How to Pronounce Oscars American English Pronunciation
Rachel, what are you doing?
I’m attempting to fill out my Oscar ballot.
Guessing who will win what, in what category
for our Oscar party tonight. Have you done
yours yet?
No, I haven’t.
I’m finding it hard because I’ve not seen
many of these movies. I saw The Artist, with
you, we had a blast. But other than that,
I saw Midnight in Paris and Tree of Life.
Those are the only ones I’ve seen for Best
Picture. I didn’t see War Horse, but I did
see the play on Broadway. I don’t think that
counts. What have you seen out of the Best
Movie nominations, do you know?
Um, I’ve seen The Artist, with you, obviously,
and, the Des—is the Descendants on there?
Um, I think that’s all I’ve seen, I’ve seen
actually.
Really?
Yes, I’m completely—
We’ve got to start going to more movies!
We have a lot to do.
We have a lot to do.
The word ‘Oscars’. The first syllable written
with the letter O, but pronounced with the
‘ah’ as in ‘father’ sound. Then, there’s the
SK consonant cluster. The second syllable
has the schwa-R sound. And it’s plural here:
the S is pronounced as a Z because the final
sound in ‘Oscar’ is rr, a voiced sound.
Typical New York. There’s always a siren
somewhere.
So the first syllable, stressed, will be longer,
higher in pitch, and the second syllable,
unstressed, will be shorter and lower in pitch.
Long-short, long-short. Oscars, Oscars.
Are you going to watch the Oscars? Who do
you think is going to win Best Picture?
Put a comment.
In case you haven’t heard, in April and May,
I’m offering my first online course. It’s
8 weeks long, and it’s going to take the topics
that I work on most with my one-on-one students.
It will take all the videos that you already
have access to and match them with the supplemental
material that I’ve made for my students. Each
week we’ll work on a sound, but also a non-sound
topic in either linking, word stress, reduction,
or intonation. For more information, see my
website. And if you’re interested in knowing
the specific topics that we’ll be covering,
just email me for a syllabus. It’s going to
be a great class, quite rigorous, and I think
everybody who takes it will really improve
their spoken English.
That’s it, have fun tonight watching the Oscars!