Learn English with Movies Good Boys

In the U.S., 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 dialog.

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.

Hey kids, as you know,
I am one of the producers

on your movie Good Boys, and unfortunately

I’m here with bad news.

You guys cannot watch the
trailer for your own movie.

What?

Are you serious?
Come on!

Are you kidding?

It’s just too messed
up for kids your age.

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

And although we decided it’s okay for you

to do these things in the movie,

you can’t watch yourself
do them in the trailer.

Now, the analysis.

Hey kids.

Friendly, upbeat,

pitch is a little bit high,

which to me gives it a more friendly tone.

Hey kids.

Hey kids, and the
pitch goes up at the end,

because he’s going to keep going.

Hey kids, hey kids.

Hey kids

as you know, I
am one of the producers.

As you know, as you know,

and again pitch goes up a little bit,

as you know, I,

and then it links into
I which is coming down.

The word as, this vowel
can reduce to the schwa,

but I do think I hear it
is a pure at the letter a.

The letter S pronounced
as a Z and this word,

as, as, as, as,

as you know, as you know.

As you know,

I am one of the producers.

So I and am both have
a little bit of length,

as he’s thinking about
exactly what to say,

exactly how to deliver this,

I am.

I am one of the producers.

I am one of the producers,

I am one of the producers.

Then we get to one of the producers.

Hey guys, I wanted to pop in here

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Okay, let’s get back to the analysis.

I am one of the producers,

Then we get
to one of the producers

and the pace picks up a little bit more,

we have the stress syllables,

one of the pro ducers,

so one and do have the most stress,

of the, and the first
syllable of producers

are said really quickly.

One of the producers,

One of the pro, one
of the pro, one of the pro,

of and the, we have
the of reduction one-a,

it’s just the schwa.

The end links right into the schwa,

the schwa links right into the word the,

which is said really quickly,

your tongue tip does not need to come

through the teeth there.

The, the, the, the, the.

You can just make that by
having the tongue forward

in the mouth against the
backs of the front teeth,

the, the, the, the,

one of the, one of the,
one of the, one of the.

And then the first level of producers,

that has the schwa too.

Pro, pro, pro,

one of the pro, one of
the pro, one of the produ,

before the voice slows down,

takes more time on that
up down shape of du,

the stress syllable of producers.

One of the producers,

on
your movie Good Boys.

On your movie Good Boys.

On your movie Good Boys, again,

intonation is going up here, Boys.

And again, that shows
he’s not done talking,

he still has more to say about this.

On your movie Good Boys,

In the words
on your movie Good Boys,

what’s the most stressed there?

On your movie Good Boys,

On your movie,

little bit of stress there on the noun.

On your movie Good Boys, Good Boys,

a little bit more stress on Good,

and then as I said, Boys,

pitch goes up on your,

said more quickly, a little
bit flatter in pitch,

we do have a your
reduction, it’s not your,

but it’s pronounced yur,
on yur, on yur, on yur.

On your movie Good Boys,

and unfortunately I’m here with bad news.

And unfortunately, and,

okay, usually this word is reduced,

but here it’s not, it’s fully pronounced.

And the a vowel is even
a little bit longer,

he holds on to that,

and, and.

And, unfortunately,

Whoa, different day, different outfit,

important announcement.

Did you know that with
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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,

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It’s where you’re going to train

all of the things that you’ve
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in this video.

Back to the lesson.

And unfortunately,

The D almost always dropped,

but I hear it here, it
links into the next word,

and-un, and duh duh duh duh.

And unfortunately.

So a fully pronounced and there

as he holds it out, thinks
about how to deliver

this bad news.

And unfortunately,

Unfortunately,

a longer word there,

second syllable stress,

un for tunately.

The rest of the syllable is a
little bit flatter in pitch,

said more quickly.

This T, do you notice
it’s pronounced as a -ch.

Un for ch,

then this T is a stop T,

un for chu nate ly,

say that with me slowly, we’ll
break it up by syllables,

un for chu nate ly,

unfortunately, unfortunately.

Unfortunately,

I’m here with bad news.

Here, bad, and news all stressed,

all a little bit longer.

I’m and with flatter,

although we don’t have
any reductions here,

they are unstressed words,

I’m here with bad news.

You guys cannot watch the
trailer for your own movie.

You guys, a
little bit of a break here,

a little bit of a lift,

you guys cannot watch.

