You have a North Star which is your goal, and something that's in your way, which is a difficult sound. So everything else is kind of just details. You're welcome to bend the rules, especially for stuff like this, especially for exercises. Build your own tongue twisters. Build your own minimal pairs. Great practice. What is useful to you? Don't practice things because, well, I learned that it can only be two side-by-side, you know, make your own, do what is useful. Okay? Now that we've practiced these two groups of minimal pairs, it's time to go on. So practice these, make your own. In the next lesson, we're going to be talking very briefly about the shadowing method. We've talked about it before, but we're going to go through it step by step. So I will see you in the next one. 57. The Shadowing Method: Overview: So far in this section on pronunciation challenges, we've worked on tongue twisters and minimal pairs, both essential ways to practice and develop that muscle memory. For the rest of this section, we're going to be going over some exercises that you can do even beyond this course to continue improving, constantly improving your pronunciation, to really master the natural sound that you want, that natural fluent sound. We're going to start with the shadowing method is something you've heard, in fact, something we've been doing throughout the course. The shadowing method is the primary way that we've practiced pronunciation in this course. But I want to give you the step-by-step breakdown of this method so that you can use it as a tool to practice. Not just what's in this course, not just the content of this course, but anything that you want to practice. If you want to try to master British sounding pronunciation, or you want to master different accents are really fast pronunciation or something special or unique. You want to continuously improve your pronunciation. This is perhaps the most powerful way to do it. But you have to go through the steps, you have to follow the steps. And it probably should be in order. Okay. So why do we call it shadowing? What is a shadow? Shadow is something that follows you everywhere you go. It's not exactly where you are. Maybe it's right behind you if you're walking, There's my shadow. It always follows me around. We also use the word shadowing with things like job training. So you want to learn a new skill. You follow someone who knows what they're doing and watch them, maybe help them a little bit. And by doing that with them together. At the same time, even if you're not doing every little movement, you're learning it, you're learning it through experience. Well, that's what the shadowing technique is all about. You're following another pronunciation. You're not doing that by reading something. No. You're using the most important thing, your ear. So this exercise is not only useful because you're learning directly from an example of pronunciation. It's also very powerful because it forces you to listen, to develop awareness. And then to find those connections between what your mouth is doing and the sounds that you're hearing. That doesn't quite sound right? If I change my mouth shape a little bit, I can make that our sound, not sun-like. Just change it a little bit. Close my mouth at the end out. Yes, that sounds the same. So you're improving your listening. Listening at the same time. Very important in general, right? Your awareness. Absolutely important, absolutely. And then you're also developing the ability to notice the mouth mouth positions. But you're not learning mouth positions by looking at some diagrams or pictures. Now that can be okay. You're learning the mouth positions and remembering the mouth positions by trial and error, testing something. Okay. That sounds right. If it sounds the same, then it's right. It sounds the same, so it's correct. Okay. So I'm able to match that. It must be correct. Then you practice it many times, which then allows you to build up the all-important. You're probably sick of me saying this muscle memory or pronunciation habits. So it's sort of a step process and that's what makes this particular exercise so powerful. Now the reason it's probably very familiar to you is, Hey, that's what we've been doing throughout the course. I say something slowly, you repeat it after me. Then I say it again at regular speed and you follow along. That's shadowing. That's what we've been doing. The difference is, I'm going to teach you how to do this for anything that you have. We're going to talk about how you can take an audio clip or a little video, a short video, and then use that. I use shadowing what I want to practice my British pronunciation. I'll take a little clip from something, maybe Sherlock Holmes or a TV show from somewhere, and I'll practice my pronunciation using that clip, so it is very powerful. Now let's just go through the steps. What should you do if you want to practice the shadowing method on your own? First step, find a short audio clip. Now this should be, I would recommend no longer than 30 s. No longer than 30 s. There are a number of problems with it being too long. If it's too long, then number one, it's difficult to write the whole thing down. That's step two. Number two, it feels like a giant mountain. It may take a very long time to master it. I have to master this three-minute thing. It's a huge project. So you feel like you're never really achieving something. You just constantly practicing the same thing for weeks or months. So that's another