Pronunciation ChallengeWhy Printer Ink Is So Expensive | So Expensive

Printer companies attribute the high costs of the research and development that goes into perfecting printing.

Intro:
Hi, VoiceTubers! This is Jeff Chiao. As the awareness of environmental protection raises, most companies and organizations around the globe are pushing for digitizing documents and minimizing the use of paper. However, for the most part, we are still relying on physical documents and the printers which print them out. And for those who have bought the ink cartridges themselves, the astonishingly high price of these little containers always makes us feel like we are being legally robbed by these manufacturers.

What’s even more ridiculous is, sometimes it’s even cheaper to buy a printer, than buy the ink cartridge for it. How could this happen? And how could this make economic sense for the manufacturers? Go watch today’s featured video and look for the answers yourself. But before doing so, let’s take a look at our featured sentence first.

Featured Sentence:
“Printer companies attribute the high costs of the research and development that goes into perfecting printing.”

Okay, let me repeat it one more time, just a little bit slower.

“Printer companies attribute the high costs of the research and development that goes into perfecting printing.”

With that out of the way, let’s head to the pronunciation tips.

Pronunciation tips:
Our first tip of the day starts from the connection of successive words, and we have a couple of examples today. The first is “costs of”. We could combine the /s/ in “costs” with “of,” and pronounce them as, “costs-of.” Notice that the “of" here should be pronounced as a weaker /əv/, instead of the normal /ɒv/.
The other example is “goes into.” Likewise, we could combine the /s/ in “goes” with “into,” and pronounce them as “goez-into.”

As for words worth mentioning, we have two examples for today as well. The first is “attribute”. The “a” sounds like /ə/, the “i” sounds like a shorter /ɪ/, and the “u” sounds like /ju/. With stress put on the second syllable, it sounds like: “attribute.” “Attribute".
It is worth mentioning that attribute (/əˈtrɪb.juːt/) could also pronounce as /ˈæt.rɪ.bjuːt/, however with a different meaning. We will dig into this deeper in the vocabulary section afterwards.

The other word is “development.” The first “e” sounds like /ɪ/, the second “e” sounds like /e/, the “o” sounds like /ə/, and the “en” sounds like /ən/. With stress put on the second syllable, it sounds like: “development.” Development.

All right, with the tips sorted, let’s get to the vocabulary.

Vocabulary:

attribute (v.) KK [əˋtrɪbjʊt] IPA /əˈtrɪb.juːt/
to say or think that something is the result or work of something or someone else

The humble CEO attributed the success of the new product to her brilliant team.

attribute (n.) KK [ˋætrə͵bjut] IPA /ˈæt.rɪ.bjuːt/
a quality or characteristic that someone or something has

Many believe such humbleness is the crucial attribute that attracts talents to work for her.

research (n.) KK [rɪˋsɝtʃ] IPA /rɪˈsɝːtʃ/
a detailed study of a subject, especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding

The linguist finally managed to decrypt parts of the mysterious ancient manuscript after years of research.

development (n.) KK [dɪˋvɛləpmənt] IPA /dɪˈvel.əp.mənt/
the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced

After years of development, the once undesirable district now has the most advanced infrastructure in the whole country.

Outro:

So that wraps up today’s episode!

I think the most impressive yet concerning fact that I learned from the video is that now printer manufacturers have developed a technology to “lock-up” your printer if your quota of ink has run out. Although we are all quite familiar with subscription services with streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify becoming increasingly popular, having a physical possession in your room that would refuse to function just because you didn’t pay up to the company, still seems really weird to me. I mean, the machine, the ink, and the papers are all there right in front of you and you have paid for them, but at the same time, they are also not completely yours. Maybe it is a great deal for those who use their printers constantly, but for me, I think convenience store’s printing service is good enough.

And that’s all for today! This is Jeff Chiao from VoiceTube. Hope y’all have a good one! Until next time, goodbye.

I also highly recommend that you guys should scroll down the comment section to read the script of the pronunciation challenge (in host Hubert and Jeff Chiao's section ). It may be helpful for those like me who are trying to fully understand the challenge.

Printer companies attribute the high costs of the research and development that goes into perfecting printing

Day 148