everyone Jennifer from Tarle speech with an important pronunciation question
how to pronounce the word important a student recently had a very embarrassing
mistake and said the word impotent impotent can mean helpless it can also
mean unable to have an erection so we really want to focus on this important
lesson and important means special so here we go okay so the word important
three beats three syllables im por tent you can say in and drop that T at the
end that's fine that's actually how I pronounce the word for impotent you have
two options you can say im po tent or im pa tent
and the pa is using this schwa syllable and that is fine
so to start both of these words we're going to start with a syllable im pretty
easy and then we're going to end with tunt for both of these words not really
going to focus on those we're going to really focus on syllable number two so
let's look at those so for important what we're going to do is start with the
P and then move to the or to do this you're going to pucker your lips and
then pull them back into a tense square for the er sound the tip of the tongue
will be either pointed down or back away from the teeth for that er just don't
touch the teeth and don't let that tongue move poor this is different than
PO and for PO you're going to put your lips together for the P and then open
and then round the lips so the confusion I think with a lot of people is when do
I round my lips so we're gonna start with the or and for poor you round
your lips first and then for the PO you round your lips second so or o or o so
let's put these words and syllables together
im pore tunt important important important and you can say no T important
important important and then we have iM potent impotent impotent impotent but
you can also say the schwa impotent impotent impotent
so again important impotent important impotent and you can also say important
and with the schwa impotent so let's try that in a sentence the once important
CEO felt impotent after the Board of Directors voted against his plan so give
it a try I know people are going to notice the difference if you found this
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I'll see you all again soon