In this English Pronunciation tutorial, you're going to learn The 2 Second Rule.
The 2 Second Rule is one of the most important points you can ever learn for your English Pronunciation.
It's something that I spend hours working on with my private clients and it completely changes
the way that you speak English and how people will understand you when you're speaking English.
So if you want to feel more confident when you're speaking English, if you don't want to have people
asking you to repeat yourself or constantly asking you where you're from because you're
mispronouncing English, and if you want to just be more confident, more happy, and know that you're
speaking English more clearly, then The 2 Second Rule is going to be essential for your English speech.
It only takes a few minutes to learn so let's dive straight into the tutorial and learn it.
Hello and welcome to English School Online. The channel that teaches you English Pronunciation
so you speak English clearly English confidently and have more fun speaking English.
The 2 Second Rule is something that I developed because in working with clients from all around the world I see so
many people making this common mistake in English.
The mistake is this: when you're making a long English vowel sound
most people don't hold their lips in a steady position as they make the vowel sound
what happens is as they're making the long English vowel sound, their lips are already moving
to the position of the next sound that comes after that sound
and what happens, as a result, is it ends up not being clear what sound you're actually trying to make.
So if you're changing your lips as you're supposedly trying to make one sound, the person that's listening to you they're
gonna struggle to understand what sound you're actually trying to make.
And then in words that have-- that are exactly the same apart from this one vowel sound all of a sudden, it can confuse
your listener into 'hang on what are you trying to say?' Okay.
So learning this rule is going to completely change the way that you speak English and it's going to make you super confident.
So, how do we do it? What I'm going to do is, I'm going to give you an example. Five examples
one for each of the long vowel sounds in English, okay, so you can see exactly what I mean
when this rule is used correctly in your English speech.
So, let's start with the /u:/ vowel sound the long English vowel sound /u:/ and I'm going to show you exactly what I mean.
So when you make the long English vowel sound /u:/ or any other English vowel sound
what you want to do, when you're learning this rule, is hold your lips in the same position the vowel sound
for two seconds after you have finished making the sound, okay?
And that's going to train you to stop moving on to the next sound
before you have actually finished making this sound.
So I'm going to give you an example of bad pronunciation.
Then I'm going to give you an example of the correct pronunciation. And then
I'm going to show you The 2 Second Rule in use for each of the five English vowel sounds, okay.
So let's look at /u:/ the long English vowel sound /u:/ okay and I've got my trusty notepad here with me.
So if I say 'do' okay 'do' as in 'do you,' or 'I do,' okay. 'Do' is a really really really common word in the English language.
But what happens instead of saying 'do you' where you make the sound correctly
before you move on to the next one I see a lot of people all the time going 'do you,' 'do you,' or 'do you or 'd'ya,' okay.
Which isn't good pronunciation. So the correct pronunciation is this 'do you,' or
'I do'
Okay. If I say 'I do eat,' I'm not going
'I do eat,' 'I do eat,'
Where my lips are already moving to the next sound whilst I'm still making this one. I'm saying 'I do eat,' alright.
So let's look at The 2 Second Rule now how it applies to this /u:/ vowel sound.
For practicing the/u:/ vowel sound we're going to start by doing this and follow along with me here:
/u:/
To begin with, just do that.
Just make the vowel sound and then hold your lips in that position for two seconds afterwards.
That's going to develop your awareness of your lips being in the correct position and actually maintain
in that position, until you're ready to move on to the next sound, okay.
If we think combine that up with a word if we say 'I do' this is The 2 Second Rule.
'I do'
and then if you add another word onto the end of that which is where it gets really difficult for most people
'I do eat.'
Okay. So practice this, I'm going to move on to the next vowel sound now.
But, I really want you to practice this again and again and again because
when I do this with my clients we spend hours on it, because it makes such a big difference, okay.
So it's really really important for you to get comfortable, especially if you're doing this on your own
do-- just practicing this again and again.
Let's now look at the /i:/ sound, okay. So if I say the word 'seat'
if I don't hold my lips in that position and wide enough in that position before I move on to the next sound
which would be 'T' in the word 'seat,' it's going to sound like I'm saying 'sit,' okay. So if I say
'seat'
Can you see that my lips are already changing position as I'm making the long /i:/ sound, right
So let's now apply The 2 Second Rule. We're going to start by applying it to the sound itself
/i:/
Okay now let's put it with a consonant to the beginning:
'si'
Okay, and now let's put a consonant at the end, which is where it gets really difficult and tricky. You do it like this:
'Seat'
Okay, that is correct pronunciation. The bad pronunciation would be
'seat'
Okay, or anything else.
