Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • so today we haven't asked E t j Birthday Special.

  • I'll be answering some of your questions about British pronunciation.

  • There will also be a few questions in there about me.

  • Because it's my birthday.

  • I'm going to be selfish.

  • So hello, everybody.

  • This is Elliot from E T J English.

  • I thought I'd change things a little bit.

  • I'm standing today.

  • Yes, I decided to stop being lazy.

  • Stop sitting on my bottom when I make these videos.

  • Get a bit of exercise by standing up in this lesson.

  • So I hope you don't mind if you don't like the standing, let me know in the comments.

  • So that's right.

  • If you're watching this video on the day it's released, which is Saturday, the 15th of June, 2000 and 19 then it's my birthday.

  • Thank you.

  • Yes, thank you.

  • Thank you.

  • Anyway, enough about the birthday stuff.

  • You guys know how this goes?

  • Ask E T.

  • J are usually post a picture on instagram on.

  • You guys comment on it, telling me what you want me to answer?

  • What questions you want me to answer?

  • We're going to start with a pronunciation question.

  • And that question is the difference between wonder.

  • Andi Wander Wonder Wonder Now lots of people already know the difference between these two words.

  • One word to wonder means.

  • Oh, I wonder when you think about something or contemplate something, you wonder about it.

  • Okay?

  • We even say, I wonder when we're not sure about something.

  • However, the word wander to go for a wander might mean just to go for ah, slight stroll.

  • A small walk.

  • Okay, now we have these two different vowel sounds, which make the difference between the two words.

  • Wonder, ah wonder or now the second sound or is one of the most British sounds you can get.

  • It's such a British sound, and it really does separate us from the Americans.

  • It's in words like not hot pot really, really special sound for British English, and I want you to make sure that you can pronounce this correctly are now.

  • If you need detailed explanations of how to pronounce all of the vowel sounds, then that's where you conjoined my pronunciation course.

  • But just to give you a very kind of brief review of how we pronounce this sound, we create a round shape with the mouth.

  • Okay, kind of round It's It's almost for me.

  • I have quite a fishy mouth, a big mouth, so I kind of go round and a little bit vertical.

  • Oh, okay.

  • So I'm creating this kind of lift with my tongue on the sound rolls through.

  • It's a short vowel.

  • Sounds okay.

  • So wonder what?

  • What?

  • One wonder on the other sound is a wonder.

  • Okay, this is in words like nut hut.

  • But so if we were comparing the two sounds we have nut on, do not, for example, uh Oh, So just to answer your question one more time, wonder wander two very similar vowel sounds.

  • As I said, you can learn the rial specifics in my course if you really want Thio next.

  • So this is an interesting question, Elliot.

  • What do you think off the royal family?

  • Where and that will be most British people's answer.

  • We don't really care.

  • Next.

  • This is a good one.

  • So in the QA qni accent, OK, lots of people pronounce the th sound as so, for example, words like think a cock me might pronounce as think.

  • Okay, they put the top teeth on the bottom lip.

  • Think now I have mixed emotions about this.

  • I'm very happy of my country and its heritage.

  • So I enjoy it when I hear a cop me accent, use this.

  • But when you're a pronunciation teacher and you teach RP like I do myself, they're becomes this difficulty because, ah, lot of my students really love the cock.

  • Any accent?

  • One of the most common mistakes that students make is they can't pronounce the th sound.

  • So lots of you listening right now probably have a problem with putting your tongue between your teeth every time you pronounce the th sound right and companies don't do it.

  • And also other areas of the UK some people would say think instead of think.

  • But the thing I have to tell you is, as a non native, it's going to keep making you sound like a non native if you do this so I know you might really like the cock knee accent, but doing this is going to make you sound more like a non native because it's a very common non native missed aches to not pronounce the th sound in its true form in the kind of RP form or general English form next.

  • This is one which I get asked about a lot.

  • I have a whole lesson comparing these two sounds in my course.

  • And it's about the difference between air on a Met on dmat or set on sat is actually very, very simple, but quite difficult to execute.

  • Okay, what we need to do is execute the difference between at and s.

  • So we're not saying met instead of Matt for that sound tongue down in the bottom of the mouth, a mouth open, nice and wide.

