hello Aubry how are you doing today I'm excited to be on the show with you today yes I'm great
Lindsay so fun to be here I'm excited for this episode it's gonna be a really fun one it's
gonna be great so are we getting into a little pronunciation today I know our listeners are
always thinking about pronunciation and how to do it right yes exactly and I was Finding
keywords for our app and listening to one of you and Michelle's episodes it was very recent it was
1815 three-step formula to convey quiet confidence in English and you listeners will remember you
guys weren't really sure about the pronunciation of realtor one of you said realtor and one said
realtor and one said Realty or Realty and you were like we'll look it up we'll get back to you and
I said oh we definitely need to do an episode on this oh I'm glad we're coming back to this I know
we leave a lot of Cliffhangers for our listeners you know throughout the episodes guys so if you
haven't listened to that 1815 go back if you're using the iOS or Android app you can just type at
1915 into that search bar and find that episode so good yes it's so interesting and just since
earlier today I was listening to a podcast and heard someone say realtor three syllables yeah
again this we will we'll hear it both ways so this is not in a vacuum right this happens all the time
you guys are going to start hearing these words pronounced multiple times so it's so good just to
be aware of this yes really really interesting stuff yeah so good so good and all right where
are we gonna start today Aubry let's dive into it because well I have a question for you yeah
because a lot of this is right Geographic so being from the East and now living out west are
there any words that you pronounce differently from your neighbors oh my gosh so words that I
as an East coaster pronounce differently from people out here yeah have you noticed any for
sure there's the the our listeners know uh that I pronounce um the thing above our house right
but a lot of people say roof okay and I heard another podcast uh and the co-hosts were teasing
each other one of them said roof and that person that host is from Massachusetts so I
thought it was an East Coast thing but now that you're saying it it might just be I grew up in
kind of Rural America a little bit and maybe a rural America yeah it could be it could be so
interesting there's one in Idaho being in Idaho right now that's coming up so many times that
people say Italian okay Italian dressing it yes kind of drives me nuts I've heard that every mom
I'm like Mom it's Italy so Italy Italian But It's tricky because there is really no right or wrong
for a lot of these it's very you know Geographic and people are going to pronounce it differently
depending on how the locals pronounce it how they grew up pronouncing it so that's good to know I
really you know I even shouldn't be correcting my mom but that's one that kind of gets on my nerves
that one's so funny I think that one might be generational because the only other time I've
ever heard anyone say Italian in the U.S was in college my college roommate's grandmother would
say it when we would go home for like spring break and have to have like Easter dinner with
her family she'd say would you like Italian salad dressing right but I think that one is
generational older people maybe my sister says it oh she's younger than me but it's because
my mom said it and she okay so but I think you're right that that could be sort of going away people
are starting to realize this probably should be Italian but there are a couple others we
um I've noticed people here they'll say mischievous oh yeah when elsewhere you might hear
mischievous and then often we don't pronounce the tea here in Idaho it's always often whereas a lot
of places you might hear often and you hear that t yeah I say often I think I say often yeah so
so clearly guys today is not about showing you the wrong pronunciation and the right pronunciation
it's about variations which I personally think is more interesting for our listeners yes I
agree right and what's interesting when it comes to a word like realtor or realtor yeah this is
where you might hear natives argue about this because someone might say this is the correct
pronunciation is realtor and someone else might say no the correct pronunciation is realtor right
no the when you look in the dictionary someone might say preferred pronunciation is this in a
dictionary but preferred and correct are different things yeah for sure and you know ask a realtor
right so I say realtor I put a little extra syllable in there the point is you know when you
speak with someone the point is that connection that moment of connection don't get hung up on
oh my God this person just mispronounced it or you mispronounced it keep the conversation going yes
for sure don't let this hold you back right and it is something interesting to talk about when you
hear someone pronounce something differently this reminds me of something really funny that happened
maybe about a year ago where Benedict Cumberbatch he's this um the star of doctor strange and
Sherlock Holmes he's a British actor yes and he was narrating a nature doctor documentary
and he wanted to talk about the Penguins and he said penguin like w-i-n-g at the end penguin and
he said it a few times and he started getting teased by people online by talk show hosts and
he had such a great sense of humor about it he just laughed and he's like yeah who you know and
