Today is all about you. I’m going to take your videos and you guys are going to help me teach English today.
We’re going to talk about what makes American English sound American.
we’re going to talk about speaking with ease as you speak English.
A couple months ago, I asked you, here on YouTube, to record a conversation.
I wanted to use you guys as examples to see what sounds great,
and what we can improve to sound even better, when speaking English.
What are some of the habits that non-native speakers have?
As I teach, I’m going to be using your examples, real examples of non-native speakers of English.
At the end of the video, you get to see, in full, every video that every student submitted, and they’re so great.
At that point, you could be the coach.
Use what you learned in this video and think about what sounds great for each student,
and what could be improved.
Then record yourself, and coach yourself too.
I ask students in my Academy to record themselves regularly.
You really can be a wonderful coach to yourself and improve an incredible amount by recording yourself,
listening to it, critiquing it, and practicing some more.
It’s a cycle of continuous improvement and the more you know, the more you can coach yourself.
And don’t forget if you like this video, or you learn something new, like it and subscribe with notifications.
Before we get into all that, I want to talk about how amazing you all are.
I see you really working with your body to find relaxation and flow.
I know that you studied the linking and the music of the conversation you studied.
In short, you make me proud to be your online teacher. Thank you.
So, here’s the conversation I asked you to record.
I’m going to use my student Bruno, whose native language is Brazilian Portuguese.
He’s a student in my Academy and I had the pleasure of working with him in a live classes recently.
For the rest of the video, we're going to be over here at the desk so we can watch you guys,
the students who submitted videos.
Now, the first word in the conversation was: Hey.
And it’s a stressed word, so it's a good time to talk about that shape of stress. Up-down shape.
Hey. You don't want it to be flat. And it's going to be one of the longer words.
`Hey. It's not: hey, hey, hey. But: Hey. And in English, we have what's called a stressed-timed language,
which means stress and the shape of the stressed syllable is very important.
Contrast between long and short.
Now, if your native language is syllable-timed, like, Arabic, for example, or Chinese,
then this might be something that you need to work on.
So we're going to take a look at some students who did this up-down shape well.
Hey.
Hey. Hey. Up-down shape.
Hey. Hey. Hey.
Hey. Hey. Again, that up-down shape.
Hey.
Hey. Hey. Beautiful shaping.
Hey. Hey. Hey.
Hey. Hey. The pitch here is higher. We still have that up-down shape. Hey. Hey.
Their native languages are Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Uzbek, and Japanese.
Now this video wouldn't be all that useful if all I did was talk about things that you did well.
It's also going to help students out there learn if we point out things that didn't sound perfect.
And if I use a clip from your video to point out something that can be done better,
please don't take it personally, it's important to know that wherever you are, wherever you're starting, that's okay.
No one needs to feel bad about the mistakes they make.
Mistakes are what we learn from to go forward to meet our goals.
So one thing that I noticed is sometimes my Russian students have a heavier H
than we have in American English, and rather than: hhh-- hey, hey, a really light sound like that,
we get a little bit of a: hhh-- where there's a little bit more contact back here.
Hey. Hey. Hey.
Hey. Hey. Hey. It's subtle, but it's: hhhh--
a little bit of that sound which we don't have in American English.
So we want more space in the back of the throat. Hey. Hey.
Now the next phrase: What do you want to do tonight?
It's so interesting. In American English, we have a lot of different reductions that we will do with this.
For example: what do you want to-- will become, for many speakers: what do you wanna--
What do you wanna-- So we drop the T in 'what', links right into the D of 'do'.
Wha-- duh-- and then we reduce the vowel in 'do' and 'you', wuh-- duh-- yuh--
and then 'want to' becomes 'wanna'. What do you wanna-- what do you wanna-- What do you want to do tonight?
Very linked together, those reductions, everything's super smooth.
So now we're going to take just: what do you want to--
And we're gonna listen to some students who did a really nice job with the reductions
and linking of that phrase.
The first two native languages are Portuguese and then we have Urdu.