  • The tongue is pushing down into the bottom, which should make the chin go down.

  • Ah, Okay.

  • Ah, Now the other sound is air also like in Elliot.

  • Right air.

  • So this is a bit of a different sound.

  • We're actually lifting the tongue a little bit more now.

  • The tongue should be kind of near the front of the mouth on in the middle.

  • Okay, so not at the top, not at the bottom.

  • Were in the middle of the mouth.

  • Air on.

  • We slightly spread the lips, as you can see.

  • So air.

  • Uh huh.

  • Uh huh.

  • Ah.

  • Met Matt.

  • Matt Met?

  • Uh huh.

  • Practice moving that tongue up for the air down for the act.

  • Practice seeing your mouth move into different positions.

  • Next.

  • Good question.

  • Elliott, what are you doing for your birthday?

  • I'll be with my family having a barbecue?

  • Most probably judging by the forecast in the rain.

  • Onda having a great time.

  • Andi.

  • Hopefully someone has listened to me on bought me the new Liverpool T shirt as a birthday present.

  • We'll see.

  • You'll find out on Instagram next studio studio tune, tune.

  • Student student, YouTube, YouTube.

  • Now both are British, both ways of saying all those words and there are others.

  • When we have this to sound, Ah, lot of British people will pronounce it as to now.

  • I've talked about this in a lesson previously, so I won't go into detail too much.

  • But there are two ways essentially on.

  • Both of them are British now.

  • The old fashioned British way is pronouncing all of those continents together on creating this to sound.

  • So, for example, the word tune, which is how I prefer to pronounce it.

  • Lots of old fashioned people and very posh people will pronounce it as tune tear tune, tune.

  • So we're doing a a year on and do to like Tuesday.

  • Right now, I'm not a big fan of pronouncing it like this, and I teach modern British English so the things you'll hear the most in daily life And it's not that the most common way is a sound.

  • It's easier.

  • You'll sound British.

  • So who cares?

  • Tune.

  • Student student.

  • Okay, YouTube, YouTube.

  • Next.

  • Now this is a good one because I've been thinking about this recently.

  • Not because I want to change my job, but somebody asked me if you ever chose a different career.

  • What would it be now?

  • I wouldn't change my job as a pronunciation teacher.

  • Pronunciation is my first love.

  • It's my one true love.

  • I love teaching it.

  • I love the students I teach on.

  • Everyone who joins my course has a great time with me because it's just fun.

  • I like to make it fun, but I was thinking the other day about maybe expanding things a little bit.

  • Now I'm a busy guy, but I do have time in the week for maybe starting a second channel or maybe starting a podcast.

  • Now here's the thing I've been thinking about.

  • So I love gaming, right?

  • I'm a bit of a nerd on.

  • I kind of have, like, maybe one day free in the week where I could spend an hour or two streaming.

  • Okay.

  • So live streaming myself.

  • Playing games, listening practice for you guys.

  • Now, if I don't do this, then I would make a podcast.

  • Okay?

  • Now, if I made a podcast, it would probably be me complaining about lots of things, talking about controversial topics on again.

  • It would just be a listening practice for you.

  • Which one would you prefer?

  • Write in the comments below, and I will create whatever it is this month.

  • Next, we have another good question.

  • Pronunciation.

  • How do you pronounce?

  • Interesting?

  • Well, there you go.

  • Interesting.

  • Now it's funny because some people pronounce it as interesting with an ex sound.

  • But if you go on to Cambridge Dictionary Website, you will see that it is pronounced with a Schwab sound entrusting.

  • Interesting, Interesting.

  • Now that only sounds good when you talk fast on.

  • This is the thing with the Schwab sound.

  • It's designed to be said fast, so it makes words faster.

  • It makes sentences faster, so only use the Schwab sound if you're going to use it fast like I wouldn't say, Oh, that's very interesting.

  • I wouldn't say that.

  • I would say, Oh, that's very interesting, Interesting.

  • But if I were to speak a little bit faster, I would say, Oh, that's very interesting.

  • Interesting on that air is becoming a Schwab sound on.

  • This shows that the Schwab's sound can appear out of nowhere.

  • It's like a ninja, right?

  • It will just appear on it, will attack a vowel on it will replace it.

  • For example.

  • The word about we have