Because of time, I'm only giving you one example of the content at the end here, okay.
Really what you want to do is to be practicing every possible continent, in English, at the end of each of the vowel sounds
and I can't do it here just from a time perspective.
But on my English Pronunciation Membership website, which is what I'm developing at the moment
it's going to be launching really really soon, there's actually going to be video examples of
every vowel sound combined up to every possible consonant combination. And the reason why that's
so valuable and so important to learn is because you might find, 'okay well actually '/i://t/' is easy,' but
you might find that /i:/ with another consonant at the end like /ð/ for example is really difficult for you.
So, if you're interested in the membership site, either comment below or send me a message.
Because it's gonna be launching really soon and every single example is going to be covered on that so
your pronunciation is covered from all different angles.
For now let's move to the next long vowel sound, okay.
So now we're gonna look at the vowel sound
/​ɔː/
Okay. Now if you move to another consonant sound as you're making the /​ɔː/
like 'T,' okay, if you try to move to the 'T' as you're
making the /​ɔː/ sound
'ought'
what you're gonna do is exactly what I did there, which is dreadful bad pronunciation
And that sounds completely wrong in British English. And it sounds really
just just not good, okay. And yet that's what I hear most people doing, okay.
So step one let's look at the /​ɔː/ sound with The 2 Second Rule. Ready? Lips in the /​ɔː/ position,
/​ɔː/
Okay. Now let's say-- let's put the 'T' at the end of it this time, okay:
/​ɔː/ /t/
Okay. And now with a 'C' beforehand the letter 'C' see beforehand,
'Caught'
The reason why it is so important to learn The 2 Second Rule like this
is because right now we're practicing this sound really slowly. When you speak English naturally in
conversation, chances are you going to be focused on what you're saying and not how you're saying it.
So we want to practice this rule really slowly so it becomes natural at a slow speed and engrained
in your muscle memory at a slow speed, so then when you say it at native speeds you don't even have
to think about how you're saying it and you can just simply focus on what you're saying.
When most people are just focused on what they're saying and they've not done training like this beforehand
that's when they end up saying it wrong, okay. So that's why it's so so so important to practice it just
like this exactly as we are now, alright.
Let's move on to the next English vowel sound which is:
/​ɑː/
As in 'car,' okay. So let's do the sound on its own first followed by The 2 Second Rule:
/​ɑː/
Now let's add a 'T' to the end of it:
/​ɑː/ /T/
and then put a 'C' beforehand:
'Cart'
And then natural speed:
'Cart'
That's so much better a hundred times better than going:
'Cart'
which is bad incorrect pronunciation.
I'm going to give you one final example which is the long English vowel sound
/ɜː/
When I work with my private clients this is one of the first sounds that we usually work on
because it's so difficult to actually hold your mouth in a steady position and have your
mouth actually in the correct position here, okay. And so often I will see clients when they're new
to English Pronunciation going 'her' or 'were,' okay. /ɜː/ is really really important to get
right so applying The 2 Second Rule to /ɜː/ is an essential thing to do. So let's go ahead and do it.
/ɜː/
Okay. Now let's add a 'T' to the end of that, okay:
/ɜː/ /T/
and then let's add an 'H' sound beforehand we're gonna get a native speed 'hurt,' okay. Slowed down with The 2 Second Rule:
'Hurt'
Okay. I cannot recommend enough just practicing this again and again and again and again and again.
The reason why it's so important to practice is, most times you might feel like
you're holding your lips in the correct position, in a steel position, but then if you video yourself
and watch yourself back you realize, actually your lips have changed quite a lot as you've
held that long English vowel sound, okay. So it's essential to do the more you practice this the
better it's going to get and I promise you it's going to transform your English Pronunciation, okay.
And you can get immediate results from doing it right away. When you start getting this rule
correctly and then putting it to words that you use every day in your English speech, immediately
you get a transformation of your whole English Pronunciation and speaking, okay.
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And I cannot wait to see you in next week's English Pronunciation tutorial!
I'll see you next week!