[MUSIC]
Hey, everyone. I'm Alex.
Thanks for clicking and welcome to this lesson on
improving your L and R pronunciation with a children's song.
What song are we looking at today?
Row, row, row your boat.
How does it go? Let's try.
[MUSIC]
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
It's like that. It's not perfect,
but let me try it again.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
I always told you I couldn't sing.
You probably believe me more now.
Do we want to slow it down?
I think we want to slow it down.
Before we continue, row, row, row your boat.
This is an excellent song if you want to
practice your L and R pronunciation in the shower,
if you're walking around your house,
if you're cleaning, and basically,
anytime no one is around and you're okay singing.
What is basically a children's song?
But like when I'm studying French and I use French cartoons,
children's cartoons to practice my listening and to practice my pronunciation,
you too can use children's shows,
children's songs such as this one to help improve your English.
Let me see if I get off the screen a little bit so you can read the lyrics.
At this point, it's not super important to know what all of these words mean,
but I'll just go read them for you.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
The most difficult part of this song and the part where you're really practicing
your R and L pronunciation is, what's that word?
Merrily, so remember the L,
you're going L, L, your tongue is right here in the front.
Merrily, so like this.
Merrily, give me a moment there.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Let's start from the top and you can sing with me but nice and slow.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Try again. Let's try again.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
I like singing it a slightly different way at the end.
I know the melody is supposed to be a little bit different,
but that's the way I sing it.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Let's try it one more time.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
It's kind of like that. I'm missing that chord with the merrily.
All right. So, before we continue singing, I know I said one more time,
but I think there's one more in us. Just read the words with me.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Okay. Are you tired yet? Does your tongue feel weird?
That's okay. My fingers feel weird, and I'm embarrassing myself on YouTube,
so who is really worse right now? It's probably me.
Anyway, let's try singing it one more time.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Your singing is probably better than my guitar playing.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
You can find better YouTube videos of this song,
but at least I started it for you. So, if you just look on YouTube, row, row,
row your boat, you can find a lot of kids videos that
play this song. This is the most popular verse in the
song. There are more verses, but this is the one that really
practices your R and L. And there is no quiz to this
lesson. How do you do a quiz about a song that
you're singing for pronunciation? I mean, I guess it's possible, but not for
this video, because really I don't want to make one. I
don't. I just want to sing.
Let's do it faster. You thought it was over, but it's not.
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
I think we'll stop there. That was really bad. Maybe your ears hurt,
but maybe your brain has expanded. Maybe your R and L pronunciation has improved
just a little bit, and maybe it will continue to improve
as you sing this song in the shower, in your house, while you're cooking, on
the street, wherever you are, and sing it in front of
your kids. Show your kids this video and say, "Hey,
look at this guy. He can't play guitar. Let's watch a better video with row, row,
row your boat." I shouldn't say that about my videos. Watch
my videos. All right, so if you enjoyed this and if
you want to continue improving your pronunciation,
I have a lot of pronunciation videos on www.engvid.com,
or you can subscribe to me on YouTube. Check me out on Facebook and Twitter,
and this might be the last video I make where I'm using a guitar,
so I hope you enjoyed it.