What do you want to--
What do you want to-- What do you want to-- What do you want to--
Again, that smoothness, the reduction: whuh duh-- the tongue just flaps there.
It's just a flap between those vowels.
What do you want to-- What do you want to--
What do you want to--
What do you want to-- What do you want to-- What do you want to--
Great.
Now, as you hear just that phrase in isolation, are you thinking this is crazy?
Are you thinking this is so sloppy and unclear?
It is! And that's what we do in American English. We link everything to other, and we smooth it out,
and we reduce some words. So what do you want to-- becomes: what do you wanna--
Now, we'll listen to some students who missed some of the reductions:
What do you want to--
What do you want to-- What do you want to-- want to-- to-- to--
The word T-O, we almost never pronounce it: to-- to-- to--
We almost always will make that a reduction 'tuh'. Want to-- and of course, with 'want',
it's very often to combine those into wanna, with no T whatsoever.
But the TO reduction is important. It's almost always done in American English.
Her native language was Russian now we're going to watch a student whose native language is Thai.
What do you want to--
What do you want to-- What do you want to-- What do you-- do you--
So those are two words that it's not quite as strong as 'to', where that is just 100% of the time reduced.
Do and you, it's not as common but it's still something that you'll hear and notice a lot,
and when you do it, especially with a phrase and a casual conversation like this, what do you want to do?
What do you want to-- what do you want to-- do you-- sounds better with schwas than: do you-- do you--
that sounds a little bit too full, DA-DA. What do you-- do you-- do you-- what do you--
what do you-- what do you-- what do you--
What do you want to--
Now, in a lot of ways, this was great. I'm just pointing out that she made a stop T: what do you wanna--
when she could have just even dropped that T.
When the word 'what' is followed by a word that begins with a D,
it's not uncommon to just drop the T and link 'wha' on to the next word.
What do-- What do-- What do you-- What do you--
Now, the word 'tonight'. What do you want to do tonight?
Okay. There are two different pronunciations but first, the first thing I want to say about it is
the beginning of the word: T-O, if you look the word up, the pronunciation in a dictionary that is not 'to',
it's 'tuh', there is a schwa in that word. Lots of people like to say: tonight, today, tomorrow.
That is not the pronunciation, we say: to-- to-- tonight, today, tomorrow. So watch that vowel.
Tonight.
So there, I just isolated the word: Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.
Her native language is Russian, and I hear her saying: to-- to-- to-- Tonight. But it's: tuh. Tuh, Tonight. Tonight.
Tonight.
I love his placement but I definitely heard: Tonight. Tonight. To-- to-- to-- instead of: to-- to-- to--
Now the other pronunciation of this word. It can be a flap T.
Do Tonight-- do to-- da-da-da-- You have to practice it with the word before but
when the word before ends with certain sounds, it's pretty common to flap the T in tonight,
today, tomorrow, and even together.
What do you want to do tonight? Do tonight-- do tonight-- It was a vowel before,
pretty common to make that a flap T to smooth it out a little bit more. What do you want to do tonight?
Do tonight? Do tonight? Do tonight?
Do tonight? Did you hear that? Do to-- do to-- do to-- He did the flap T.
His native languages fula, and that was perfect. Do tonight.
Do tonight?
Do tonight? Do tonight? Do tonight?
Again, flap T, a nice way to smooth that out. Do tonight.
His native language is Serbian.
Do tonight?
Do tonight? Very clear flap T, nice job, her native language is Spanish.
What else about the word 'tonight'? Okay the final T.
I don't want that to be dropped. Tonigh-- that's different than how we would do it.
We might do it with a stop T, tonight, and that can sound like a dropped T, but it's not.
The stop of air is abrupt, the word kind of feels like it gets cut off, tonight, that's different from tonigh--
when the pitch falls off and goes down and sort of tapers, then it just sounds dropped,
and we wouldn't do that in American English. We could do a light true T release but more common,
we would make a stop T. Do tonight. Do tonight. Let's listen to a couple students who dropped the T.
Do tonight?
