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  • In the US, summer is for sand, sun, and blockbuster movies.

  • And this summer, we're going to use those movies to learn English and study how to sound American.

  • Every video this summer is going to be a Study English with Movies video.

  • We'll pull scenes from the summer's hottest movies, as well as favorite movies from years past.

  • It's amazing what we can discover by studying even a small bit of English dialogue.

  • We'll study how to understand movies, what makes Americans sound American,

  • and of course, any interesting vocabulary phrasal verbs or idioms that come up in the scenes we study.

  • I call this kind of exercise a Ben Franklin exercise.

  • First, we'll watch the scene.

  • Then we'll do an in-depth analysis of what we hear together.

  • This is going to be so much fun! Be sure to tell your friends and spread the word

  • that all summer long, every Tuesday, we're studying English with movies here at Rachel's English.

  • If you're new to my channel click subscribe and don't forget the notification button.

  • Let's get started. First, the scene.

  • If you find this recording, don't feel bad about this.

  • Part of the journey is the end.

  • Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds.

  • Food and water ran out four days ago.

  • Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning.

  • That will be it.

  • When I drift off I will dream about you.

  • It's always you.

  • Now, the analysis.

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • How was the word 'if' pronounced? Do you hear 'if'?

  • I hear ffyou-- ffyou-- I hear the F sound right with the Y sound, ffyou-- ffyou-- It sounds like the word 'few'

  • because it's the F consonant and the JU diphthong. The IH vowel is dropped and the consonant is linked in.

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • What are the stressed words in this thought group? Listen again.

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • I hear 'find' and 'record'

  • as the two most stressed syllables. If and you, said really quickly. Ffyou-- ffyou-- ffyou--

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you find this recording--

  • This and the first syllable of 'recording' which is unstressed, has the IH vowel, re-- don't say: rii--,

  • re-- re-- re--. This re-- This re-- This re-- This re--

  • These are two more unstressed syllables, lower in pitch, said quickly before the stressed syllable, cor--, recording.

  • Recording-- recording-- recording--

  • Whoa! Different day, different outfit, important announcement.

  • Did you know that with this video, I made a free audio lesson that you can download?

  • In fact, I'm doing this for each one of the youtube videos I'm making this summer,

  • all 11 of the Learn English with Movies videos.

  • So follow this link, or find the link in the video description to get your FREE downloadable audio lesson.

  • It's where you're going to train all of the things that you've learned about pronunciation in this video.

  • Back to the lesson.

  • So we have the stressed word, find, our verb, what happens to the D here? Let's listen.

  • If you find this--

  • If you find this--

  • If you find this--

  • It's dropped. Sometimes, we drop T and D, or any consonant between two other consonants, in this case,

  • I definitely hear him doing it. The sound before is an N consonant, the sound after is the voiced TH,

  • and he drops that D. Find this, find this. Can you do that with no D, smoothly linked together? Find this. Find this.

  • That makes it a little easier to link the words.

  • If you find this--

  • If you find this--

  • If you find this recording--

  • If you look up the pronunciation of the word 'recording' you'll see that the vowel in the stressed syllable is the AW

  • as in law vowel. But when this vowel is followed by R, it's not pure, it's not AW, but it's

  • oh, oh, it's more closed, the lips round more, the tongue pulls back a little bit more. The R influences this vowel.

  • Recor-- recording.

  • Recording-- recording-- recording-- Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Hey guys! I'm out for a walk, listening to an audiobook, and I thought this is the perfect time

  • to tell you about Audible, who's sponsoring this video. It's a great resource

  • for native speakers speaking American English.

  • The thing I love about Audible is their huge selection. Everyone can find something.

  • If you work in economics, you can find an audio book about economics.

  • As you listen, you'll be hearing the specialized words that are specific to conversations you'll be having.

  • You can hear them pronounced over and over by native speakers.

  • And you can also hear them use the kinds of phrases you'll need to describe topics in economics

  • or whatever topic specifically you have conversations about.

  • They also have audible originals, which are exclusive audiobooks you can't get anywhere else

  • on any other platform. I am planning on listening to this one when I go on vacation this summer.

  • Because they're kindly sponsoring this video, you can get your first audio book for free,

  • plus two audible originals when you try audible for 30 days. Visit audible.com/rachelsenglish

  • or text rachelsenglish, all one word, to 500-500.

