full pronunciation analysis of the scene. What are  

the characteristics of American English?  Today they're talking about how much to  

tip somebody for the holidays. Here's  the scene that we'll study together.

Hey.

Hey, how much did you guys  tip the super this year?

Yeah, we were going to give fifty but if you  guys gave more, we don't want to look bad.

Oh, actually, this year, we  just made them homemade cookies.

And twenty-five it is.

You gave them cookies?

Money is so impersonal. Cookies  says someone really cares.

Alright we're broke but cookies do say that.

And now let's do the full analysis.

Be sure to download my Sounds  of American English Cheat Sheet,  

it's free. It's an illustrated reference  guide for you for all the American English  

sounds including the phonetic symbols you need  to know. Link here and in the video description.

Hey.

Hey, how much did you guys  tip the super this year?

If you weren't sure what is a common greeting  in American English, this clip will definitely  

show you that. We have the word 'hey'  four times in a row at the beginning  

of this scene. This is a much common  way to greet a friend than hello or hi.

Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. So the first one a little bit  longer, hey. Hey, the second one shorter,  

they both have that up down shape of  stress. Hey, then another one. Hey.

Hey.

So these were all another way of saying hello. Now  this is just sort of, this is less about hello.  

Joey has already said hello, it's more getting  the attention I'm about to ask you something,  

hey. And this one is really short. Hey, how  much, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, how much.

Hey, how much--

Just very quick and then the pitch  goes up for our question word how.

Hey, how much--

Also, the pronunciation of the word hey. We  do say the H in this word, we don't always say  

beginning H's but in this word we do. The H  consonant and the a diphthong hey, hey, hey.

Hey.

Hey, how much did you guys  tip the super this year?

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Hey, how much did you guys  tip the super this year?

How much did you guys. So, we have  a couple stressed syllables here.

How, up down, how much did you guys.

Hey, how much did you guys--

tip the super this year?

How much did you guys tip the super. Then  we have two more stressed syllables here as we  

go down. Tip the, and for that shape of  stress, pitch just goes up a little bit,  

just a little curve, tip the, and it's a  little longer than the other syllables.  

Tip the super. Su, first syllable stress,  that's the one with the slight up down shape.

Hey, how much did you guys  tip the super this year?

This year. And then he makes his intonation go up at  the end. Now, let's look at the words that aren't  

stressed. We have how, stressed. Now, usually when  we're asking a question, the question word how,  

what, when, where, why is stressed. If we're  making a statement with the question word, then  

it's not stressed. For example, “I don't know how  much it cost.” I don't know how, how, how. There,  

it's unstressed but if I'm saying how much does  it cost, asking a question then it is stressed.

Hey, how much did you guys--

So, we gave that length on how and then much,  did, you, guys. Those three words all said more  

quickly and really linking together smoothly, not  much time is given to those less important words.

Hey, how much did you guys--

And we're also coming down in pitch. So, we  started higher with hey or sorry with how. How much did  

you guys, and then all of that pitch is starting  to fall down a little bit. That's the general  

trend of sentences in American English, they start  higher in pitch and then they head down. And then  

we have little lifts and bumps up as we go for  stressed syllables like tip and su in super.

Hey, how much did you guys  tip the super this year?

So now that you know, you don't need to  put much effort, time and energy into much,  

did, you, guys. Now that you know that,  hopefully, it will make it easier for you  

to simplify and imitate this phrase. How  much did you guys. How much did you guys.

Hey, how much did you guys--

Now, he's linking the words 'did you' in one of  the ways we can do this did you. So, the d and the  

y are combining to make a j sound, jj, jj which we  write in the phonetic alphabet with these symbols.

Did you

So it's not did you but we simplify  that did you, did you, did you

did you guys--

tip the super this year?

Tip the super this year?  [flap]. So smoothly connected,  

we don't have any gaps or breaks between  words. Everything flows together smoothly.

Tip the super this year?

We have the word 'the'. Starts with a voiced  th. The, the, the. We have the word 'this',  

starts with the voiced th. Th, th, this.  Now, when we have an unstressed word,  

these are both unstressed and it begins with  a voiced th. One thing that Americans tend  

to do is not bring the tongue tip through so  this is a shortcut. The, the, the, the . Instead,  

the tongue touches the backs of the teeth rather  than coming all the way through the teeth. The,  

the, the, this, this, this. It helps to say those  words more quickly. Also the word 'year'. I just  

want to point out if you look it up in IPA, it  will say Y consonant, ih as in sit vowel schwa  

and the r consonant. Now, schwa R, this  ending changes the ih vowel into something  

more like an ee vowel. So it's not  ye, year, but ye ye ye, year, year.

super this year?