He does that tiny break because it brings

more stress to the next word.

If you put a little pause, a tiny break,

it does bring in more stress
to the following word,

it cannot, cannot, this
is a two syllable word,

stress on the second syllable, cannot,

no, it would be very common to say can’t.

But he wants to stress it.

So he is not reducing it
by using a contraction.

You guys cannot watch.

Cannot watch the
trailer for your own movie.

Those are our longer words,
our more stressed words.

You and guys, a little
bit flatter in pitch,

leading up to the most stress of cannot.

Oh my goodness it’s unbelievable.

The thing with the word cannot,

we think of the word can, right,

because this is the opposite of it.

But we don’t want to
take much time with that,

that’s the unstressed syllable,

cannot, we definitely want to
stress the negative cannot,

cannot.

We have two n’s.

It’s just a single end
sound, can not, cannot.

I actually just did it there
with the schwa didn’t I?

You can pronounce it with the
schwa in the first syllable,

you cannot do that,

can, can, can.

He’s not reducing it,
he is doing the a vowel,

but it’s still unstressed compared

to the stressed syllable cannot.

Cannot

watch the trailer.

And the T is a stop T,

because the next word
begins with a consonant,

cannot watch, cannot watch.

Then we have the,

quickly, flattened pitch, the trailer.

cannot watch the trailer.

Tr cluster
being pronounced as chr,

trailer,

trailer, trailer.

The trailer,

for your own movie.

For your, both reduce.

They both have the schwa r,

fur yur,

fur yur, fur yur, fur yur,

for your own, for your
own, for your own movie.

for your own movie.

What!

What, high end pitch,
showing exasperation,

amazement, disappointment.

What!

And it really goes up in pitch.

That’s showing a question.

This person can’t believe it.

What!

Are you serious?
Come on!

Okay, now another
kid says, are you serious!

While another kid says come on.

So, again, a question,

and the pitch is really high.

Sometimes when people are angry or excited

their pitch does go higher than it would

in conversational English.

Are you serious?

And it goes up and pitch
too, again, a question.

Are you serious?
Come on!

[Rachel ] And in that
phrase, are you serious?

Ser, the most stressed syllable there.

Are you serious?

Are you serious?
Come on!

Come on, come on!

This is something you can yell when

someone’s doing something you don’t like.

Come on!

Stress on come,

come on!

All smoothly linked together in one arch,

one thought group, ending m
links into beginning vowel,

come on!

Are you serious?
Come on!

Are you kidding?

It’s almost hard for me to
imitate these boys a little bit,

the pitch is so high.

Are you kidding?

And again, pitch goes up.

Yes, no question, they can’t believe it.

We do have an R reduction here.

Are you kidding?

Are you kidding, are you kidding?

I hear it as schwa R, er,

are you, are you, are you kidding?

Are you kidding?

It’s just too messed
up for kids your age.

It’s just too
messed up for kids your age.

One thought group, what are you hearing

as the most stressed words there?

It’s just too messed
up for kids your age.

It’s just too messed up for kids your age,

it’s just too messed up for kids your age.

It’s just too
messed up for kids your age.

I think up is the peak of stress,

kids age too, also those words
have a little bit of length.

Let’s look at our first
two words here, it’s just.

It’s just

It’s just, it’s
just, it’s just, it’s just,

the word just said really quickly,

I would probably write
that with the schwa,

it’s just, it’s just, it’s just,

we have an ending T, a beginning T,

those go together into just one true T.

It’s just too, it’s just too.

It’s just too

messed up for kids your age.

It’s just too
messed up, messed up.

Now we have an ed ending,

the sound before is unvoiced

so that ed ending is pronounced as a T.

This word is a single syllable, meh.

M consonant, eh vowel, S
consonant, T consonant, mest,

messed, messed up, and
it links into a word

that begins with a vowel.

Messed up, messed up.

Too messed up,

And the P is not
released, it’s not messed up.

But it’s messed up, messed
up, lips come together.

They make the stop of that stop consonant,

but they don’t release with a puff of air.

Messed up.

Too messed up,

for kids your age.

They released right into the F sound.

Messed up for, messed up for.

The word for is reduced.

For, for kids, your age.

The word your reduced.

For kids your age.

For kids your age

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

There’s
drugs, there’s violence,

there’s swearing.

Now I want to talk
about some grammar here.

