In this English Pronunciation tutorial, you're going to discover the top 10 words that
you need to know for employment in English.
So if you're going to get a job in the UK or the US,
or any other English-speaking country around the world.
Or if you're getting a job in an international company where English is the language that's used.
Or if you're a manager who recruits staff using the English language.
Then these 10 words are going to be essential for you communicating confidently and clearly
in the interview process and when you're discussing employment.
In this video, I'm going to show you how to pronounce each of these words
and I'm also going to show you
any common mistakes that non-native speakers often make with these words
and then if you want to see how to actually take these
words and integrate them into your English speaking just like a native.
Then in the videos that you're going to watch after this,
you're going to see how you can use the British Accent Method to do this
by applying connected speech, intonation, and everything else that you need to know
to use these words just like a native.
And this is going to give you more confidence,
it's going to enable you to be more like the real you when you're speaking English
and also to make sure that you're communicating confidently in job interviews
so that you're getting the jobs that you know that you're capable of.
Let's dive in and get started with these top 10 words that you can
use for more confidence in employment in English.
The first word is 'employ.'
For example 'I'm going to employ a new member of staff.'
And the reason why we're starting with this word is because
this word is built on with many other words in English.
'Employment,' 'employed,' 'employment liability.'
There's lots and lots of different words that all build around
this word employ, so let's get started.
It's spelt with the letter 'E,' but it's pronounced with the /ɪ/ vowel sound.
Just make sure that when you make this word,
the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed:
This also applies if you're using the words:
We want to make sure that we're stressing that 'Pl.' 'Ploy.'
The next word is 'P.A.Y.E,'
which is a shortening of the phrase 'pay as you earn.'
So if you're going to be employed by a company there's two ways that it can happen.
You can actually be properly employed by the company
and if that's the case you'll normally be paid under what's known in the UK
as 'P.A.Y.E' (Pay As You Earn).
This refers specifically to tax purposes.
Whereby your tax is deducted from your salary each month
so the money that actually arrives in your bank account is after the tax that you're going to pay.
This is the opposite to self-employment, where you normally
earn all of your salary over the course of the year
and then you pay a lump sum at the end of the year.
Or you might end up splitting your payments of tax into two installments over the course of the year
but it's different to P.A.Y.E, okay.
So, 'P.A.Y.E.' This is how you'll normally earn your money if
you are a standard employee on a normal contract, okay.
And the mistake that you need to be aware of here is
not making the 'P' sound without aspiration.
You want to make sure that when you say 'P' your 'P' sound is aspirated, okay.
If you want a comprehensive guide to aspiration on the 'P'
consonant, then make sure to watch this video up here.
This is one of the most commonly mispronounced consonant sounds in English because of aspiration.
So make sure to look into that.
And when we put it back into the phrase:
You're basically saying the letter 'P' the /eɪ/ diphthong
the word 'why' and then the long vowel 'E.'
The next word is self-employed and if you run a small business in the UK
- or probably in most countries around the world - then you may well be self-employed
that means you work for yourself, okay.
If you run a larger company that is your company,
your company might be what's called a 'limited company'
and then you would be employed by your own company, okay, as a director or a CEO.
But if that's not the case and you're not a limited company,
then you're probably going to be self-employed.
So this is an important word to be aware of because you
also might find yourself working for other companies where you are self-employed.
Two times in my career, before I started teaching pronunciation
full-time, I worked self-employed.
Even though I was working for companies, I was contracted as a self-employed worker, okay.
So it's an important word to know and the word here is 'self-employed.'
We've already looked at the word 'employ,'
so all we're going to do is add the '-ed' ending onto this word
which, in this particular scenario, is just the 'D' sound.
and then we're going to add the word 'self' in front of it:
'I'm self-employed.'
The next word is 'contract.'
Whenever you get a job you're going to get a contract.
That might be a fixed term contract, which means that it's just for a period of time;
six months, a year, two years, whatever.
Or it might be a long-term contract where there's not an end date on it, okay.
So what we need to be aware of here is that we put the stress on the first syllable.
When we use the word contract as a noun,
it's important that we stress the first syllable because
we can also use this word as a verb.
But then the stress moves to the second syllable
which would sound like 'contract' compared to 'contract.'
In this video we're only looking at the word 'contract,' okay.
So stress on the first syllable:
And then with the second syllable, I want to make sure that you're not
letting your tongue touch the roof of your mouth for the 'R' sound, okay.
We don't want to say 'contract'
which would be very very very common for a lot of non-native English speakers
because the 'R' sound in most languages the tongue touches
the roof of the mouth. It doesn't in English.
In the same video that I teach the aspirated 'P' sound
that I mentioned in the word before
you can also learn how to pronounce the 'R' sound
without letting your tongue touch the roof of your mouth.
The next word is 'statutory.'
This is quite a challenging word. It might feel a little bit unnatural,
so if you're having difficulty here it's not your fault.
But statutory is an important word because it's used in various different scenarios in employment.
You have 'statutory sick pay,' you have 'statutory holiday,'
you have 'statutory maternity leave' if you're going to have a baby
or if you're the father of the baby you have 'statutory paternity leave.'