issue. Also. You want it to repeat pretty frequently. If you repeat it pretty frequently, then you can go through these steps more quickly and you can master that more quickly. If you have to repeat it every 2 min, it just takes a lot longer to go through all the steps and to actually master the pronunciation, which is the goal. In this case, 30 s. At the most. If it's from a longer video or audio clip, then just cut out thirty-seconds. Now, which clip you choose is very important. It should be a clip that you actually want to learn from. You have to like this pronunciation. I really want to master this. Number one. That way it's not boring. Number two, that's what you want. That's your goal, that's your north star. So you want to be moving toward things that are closer to your goal and not some random thing. So make sure you're careful about which audio clips you choose. It's good to have a kind of north star. Okay. Now, what about video? Sure. If it helps to see the mouth of the person, It's a clip from a movie or a TV show or a TedTalk. All fine, no problem. Choose what you like. It should be pretty challenging though. Nothing too easy. If it's too difficult, impossible, that's bad. If it's too easy, so easy that it's boring, that's bad. It should be right in the middle, challenging, a little bit challenging, but something that you can achieve, find the sweet spot. Now Number two, you've got this 30-second clip or 25 second clip. Put it on, repeat, you're listening to it or you're watching it again and again, and write down every single word. This is the part that also improves your listening skills. Write down every single word if you have to repeat it ten times, 20 times, however many times you need to repeat it. Write down every word, you have to know what you're saying. And again, that's great for your listening skills. At the same time, you're picking up some of the subtler sounds. How the words flow together. What's the rhythm, the intonation and the stress, you're getting a feeling for that. The specific pronunciations of the words, all of that stuff you're picking up as you're listening to it again and again. Once you've got it all written down, then actually do the shadowing. Try to as you go, repeat exactly what you hear, not just the words. You're not repeating this so that you can say the words. You're repeating this so that you can follow the sounds. Remember, sounds, not words, it's not about the words, it's about the sounds, right? So listen carefully and try to repeat even the smallest things. The better your ability is to listen, have self-awareness, and note the differences between sounds that you said and what you heard, the more quickly that you're going to improve. Now if you do this at half speed, at first, totally fine. In fact, if you wanna do it like we've done throughout this course, in sections, you could, after you write it all down, play 5 s, pause it and repeat just what you heard at half speed. Try to repeat it exactly. Now if you wanna do it continuously, that's okay too. But don't try to pronounce it at exactly the same time as whoever is speaking in the audio clip. Instead followed just after. That's why it's called shadowing. Right after you hear it, say it. Mushrooms right after here. Mushrooms. Is that the same? Sounds the same. Okay, let's move on. Really trying to mirror that sound as closely as possible, but immediately after and not during. Or as I said, you could do it like we've done throughout this course by doing it in little pieces one word at a time, maybe not for a 30-second clip, but like we've done for our full examples, maybe 5 s, maybe 8 s at the most. Then pause it. Try to do it. Maybe again, then keep going. That's a good way to do it. Don't be afraid to pause and repeat parts as many times as you need. And don't be afraid to keep it at half speed for a long time. It's totally okay. Just like learning the piano, when you feel that you've really mastered it, you've really got all the parts then increase to regular speed and never be afraid to stop, go back, stop, go back. Also. Never give yourself a break. Never say, good enough. Well then what are you doing this for? Why you're taking this course? Why are you doing this if you don't want to get it absolutely perfectly. The more perfect you're able to do. It doesn't mean you have to speak like that for the rest of your life. The sharper your listening, the better your self-awareness, the better your ability to make sounds that you want to make, right? That's learning pronunciation. That's mastering this natural sound. That's building muscle memory and habits for better fluency. So never give yourself a break. Finally, once you feel like you've really got it, you've gone through it many times. Try to do the whole thing. Now if you want to read it because you've written it down, that's fine. That's okay. Record yourself. Make sure you record yourself. Listen back to the recording and don't give yourself a break. Okay, That's all I said. Mu instead of move, there's a V sound is not there. Try it again, do it again, record it again. Compare the two clips side-by-side. Alright, make little notes that one could be better. Here's a place where I could have blended the two words together because they share a voiced sound. Make these notes like you're giving notes to someone else, not to yourself. Be very objective, be very honest with yourself. Don't give yourself a break. Now if you can do it from memory because you've done it so many times. Great. Just recite. Recite