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Today we're continuing studying English with the Friends Christmas episode where Rachel quits her job.
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Now, last week on our video she quit her job.
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This week she's just had a job interview and she's talking about it.
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We're going to use this scene to study American English pronunciation
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and figure out what makes American English sound American.
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Here's the scene we'll study today.
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Ugh. I blew it. I wouldn't have even hired me.
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Oh. Come here, sweetie. Listen. You're going to go on, like, a thousand interviews before you get a job.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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It's just the worst Christmas ever.
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You know what, Rach, maybe you should just, you know, stay here at the coffee house.
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I can't. It's too late. Terry already hired that girl over there.
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Look at her, she's even got waitress experience. Ugh.
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And now the analysis.
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Chandler starts out up down shape of stress hey, hey, uh, uh. Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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His H is not very clear or loud here hey, hey, hey.
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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Hey. How'd the interview go?
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How'd the interview go?
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The stressed syllable of interview is the most stressed syllable in that whole thought group,
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how'd the and the first two words lead up to that peak. How'd the interview go,
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and the last three syllables come away from that peak.
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Now, are you noticing how that T is pronounced? Interview, it's totally dropped.
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It's fairly common to drop the T when it comes after N like an interview, internet, international.
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How'd the interview go?
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How'd the interview go?
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How'd the interview go?
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The apostrophe D here is the word did.
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We can also do would, how'd you do that, how would you do that but in this case it's did, how'd, how'd, how'd.
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Just a D sound at the end: how'd the.
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Now, we don't release the D. We have the OW, diphthong OW and D voiced TH. How'd the--
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So the D is subtle. The tongue is in position, the vocal chords make the noise but then
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the transition goes quickly into the voiced TH, how the, how the--
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and Chandler does say the E as in she vowel for the word the instead of the.
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That's because the next word begins with a vowel or diphthong and that is the rule.
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If the next word begins with a vowel or diphthong the final sound of this word is the E as in she vowel
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however I have noticed Americans don't follow that rule very closely.
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But Chandler does here, the interview.
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How'd the interview go?
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How'd the interview go?
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How'd the interview go?
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Ugh. I blew it.
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Ugh. Ugh. Just a sound of exasperation ugh but even that has an up-down shape ugh.
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Ugh.
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Ugh.
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Ugh. I blew it.
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I is really hard to hear almost imperceptible; I blew it.
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I know it's there grammatically, but we really barely hear it.
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Blew, I blew it, blew is the stressed syllable there.
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I blew it.
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I blew it.
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I blew it.
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I blew it, blew it. She does release a true T here and the two words link together very smoothly.
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If you blow something that means you do a poor job at it.
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You can blow an interview, you can blow a test, you can blow a project, you can blow a first impression.
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Ugh. I blew it. It did not go well.
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I blew it.
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I blew it.
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I blew it. I wouldn't have even hired me.
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Okay. In her next sentence what are our most stressed words?
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I has a lot of stress there. That's a little unusual.
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I wouldn't have even hired me. High and a little bit on me too.
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So, usually we don't stress I but for the meaning in this sentence, she is.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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I wouldn't have even hired me.
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Let's listen to just those three words wouldn't have even.
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...wouldn't have even
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...wouldn't have even
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...wouldn't have even
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Wouldn't have even, wouldn't have even, wouldn't have even, wouldn't have even.
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A little bit hard to tell that's wouldn't have even if you hear just that.
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So, wouldn't have becomes wouldn't have, wouldn't have, wouldn't have, wouldn't have.
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...wouldn't have
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...wouldn't have
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...wouldn't have even.
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Wouldn't have even becomes wouldn' have even.
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So, the T. I listened to it a bunch of times to decide. Did I think it was totally dropped or did I think it's a little bit of a stop T?
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I think you could do either. You could do a really light stop T, or you could just drop it: wouldn' have--
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Wouldn' have even, wouldn' have even, wouldn' have even.
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The H is dropped, the word have is reduced to SCHWA V wouldn' 'ave even,
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wouldn' 'ave even, wouldn' 'ave even, wouldn' 'ave even, wouldn' ''ave even.
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...wouldn't have even
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...wouldn't have even
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...wouldn't have even
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These kinds of simplifications are key in American English.
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They provide contrast to the stressed syllables the stressed words like the word hired.
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...wouldn't have even hired me.
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...wouldn't have even hired me.
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...wouldn't have even hired me.
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The ed ending in hired is a D sound because the sound before was voiced it was the R consonant,
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hired me. So, we have the R sound, the D sound and the M sound.
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The D is very subtle. I actually don't think I really hear it.
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I feel like it's more dropped hired me, hired me hired me.
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...hired me
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...hired me
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...hired me
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If anything, it's just a very subtle D sound in the vocal chords
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just like up here the D sound before the voiced TH. So, it's not a clear D.
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It's not hired me but it's hired me, hired me.
