[BEEP]
Hi, students.
Hope you're well.
In today's lesson, I'm going to answer the question, what
is a syllable?
And more importantly than that, in the second part
of the lesson, you are going to practise counting the syllables
inside words.
That's really important so that you
understand what a syllable is and you
can begin to apply that.
I have to confess here, and say that I
remember being taught this at school
and I didn't understand it.
So the way I'm introducing this to you today,
hopefully that will make it easier
for you to deeply get and understand what a syllable is.
I want to begin with the simplest explanation possible,
which is to say a syllable is the number of sections
that we can split a word up into.
We are not going to the smallest possible level
and counting every sound.
We're at the level higher than that, which we could say
is the part of the word that stands out, which is usually
a vowel, around which the consonants organize themselves.
So I'll give you an example.
If we look at the word problems, the smallest level of counting
the sounds would be P-R-O-B-L-E-M-S.
But we don't want to go that far in.
We're at the higher level above.
We would have two syllables in this word, PROB-LEMS.
If we were to go to the higher level than that,
then we have a word here.
'Problems' in this case.
And you've probably heard this before
that a syllable is the number of vowel sounds in a word.
However, it's not only vowels.
And also, because many of us have
a confusion between the spelling of the words and the sound,
it doesn't always help us to be able to apply and count
syllables when we're thinking syllable means
number of vowels.
Anyway, let's talk about why you need to know this.
The reason is, it's very important
for your English rhythm so that you sound natural
when you're speaking.
Also, for you upper intermediate and advanced students here,
you can't apply words stress properly
unless you have some understanding of syllables
because knowing what a syllable is
will help you to identify which syllable should stick out
in your word.
And that's very important for your English
being understood as well.
And next, knowing about syllables will really,
really help to improve your reading.
And the last stage of all, knowing about syllables
is essential if you want to start writing poetry.
[CHIME]
Students of English might find the topic confusing
because in English the syllable length is uneven.
Some are short and some are long.
And that could be different to how syllables are organized
in your native language.
The next problem is the simple rules about what syllables are
and how to find them.
Some teachers say clap the sounds in the words.
However, you do that and you can still be confused,
depending on the word you pick.
And for students who have taught themselves a lot
of their English by reading, they
have their own idea about what the pronunciation is
based on what they're reading.
And if you don't know the sound of the word first,
then you might have a confusion about how many syllables
are in that because you'll be looking at the spelling.
So let's talk now about the solution.
How do we make this topic, counting
the number of syllables in words, easy to understand?
[CHIME]
There are two factors.
The first is we have to explore the sounds inside words.
So we have to practise.
And we have to realize that the place
where the syllables break, we have some rules that
can help us, some patterns.
But there's also, let's say, a murky barrier sometimes.
We're not exactly sure where it breaks.
So we don't have to do anything about that.
We just have to be aware of it.
[BEEP]
Now let's count the number of syllables inside words.
We'll begin with what's called open syllable words.
What this means is that the vowel in the word,
in this case, "e" it's not followed by a consonant sound.
So this would be followed by a consonant sound.
Seed.
That would make it a closed syllable.
So in this word, we don't have that consonant
there so it's an open syllable.
It's a one syllable word: 'See'.
I think you'll find that all of these words
here are easy for you to count.
And if you do the clapping technique,
you'll be able to count these easily.
Let's do repeat after me.
See.
By.
There.
All one syllable words.
Before.
Later.
Coma.
Here I'm going to show you the syllable breaks.
Area.
Let's move on to words that might
be slightly more difficult for you to count
the number of syllables in.
This is because they are closed syllable examples.
We have our vowel, in this case "a."
On the left side, we have a consonant.
And on the right side, we have a consonant.
And the vowel is in the middle in a sandwich.
It makes it a closed syllable word.
Repeat after me.
His.
Bag.
Need.
Make.
Part.
Could.
Search.
Earth.
All of these words here, are one syllable words.
Notice that we can have a lot more letters in the spelling.
So in the word search, we have one, two, three, four, five,
six letters, but we're still only on a one syllable word.
My tip for you is when you're counting syllables, say
the word as naturally as you can.
Because if you're too slow and too perfect,
it can confuse your brain a bit.
So if you say need, need, you'll think
the "d" is sticking out a bit.
It takes a long time to say.
Oh, how many syllables?
Perhaps, if it's difficult for you, you might start to wonder.
And try not to look too much at the spellings
because it will confuse you.
This is only one syllable.
Make, make.
Whereas if we are counting the vowels in the spelling,
we could be misled.
And looking at these words here, we have two syllable words.
Sentence.
Children.
Mountain.
And they all have a pattern in common here, which
is that we're breaking the syllables
where two consonants meet.
And we're going to pay special attention
to this word, mountain, because we
have so many vowels in the spelling
that it can confuse us.
But it is possible to spell a vowel sound.
"Ow" in this case with two letters.
A single vowel sound "ow" with two letters.
And finally, we have some words that I just
wanted to throw in here because I
see my students confusing them.
The word cold, cold.
Say it for me.
It takes a long time to say.
Cold is a long vowel.
And then we've got that "d" kind of sticking out on the end.
And intermediate students will often pronounce this word
as 'call-ed' 'call-ed'.
They add extra syllable on for the ed,
which is incorrect in the case of this word.
So I'm pointing out here, understand
that the length of time it takes us to say a syllable
can actually be long in some cases.
And we have the word friends, friends.
Think of the vowel in the word as a magnet
to which consonants can be attracted
and they can stick onto it.
So in the case of friends, we have two consonants
before the vowel and three after the vowel.
Friends.
So that can make quite a complex syllable to pronounce.
But it's nothing in comparison to our last word, strengths,
strengths.
Because we have so many consonants
organized around a vowel there.
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Thank you so much for watching this video.
And I hope you come back to my channel
soon to watch another lesson.
Thanks very much.
Bye.