from memory. That's totally fine. Reading reciting, both are okay. I find reciting tends to sound more natural, but the key thing is that you're getting as close as you can to the original audio clip by the time you're done with this exercise, by the time you've really mastered, that is 25 or 32nd clip, you're going to have so many new abilities, so many new things that you can say, so much subtlety and your pronunciation that you're going to be surprised at your progress after only a short time. Imagine if you do this twice a week, three times a week. Wow, how much progress are you going to make? But always remember, listen to the recording. Try to take notes, try to be objective, be honest with yourself. Don't give yourself a break. It's the only way to really master pronunciation and to go through these steps of listening, self-awareness, noticing the differences between your sound and your original audio, then developing the muscle memory, the habits that you need to sound more natural. So these are the five steps of the shadowing method. We're going to go on and do a little bit of practice. But I would say from now, go out there, find some clips you like and start this. This is something you can do until you feel that your pronunciation is where you want it to be. This is something you can take well beyond this course. 58. The Shadowing Method: Full Example: Now that we've gone through the specific steps of the shadowing method, Let's do an example. We have to do an example, right? So you can use this for your own shadowing practice. Or as we talked about, feel free to go out there, find a clip with pronunciation you like and use that. Although I would recommend starting at half speed to really master the sounds. Now, like we usually do, I'm going to read this in sections first. So if you have your own clip, you might want to listen to 8 s and then try to say that 8 s, like we've been doing throughout the course. So I'm going to do it that way. I'm gonna do it section by section at slow speed. And then after we go through the whole thing, I am going to read through the whole thing. One time. I don't expect you to be able to perfectly master or copy my sound right after I say something. Of course, this takes practice. I want you to try. That's the important thing. I want you to try. If you want to use this one for your shadowing practice, that is great. What I really want you to do is just start practicing and make it part of your schedule, make it part of your routine. Do it regularly. Alright, so like we've been doing piece-by-piece, repeat after me for each little section. Then I'll go back and read through the whole thing one time at normal speed. I believe that the mind is a powerful machine. Plenty of people with everything are miserable, stressed, depressed. And just as many people living in poverty are completely happy. So what does this tell us? I think the lesson is that each of us has the power to be happy. But I also think it takes work. You go to the gym when you want to get stronger. Why should a achieving emotional balance be any different? Step back, look at the big picture. Find a place for your stress to live so that it doesn't consume you. Maybe even give meditation a try. Start working on your mind just as you would your muscles yields. See the results. Okay? Now as long as you're trying your best, that's okay. You'll get it. It just takes practice. Anything you try with the shadowing method just takes practice. Nothing is out of reach. Nothing is impossible if you come across something that's way too difficult to try something a little easier first, and then work your way up to that. Work your way toward things. Nothing is impossible though that's important to remember. You can achieve whatever you decide to achieve, especially when it comes to pronunciation. Alright, now I'm going to read through the whole thing one time. Here we go. I believe that the mind is a powerful machine. Plenty of people with everything are miserable, stressed, depressed, and just as many people living in poverty are completely happy. So what does this tell us? I think the lesson is that each of us has the power to be happy. But I also think it takes work. You go to the gym when you want to get stronger. Why should achieving emotional balance be any different? Step back, look at the big picture. Find a place for your stress to live so that it doesn't consume you. Maybe even give meditation to try start working on your mind just as you would your muscles. You'll see the results. Alright? Now that you know the method step-by-step and you know how to practice it on your own step-by-step. And you've had this whole course of practice doing this method. Now I hope you can go out and explore pronunciation on your own. I want you to use this method to practice the pronunciation you come across to continue challenging yourself, to continue improving and sharpening pronunciation. And in fact, you're listening, your self-awareness, and more. So, good luck practicing. I will see you in the next lesson. 