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If anything, it's just d, d, d a very quick subtle D sound not released.
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Just the vocal cords vibrating with the tongue in the position.
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...hired me.
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...hired me.
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>> ...hired me. >> Oh.
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Oh. Oh. His voice sort of has a nasal quality to it here I'm just noticing.
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Oh, oh, a little bit of sympathy, oh.
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Oh.
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Oh.
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Oh. Come here, sweetie.
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What is our stress in this three word thought group?
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Come here, sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie. Come here becomes c'mere, c'mere, c'mere.
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The word come reduced. I would write that K SCHWA M
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and actually M takes over the SCHWA. It's a syllabic consonant so it's really just like KM, k'm here, k'm here.
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The H is dropped, come 'ere, come 'ere, come 'ere, come 'ere, sweetie, come 'ere sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie
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Come here, sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie.
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And stress on that k'm 'ere sweetie.
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Sweetie with a flap T because the T comes between two vowels sweetie,
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k'm 'ere sweetie, k'm 'ere sweetie. So, it's not come here it's k'm 'ere.
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That's a very common way to pronounce those two words together, k'm 'ere, k'm 'ere sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie.
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Come here, sweetie. Listen.
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Listen.
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First syllable stress we have that up-down shape
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listen and the second syllable just comes in on the way down.
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The T in listen is silent.
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That's just the pronunciation, it's not something Americans do,
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it's the actual official pronunciation.
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Up here the actual official pronunciation of here is
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with the H but every once in a while we drop it like in this phrase
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but in this word it's just not ever pronounced, listen.
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Listen.
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Listen.
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Listen. You're going to go on, like...
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Okay. So, he puts a little break here.
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So, in this thought group
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what do you hear as being the most stressed syllable.
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You're going to go on like...
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You're going to go on like...
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You're going to go on like...
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You're going to go on like.
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You're going go- I hear go, the verb as the most stressed.
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You are going to becomes you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna.
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You are you're becomes yer, yer, yer.
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Just a Y sound and a R sound. You don't need to try to make the SCHWA.
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R is also a syllabic consonant, it overpowers the SCHWA yer, yer, yer.
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Going to becomes gonna so you are going to is
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you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna
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You're going to...
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You're going to...
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You're going to...
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You're gonna go, you're gonna go.
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You're going to go....
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You're going to go...
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You're going to go on like...
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On and like just falling in pitch away from the peak of stress at go.
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Go on like, go on like.
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...go on like...
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...go on like...
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...go on like a thousand interviews before you get a job.
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Okay and in this next thought group what is the most stressed syllable?
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...a thousand interviews before you get a job.
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...a thousand interviews before you get a job.
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... a thousand interviews before you get a job.
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A thousand. I think thou has the most stress.
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A thousand
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interviews before, a little bit of stress here as well,
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before you get a job, but I think the most stress is on thousand.
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So, that word begins with an unvoiced TH.
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You do need to bring your tongue tip through the teeth for that a thousand.
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...a thousand...
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...a thousand...
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...a thousand...
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And the letter A here just a SCHWA.
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A thousand, oops I just realized
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there's a typo here isn't there?
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There's an A in that word a thousand.
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...a thousand...
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...a thousand...
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...a thousand interviews...
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Interviews, interviews, again he drops the T it's a very normal and natural pronunciation interviews.
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...interviews...
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...interviews...
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...interviews...
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It's so weird I have never noticed this about Ross before and yes I've seen this show
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but his R in interviews and before is a little weak
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which is a little bit of a New York accent interviews before.
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...interviews before...
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...interviews before...
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...interviews before you get a job.
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I definitely recommend you stick with a standard American accent
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which does have a bit of a stronger R sound in those words interviews before you get a job.
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...interviews before you get a job.
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... interviews before you get a job.
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... interviews before you get a job.
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Before you get a job, before you get a job.
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You can really feel that stress before you get a job, da-da-da-da-da-da.
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It starts to feel like a music a little bit when you study the stress before you get a job.
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You get a, all lower in pitch flatter.
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Again, the letter A is just a quick SCHWA linking the words together.
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The T in get is a flap T. It comes between two vowels,
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it links those words together, you get a job.
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...you get a job.
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...you get a job.
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...you get a job.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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So, of course what he meant was it takes a lot of tries to actually get a job.
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What it sounded like was she's not going to interview
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very well and is going to have to do it a thousand times before she gets a job.
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So, that's what he meant when he said that's not how that was supposed to come out.
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We say that if we say something and the meaning didn't quite come across right.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was, that's not how that was supposed to come out.
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Come out, a phrasal verb.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was supposed to come out.
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That's not how that was... So, we have a full A vowel in that's
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both times it doesn't reduce that's not how that was.
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We have a stop T in this word that.
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That was, that was, that was.
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It's not released, that would be that was, that was over pronounced. We don't release our T's very often.