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  • In this American English pronunciation video, we're going to go over how to greet Americans.

  • As some of you know, last time I was here in LA, at the YouTube Space, I made a video

  • on introducing yourself to people. At the time, I didn't know anybody. Now, I'm back

  • again with all the same people. So they're all going to be in this video again saying

  • 'hey'.

  • First of all, let's listen to a bunch of different greetings.

  • Hey.

  • Hey, Anthony. What's up?

  • Hey, Rachel.

  • Whassup Rachel?

  • Hey Veronica. >> Hey.

  • Morning, guys. >> Morning.

  • Hi. >> Hey.

  • Hey. >> Hey! >> Hello.

  • Greetings. >> Hey, what's going on?

  • Hey man. >> What up, doe?

  • You probably noticed a lot of people said 'hey'. This is definitely the most common

  • way to greet someone in America. It's pretty casual, and I use it all the time with my

  • friends. Hey, hey. Notice the shape of the voice. There's a little curve up, and then

  • a curve down in the voice. Hey, hey, hey. So basically, it's a stressed word. We start

  • with the H consonant sound and go into the AY as in SAY diphthong. Make sure you drop

  • your jaw enough for the first half of that diphthong. He-e, hey, hey.

  • >> Hey.

  • >> Hey Veronica. >> Hey.

  • >> Hey Rachel.

  • >> Hey. >> Hey.

  • We also heard 'hi' a few times. Again, it's stressed, so we have that shape of a stressed

  • syllable, hi. Hi. It begins with the H consonant sound, and we have the AI as in BUY diphthong.

  • Again, make sure you drop your jaw enough for the first half of that diphthong. Hi, hi.

  • >> Hi.

  • Look at that jaw drop we have on the AI as in BUY diphthong.

  • We also heard 'hello'. This is a two-syllable word with stress on the second syllable. da-DA,

  • hello. So, it's that second syllable with the up-down shape of the voice. The first

  • syllable will be pretty flat: he- he-, he-. It begins with the H consonant and has the

  • EH as in BED vowel. But this is very quick, he- he-, hello. The second syllable begins

  • with the L consonant, so the tongue will come up here, ll, ll, and touch the roof of the

  • mouth just behind the teeth. Hello. Then we have the OH as in NO diphthong. Drop your

  • jaw for the first half of the sound, and make sure you round your lips for the second half.

  • Hello. Hello.

  • >> Hello.

  • A little bit of lip rounding here for the second half of the OH diphthong.

  • You may have noticed, some of the guys added 'man'. Hey man.

  • >> Hey man.

  • It's ok to say this only to a man. But you may have noticed that I used the term 'guys'

  • for a bunch of girls. So, 'guys' is a little more gender neutral. Hey guys.

  • >> Morning guys. >> Morning.

  • Because I was filming in the morning, a lot of people said 'morning' as their greeting.

  • This is short for 'good morning'. Simply, 'morning'. Morning. Now, you could say 'afternoon'

  • or 'evening' during those times, but it's not nearly as common. Morning.

  • >> Morning guys. >> Morning.

  • >> Hey, morning guys. >> Morning.

  • Most greetings involve one of these greeting words: hey, hi, morning, and so on, and often

  • a question. The appropriate way to respond is to answer the question, and to ask the

  • same question yourself.

  • For example: >> Hey, how are you? >> Good, how are you?

  • Let's take a look at a few of these exchanges.

  • >> Staci, Kristina. Hey! >> Hey, Rach!

  • >> How are you guys? >> Oh, it's good to see you!

  • >> Yeah, you too! How've you been? >> Good, good.

  • >> Hey Scooter. What's up? >> What up doe?

  • >> Hey Max. What's up? >> Hey, how's it going?

  • >> Good, how are you?

  • >> Hey Jenn, hey Frankie. >> Hey.

  • >> How are you guys doing today? >> Good. How are you?

  • >> Not good. >> Good. You're not good?

  • >> Not good. I just broke my phone.

  • >> Hey, what's going on? >> Not much. How are you?

  • >> Just hanging out. I hear it's your birthday today.