She did the flap T in 'tonight' I liked that, but she didn't put an ending consonant on.
Do tonight? Do tonight? It needs to be: do tonight? Do tonight?
Her native languages Vietnamese. Let's check out another student.
Do tonight?
Do tonight? Do tonight? Do tonight?
I felt like the word ended before the T was put on.
I didn't feel that abrupt stop. Do tonight. And when I do that even if it's at the end of the thought,
I might even lift my tongue up into position for the T, not just cut it off, cut off the air in the vocal cords.
And I saw that his mouth stayed open there was no mouth movement for the T.
I didn't hear that abrupt stop, so dropped T there, his native languages Burmese.
What do you want to do tonight? Okay, let's talk for a second about the most stressed word there.
It's very natural, what do you want to do tonight, to bring the most stress to the verb.
Tonight is an adverb, so it's also a content word, but you wouldn't really stress that unless
you were really focusing on the time. What do you want to do tomorrow? No. What do you want to do tonight?
Then you might stress it. But otherwise, it would be: what do you want to do tonight?
And 'do' would be our peak of stress for that sentence.
So peak of stress meaning loudest, meaning the highest part of the pitch,
and I also like to describe it as it feels like the energy of the sentence is going up to that peak.
What do you want to do tonight?
And then after that peak, it falls away from it. What do you want to do tonight?
What do you want to do tonight?
Okay she also dropped her T at the end of 'tonight' but the peak of stress, 'do', was very clear.
What do you want to do tonight? What do you want to do tonight?
What do you want to do tonight?
What do you want to do tonight? Do-- do-- Again, very clear peak of stress for that sentence.
The more clear your most stressed word is in a sentence, the better, I think.
And the feeling of everything linking together, and that is just part of that line, is important.
We talked about reductions, we talked about linking, taking: what do you want to, and turning it into:
what do you want to.
One more example of the peak of stress and the smoothness of the phrase,
this student's native language is Filipino.
What do you want to do tonight?
But now let's look at a few examples of some students who didn't quite have that smoothness,
they had a little bit more of a choppy feeling to the way they spoke.
What do you want to do tonight?
Her native language was Spanish and did you feel how: what do you wanna do tonight?
It felt more separate. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, instead of dadadadadadada?
What do you want to do tonight? Really smooth and with more rhythmic contrast.
Her syllable, her syllables were a little bit more all the same which
would be natural for a Spanish speaker to do.
But in American English, we want those long versus short syllables.
What do you want to do tonight?
Dadadadadadadada. Again, sort of a feeling of separateness between the words.
And in American English, believe it or not, we don't want separation of words,
we want the words to flow one right into the next.
A note about the beginning of the sentence, the word 'what', that starts with the W sound.
And I have noticed that some of my students from India, for example, Germany also, can mix up W and V.
And I noticed one of my students here who submitted a video, native language Hindi,
he made a V shape with his lip, rather than a W.
That's what we want to see.
Hey, what-- Hey, what-- Hey--
Do you see his lip position here? It looks like the bottom lip is coming up to touch the top front teeth. That's V.
Vvv--- what we need to see for W is: wwww--- more lip rounding.
What do you want? Www-- what what do you want to do tonight?
This student did a nice job with the lip rounding. Her native languages Korean.
Hey, what-- Hey, what-- Hey--
Do you see that? More lip rounding. Wwww--- what do you want to do tonight?
The last thing I want to say about this sentence,
can you believe how many things there are to say about this sentence?
I want to talk about the intonation. This is a question.
But it's not a yes/no question. You can't answer it with yes or no.
And because it's not a yes/no question, we'll make the pitch go down.
What do you want to do tonight? For a yes/no question, we'll probably make the pitch go up.
Do you want pizza tonight? That's a yes/no question.
This question should go down in pitch. And I noticed just a few students made it and go up in pitch.
What do you want to do tonight?
Tonight? ---
Tonight? Tonight? Do you notice that pitch going up? We want it to go down.
Tonight. Her native language was French.
