Hi, everybody.
It's Jill Diamond from the by Jill Diamond channel.
I want to welcome you back.
Today, I want to talk about flow.
It's something that's so important to those of you out there where English is a second
language.
I've had questions about the difference between the American accent and the British accent.
Today, we're going to look at the American accent, particularly in the area of flow and
how Americans reduce sounds.
They reduce sounds all the time.
Special shout-out today to Lulita Chen, who talked about rap in one of her comments in
one of my videos.
Rap is a really good example of reductions, of how we change the shape of the vowels to
move more quickly to the important words, the content words, the focus words.
We reduce certain sounds, we create links or connections between sounds, so that we
get towards the most important and emphasized words.
Today, one of the things we used to do in our group trainings years ago, was we would
take a nursery rhyme and turn it into a kind of rap song.
I'm going to do that for you today with the Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
Maybe some of you know this nursery rhyme from your childhood or from reading this nursery
rhyme to your children, but it's very, very well known.
It goes like this, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the sky so high, like a diamond in the sky."
Okay. It's a poem.
There's rhyming and that's just the way I might read it to a child.
But if I wanted to have fun, and I wanted you to have fun, which I do, I'm going to kind
of rap it up if you will.
I want you to kind of play along with me if you will, all right?
I will point out all the little places that I am reducing sounds.
Contracting, linking, all the flow techniques.
Here's the first line, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
Listen to this, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
That word "little" becomes little.
It's like a flap sound, little.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
You hear the word "star".
The second line, "How I wonder what you are."
Listen to this, "How I wonder what you are.
What you, what you, what you are.
How I wonder what you are."
Now, I have to point something out to you.
I'm exaggerating.
I'm emphasizing these reductions, these contractions, these flat sounds, so you can hear it.
When I actually speak it and I say, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," you hear "star".
"How I wonder what you are," you hear "what you are".
You don't hear "what you are".
But I am using the technique, I'm exaggerating the technique, and I want you to exaggerate
it for the fun, but also for the muscle memory.
You have to start to get into the flow.
Listen to this, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are."
Now we're going to say, "Up above the sky so high, like a diamond in the sky."
We're going to say, "Up above the sky so high," and then let's bring it down, "Like a diamond
in the sky."
I'm going to do that for you once or twice.
I want you to play along have, some fun.
Have some fun with it.
Remember, your American accent, if you're looking for an American accent, has much more
of these types of sounds than the British accent.
Here we go.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky."
Get your American pronunciation on.
Thank you for watching.
Don't forget to like, share, subscribe to the by Jill diamond channel and come back
soon for some more tips on your American accent.