There is something that happens
a lot in American English

that is recent, and it’s
a grammatical error.

It happens a ton in spoken English.

I used to notice it
and it would bother me.

And now, I’ve heard it so
much, I find that I do it too.

It still bothers me for the record,

it bothers me when I hear myself do it,

but I don’t stop and correct it,

it’s just become so widespread.

And that is there is,
the contraction there’s,

that’s supposed to be used with
something that is singular,

a singular noun.

Well this is plural, drugs.

So that should be there are drugs,

which we would pronounce there are,

there are drugs, there are drugs,

but we just hardly do that anymore.

It just seems that everyone
started using there’s

for things that are
either singular or plural.

For example, I could
say there’s a problem,

but I could also totally
picture someone saying

there’s problems with
this, there’s problems,

it should absolutely be there are,

there are, there are problems.

But this is what happens so
there’s drugs, there’s drugs.

He is using the is contraction
and then a plural noun.

There’s drugs,

Not grammatically correct,

but very, very common these days.

And I do think that we only do that

because it’s a contraction.

I think if he said there
is, he would not say drugs,

there is drugs, I think he
would say there are drugs

in those cases.

But when we use this
reduction, this contraction,

somehow the habit is crept in
where the verb doesn’t agree.

So it should be there
are, but it is there is,

there’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing,

there’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

And in all
three of these utterances,

there’s drugs, there’s violence,

the stress is on the thing that’s there.

There’s drugs.

There’s violence.

There’s swearing.

All of these things that are in movies

that kids can’t watch.

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing,

there’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing.

And although we’ve
decided it’s okay for you

to do these things in the movie.

Sort of a longer thought group,

and some longer syllables
that are stretched out

a little bit longer than they would be

in just normal conversational English.

And although we decided

And although we’ve decided,

And although, we decided.

Actually I think he’s
saying we have decided.

I think I’m hearing we’ve,
and although we’ve decided.

So, and, a little bit longer.

Again, he doesn’t reduce
it like he did before,

he’s thinking about exactly what to say.

And although we’ve decided,

Fully pronounced a vowel and consonant,

and I do hear a D linking
into the next word.

And although, and although,

although.

The stress syllable of
though really held out

while he’s thinking of
how to articulate this.

And although

we’ve decided

We’ve decided, we’ve,

we’ve held out.

This word normally would not be stressed,

and although we’ve decided,

it would normally be unstressed
but he’s holding it out,

because it’s a crazy thing to say.

Kids can do this in the movie

but because of the ratings for
movies kids can’t watch it.

He knows it’s crazy, it’s ridiculous.

And as he’s thinking
about how crazy this is

and how to tell this to these kids,

he’s holding out some words.

We’ve decided,

it’s okay.

Decided it’s
okay, decided it’s okay.

K also a little bit longer
than it may be would be

in normal conversational English.

Decided it so, decided it so,

decide, the stress level of
ci has a little bit of length,

although it’s actually just a normal

conversational pace there.

Decided it so, decided it so.

Decided it’s okay, decided it’s okay,

Here the ed ending comes after a D.

In this case it’s pronounced
I plus the D consonant,

it adds another syllable,

decided, decided.

Decided,

So now we have
a couple stress words here

for you to do these things in the movie.

He’s making the crazy
distinction that these actors

can be in the movie, doing these things

but they can’t watch the movie.

So in, gets a lot of stress,
a lot of that up down shape.

For, you, to, how are these
three words pronounced?

For you to,

For you to,
for you to, for you to,

we have to reductions,
the word for is reduced,

fer, you just almost never
fully pronounce that word.

The word to is reduced,
it’s a flap T plus schwa.

For you to, for you to, for you to.

Try that, those three words
smoothly linked together,

all flatter in pitch,

for you to, for you to,
for you to, for you to.

For you to do.

Then we link into the next
word, the stress word,

that does have that length,

that does have that up-down shape.

For you to do.

For you to do,

these things.

These things, these things.

This could be a little tricky.

We have two th sounds, these.

The first one is voiced,

the second one is unvoiced.

These things, these things.

These things,

Try to use just the very,

very tip of your tongue for these THs,

see if that helps you simplify them.

These, these, these things,

these things.

The S in these is a Z sound.

These things,

in the movie.

In the movie.

In the movie, again, a
bunch of stress on in,

the word the, the pitch
comes in on the way down.