59. Play with Spelling: I've worked with many English learners over the years to help them improve their English in all different ways, including pronunciation. And there are some tricks that you can use to change the way that you think about pronunciation. Now why would you need to do that? Well, remember at the beginning of the course we talked about this idea. Sounds over words. What's important when you went to master pronunciation is to master the sounds and to not get too stuck on words were actually programmed to focus on words. When you see a word like video, you want to, your brain wants to say that by itself. And as an English Learner, you're more likely to get locked into thinking about words as isolated things. But as fluency improves when you're speaking, it becomes more about the flow between words and not just the words themselves that you really want to develop. The ability to say a whole sentence, to say a whole phrase, and think of it in that way rather than thinking about word, word, word, word, word. But that's tough to do. How do you just decide to do that? There's an exercise that you can do, which can help you to see things a little differently. To help you unlock the way that you think. If you think in terms of word, word, word, word, word. And the exercise is actually very simple. And I think it's pretty fun as well because it's creative. Here's how it works. You take a sentence or two, if it's a long phrase, that's okay. I would recommend using a sentence or two. Maybe this is from a shadowing exercise that you're doing. Remember one step is to write down exactly what is said in that clip. Alright, so take a couple of sentences from that. Take one sentence from that. Then really listened to it and tell yourself, don't focus on what this person is saying. Focus instead on the sounds that I hear as though I had never heard words before in my life. I just know letters and symbols. And I'm going to just try to write this down completely phonetically. Phonetic is about the sound completely phonetically with no consideration about the words that are actually there. This is going to help me think differently about the sounds. Now I'm not saying that you should do this when you're speaking something all the time. I'm saying it can help you if you get a little stuck on this word, this word, this word, especially if you struggle with speaking in a kind of choppy way. If when you speak it sounds like your sentences are very broken up. Very choppy words are by themselves. This can help you see it a little differently. Again, just an activity to change your mindset the way that you think. Not an activity or an exercise to do all the time for everything that you're trying to pronounce. So it's not something to do very often, it's something to help you reset the way that you think is a kind of practical reminder or a reminder in practice, actually doing something of what you should be focusing on, which is sounds, not words. So let's take these two sentences. I used to play video games, but now I'm too busy. And if you find a nice place to get Thai food, please give me a heads up, so we'll take these two. And just for fun, try to spell them in a completely freestyle way using only the letters and the sounds that we hear. Disregarding the words. I used to play more video games, but now I'm too busy. So it might be like this. I use to play more video games. Why is that altogether? Because play more video games doesn't have any broken voice. I haven't stopped my voice for that whole thing. So slam it altogether. Play more video games. And I have the stress here in capital letters. This is creative, this is play, this is freestyle. This is not how you have to write it, write it any way you want. This is your play area. This is your sandbox. So have fun with it, play more video games. So I capitalize vid because I want to stress that. But now because that's not, but, it's but, but, but so fast. I'm going to use a little, I'm going to use a little star there because I want to a little asterisk, then I want to indicate a stop t. Okay. So I stopped. So I'm going to have a stop there, but but but maybe I remove the T and I just have that. Whatever helps me to look at it in a different way. Now wine. Now, why, now why? But I'm stressing Wim and I'm spelling it WHY y and then m. Why not? I can do whatever I want. This is helping me just look at that same thing phonetically rather than one word at a time, two. Busy, again, capital letters for the stress here to capital letters for this dress. Use, use, use capital letters for the stress, too busy and E, Same sound. This is also a way to play with those letter combinations and letters that sound the same as other things. So e could be E, right? Well it is E and E a could be as well. There are a lot of different ways to spell the same sound as we've learned throughout this course. This is your chance to play with it. So not saying you should do this every day. I'm saying do it when you feel like you're getting stuck. Do it when you feel like your pronunciation is too choppy and stiff. How about this one? If you find a nice place to get Thai food, please give me a heads up. If you find a nice place to get Thai food, please give me a heads up. If few. Few. Yeah. That does sound like because I remember the little y there. That's right. You you are, that's the same. That's the same. If you find a nice, find that nice. Alright, find a nice. The voice continues for all of those. And it actually doesn't sound like find. It sounds like find, find a 0. So I can actually combine those and capitalize those because they're stressed, right? That helps me because normally I would say find that doesn't sound very natural. But I'm kinda stuck saying that because I see the words, that's a word there and that's a word there and that's a word there. And I should say them one at a time, right? No. No. In this course we've learned that that is not how natural fluent English typically