My laundry room is in my basement so we're going to head down there.

It would be awesome to have a laundry room where you didn't have to go down

into the dark scary part of your house, but I don't.

So laundry room.

Laundry room. The word 'laundry' is interesting

because it has a DR cluster. And often, Americans pronounce the DR cluster so it sounds like

JR. jjj Laundry, jjj, -dry.

You can make aDR cluster, dd, -dry. But you don't have to.

You may find it easier to make a JR cluster, that's fine. That's what most Americans do.

Laundry. Laundry.

Try that with me. Laundry. Laundry room.

And my laundry room is in my, basement.

All right, let's go to the basement.

All right we made it to the basement.

So, first of all this is a laundry basket. I have two different laundry baskets.

Now, these should probably be in here.

Laundry basket.

Basket with the AA as in BAT vowel.

The unstressed syllable has a very quick IH vowel. –it.

Basket.

Basket.

Say that with me. Basket.

Laundry basket.

All right we made it to the basement.

So, first of all, this is a laundry basket.

I have two different laundry baskets.

Now, these should probably be in here.

Hard to tell. Okay, so we have lights or whites and darks.

And that's sort of funny because light, dark, white,

those are adjectives but we put an S at the end of them turning them into a noun.

So if this was all white, I could call it whites.

But since I also have other stuff in here,

like Stoney's cute little gray jeans,

I'm going to call this my lights.

It's not all white.

And these are darks, you could also call them colors.

Usually we just split our laundry into lights and darks.

Lights, darks, whites, colors.

We have four plurals here.

The rule for plurals is, the S is pronounced as an S when the sound before was unvoiced.

So that's an S sound for lights, darks, and whites.

If the sound before was voiced, then it's a Z sound.

That's for 'colors'.

Ending Z sounds are weak, and they usually sound like a really weak S:

colors, ss, sss, ss, instead of SS like in 'darks'.

TS cluster can confuse people.

The tongue tip can actually stay down.

Lift a part of the tongue further back to the roof of the mouth and stop the sound.

Tss, tss.

When you lower that part of the tongue,

the tongue is in position to make the S.

Whites.

Lights.

Whites, lights.

Try all four of those with me:

lights, darks, whites, colors.

Hard to tell. Okay, so we have lights, or whites and darks.

Washing machine.

Washing machine.

Look, we have the SH sound twice.

Once, it's spelled with a SH

and in 'machine', with a CH.

Same sound, spelled differently.

Wassssshhhhing maccccchhhhine.

Washing machine.

Try that with me.

Washing machine.

Washing machine and dryer.

Dryer. Another DR cluster.

So you can either make it a D, dd-- dryer,

or a J sound: jj-- jryer.

The AI diphthong, lots of jaw drop for that.

Draiiiii-- yer.

Then a quick ER at the end. No break.

Dryer, dryer. Smooth connection. Dryer.

Say that with me.

Dryer.

Washing machine and dryer.

And for clothes that you're not going to put on a dryer,

we have a drying rack.

Very useful.

Drying rack.

Now instead of –er, we have an –ing ending.

Drying, drying.

A smooth transition between syllables, no break.

Drying.

Rack.

Tight circle for the beginning R.

Ra-ah-- then lots of jaw drop.

Rack. Drying rack.

Try that with me.

Drying rack.

And for clothes that you're not going to put on a dryer, we have a drying rack.

Very useful.

We also have a utility sink, where we can hand wash clothes.

Utility sink.

The T here comes between two vowels,

that's a Flap T, unless it begins a stressed syllable,

which is what happens here.

So it's a True T.

U-til.

Util-ity.

The second T is between two vowels and doesn't start a stressed syllable, so it's a Flap.

Utility.

Try that with me.

Utility.

Sink.

The IH vowel here is followed by the NG consonant.

The letter N always makes an NG sound when it's followed by a K.

So it's made with the back of the tongue,

Sing-- instead of the front, NN.

When IH is followed by the NG,

which happens all the time with ING words,

the IH vowel is a little tighter, it's closer to ee.

So it's not ih-si, si-ih-nk.

But ee, si-sink.

Sink. Say that with me.

Utility sink.

We also have a utility sink, we're we can hand wash clothes.

So sometimes, you don't put it on a washer, you hand wash it.

Hand wash.

This is a case where you can drop the D.

It's not uncommon to drop the D between two other consonants,

and I think it sounds just fine to say 'han-wash'.

Hann-wash.

The requirement for dropping the D is you have to link the two words together, no separation.

Hand wash, hand wash.

Say that with me.

Hand wash.

So sometimes you don't put it on a washer, you hand wash it.

Iron.

That's a pretty tough word.

Iron.

And then we also have an ironing board.

Iron and ironing board.

Okay, tough words here.

It looks like it should be i-ron, but it's not.

Actually, the R comes after the vowel in the second syllable.

Since the vowel there is the schwa, you don't even need to try to make a vowel sound there.

When R comes after schwa, it absorbs it.

Errrr, just one sound, rrrrrr.

I—rr—nn. Iron.

It might help you connect these two syllables if you think of a Y sound being in between them.

I—yyyrrrn.

Iron.

Iron.

So separate what the word looks like based on the letters, from the pronunciation.

If you focus on the how the word looks, it will probably mess up how you say it.

I---yyyrn, iron.

Say that with me.

Iron.

Try it now with ING ending.

I-yr-ning. Ironing, ironing board.

Again don't focus too much on the letters,

that might mess you up, just imitate what you're hearing me say.

Ironing.

Ironing, ironing board.

Try that with me.

Ironing board.

Iron.

And then we also have an ironing board.

So you can see we have the load size and the temperature.

Load size. We have two diphthongs here.

First, an OH diphthong, jaw drop, then lip rounding.

Load. Load.

Then the AI diphthong.

Jaw drop then the tongue arching towards the roof of the mouth.

Ai, si-- size.

Load size.

Notice what's happening with the D.

I don't release it, but I don't drop it.

I make a really quick D sound, dd-- in my vocal cords before the S.

Load—dd-dd size.

Load size.