What do you want to do tonight?
Do tonight?
Do tonight? Do tonight? Pitch going down. His native language was Arabic.
The next phrase: I don't know. Now, this can feel like three very separate words, and that feels choppy to us.
I don't know. I don't know. We want something smoother. I don't know. I don't know.
Let's listen to two examples of students. The first one is quite choppy, each word feels separate,
remember we want things to link together. His native language is Vietnamese.
I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. Uh-uh-uh-uh. Uuuhhh-- we want that smoothness. Let's listen to another example.
I don't know.
Her native language is German. She had a lot more smoothness and connection there.
I don't know. I don't know. Instead of: I don't know. I don't know.
The thing about N apostrophe T contractions is they can be pronounced three ways.
They can be pronounced with a true T. Don't. I don't know. That's not very natural and not very common.
They can be pronounced with a stop T. I don't know. I don't know.
Let's listen to an example of a student who did that.
I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. Her native language is Ukrainian. That was a very good stop T.
Though I will say in this phrase, it would be more common to just drop the T.
When a word that ends in N apostrophe T is followed by a word that begins an N, we'll probably just drop the T.
Also if the next word is a vowel or diphthong, that's another possibility where we may drop the T altogether.
So instead of I don't know, it's: I don't know. And we link together just with an N sound.
I don't know. And you know, I should point out the word a 'know', KNO, it starts with the letter K,
but we're talking about beginning with the N sound here.
And that's why we would very likely drop it. I don't know.
Let's listen to some examples of some students who did this.
We're going to listen to them all at once with no break, their native languages are Kurdish,
Malayalam, and Mandarin Chinese.
I don't know.
Nice smoothness. Let's just contrast that one more time with the speech that was a little bit more choppy.
I don't know.
Da-da-da versus uuhhh-- We always want that smoothness in American English.
In the phrase: I don't know. I don't know. Or I don't know. We'll either stress the first or the last word there.
The word 'know' has the Oh diphthong and I definitely saw some students do know lip rounding whatsoever,
and I didn't really get the right sound so even though it's subtle,
you do need to have your lips around a little bit for the end of that diphthong. Know. Know. I don't know.
We're gonna watch a couple students who didn't do this and we're gonna freeze the frame on their mouth position
and notice that there is no lip rounding where we want lip rounding.
I don't know.
Okay, so there, she is finishing her word 'know', and you can see there's no lip rounding,
it's very wide and more neutral. I don't know. Know. Know. I don't know.
We need a little bit of lip rounding to get the right sounds there. This student's native language is Russian.
I don't know.
Know.
Completely neutral lip position. Know. Know.
It doesn't have to be much, just a little bit will bring out the right sound.
I don't know.
Okay, so there she is. Her position for 'know', again there's no lip rounding whatsoever.
So we can't quite get the right sound. Now as I watched her video, I noticed she was using her arm a lot,
her native languages Korean, and she was really focusing on the smoothness and the connection
between words as she did that, and I thought that was great. I always think if you can bring your body
into your practice a little bit, it's gonna probably benefit your voice.
So now we're gonna watch and listen to two students who had more of that subtle lip rounding for the
OH as in No diphthong. Their native languages are Russian and Hebrew.
I don't know.
Know. Know. Know. That's the right sound.
I don't know.
Know. Know. Know. Again, a good Oh diphthong.
In the next phrase, feel like just watching TV, I'm really looking for a connection between feel and like.
When one word ends in a sound that the next word begins in, we're gonna link those with a single sound.
Feel like. So again, it's an opportunity for smoothness and not choppiness.
We're gonna listen to one student who made it feel too much like two separate words.
Her native languages Cantonese.
I feel like--
Feel like-- feel like-- But we want: feel like-- feel like-- Let's listen to some examples.
I feel like--
Feel like-- feel like-- linked together with a single L, his native language is Chinese.
I feel like just--
Feel like-- feel like-- Again linking together with one L sound, nice and smooth, her native language is Russian.
With the word 'just', we have an opportunity here for a reduction.