sounds. It's blended together there, the stop sounds, we jump between letters, jump between words, we continue the voice there, all of these things that we do. So spelling it that way can give you that eight to kind of reset yourself to play around with it and not get stuck in the words. Okay, place. So weird spelling. But why not? To get to, to get, that's the schwa sound. I remember that we learned that yet stopped t, get, get, get, TI, TI. The ai and TIE. Same pronunciation? Yes, exactly the same pronunciation. Food. Why make it longer? Because I want to please give me a continuous voice. Give me give me please give me please give me a please give me. Yeah. Give me. Give me yeah. Instead of giving me a It'd be broken, right. Give me give me give me give me. That helps, right. Heads-up. Zap does sound like that, doesn't it? Heads-up, heads-up, heads-up. Alright, so this is just a playful activity. There are no rules. The only thing you should do is take the original. It should be something you can listen to. Generally want to use an audio clip, I would recommend something from your shadowing exercise. Take a little clip from that one or two sentences and just play around with the spelling. Remember what we've learned in this course. All of the different ways that we can make different sounds, things that sound the same, things that sound close to the same. How we maybe play with stress, how we use stress when we're speaking, how we blend things together. Play. If you have a sense of play when you're practicing, number one, practice is going to be more fun. Number two, being playful is actually what language is all about. Language is play because it's always changing. So in a way you're participating with the language in a different way when you're playing like this. Try it out. Let me know how it goes. If you have any questions about this exercise, let me know if you'd like to share your playful examples with me, please do. I love to see them. In the next lesson, we're going to be talking about Mirror exercises. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, all will be explained. I'll see you in the next lesson. 60. Mirror Exercises: We've talked about many different aspects of pronunciation in this course. And I hope you've been practicing up to this point. I hope your pronunciation is getting a lot better. I hope you're seeing real progress. What I would like to do in the last lesson of this section is give you a few exercises that you can take beyond this course. That's important as well. This is a journey. Pronunciation is a journey. Improving your English is a journey. And I want you to continue practicing in order to make sure that you can continue improving and honing your pronunciation. Long term, you need the right tools. So we've talked about a few exercises already. What we're going to do is talk about some Mirror exercises. Things that you can do that force you to look at yourself. That's very, very important. Now we've done a little bit of that with shadowing. We talked about shadowing and recording yourself. Listening back to what you said. That's important. Shadowing is great. Now let's focus on a couple of things. And these are things that I would like you to incorporate in your routine, not things that you hate doing. I have to do this today. Things that are just part of your lifestyle. If you can make practicing English just part of your lifestyle, then you're going to see progress long term. And you're going to be improving more quickly than someone who hates to do it, who feels they have to do it, and maybe someone who does it for a month and then gives up quits. So we're just going to talk about a few things that you can do beyond this course, focused on looking at yourself objectively and also creating things. Now what does that mean to be objective and to create things, to be objective is to look at something without having your opinions involved in it just as it is. Can you do that with yourself? That's pretty tough, right? To give yourself an opinion about yourself. You live inside your own head. How can you be objective? That's a challenge, but you have to be objective when it comes to pronunciation. In order to say head, that could be better. This could be better. I can make a change there, I can improve that, right? What about creating things? Why not just go back through this course a few more times and review all of the examples, review all of the things we went over. Well, you should do that. That's a great thing to do. Go back review the course. Great. But to create things means adding an extra level of difficulty. When you're creating things, you have to do more than just remember the pronunciation. So you have to focus on creating something, making an example, explaining something using the language, which is a test of how well you've made the pronunciation, things that you're practicing into habits. If your pronunciation is really good when you're reciting something or reading something. But then you get into a conversation and it goes way down because you're not able to think about pronunciation. Because you're thinking about a bunch of other stuff. That means that the habits are not there. That means you don't have that muscle memory. You shouldn't have to think about pronunciation if you've practiced enough. So creating is a great way to test yourself. And it's also a great way to make sure that what you're practicing is specific to you, specific to you. So we've covered a lot of different sounds in this course. Maybe