The word 'super' is short here for  superintendent and that's the person  

who lives at the building and is  in charge of the building. Takes  

care of maintenance if you have an issue  with your apartment, you call the super.

super this year?

Yeah, we were going to give fifty but if you  guys gave more, we don't want to look bad.

So now, Chandler comes in with a fairly long  thought group. What is a thought group? That  

is a chunk of words that does not have  a break in speech. So if he would pause,  

that would break it up into more  than one thought group but there  

are no pauses. He links everything together,  therefore it makes this one thought group.

Yeah, we were going to give fifty but if you  guys gave more, we don't want to look bad.

Yeah, we were going to give fifty. So we have  some stress here, yeah, we were going to give  

fifty. And then we have some stress on the  dollar amount, let's just start with that.

Yeah, we were going to give fifty--

So, just like up here we did did you, did you  do to make those two words link together a  

little bit more smoothly. We take going to  and we make that gonna and you've probably  

noticed that. That's extremely common in spoken  English and it doesn't even have to be casual  

conversation. You will hear that reduction gonna  in speeches, in you know, the business boardroom,  

it's just that common. Now, you don't want to  write it, but saying it, it happens all the time.

Yeah, we were going to give--

We were going to becomes we were gonna, we  were gonna, we were gonna. So, we and were  

both said pretty quickly too. We and then were,  I think we can get by thinking of this as just  

schwa R, were, were, were. So fast. Were gonna,  were gonna, were gonna, were gonna, were gonna.  

English is full of this contrast of stressed  longer syllables with and up down shape versus  

unstressed very short syllables, were, were,  were gonna, were gonna, were gonna, were gonna.

Yeah, we were going to give--

Fifty.

Let's just write out the word fifty so that we  can study the word itself. So, we have give,  

ending in a V, then we have fifty beginning with  and F, So, in this particular link, when we have  

an ending consonant and a beginning consonant  that are paired. So F and V go together because  

they take the same mouth position. V, F, V, F. I  alternate between V and F, the only thing I change  

is engaging my vocal cords V for that extra voiced  sound versus not F, that's unvoiced, that's the F.  

So when we have an ending voiced consonant linking  into a beginning unvoiced consonant that is its  

pair, we drop the ending consonant usually give  fifty. So you don't have to worry about making a V,  

just link g into fifty smoothly and it'll  sound perfect. Give fifty, give fifty, give fifty.

to give fifty--

Fifty. So I'm not hearing tt, a true t, fifty.  But it's more like a soft D. Fifty, fifty, fifty.

Fifty.

Fifty. So not tt, a sharp true t release.

Fifty.

But if you guys gave more--

Alright, let's look at the rest of the  sentence now. The rest of that thought  

group and pull out our stressed longer syllables.

But if you guys gave more--

But if you guys gave more. I'm feeling  that on you but and if said so quickly. But  

if you, but if you, but if you. Do you feel  how you is a little bit longer. But if you.

But if you--

guys gave more--

But if you guys gave more, gave more, gave more,  

gave more. We can feel that intonation  change, it's got that up down shape.

But if you guys gave more--

We don't want to look bad, we. We don't want to  look bad. Alright, so but if these two words link  

together with a flap t, why? We make a t a flap t  if it comes between two vowel or diphthong sounds,  

here it comes between the uh vowel and the e  vowel, so rather than t, making that a true t,  

it's just a flap of the tongue which sounds like  the American D between vowels, but if [flap], but  

if, but if, but if, but if, but if, but if,  but if you, but if you, but if you. Now,  

we have an F linking into the word you, it's  going to sound sort of like the word few  

because of how we link things  together and that's okay we want that,  

we want that smoothness. But  if you, but if you, but if you.

But if you--

guys gave more--

But if you guys gave more. Guys gave, guys  gave, guys gave. They're a little bit flatter  

because they're feeling unstressed here.  The more important word is more. He wants  

to compare so more has that stress not guys gave.

But if you guys gave more--

We don't want to look bad. We don't  want to. Alright, so just like gonna  

was for going to, wanna is what  we say for want to, wanna, wanna,  

wanna. And that's ending in the schwa. Gonna,  wanna, gotta, all of those are ending in an  

unstressed schwa sound so it's not wanna ah  but it's uh, uh, wanna, wanna, uh, uh , uh.

We don't want to--

Now let's look at our n  apostrophe t here in don't.  

We're probably not going to hear a tt, a true t.

We don't want to--

Don't want to, don't want to, totally  dropped. So we have a couple different  

pronunciations for n apostrophe t. One of</