  • On my walk, I'm listening to The Great Gatsby read by Jake Gyllenhaal,

  • an American classic, I love Jake Gyllenhaal's voice, great neutral American accent.

  • When you find a good title, put it in the comments here, I'm always looking for recommendations.

  • So again, you can check out audible.com/rachelsenglish or text rachelsenglish, all one word, to 500-500

  • if you live here in the US. Okay, let's get back to our movie Ben Franklin speech analysis.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this. All right, the second part of the sentence, this whole thought group is lower in energy,

  • it's not as loud and especially towards the end, it gets a little bit of the popcorn quality of the voice,

  • where there's not as much air engaging the vocal cords.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • In fact, let's just listen to the last three words. Bad about this.

  • Bad about this.

  • Bad about this.

  • Bad about this.

  • Do you hear how low on energy that is? Bad about this.

  • It's partly because this character is running out of energy, he's run out of food and water,

  • so he's really feeling tired, but it's also a natural part of American English speech

  • that we have this popcorn quality in the voice sometimes towards the end of a phrase.

  • Bad about this.

  • Bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • And our stressed words are 'don't'...

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't and bad are the two most stressed syllables there.

  • Feel, even though it is a content word, is less stressed than the other two words.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Don't feel bad about this.

  • Now, let's look at our N apostrophe T contraction. How is that pronounced?

  • Don't feel-- Don't feel-- Don't feel--

  • We have a couple different ways that we pronounce N apostrophe T contractions.

  • In this case, what he did is he dropped the T sound completely.

  • Remember, we do sometimes drop the T after N, we drop the T between two consonants,

  • so it does follow those rules. Now we don't always pronounce N apostrophe T this way, but in this case,

  • this is how we did it. So it goes right from N to F. Don't feel-- don't feel-- don't feel-- don't feel--

  • Don't feel-- don't feel-- don't feel--

  • It's just part of how we connect and make our speech very smooth.

  • Sometimes, things like a T will get dropped or become a stop. In this case, totally dropped.

  • There are lots of things that we do with American English that you'll notice

  • go towards the goal of very smooth and connected sounding.

  • Don't feel-- don't feel-- don't feel bad about this.

  • Bad about-- bad about--

  • We have an ending consonant, it links them to the beginning vowel, the schwa of about.

  • Bad about-- about, about, about, about, bad about.

  • Now, the T in about is a stop T because the next word begins with a consonant.

  • Again, this is the voiced TH and we do that, we make a T a stop T, sometimes at the end of a thought group

  • but also very often when the next word begins with a consonant. So it's not dropped.

  • It's not: abou this, abou this, that would be dropped. It's: about this, about this.

  • Do you feel that there's a tiny lift, a little tiny break between the two words?

  • About this. Even though the energy of the voice keeps going forward, there's this little lift

  • and that signifies the T. It's a stop consonant so that quick stop is the stop T.

  • It's not released that would be this: about this-- about this--

  • We would never do that. That's too choppy. Too much effort. We connect with a stop T. About this.

  • Bad about this-- bad about this-- bad about this--

  • Part of the journey is the end.

  • Part of the journey is the end.

  • What do you hear as the most stressed syllables in that thought group?

  • Part of the journey is the end.

  • Part of the journey is the end.

  • Part of the journey is the end.

  • I hear three more stressed syllables. Part--, jour--, the stressed syllable of journey, and, end.

  • The other words, unstressed, flatter in pitch, and we do have a reduction.

  • Of the--

  • How is the word 'of' pronounced? Part of the--

  • Part of the journey--

  • Part of the journey--

  • Part of the journey--

  • Part of the-- Part of the-- So the word 'of' is reduced, the V sound, which is written with the letter F, is dropped,

  • it's just the schwa. Part of the-- part of the-- part of the-- Very smoothly linked together.

  • Now, how is this T pronounced?

  • Part of the journey--

  • part of the journey--

  • part of the journey--

  • Part of the-- part of the-- It's a flap T. The tongue just flaps once against the roof of the mouth.

  • It's just like the D sound in American English, between two vowels. So a T is a flap T

  • when it comes between two vowel or diphthongs, or if it comes after an R, and before a vowel or diphthong.

  • So here, it comes after the R consonant, and before the vowel schwa, that's a flap T, and we use that flap T

  • to link the two words together. Part of the--

  • Part of the journey--

  • part of the journey--