you struggle with some of them and not others. Well, if you're really good at saying one sound, maybe the hard Csound or the CH sound. But you struggle with L and N. Maybe that's difficult for you. What you'd want to focus on those and not the others, right? So when you make your own things, you create your own things. You're able to focus on the specific things that challenge you that are difficult for you. Difficulty is good, too difficult is not good. Difficult is good. So you know what's difficult for you. Create exercises that help you practice what you need to practice, not somebody else. It should be very specific and very personalized. Alright, so specifically what can you do? First? Write short compositions. Create tongue twisters, make minimal pairs. Create these things that we've talked about and practiced. Build them yourself for the issues that are difficult for you. If you struggle with the OU or OWN sounds that diphthong, then make tongue twisters. Write your own compositions that include a lot of those sounds. The examples that we went through for each of the lessons we talked about in this course. I wrote those examples. Those were written by me to practice those specific sounds. And yes, it's hard work. It takes time. Sometimes it takes quite a lot of time, but it's worth it because it's specific. It's worth it because it's challenging you in the right way. If you have a weak point, you want to focus on that to make that stronger. So write your own compositions, then, stand in front of the mirror and watch yourself reading out your composition or saying your tongue twister if you've remembered it. Try to watch your mouth in the mirror. Now that might feel a little strange at first, but it can be very powerful. So try to push yourself through that discomfort. Remember, discomfort is not there to make you stop. Discomfort is there to remind you what you need to focus on so that you can push through it and improve. So you have your tongue twister that you created, maybe with OU OWN sounds, whatever you created, you created something that's great. You know what your issues are. That's great. Maybe you picked out your issues from your notes when you were doing these shadowing exercise. All right, so I need to focus on these sounds, right? A tongue twister, you create something, then you say it in front of the mirror. What does the mirror do? You're forcing yourself to look at yourself. I know that's obvious. But by focusing on your mouth, you're able to disconnect yourself from your mouth and see that mouth over there as a thing that you need to study carefully. Okay, it's yours, that's fine. But don't try to look at it that way. Look at it just as a mouth that needs help with pronunciation. And is the shape right? Is the position, right? Is the speed, right? Is it doing the right things to make the right sounds, yes or no? So you're confronting yourself and you have nowhere to run. And that again, can be uncomfortable at first. But a lot of students have seen a lot of progress using the mirror technique to practice specific pronunciation issues. And especially if you're creating your own exercises based on the specific issues that you're dealing with, you're going to see progress much faster. This is a great way to become more objective when it comes to pronunciation. Now, the other part of this is what I mentioned earlier. You're having a conversation. You're speaking. But because you're thinking about the tenths and the topic, the grammar, the phrasing, the words to use, then your pronunciation goes down. It's suffers because you're thinking about too many things. Your bandwidth is used. I call this the bandwidth issue. So what is the difference between a native speaker and someone's struggling in this way? Well, more things are habits. A native speaker of any language usually only needs to think about their meaning and everything else just sort of happens. It just spills out of their mouth. Why? Because everything is a habit. Okay. Is there any reason why you can't do that? No, absolutely not. This is not just for pronunciation, in fact, for grammar issues, it's true for using phrases, using specific words. It's all about getting into habits. When things are deep habits, you don't have to think about them. They just come out naturally. Definitely true for pronunciation. So what you can do is give yourself a short prompt. Anything is okay. Usually it should be something open. It could be a question or a topic. An example question might be something like, why? Ask yourself a why question or what do you think? E.g. why have audio books become so popular in recent years? Just an open question. It could be any other open question. Then you talk about that for 2 min. Don't try to speak too quickly, nice and slow, not too slow. Regular speed, maybe a little slower. And just speak naturally, answer the question. But record yourself. That's very important. Just like the shadowing exercise. Record yourself speaking and you might notice, hey, wait a second. When I do the shadowing exercise, my pronunciation is definitely more clear. Why is that? Well, maybe it's because I'm only focusing on pronunciation and when I'm freely answering a question, when I'm improvising, just speaking freely to answer a question for a couple of minutes. My pronunciation is definitely not as clear. I'm noticing all kinds of little issues. What's going on? Thinking about too many things, Okay, what does that tell you? Of course, it tells you habits. So what do you