  • >> It is, actually. >> Happy birthday, Rachel.

  • >> Thank you.

  • >> How are you? >> Fabulous.

  • >> As always!

  • >> Hey Aaron. >> Hey, how are you doing?

  • >> Good, how are you? >> Good.

  • How are you. We heard this two ways. Once with the word 'are' stressed. How are you?

  • >> How are you guys? [3x]

  • How are you? But most of the time, you'll hear it with that word reduced. How are you?

  • >> How are you? [6x]

  • >> Great, how are you? [3x]

  • How are you? So, in that case, make sure it's really short, er, er, er, how-er, how-er you.

  • How are you, da-DA-da. How are you, da-da-DA.

  • The most common response to this phrase is 'good'. You might sometimes hear 'great'.

  • One person even said:

  • >> How are you? >> Fabulous.

  • >> As always!

  • And unfortunately, one person said 'not good', because her phone had just broken.

  • >> You're not good? >> Not good. I just broke my phone.

  • Another question we heard was 'how's it going?' So we're contracting 'how is', how's, how's.

  • So just put a Z sound there at the end of 'how'. The next word begins with a vowel,

  • so the Z should link those two words together. How's it, how's it, how's it going? Notice

  • the Stop T at the end of 'it'. We're not releasing it: how's it going. So, just hold the air

  • for a second, and then release again. You can either end with the NG consonant, ng,

  • or with the N consonant, nn. Goin', goin'. It's a little more casual, but that's ok.

  • How's it going, how's it goin'.

  • >> How's it goin'? >> It's goin'.

  • >> Hey, how's it goin'?

  • Da-da-DA-da. How's it going. Again, the answers here will be good, great, not bad, etc.

  • What's up? This is answered just like 'what's going on?' Usually 'nothing' or 'not much',

  • but you can say what you're doing in that moment. You can hear this as 'tsup', with

  • the TS reduction. We also heard it as 'whassup', where the T was dropped altogether. Whassup.

  • And we even heard one person say 'whadup'. So what was he doing here? He dropped the

  • S sound, so now the T came between two vowel sounds. So it was a Flap T, sounding like

  • a D. Whadup.

  • >> What's up.

  • >>Whassup, Rachel?

  • >> Hey, Brysi. What's up? >> Oh hey Rachel. What's up?

  • >> Hey Scooter. What's up? >> Whadup doe?

  • I hope this was helpful. The next time you see someone you know, don't be afraid to go

  • up and start a conversation. A huge thanks to everybody who was in this video.

  • Staci and Kristina both have awesome how-to channels. Staci does knitting tutorials, and

  • Kristina, paper crafts. Aaron makes awesome skateboarding videos. Anthony does music reviews.

  • Don does children's music. Evan makes awesome drawing tutorials.

  • >> Whassup Rachel's English. How you all doing, people? This is Evan, from your channel Cartoon

  • Block. Showing kids how to do their thing, drawing and sketching and all that. Veronica

  • has great travel videos on California. Rose and Eman both have great makeup and style

  • channels. Fabulous. Qban Guy does sketch comedy. Sarah's crafting channel is awesome. Chris

  • and Hilah work on HilahCooking, a great cooking channel. Billy does awesome children's music

  • with puppets. You met one of the puppets in one of my other videos. Brysi mixes rap with

  • video games on his channel. Jason does comedy sketches on his channel. Scooter has some

  • great 100 lists on his comedy channel. Max No Sleeves never wears sleeves in his comedy

  • channel. MissJennFabulous has a nail channel, where she did teach me a different way to

  • paint my nails. And Pete is a video producer behind the scenes on several different YouTube

  • channels.

  • >> Yeah, what does that mean? What does 'doe' mean?

  • >> 'Doe' is a...urban term, which can mean 'though'. However, you just add it for that

  • emphasis onto the end of sentences. >> Pretty much anything?

  • >> It's like an exclamation point, almost. >> Can you say it again?

  • >> Whadup doe!

  • That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.

In this American English pronunciation video, we're going to go over how to greet Americans.

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