3 RULES for PERFECT English
You were taught that this word is pronounced want,
right? But listen to how my toddler pronounces it
I want it. Want it. No T. Did you learn t.hat
pronunciation when you learned this word?
Probably not. You probably learned the wrong
pronunciation of so many words in English and it’s
not your fault. It’s how English is taught. It’s
so frustrating you were not given the full picture
of English pronunciation when you learned English
as a non-native speaker. Because when you learned
a new word, there was a focus on reading, writing,
and the letters, what you see not, what you hear.
You have to learn totally different
rules when it comes to speaking English.
Because it’s not just two-year-olds who
say want without a T, in this phrase.
By the way, there are four different
pronunciations of the T. Dropping it is
just one of them, and we’ll talk about
them all. Today, we’re going to study
how my toddler speaks English. And we’re going
to cover the main things you need to change,
the main rules you need to know as a non-native
speaker, to correct your pronunciation, to improve
your fluency in spoken English. And as always, if
you like this video, or you learned something new,
please give it a thumbs up and subscribe with
notifications. I’d love to see you back.
First, let me say, what’s wrong with
having an accent when speaking a foreign
language? Absolutely nothing. Accents,
human diversity, they’re wonderful.
But if the way you speak English is getting in the
way of your communication, if you’re not reaching
your own goals for yourself, then it’s a problem.
Let’s not let this be what holds you back. My son,
of course, is learning English only by hearing. He
doesn’t get messed up by seeing or understanding
letters, and how they might relate to sounds. I
recently posted a video online of a conversation
I had with him, and one of my students commented
how she noticed he was naturally doing all these
things it’s taken her years to work on. So
she, like you, learned that this letter is
pronounced ttt– T pronunciations, reductions,
and linking, are the three main things we’ll
talk about in this video. Sawyer, my son,
does it all naturally. Most of my students
don’t. I’ll make sure you know where to go to
work on all of these things. You learned tt–
a true T but I would say that’s the pronunciation,
10 maybe 20% of the time, so most of the time,
it’s the wrong, less natural pronunciation. The
rest of the time, it’s dropped, flapped, stopped,
or turned into a CH. We’ve seen an example
of dropping the T in: I want it. I want it.
I want it.
He also drops it in the word just.
I just want it now. I just want it. It’s really
common to drop the T between two consonants,
and that’s why he drops it in just. The next sound
is the W consonant. Just want it. Last summer,
for example, there, also very common
to drop the T because it comes between
two consonants. Last summer. I just
want it. Let’s hear his phrase again.
I just want it now. Actually, just the other
day, i told my four-year-old son, Stoney,
to brush his teeth. You know what he said? I
don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.
He dropped the T in want, the T in don’t, the T
in to. He said that phrase with no T’s. I don’t
want to. All smoothly linked together, but all Ts
dropped .i actually have a video that goes over
N apostrophe T words, like don’t. That’s really
helpful. I go over all the different ways the T
might be pronounced in this particular word or
set of words, so check that video out here, or
by clicking the link in the video description.
Stoney, time to brush your teeth. I don’t want to.
Sawyer also changes the T pronunciation
in the phrase ‘can you get it for me?’.
Can you get it for me? Get it—becomes: get it,
get it, get it, linking those two words with
a flap T. Get it, get it, that’s very different
from ttt–, get it, get it, get it, get it.
Let’s see it again.
Can you get it for me?
Get it. Get it. It sounds like a D between
vowels in American English, doesn’t it? Get
it, get it. That’s one of our T pronunciations,
and it helps us speak English really smoothly,
and that smoothness, and linking between words
is a really important characteristic of American
English, and that might be different than your
native language. If you’ve watched a lot of my
videos, then you’re probably pretty familiar with
the different T pronunciations. But if you want a
refresher, or if this idea is totally new to you,
i’ve put together a playlist that goes
over the different T pronunciations,
and when you would want to use each one.
Now, in this phrase: Can you get it for me?
He also did an important reduction, and reductions
are another key issue you’ll want to study to make
sure that you’re having more natural English
pronunciation, to focus on English sounds,
and how things are actually pronounced,
not words or letters. It was this word,
you probably learned it’s pronounced for.
I doubt you learned that it’s pronounced fer.
but that’s how it’s pronounced most of the
time. There’s a big difference between for and fer.
Now with Sawyer here, I’ve slowed it down
so you’re not going to hear it as short, but
you’ll definitely hear it’s fur, and not for.
For– for– Can you get it for me?
You know, I had a student in my academy once,
she lived in the US and she was married to an
American. She told him about the academy and
that she was training to change her habit
to say fur instead of for. And he said,
what? That’s not how we say it. Of course, he
was wrong. We’re so unaware of our own habits.
As an adult, he was also tied to the letters
F-O-R even though he himself pronounced it as:
for, for, as if it had no vowel at all. By the
way she did catch him in conversation saying fer–
and so she stopped him and pointed it out. She
knew more about his pronunciation than he did.
Okay, so for becomes fr, that’s a reduction,
that means a sound changes or is dropped. This
word and so many others, we almost always reduce
them. Keep in mind, this is not bad English,
sloppy English, lazy English, unclear English,
this is actually the most clear English, the
way all native speakers do it. Because American
English is a stress-timed language, that means a
contrast between long and short is very important,
and reductions help us say these kinds of words
very quickly. There are lots of common reductions
in English. You can learn them. You can learn the
reduction. And you can train that. You can be
like Sawyer and say: for me, instead of: for me.
I have a playlist that goes over a lot of these
and I also have a complete set of videos dedicated
to reductions along with audio for training in
my online school Rachel’s English Academy. If you
want to learn more about the academy and how you
can, join click here or see the pinned comment.
Now, let’s talk about linking, our third topic
today. Many students like to make each individual
word clear and separate. But we don’t have a
feeling of separation between words in English.
Remember, our example from Sawyer, just want–just
want– instead of: just want, just want,
he dropped the T. That’s because it makes it a
smoother link. Just want, just want. So we link
words together and we want that smoothness
for that American English flowing sound.
If this is hard for you, there are some
tricks, like dropping the T in just,
and I’ve put together a playlist that can help
you with this. And actually, reductions, like fr,
the for reduction you just learned, these really
tie in with linking. Reductions have to be linked
to sound right. You can’t say ‘for me’ with a
separation like that. You want: for me, for me,
for me, for me. Constant flow of sound, as if
it’s one word. So reductions and linking really
work together in American English. In next week’s
video, we’re going to do an in-depth analysis of a
scene from a movie, so we can really study these
reductions in real English and how everything
links together. T pronunciations too. So be
sure to come back next week for that video.
Now, let’s see that whole conversation I had
with Sawyer. What do you notice about his speech?
By the way, here are the places
where you can follow me, where I
sometimes post things like that video, you’ll
get to see short videos and photos from my life
occasionally. And you can keep your learning
going right now with this video. If you’re
serious about changing some of your habits
in spoken English, head over to my academy
and check it out, we can help you and
support you. Rachelsenglishacademy.com
And don’t forget to subscribe here on YouTube.
I make new videos every Tuesday. That’s it
and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English