need to do? Then? You need to go back here. So my pronunciation is just not as clear. So then just like the shadowing exercise, you take notes, you write down issues, you write down the things specifically that are not as clear as you want them to be. And this is another way to be objective. To pick out things like you were listening to someone else. Imagine it's someone else, it's not you. This is someone else and you're just giving notes, feedback, writing things down. What specific things that tells you then what your habits are not, which habits you still need to build. So then you create a short composition or a tongue twister with those specific sounds. Then you practice those many times in front of the mirror. So it goes around and around. This is kind of going around and around in a circle. If you do this around and around and around and around in a circle many times, you're going to correct all the issues. You're going to be able to fix all of the things getting in the way of that natural sound. You're going to have very sharp listening. You're going to be able to pick up things you never picked up before, you never noticed before. You're going to be able to notice the differences in mouth shape between vowel sounds, diphthongs, consonant sounds. All the things we talked about in this course. And more. You're going to have a superhuman ability to improve your pronunciation. And you're going to be on the right track toward perfect pronunciation and perfect fluency. Just keep going around in this cycle and you will absolutely continue to improve. But you've gotta be tough with yourself. You've got to be honest with yourself. You have to say yes, there's an issue there. I need to work on that. I'm going to make a sentence with that one. Be honest with yourself, it's very important and don't give yourself a break. So practice this. Let me know if you have any questions and I will see you in the next one. 61. Wrapping Up: Hey, you did it. You made it to the end of the course. Congratulations, I hope you feel proud of what you've accomplished. We've come a long way. We've covered a lot of stuff. And I hope you've made significant progress on your pronunciation. I hope you are well on your way to fluent natural pronunciation. But of course, it's very important to continue practicing as we've been talking about in the last section, what I'd like to do here at the end of the course is do a very quick recap of the main things to keep in mind. Then we'll very quickly talk about what's next. So what are the most important things that we covered in this course? Of course. Of course, this course of course, we focused on a lot of specific sounds. If you ever feel like you're struggling with one sound, go back and review that lesson. Review that part. Do that exercise along with me. Do the shadowing exercise, create your own exercise or tongue twister with that, and practice with it. It's okay to go back and review. But what are the broader things that we talked about? Remember the importance of awareness. If you're not aware of the difference between your own sound and something you're trying to shadow. How can you improve? If you use symbols only? You try to learn through spelling and rules of spelling, pronunciation rules, how can you improve? You have a secret weapon. The secret weapon is your ear. And then through that, you're able to develop the self-awareness to notice when you need to change something, make an adjustment. That is the way that native speakers of any language learn to sound native. It's all about self-awareness. Very important. Now what about actually practicing? Don't practice things that are easy. If you don't struggle with something, don't do that. If it's easy for you, why should you practice it? Practice what's challenging? If you struggle with these five sounds. Then go back and review those five lessons and then make an exercise and practice those on your own. Very important. Do what's difficult, face, What's difficult to go into the challenging things? Don't stay where it's comfortable. Oh, this is easy for me. I'll do this. Why? What's the reason? No, challenge yourself at all times. And if you do that and get used to it, you're going to improve much, much faster. Now also remember that there's a very big difference between learning something and being able to do it every time. Maybe after a lesson at any point in this course, you said to yourself, haha, now I've got that sound. I've mastered it. Hurray. Well, have you, what does it mean to master it? What it means is when you're actually having a conversation, that sound comes out naturally. It doesn't mean that you know how to make that sound correctly. It doesn't mean that you can read the whole sentence and make it flow naturally by blending the words together. That's not what that means. It means that you can take those things that you learned and apply them in any situation. You're having a conversation, you're talking about something in general in front of people. Maybe you're giving a presentation in any situation. It's still there. The things that you learned because you have the habits. So remember, you cannot say you really know it. You cannot say that you've really mastered pronunciation until it comes out of your mouth, even when you're not thinking about it. And of course, the key to that is habits. Now, the traditional way to learn pronunciation is to remember phonetic rules and remember this pronunciation rule. And it's okay to recognize patterns. Okay? Usually when I