It's very common to drop the T when the word before ends in a T cluster like ST or CT
and the next word begins with a consonant.
First month, for example, first month, dropped that T. Just watching.
In this conversation. Just watching. Dropping the T. Let's listen to one student who didn't drop the T.
I feel like just watching TV.
Just watching-- just watching-- When you do the full T release, it breaks it away from the next word,
and that just gives it a more choppy feeling. By dropping the T you can link them together more smoothly.
Let's listen to one of our Ukrainian students who did a nice job dropping the T.
I feel like just watching TV.
Just watching-- just watching-- No T.
I feel like just watching--
Just watching-- just watching-- Again, no T. Her native language was Thai. Great job!
A note to my Spanish speakers, be so careful about words that have the J in them,
make sure you're using the American J, jjj-- which is more here in the front of the face.
The sound that I hear my Spanish students making sometimes is more like: yyyii-- yyii-- in the throat.
I had one Spanish-speaking student do that, let's listen.
Just watching TV.
Just-- just-- just-- I'm using my throat there. We want: jj-- jj-- jj-- we want the sound at the front of the mouth.
Just. Just. Just watching TV.
Now the thing about TV, it's initialism. When we call something by the initials. TV instead of television.
NBC. This kind of thing. And when we do that, the stress is always on the last one. TV.
So a couple people put TV, stress on the first word, T, and that is not correct.
Let's listen to an example of that, his native language is Vietnamese.
I feel like just watching TV.
TV.
TV. That's not what we want. We want TV.
Let's listen to a few examples. We have Brazilian Portuguese, and what's the other one? Polish.
Watching TV. TV. TV.
TV. TV. Stress on V.
I feel like it's just watching TV. TV. TV.
TV. Again, stress on V.
The last thing to talk about with this conversation is the word 'sure'.
There are three different ways that Americans might pronounce this. Sure. Sure. And sure.
Sure, I would say, is the most common, it's the way I do it, and I would encourage you to do it, it's one less sound.
Because the vowel is the R vowel constant combination, it's just sh-- and rr--. Just SH and R. Sure. Sure.
Let's listen to some students who did a great job with this.
Sure.
Sure. Great clear vowel and sounds. Her native languages Farsi.
Sure.
Sure. Good job. Her native language is Filipino.
Sure.
Another good, clear example, his native language is Brazilian Portuguese.
What we want to be careful about with this word is the R. It's a very...the American R is its own very distinct sound,
and it's not uncommon to drop it at the end of a word, a carry over from British English,
but in an American English, we don't do that, we do pronounce the final R sound.
Let's listen to a student who I think drops the final R.
Sure.
Sure-- uh-- uh-- instead of: sure urr-- urr-- Her native languages Cantonese.
Sure.
Sure-- his native language is Arabic and he's doing that R that's like a flap here at the front,
and that's not the American R.
For the American R, we don't want the tongue tip touching the roof of the mouth at all. Sure. Sure.
There's one major topic I left out of this video and that is placement.
It's going to get its own whole video next week. So don't worry, we're gonna address that.
It's a very important topic.
Now, we're gonna play each one of the videos that you guys sent in.
I just want to say I loved watching these. Some people have their kid with them in their video.
Some people put on an Instagram filter so that they looked like two different characters.
Some people were on one side of the car and then another side of the car for the conversation.
It was so fun to watch what you guys did with this. I can't thank you enough for sending these in.
I had so much fun watching your videos, figuring out what to teach and how to teach it, and
it wouldn't have been a video if I didn't have your examples to put in there. So thank you so much.
So here they are, all of them in order. The shortest is gonna be first,
and then the longest towards the end. Enjoy!
Wasn't that fantastic? Thank you again so much to everybody who made a video.
The next video you'll want to watch is this one. Keep going with your learning. Don't stop now.
And please be sure to subscribe if you haven't already with notifications.
We make new videos here every Tuesday. Come back and check it out! We have fun here.
All right, don't forget to hit that video! Let's keep going.
That's it guys, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.