English Conversation Study in COLORADO American English
In this American English pronunciation video,
you’re going to come with me and my parents
to Colorado. You’ll get to see some of the
natural beauty of this state, and study American
English pronunciation in real life.
Today’s topics: How to pronounce ‘river’,
gorge, the noun and the verb, the idioms ‘to
keep your eyes peeled’ and ‘keep an eye
out’. Also, the pronunciation of ‘moose’
and ‘elk’.
One neat feature of Colorado is the Colorado
river. Now, it might not look like too much
here, but this is the river that carved out
the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
I was lucky enough to visit the Grand Canyon
on my Epic Road Trip Across America this summer.
The word ‘river’ is a two-syllable
word with stress on the first syllable. DA-da.
River. It begins with an R consonant. When
the R comes at the beginning of a word, the
lips to make a tight circle for that, rr,
and the tongue is pulled back. For me, the
middle part is touching the roof of the mouth
about here, rr, the tip isn’t touching anything.
Then we have the IH vowel, so the jaw will
drop just a bit and the tongue will come forward.
Riv-.
Then for the V, the bottom lip will come
up and make contact with the bottom of the
top front teeth. Riv-er. Then we have the
schwa-R ending, so the tongue will come back
into position for the R. The jaw doesn’t
need to drop. River, river.
River.
We’ve stopped here to take a look at
the Byer’s Gorge. A gorge is a deep, rocky
ravine. And, as you can see, we have these
nice, beautiful rock faces going up on either
side. And I think it’s just beautiful. In
this case, the Colorado river is what’s
flowing down, uh, in the middle. I suppose
it is what has worn the edges of the mountains
down.
Gorge is sort of a tricky word. It starts
with the G consonant, then it has the AW as
in LAW, but the tongue must pull straight
back for the R consonant, gor-, gor-, -ge.
And it ends with the J as in JAR consonant
sound. Gorge. It’s gorgeous!
Well gorge also has the meaning of eating
too much food, when you gorge out.
That’s true.
On a bunch of food.
That’s true. So this is the noun gorge,
and the verb gorge: stuffing your face, basically.
That’s right.
Yeah.
And it’s sort of funny in that, in the
one, gorge is hollowing out, cutting away
Right.
…this big ravine
Yeah.
… in the mountains, and on the other,
gorge is filling up.
Right. Stuffing!
Way too much.
That’s interesting.
So, gorge the noun is a narrow valley, like
you saw, typically with rock walls and a river
or stream running through it. The verb has
a completely different meaning, to eat a lot
of food, to stuff yourself. The word comes
from a word meaning throat.
Next we drove to Rocky Mountain national park
to see elk and moose.
Okay, so keep your eyes peeled for both
elk and moose.
Keep your eyes peeled means to watch for something.
We use it with ‘for’, which you know we
like to reduce. Keep your eyes peeled for
moose and elk.
So keep your eyes peeled for both elk and
moose.
Dad, what’s the other idiom we came up
with for this?
Uh, keep an eye out for elk and moose.
Yes.
As we drive, we’ll keep an eye out for moose
and elk.
Keep an eye out for elk and moose.
Yes. Keep an eye out is not the same thing
as keep an eye on.
No. That’s correct.
If we had some elk here, we could keep
an eye on them. But since we don’t have
any and we’re looking for them, we’re
keeping an eye out for them.
Keep an eye on means to watch or pay attention
to something. For example, keep an eye on
the time so you’re not late.
Elk has the EH as in BED vowel. A lot of
jaw drop. Then the Dark L, so the back part
of your tongue has to pull back, el-k. Then
the K. So lift your tongue to the soft palate,
and release. Elk.
It’s fun being able to get so close.
There’s two here, which brings me to the
point that the plural of elk is elk. You don’t
add an S or anything. One elk, two elk.
We got lots of good views of elk. But I really
wanted to see a moose. I only saw them at
a distance, sitting down. We had been looking
the whole day, and I was starting to think
I wouldn’t see one. Then, just before it
was dark out…
I feel very luck to be seeing my first
moose. Moose is an easy pronunciation. It’s
the M consonant sound, the OO as in BOO vowel,
and the S consonant sound. Plural, just like
‘elk’, adds no s. It’s still just moose.
One moose, a herd of moose. Isn’t it beautiful?
This is a female, so it doesn’t have the
antlers.
I hope you enjoyed this study of real life
American English in the beautiful Rocky Mountain
National Park. That’s it, and thanks so
much for using Rachel’s English.