In the movie, and then we
have a little bit more stress,

movie and pitch goes up,

because he’s not done talking.

In the movie,

You can’t watch yourselves
do them in the trailer.

Okay now we get into a
bunch of stressed words.

This is not like fully
conversational pace and the rhythm,

it’s like, how would I describe it,

it’s like can’t believe
it kind of declaration.

You can’t watch yourselves.

Everything sounding a little bit stressed.

You can’t watch yourselves,

You, up down shape,

you can’t watch yourselves.

A normal way to say that would be

you can’t watch yourselves,
you can’t watch yourselves.

You and can’t would be much flatter,

watch would be the peak of stress,

but here they’re all their
own little stressed syllable.

Even the word yourselves, I
would usually say yourselves.

First syllable unstressed,
it would be the schwa sound,

yur, yur, but that’s not how he does it.

You can’t watch yourselves,

He says yourselves, yourselves,

stressing the first syllable
too, fully pronouncing that,

and that’s not normal
conversational pronunciation at all,

we would never say yourselves
in a more casual conversation.

Yourselves,

Yourselves, or yourself,

would be pronounced
yourselves, or yourself.

but here it is five
stressed syllables in a row.

You can’t watch yourselves,

With the word can’t,

even though he’s stressing
that word, making it longer,

he still doesn’t release the T.

We almost never do that,
he makes it a stop T,

can’t, can’t watch, can’t watch,

so there’s a little break
between can’t and watch,

and that little break
signifies to me a stop T.

Can’t watch,

yourselves do them in the trailer.

Do them in the trailer.

So now his voice has taken on more

of a normal conversational rhythm.

We have reductions, we don’t
have every syllable stressed.

So what is stressed in
this part of a sentence?

Do them in the trailer,

do them in the trailer,

do definitely longer, up-down shape,

do them in the tray ler,

and then trailer again with
a chr pronunciation, trailer.

Then in the, flatter, lower in pitch,

definitely unstressed, definitely not with

this up-down curve with the
length of a stressed syllable.

Do them in the trailer,

Them in the,
them in the, them in the.

The word them, the e vowel
reduces, it’s the schwa,

them in the, ending M linking
right into beginning vowel,

and the N right into the
th sound with no break.

For the th in the word the

you don’t have to bring
your tongue tip through,

you tongue tip can be behind the teeth,

in the, in the, in the, in the,

them in the, them in the,
them in the, them in the.

Do them in the trailer.

Do them in the trailer,

Welcome to Hollywood.

All smoothly connected, one line.

Welcome to, and the pitch goes up to peak

on the stress syllable of Hollywood

before the voice comes back down.

Welcome to Hollywood.

How is the word to pronounced?

Welcome to Hollywood.

Welcome to, welcome to,

I would say that’s a flap T,

quick, light, the vowel
is reduced to the schwa.

So we make the T a flap T in the word to

sometimes when the
sound before was voiced.

So in this case it was the M consonant.

He wouldn’t of had to,

he definitely could’ve made it a true T,

welcome to Hollywood.

T, t, t,

but you will often hear
that native speakers

do make that a flap, it’s
just a little smoother.

Welcome to Hollywood.

When we say
welcome to something,

we sometimes use that
in like a friendly way,

welcome to the party, or whatever,

but we often use it sarcastically

when someone is seeing the reality

of a situation and it’s negative.

So these kids are seeing, oh, we can act

in these movies, but,
because of these restrictions

we’re not supposed to actually
go watch them in a theater,

that’s ironic, isn’t it?

And so he’s saying, welcome to Hollywood,

a little bit sarcastically as if to say

you’re being introduced to the way life

really works in Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood.

Let’s listen to this whole

conversation one more time.

Hey kids, as you
know, I am one of the producers

on your movie Good
Boys, and unfortunately,

I’m here with bad news.

You guys cannot watch the
trailer for your own movie.

What?

-Are you serious?
-Come on!

Are you kidding?

It’s just too
messed up for kids your age.

There’s drugs, there’s
violence, there’s swearing,

and although we’ve decided it’s okay

for you to do these things in the movie,

you can’t watch yourselves
do them in the trailer.

Welcome to Hollywood.

We’re going to be doing a lot more

of this kind of analysis together.

What movie scenes would you
like to see analyzed like this?

Let me know in the comments,

and if you want to see all
my Ben Franklin videos,

click here.

You’ll also find the link
in the video description.

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

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