Keukenhof Garden and Color Names American English
This American English pronunciation video
comes to you from Keukenhof in the Netherlands.
As we look at the beautiful tulips in Keukenhof
Gardens, we’ll study some colors.
Sara, it’s so fun visiting the Netherlands
with you.
I know! It’s great.
Now, I thought in this video, since we’re
at the flower garden, we can talk about the
colors. And I’ll go over the pronunciation.
What are you seeing here in this bed?
So, here there is red, and white, and yellow,
and, it’s hard to see, but there’s a little
bit of purple.
And a little bit of purple too.
Red, white, yellow, purple. Colors are adjectives,
which are content words. Nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs are content words. This generally
means they should be stressed, or, longer
in a sentence.
So, we want to say ‘red’, not ‘red’. The red
one. Red, which is the only stressed word
in this sentence, should be noticeably longer
than ‘the’ and ‘one’. The red one. The red
one. ‘Red’ has the R consonant, the EH as
in BED vowel, and the D sound. Red. R is a
difficult sound. You should be able to hold
it out. Rrrrrr. If it’s at the beginning of
a word, the lips will really round a lot.
Let’s take a look at Sara saying this word.
Red. [3x]
Even though Sara is in profile, you can still
tell how much her lips are rounding for that
beginning R. Rr.
Red. [3x] And white.
White. This is also a one-syllable adjective.
So, just like ‘red’, it should stand out in
a sentence, being longer than the unstressed
words. It begins with the W consonant. Just
like the beginning R, the lips come into a
tight circle for that. Next is the AI as in
BUY diphthong. You’ll need to drop your jaw
some for this sound. ‘White’ ends with a T.
Sara chose to make that a True T sound. White.
You’ll also hear many native speakers make
it a Stop T. ‘White’ instead of ‘white’. Let’s
listen to Sara say it again.
And white [3x], and yellow. And, it’s hard
to see, but there’s a little bit of purple.
Yellow, purple. These are two-syllable words.
There is one stressed, and one unstressed
syllable each: yellow, purple. Can you tell,
which syllable is stressed? Yellow, yell-ow.
Purple, pur-ple. They both have stress on
the first syllable. DA-da, yellow, purple.
What does is mean when a stressed word, a
content word, has an unstressed syllable?
Well, even though it’s a stressed word, the
unstressed syllables should still be very
short: -ow, -ow, yellow. -ple, -ple, purple.
Listen for how the first syllable in these
words is longer than the second syllable.
And yellow. [3x] And, it’s hard to see
but there’s a little bit of purple. [3x]
Yellow, purple.
A little bit of purple, too. Here we have
a gardener.
… These are for you.
Thank you!
Oh wow. That’s so nice!
Yeah. You got a good picture?
Thank you!
The Netherlands just got better.
Yellow and orange.
Orange. Another two-syllable word with stress
on the first syllable. Orange. [3x]
So here in this bed, there’s some pink.
Also some peach.
Pink, peach. Each one syllable. Pink has the
P consonant, the IH vowel, the NG consonant,
and the K. You may ask: why is there an NG
consonant when there’s no letter G in the
word? The letter N makes an NG sound when
the next sound is a K. Kk. Other examples:
thanks, thanks, with the NG sound. Drink,
drink. With the NG sound.
So here, in this bed, there’s some pink.
Also some peach. Magenta.
Magenta. Here’s a three-syllable word. What
is the one stressed syllable? Can you tell?
Magenta [3x]
Magenta, da-DA-da. It’s the middle syllable.
Magenta [4x]
Your favorite color in general?
I like certain blues, like teals.
Uh-huh. I don’t think we’re going to see
any teal tulips unfortunately.
Right. But it is good alliteration.
It is.
What is alliteration? This is when the
same sound begins words that are next to each
other, or in the same thought group. Teal
tulips. Rachel runs regularly.
This is my friend, Puck, who invited me
to the Netherlands. Thanks, Puck.
You’re welcome.
So, Puck just taught me a very cool trick
about tulips. When you cut tulips and put
them in a vase, they droop.
They do.
And what is the trick that you taught me?
They go in the vase, vase.
‘Vase’ has a couple of pronunciations. In
America, we generally say ‘vase’, with the
AY diphthong, and an unvoiced ending, ss.
In British English, and some Americans will
use this pronunciation too, the second sound
is the AH as in FATHER vowel, va-. And the
ending is voiced. Vase (4x).
Grow in the vase, vase…
Yeah?
And then they do this. Imagine this is
a tulip. It’s a daffodil, but we’ll…
Right. It’s not a tulip, but pretend it
is.
Pretend it’s a tulip. And then it goes
like this. Just underneath, one centimeter
from the flower, you just pinch a needle.
Stick a needle.
Stick a needle though the stem. All the
way through. And then, they stand up.
And that’ll keep them from dropping. Now,
she also told me if it’s already drooping,
and you stick a needle in, it will make it
come back up straight again.
But you have to cut some piece of…
You have to cut some off the bottom. Ok.
And then stick the needle.
I’m definitely going to use that tip because
I love tulips, and they’re always dropping.
Now I know how to fix it. Thanks Puck.
I have braces.
If you can’t understand her, please forgive
her. She just got braces.
Thanks so much to Puck and Sara for being
in and helping me make this video. Always
remember to pay attention to word stress and
pronunciation as you learn new vocabulary words.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.