So statutory is a very important word, it's not often pronounced it's often
shortened to just the letter 'S'
and I'll get to that in just a moment
because that's going to be in the next words we're going to look at
But first of all how do we pronounce this word?
It's actually quite a difficult word because there's four syllables in it.
The primary stress is on the first syllable:
The next syllable is just the /ə/:
Then the next syllable is:
You kind of have a /ə/ sound there, but you could also get away with using what's called
a syllabic consonant and letting the 'R' sound last the length of the word:
And then finally the /i/ vowel sound at the end. Bringing it all together you get:
And then what that would sound like in the context of a larger phrase is
'statutory sick pay' or 'statutory maternity leave,' okay.
And this leads us nicely onto our next three words, because what we get is in employment we get
'statutory sick pay,'
'maternity leave,' 'paternity leave,' and 'holiday,' just like i mentioned.
But we don't normally say in employment 'your statutory sick pay is this.'
What we'd normally say is 'your SSP is this,'
we just simply pronounce the first letters of these words.
so 'SSP' would be 'statutory sick pay.'
'SMP' would be 'statutory maternity pay.'
'SPP' 'statutory paternity pay' would generally be
if you are the father of the baby or
the partner of the person that has had the baby, okay.
So we've got two of the most important words coming up.
But before we get to them. The next word is 'pension.'
That's what you're going to rely on when you leave work and stop working for your income, okay.
The mistake you don't want to make here is with the
'P' sound again you want to make sure that it's aspirated because
This can really affect the sound of your speech and affect your confidence if you're not aspirating it, okay, so:
Stress on the first syllable and the second syllable is unstressed. 'Pension,' okay.
and then you could use the word pension in a couple of different scenarios.
In many companies when you join them, you get offered the opportunity to join the company pension scheme
where you can essentially have additional deductions of your salary
each month that goes to the pension scheme which ultimately leads to a second pension in
addition to what you might get as a state pension when you retire.
So in this word what we've got is 'pension contributions'
What can cause difficulty in 'contributions' is a few things because it's quite a long word.
Particularly I want to make you aware of 'bu'
the 'B' consonant followed by the /j/ consonant, /bju:/
Followed by a weak unstressed syllable '-tions'
The secondary stress in this word is on the first syllable 'con,' so you get:
The reason why I'm highlighting these stressed syllables and the weak syllables
is because this is really important for developing a natural English rhythm, okay.
English rhythm is very different to the rhythm in a lot of languages
and if you want to speak like a native, understanding where the stressed syllables
are and the unstressed syllables are is essential in helping you to achieve this, okay.
So we've got 'pension contributions' and what you might get offered when you join a new company
is if you want to sign up to their pension contributions.
The next two words are the two words that we really like to talk about when we are working for a company.
and those two words are 'salary' and 'wage.'
They basically mean the same thing, if I say 'what is your salary?' That is 'how much money are you earning?'
The other word which basically means the same thing is 'wage' or 'wages.'
You might say 'my wages are good' or 'my wages aren't great.'
Let's get into the pronunciation of both of these words.
The first word is salary stress on the first syllable
again make sure your 'R' the tongue doesn't touch the roof of your mouth
it's not salary that could sound like celery which is a salad item okay
salary /æ/
make sure you've got a nice /æ/ vowel sound on the first syllable there
and then your tongue doesn't touch the roof of your mouth for the r sound
salary
for wages stress again on the first syllable
wage
this time make sure you're making a 'W' sound
and not a 'V' sound where your bottom lip is touching the top teeth
It's not 'vages' it's 'wages.'
And both of these words are to do with the money that we earn, okay.
So those were the top 10 words! I'm now going to give you a bonus word
which you can also use and it's good to be aware of in the company environment.
And the bonus word ironically is 'bonus!'
So in many companies, you may get a Christmas bonus or a performance bonus
and what you want to make sure is that when you're saying the word bonus you're using the /əʊ/ diphthong.
One of the most common mistakes that people have difficulty within English
is pronouncing the /əʊ/ diphthong as a short /​ɒ/ vowel sound.
So instead of:
Instead what I hear is:
and that can sound unnatural to native English speakers, okay,
so we really want to make sure that for bonus on that first syllable
we're pronouncing the /əʊ/ diphthong where it lasts.
And on this channel, I've got quite comprehensive training on the /əʊ/ diphthong
because it is so important to your confidence in english okay
Now, before we get to the end of the video
these 10 words are vital for communicating confidently when you're talking about accountancy
Or when you're talking about employment, okay.
These are real words that you will use in your profession
or have people say to you.
Be it your manager, or the hr department, or the finance
department in regards to your work.
So it's really really important to have confidence with these words
and that's why I've given these words to you today
because I really want you to have confidence with these words
when you're using them in your English.
Remember, I'm fighting for your confidence in English
because I believe that you deserve confidence like a native.
And the best thing that you can do right now to continue
your journey to achieving confidence like a native
is to watch this video here, where you're going to learn exactly
how to pronounce the consonant sounds I explained in this video
that are the ones that affect your confidence in English.
These are the most challenging consonant sounds in English.
So check this video out right now, it's the best advice you
can use for continuing your journey to speaking English like a native
and I'll see you here in just a second!