Oh great! I have a few minutes,
I'm gonna see who I can meet on the RealLife App for a quick conversation.
Hey how's it going? Hi! Nice to meet you.
Oh! That's some cool posters you got there.
Yeah, I love Tim Burton's movies. Are you a fan of Tim Burton?
Sorry, who?
Yeah! Tim Burton, the director.
Oh Tim Burton.
Yeah! Tim Burton.
Listen to these names. They're all pronounced with the same sound.
Let's see if you can identify what that sound is.
Your host for this evening, Steve Martin.
Please welcome James Patterson and president Bill Clinton. Please say hello to Michael Keaton.
Notice that the names Martin, Clinton and Keaton all have something in common,
it's this t vowel n combination at the end. In fact it's one of the most difficult sounds in
American English. Most languages don't have a sound like this, so many learners cannot
even perceive it when they hear it. Let's take the name Keaton for example. Now if a British
person were to say this, they would say... probably you might also hear someone say...
But in most American English accents we will make this sound that you observed before:
Now if this seems pretty difficult, don't worry, there's just three simple steps that
you need to follow to effectively make the sound. So first of all, we're going to remove the vowel
between the t and n. So pretend that it wasn't even there. So what happens next is that the t
sound is not released. What do I mean by this? Normally when we make a t sound our tongue goes
up and then it flicks down in order to release the air and make that burst of the ts. However when we
make this noise what we do is we simply don't let our tongue drop so that the tongue stays up and it
blocks the air. This is also called a stop t. Alright so what we get is...
See that my tongue stays up? Many Americans, myself included, often
get so good at making the sound in the back of our throat that we can
just keep our tongue down altogether. So I could also say this by doing...
see my tongue doesn't even need to go up at that point. But for you
and trying to start to make the sound you might want to try it with your tongue up like that.
Next, step 2.5 subscribe to our channel. Okay, I'm just kidding. But I'm kind of not because if you,
like many learners out there, are feeling lost and insecure you're not sure what to do next
and what you really want to be is natural and confident when you speak English,
well you found exactly the right channel to do that. So why don't you join over 300 000 learners
around the world who are discovering a more fun and effective way to learn English by hitting
that subscribe button and the bell down below and that way you won't miss a single new lesson
like this one. And finally we can move on to step three, which is after we have kept our tongue up
so we're not releasing the air and we're able to create that stop t. What's going to happen then is
when we make that n sound, we're forcing the air to actually pass through our nose so it becomes...
I'm making that n sound by letting the air pass through my nose. So why don't you try?
Now, it doesn't really matter if you have one vowel or two vowels between that t
and n sound. Even if we have two, we'll usually cut them both out. Let's take
for example the word mountain. Now that's probably how you would usually say it right:
With that full t sound. But if you want to produce it with this sound
or you want to understand how most Americans would say it,
then we need to use that stop t sound again. Right, so watch me say it.
Now you try.
All right! Now let's practice with some more. Don't worry about the meaning of these words.
In fact, you could even close your eyes and just listen to how i'm saying them so that you're not
depending too much on the visuals, of being used to reading and maybe trying to reproduce it like
you would in your native language. Just really try to listen in to the sound and how i'm saying them.
And, of course, you also need to be used to hearing these in full
sentences. So let's practice with some example sentences.
And, you know, when you learn something new like this, so that you can remember it and so
that you can start doing it effectively, it's not enough just to watch a video,
because your brain doesn't work that way. You have to actually put it into practice. But many
learners have told me that they just don't have anyone to practice their English with. So we
decided to go ahead and solve that by creating the RealLife App for you. Let's take a look at
what one of our app users Shirley said about it. And just like Shirley you can have absolutely
fascinating conversations with people from all around the world about your passions, about
your hobbies and you can put into practice this advanced pronunciation tactic that you're learning
today. Or one of the best ways to learn is by teaching it, so why not go on the app and teach
someone else how to make this sound? And a lot of you tell me that you just don't have much money
to invest in your English learning. So we've made this a free resource that you can use to improve
your English speaking, so give it a go. You can download it now by clicking up here or down the
description below or you can simply search for RealLife English in your favorite app store.
What did he say?!
All right, again, depending on the region where you're at and the accent that's used there,
you can also find the sound occur in words that end with an nt contraction. Now this would often
happen in the negative form of auxiliary verbs like wouldn't, couldn't or didn't. So in these
words before the nt we have a d. Now commonly in American English we would pronounce this d as an
American d. Which is a quick flick of the tongue. It's very similar to the r in Latin languages like
Spanish and Portuguese. So I could say it's like: However you might also find that some people
pronounce this with the sound that we've been working on today by making that d into a stop
consonant. So if we do that that's going to change the sound a little bit. So instead we will have:
All right, so now practice with me with some sentences:
All right so now that you know about the sound, you will certainly be able to better understand
native speakers when you're listening to your favorite tv series or even when you get into a
conversation. Now it is important to note that you do not need to speak like this, you can, if
you want, you can put in the hard effort to really learn to produce that sound in an effortless way
and that's great if that's your goal. But it is a lot of work so what's really important though
is that you are able to identify and understand it when you are listening to native speakers.
And I want to hear from you: What sounds do you find are the most difficult in English
to produce or to understand when you hear them? Why don't you let us know down in the comments
below and that way we can make a lesson for you explaining it just like we have today? Aw yeah.
All right this lesson would not be complete without testing everything
that you've learned today. So today's test will have two parts. Let's start off
by testing your listening. How well were you listening in today's lesson? So what you're
going to do is you're going to listen closely to me saying some sentences, however we're not
going to show the full sentence on screen. You're going to have to fill in the blanks,
each of these blanks will be filled with one word that has the sound that we have been practicing
today. And of course you can pause and repeat after me if you want to. All right, you ready?
All right. How'd you do? Are you ready for part two of the test? Okay, so now we're going
to test your speaking. So we will show you five sentences and you need to do your best to say it
with that sound. Then you'll hear me say the sentence and you can compare how you did
compared to how I said it. For extra points, you could also record yourself so you can actually
play back yourself saying it next to mine and that will give you a better comparison.
Nice work! So out of the 15 questions, how many did you get? Why don't you share your score with
other learners down in the comments below? So aside from improving your pronunciation and
your listening skills, another super important aspect of getting advanced English speaking
is being able to increase your vocabulary. Now what if I told you that you could learn
a thousand or more words by just learning one simple trick? Well, you can! If you're curious,
then you should definitely check out this lesson next. Let's watch a clip from that.