How to Pronounce Words with two R Sounds in American English

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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them maybe

okay let’s get to your first question

this week first question this week comes

from harry hi harry harry says

how do you pronounce words with two r

sounds in american english

like earlier or further i think i sound

so weird when i pronounce this sound

yeah unlike in british english which has

a very soft kind of

ah sound in words like these in american

english we pronounce the r

sounds very distinctly so earlier

earlier as in i met him earlier

or further further as in we walked down

the road

further or we walked further down the

road so

this is maybe a pronunciation point

difference between british english

and american english i hope that that

helps answer your question of how to

pronounce these sounds in both british

and

american english thanks very much for

the question okay

let’s move on to your next question next

question comes from

fatima hi fatima fatima says i’ve

paraphrased your question it’s

uh full of information how do i talk

about the future of the future

for example a friend invited me to

participate in a course

but i want to decline because i know i’m

not going to use the things the course

will teach me

how do i express this should i say i

won’t join in

because i won’t use what i’ll learn i

won’t try what i’ll have learned

i won’t try what i learn thank you good

question

and depending on the person the response

might be a little bit different there

are a few different ways that someone

might respond to this situation

i would probably say thanks but i’m not

going to join you because i know i’m

probably not going to use the stuff the

course teaches

so in my answer i would say probably not

gonna

meaning there’s a high chance that this

thing is not going to happen

and i would probably phrase it like as i

said in my example sentence i’m probably

not going to use

the stuff the course teaches so i would

probably use

present tense there because the course

itself doesn’t change right like the

topics of the course

uh like the lessons in the course that

doesn’t change that’s always true so i

might use

present tense there and then i would say

with simple future tense plus probably

i’m probably not gonna because that

shows a high level of certainty

i think uh in my case i probably

wouldn’t

use will or won’t in this case because

going to

sounds like you’ve thought about it a

little bit more

prior to the conversation but again this

is just how

i might answer the question somebody

else might choose a different response

somebody else might say like ah thanks

for the invitation but

i think i’ll probably pass this time you

know they could just say something like

that

another way you might answer this is i’m

not going to come because i probably

won’t use the things the course is going

to teach us

so again we’re using a mixture of that

will

and won’t in the negative form and going

to so this is really kind of up to the

speaker

i would say from the options that you

provided

i would not use will have learned in

that case

i would probably just use simple present

tense and a simple future

tense i would put those two together and

then we would understand the situation

based on the context so if you’re

talking with the person who

invited you for example we can generally

understand from context

what the future and the future future

parts are so that’s fine

this is also actually a situation where

if things are unclear at all it’s

very natural to ask for confirmation to

ask for clarification

so if you’re explaining the situation to

someone outside the situation and they

don’t understand what you mean

you can clarify you can make it like a

little bit more specific like i think

i’m not going to use the things the

course is going to teach so i’m not

going to go you know you can break it

all down if you really really need to

in some to break it down i would

probably use simple future tense

a negative form like probably not going

to and i would probably use just a

simple

present tense verb to refer to the

things the course

teaches because that doesn’t change but

again

depending on the person there might be a

slightly different answer

i would suggest you just don’t use will

have

learned so i would not suggest using

that future perfect

tense there so i hope that this helps

you thanks for an interesting question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes

from kiran hi kiran kiran says hi alicia

i noticed sometimes we use little to

give the meaning of

nothing in what situations do we use it

okay

yeah i’ve talked about this here and

there in live streams and in like the q

a from time to time

but let’s review so we can use little

before an uncountable noun to give a

negative

feeling sometimes so let’s take a look

at two sentences to compare

first we have a little time to finish

this project

and second we have little time to finish

this project

so the difference between these two

sentences is that the first sentence

includes the article

uh before little so we have a little

time to finish this project

this sounds like a simple report of

information it’s neutral like a fact

in the second sentence however there is

no article there’s no

uh before little we have little time to

finish this project

this sentence sounds negative it sounds

like this is not a good thing

so i think that this is what you’re

referring to when you say

little being used to mean nothing so

this is the case in situations like this

where the noun that follows little is

kind of positive or something

that is desirable this is not a rule

however

please note that if your noun that

follows little

is something that’s not desirable that

is negative then it can actually have

the opposite meaning

so let’s take a look at an example here

the city

has a little pollution and the city has

little pollution

in this example sentence we have the

same little versus a little

difference but the noun that follows it

is pollution

so pollution we understand is bad or

negative or not

desirable so when we say the city has a

little pollution

it again sounds like just a simple

report simple fact

but when we say the city has little

pollution it sounds like a good thing

actually so keep in mind that the noun

that

follows little does affect the meaning

of the sentence

if it’s something that’s undesirable

like pollution then

it sounds like it’s a good situation if

the noun that follows little is

something that we actually do

want like time in my first set of

example sentences

then it creates a negative feeling so

this is how we can use

little to mean very nearly nothing or to

create that negative feeling i hope that

this answers your question

thanks very much okay let’s move on to

your next question

next question comes from miriam atef

hello miriam

miriam says hey alicia i don’t know

whether to use

any way or any ways i would use anyway

without the s but you hear any ways all

the time in speech

i would suggest in writing you use any

way with

no s just be consistent that’s my

personal preference i suppose

any ways is also used yes but in

merriam-webster it is listed

as the informal or casual version of any

way

merriam-webster is an american english

dictionary for reference

so whatever you choose just be

consistent in your writing again i

suggest anyway

it’s just one letter that you don’t have

to include so it seems a little more

efficient to me

in speech don’t worry about it whatever

you prefer is fine so i hope that this

answers your question thanks very much

okay on to our next question next

question comes from

lubin hello lubin hi uh newman says you

like star wars don’t you

could you tell me how we can use the

force to increase our memory when we

study

english okay well what do you think

is the best way to improve your memory i

think that the answer is quite obvious

you just need to practice

yes okay that is everything that i have

for this week thank you as always for

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next week bye