so even natives make mistakes and it's not a big deal right we just laugh it off we pronounce words
incorrectly or just differently from other people and it's light-hearted right it's not a problem
I love it are we gonna go into any other specific words it would be good all these words where there
is kind of a variation here for native speakers yeah are so many I found a really interesting
article in the Parade Magazine okay 50 words that natives in the United States pronounced
differently because you guys know if we're talking New Zealand British versus the United States the
every word is pronounced differently practically but even within the United States there's a lot
of words that are pronounced very differently so we're just gonna give you a few examples
it's like that expression tomato tomato yeah I think Michelle and I have mentioned that in the
show before right tomato tomato potato potato data data doesn't matter I mean exactly right
we recognize there are two ways of saying this that's actually a fun idiom to say like let's
agree to disagree you have your ideas I have mine it's fine you might say tomato I say tomato it's
okay it's okay we can still get along and we can still connect which is the most important thing so
exactly so our listeners are dying to know what are these words Aubry yeah so let's go over a
few of them so the first one is pecan I say pecan it's a nut how do you say that Lindsay I say pecan
as well okay a lot of people say pecan no I don't think yeah but do you change it when you say pie
like when you add pie to it you stay the same do you say pecan pie um I actually think I say both
I definitely hear both I hear both yeah and I don't know if it's a geographic or on TV I've
heard both because it just depends on where people are from both totally accepted totally
either way but like you were saying figure out how the locals say it say it like them exactly
do you like pecan pie by the way I said you can you just said I think you do both that's what I
say I say pecan but I don't say pecan right so there's a few different ways to say this pecan
pecan pie right so I have a lot of options that's so interesting I love pecan pie delicious it has
pecans you guys and brown sugar kind of caramely with across my mother-in-law makes the best pecan
pie oh delicious wow it's so sweet it has to be I like it too but I can only do a small slice
yeah yeah for me a good apple pie any day over anything else honestly or a strawberry
rhubarb in the summer oh I love the strawberry rhubarb because that has the tart and the sweet
my grandma used to make strawberry rhubarb pie she had a big rhubarb bush out in front of her
house and it was so scrumptious oh I didn't know that uh rhubarbs grew in Idaho that's amazing oh
yeah definitely okay let's do the next one which is also a food apricots I say apricot
oh no I say apricot for sure interesting yes here in Idaho we say apricot okay interesting
interesting okay and the next one correct yep both correct guy so however you you can decide
or you can be like me you can swap depending on your mood the time of day you can choose your
pronunciation that day maybe who you're talking to you know maybe sometimes you know language is
a human function right and so sometimes maybe we mirror who we're talking to and we actually say
it the way they say it right it might go back and forth and this is another example right I usually
say adult but if I'm talking with someone else who says adult then sometimes I'll start saying
adult right right right you're right both ways so often yep so I say adult too I don't say adult
but I could right yeah right if you if you were talking to someone that said it several times
that way there's a chance you might start saying it like that but it's interesting to notice when
we change the word a little bit and we make it adulting we make it a verb it's we wouldn't we
wouldn't really say adulting would would or would you would you no I wouldn't I'd say adulting okay
and that is more rules for pronunciation of words with three syllables yes which there's so many
rules that gets really tricky but it's true that's you're more stuck in that you need to say adulting
okay so that's important to note guys sometimes when these words become a verb or an adjective in
that case you go to a different pronunciation or you follow different rules so this these
uh anecdotes today are just about the nouns right that's important to know okay and what's the next
okay so this one's interesting I say caramel okay two syllables how do you say caramel
um I do not say karma I've had debates about this with people I say caramel caramel caramel
a lot of people do my sister moved to Arkansas and she thought caramel and caramel were two
different things so he didn't realize it's the same thing she thought caramel was either a name
brand for some kind of candy because she had heard that word a lot but it's so spread out
so differently she didn't realize it's the same thing interesting well I know Carmel is also a
city in California right near Malibu well that's a different pronunciation again right and that's
that's spelled c-a-r-m-e-l right but it's Carmel with the emphasis on the second so right that's
thermal the emphasis on the first syllable good point so that that would be the way to tell that
apart guys and also in context right you might be tricky I was gonna say because you might spell it