see a c followed by a y, it's going to be a soft see, usually that's true. Okay, got it. Usually when I see a G followed by an I, it's going to be a soft G IS, but then there's gift. Well, that's different. Okay. So it's okay to recognize and no patterns, that's great. But always remember that that's just a general guideline. That's not your source of truth. That's not where you go and say Here I have a rule. Now, what you should do is trust your ears. Your ear is your source of truth. If you don't have a developed year, if you can't listen, you can't improve your pronunciation. Really. If you really want to improve, you have to work on this and your self-awareness. And you use the patterns, general rules that guidelines the common pronunciations of these letters and sounds. You use those as things to remember and keep in mind, which might make your life easier. Always keeping in mind, of course, that there are exceptions to pretty much every rule. Now we also focused a lot in this course on mouth position, the shape of the mouth, getting it right. Slight differences in the shape of the mouth, the position and the tongue. Those can make all the difference. E.g. the to, the, to. Those are in a very similar place, but they don't sound the same. There's slight differences. We talked about all the vowel sounds. The mouth position is close, but it's not the same. Subtle, slight differences are very important. So you have to really be attentive. You have to pay attention to detail. Notice those small differences, not only in how they sound, but how you sound when you try to make them and how it feels in your mouth when you try to make those sounds as well, you have to remember that feeling because that's the muscle memory part also. And this is certainly true for more than just pronunciation, more than just English. You can learn anything. Now, if you start doing something that's too difficult, way too difficult, it's easy to give up. Start doing something that's way too easy. Then you get too comfortable in lazy and you might give up for that reason. So just because something is very, very difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. But it also doesn't mean that you should start there. Mount Everest should not be the first mountain you climb, but you can climb a smaller mountain and then a bigger one and a bigger one and a bigger one on your way to Mount Everest. And that's very important to keep in mind. So if you're trying to learn a sound or learn to read a paragraph very naturally, or do this shadowing exercise. It's so difficult. Don't say, I'll never do that. Say I will do that. But it's too hard for me right now. So I'm going to try some other things first and get better and improve. And eventually, if I regularly practice and make English part of my lifestyle, I will get there and you will. But it requires dedication, attention to detail, focus, habits, and makes it very important for you to make English part of your lifestyle. That's really important. Maybe that means doing a shadowing exercise twice or three times a week, or practicing a few tongue twisters, or watching a video and trying to just generally copy a few of the sounds. Something standing in front of the mirror doing that loop that we talked about. Something, make it part of your routine that is very important as you continue along this journey, as you continue improving, you might start asking yourself, Okay, what's next for me? I'm still not as fluent as I want to be. My sound is not as natural as I want to be. I feel like I've mastered all the sounds, but I'm still not quite there. If you find yourself in that position wondering, what should I do next? Ask yourself this question. What thing is in front of me that I could do? Which is a little scary to me. But if I did it, I would become better, more capable. What is that thing? Ask yourself that, and a couple of ideas might come to mind. Then do those things. Because those are the right things. They scare you a little bit there possible, and once you do them, you're better. That's true for your English in general, and it's certainly true for pronunciation. Practicing English in general, doing prompts, joining groups, having conversations, debating people, joining a book club. These are also ways to practice pronunciation. You are putting into practice everything that you've learned in a live situation with others. And if your pronunciation is still clear, even in those very challenging situations, you'll know, I've really come long way. I've really made a lot of progress and if not, you'll know what you need to focus on next. So don't be afraid, keep working. Keep practicing English part of your lifestyle, part of your routine, and you will succeed. What's the next step now that you've reached the end of the course? Well, we've come a long way together. It's been quite a journey. It's certainly been an honor for me to be your guide for this course. If you'd like to continue the journey, check out my other courses. I've got courses on thinking in English, grammar, idioms and phrases, professional English, other pronunciation courses and much more so feel free to check out my other courses. Also feel free to leave a review. I love to know how you felt about the course. The last thing for me to do is to wish you the best of luck in your English journey. I hope you make all your goals. I hope you get exactly where you want to be. And it's been for me an honor to be part of that journey. Hope to see you in the next course. Bye.