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