incorrectly if you hear it pronounced caramel this would be tricky for someone taking the IELTS exam
yes the speaker says caramel you might spell it without that a in the middle if they say caramel
you're more like to spell it correctly because it sounds like how it's spelled yeah and Aubrey
you're over there on the IELTS energy podcast twice a week with Jessica Beck how can they find
that show if our listeners want to learn more by the way about IELTS oh yeah if you guys aren't
following wherever you find your podcasts follow IELTS energy we have two new episodes every week
all of the information you need to know to get your score on IELTS and it's really fun Jessica
and I are fun so come check it out good times good times excellent okay do we have one more yes one
last one that's I've had some controversy here whether you say pajamas or pajamas what do you
think I think I said pajamas pajamas pajamas and I've asked a couple people this because I
hear it both ways so much and so many people are like I wouldn't say either I say PJs PJs
I like that answer actually right it's shorter no it says pajamas we just say PJs that's true
no one does that's right yeah and then I mean we can go another day into things like for example
people from the East Coast pronounce Jessica's home state as Nevada but it's actually supposed
to be pronounced Nevada so those would be examples where it's wrong like we actually make up we make
a pronunciation mistake but that's somewhat related we can talk about a different day there
was another one where she currently lives some people say Oregon and some people say Oregon yes
I don't know which people from Oregon I say Oregon but I'm not sure how they prefer I think Oregon
so yeah clearly there are some differences here this is really fun okay Aubry should we go into
a role play yes let's do it we are planning for a party in this role play Lindsay all right okay
I'm going to make a pecan pie and an apricot pie that sounds amazing I'll bring vanilla ice
cream in caramel sauce our only adults attending or is anyone bringing children well my brother
is bringing his kids but they'll be upstairs in their pajamas so don't plan on them eating
nice it's funny because did it sound wrong to you when I said apricot well I got a little nervous
at the beginning of the role play because I'm like oh my God now I have to pronounce
it right which is the right way and that really brings up the point here that there is no right
way right this is really a good point to make that guys if you hear these words multiple ways
don't correct anyone don't think one is right or don't be stressed about saying one or the other
Lindsay and I say a lot of these differently yeah all correct there's so many more important
things to worry about in a conversation right make sure you're following understanding and
connecting making that eye contact is so key and important so let's go back Aubry and see what we
used here yeah so I said I'm gonna make a pecan pie which I certainly could have said pecan pie
yeah apricot pie Lindsay would have said apricot apricot right and then I said I'm gonna make
a caramel sauce you would have said I'm gonna make a caramel caramel sauce not Carmel not the
city guys that's your bonus for today the city in California a caramel sauce is what you would have
made what else Aubry yes and then I asked our only adults attending which a lot of people would say
are only adults attending some people would say adults I would have said adults like you we have
some similarities here it may be like growing up in the countryside like I said before I'm not sure
um and then I said my brother's bringing his kids but they'll be upstairs in their pajamas paja
amas right I also would say pajamas but you'll definitely hear pajamas or we've shorten it even
more and say PJs yeah and that's a bonus takeaway for today too I love that one um this has been
great Aubry what's our takeaway for our listeners on this episode I think you hit the nail right on
the head when you were talking about how stressful pronunciation can be and we want to eliminate that
for you guys we don't want you to be stressed about pronunciation yes it's important to try to
pronounce words clearly and accurately so you're understood but recognize that natives pronounce a
lot of words differently so this is definitely not something you should let keep you from connecting
with other English speakers exactly and you know maybe for our listeners guys you want to set a
goal of listening a lot so that ultimately you want to be hearing regularly both pronunciations
being used by different native speakers so that immediately you'll know it doesn't matter you'll
go and verify what we're saying right you don't have to take this for granted you can verify what
we're teaching you today in your own experience I've been preparing for my trip to Mexico City
Aubry so I've been listening to more Spanish and I've been like getting that Spanish in my
ears and there's no replacement for just good solid listening practice it's so true that is
exactly right now you guys when you go out and listen to podcasts and TV and radio you're going
to hear these words pronounced both ways and you'll remember us to be like ah I learned
about that on all yours English you got it and in the end it's about connection not Perfection
right Aubry exactly right this is really fun Lindsay thanks for chatting about pronunciation
with me good stuff Aubry I'll talk to you very soon see you in the next one bye-bye bye right