KATE SNOW Interview a Broadcaster American English Pronunciation
Hey guys. Welcome to the new Rachel’s English
mini series, Interview a Broadcaster!
Hey guys. I’m here with Kate Snow. Could
you tell us a little bit about what you do?
I am a national correspondent for
NBC News based in New York City.
Oh. I am also based in New York City. Now,
I don’t know if you know this, but another
term for the standard American accent is
‘broadcaster English’. So people all over the
world are looking to those who deliver news
in America as a standard for how they might
want to speak American English. » Which is
a little scary. We’re not always perfect.
That’s true. That’s fair. Um, but I’m
curious, where are you from? Did you have to
change anything about how you grew up
speaking English as you went into this field?
That’s a great question. I actually find
this subject fascinating because there are so
many accents in America. I grew
up in upstate New York. » Okay.
So, not New York City, but way north,
going towards Canada. Um, and, I had an
upstate New York accent, which, » Okay.
luckily, is not a very harsh accent.
It’s sort of midwestern. It sort of sounds
like Ohio, » Okay. » Illinois English.
Um, but there are,
there are little things that I » Okay. »
know now because I’ve had to work past them.
So people have been pointing out, this
isn’t quite right, we need you to change this,
or how have you figured out
things that need to be… » Yeah,
early on. Early on, when I started doing
television, which is 20 years ago, » Uh-huh,
I pretty quickly discovered that, for example,
you’re not supposed to say ‘mountain’, that’s
how I grew up saying » Yeah. » ‘mountain’,
Uh-huh, mountain, like a peak, » Right.
I would say ‘mountain’, » Uh-huh.
‘mountain’. Or, on your shirt is a button.
Uh-huh, » Button. » Right. » That’s a
very, sort of a glottal stop or something.
So on camera, they’re
saying, make it a real T sound
Button, » Uh-huh, » button. » Button.
So, I’ve had to teach myself.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me over the
years about the pronunciation of words with a
T-schwa-N, like ‘mountain’, ‘button’,
‘sentence’. It’s true when we’re speaking on
TV or into a microphone that we tend to make
more True T pronunciations. I actually tell
my students it’s ok to make a Stop T here,
but be careful about the next vowel. In some
regions in the United States, people will
say ‘mountain’, ‘button’, with more of
an EH as in BED vowel. We want that to be a
schwa. ‘Mountain’, ‘button’.
Though certainly, in some
more formal situations,
more people will make a True
T: mountain, button, sentence.
And even now, at NBC news, I’ll sometimes
be in our tracking booth with a microphone
recording my voice, and I’ll have to
pause and say, ‘mountain’, mountain.
So you still have to think about it
sometimes. » Yeah, I do, I do.
Well, that brings me to my next question,
which is, when you have a transcript that
you’re preparing, how much time do you spend
with it, do you have anything special that
you do as you’re working with the text?
Um, well, I write all my
own pieces for NBC News.
So, for Nightly News, the
TODAY show, Dateline.
Um, I often will, if I’m collaborating with
a producer, I often will write many drafts.
Many drafts. Did you notice how she dropped
the T? We do this a lot when the T comes
between two consonants. This is
easier to pronounce. Drafts, drafts.
Many drafts [3x], and make changes.
And if somebody, look for Dateline, for
example, they might write the first draft.
First draft. Here it was singular.
The T wasn’t between two consonants, it was
simply part of an ending consonant cluster.
So, the T was clearly pronounced. Draft.
Let’s compare ‘drafts’ with ‘draft’.
Drafts. Draft. [3x]
I will go through and sort of
make it my language. » Yeah.
And take out words that I know are difficult
for me. Paraph-, phrase things
in different ways, maybe, if I know I
might stumble on a certain pronunciation.
So, speaking of, what are some
of those words that are difficult?
Any word that’s not English. I guess
you’re asking about English, » Right.
but foreign pronunciations can be
especially difficult. » So if you
see a foreign word, place or name,
what do you do if you don’t
know how to pronounce it?
I write it phonetically » Okay. » in my
script, in the copy that I’m going to read.
I write out syllables, » Right. »
with the emphasis in capital letters.
And do you call an expert
to get that name or place? Or?
It depends. We might call an expert.
We sometimes, at NBC News, will call, if it’s
a town name, we’ll call the village hall,
and ask them: » Uh-huh. “How do you
say the name of your city?” » Right.
Um, if it’s foreign, if it’s overseas,
um, we have a desk in London, that often
knows how to pronounce, you know, Ahmadinejad
or something » Right. » like that. » Right.
Yeah. » Cool. Well, do you have
any favorite words in American English?
I have a lot of favorite words that are
not necessarily TV words, though. » Uh-huh.
Like, um, persnickety. » Oh, that’s a
great word. » I probably would never say
that word on TV » Right » because it’s
sort of odd, but, » Right. » but persnickety.
But you’ve said it here, and now
everyone’s going to look it up
and increase their vocabulary.
There you go!
So, thank you for that.
You’re welcome.
Persnickety means fussy, particular, picky.
An example sentence:
it’s hard to cook for him because
he’s such a persnickety eater.
It’s a four-syllable word with
stress on the second syllable.
da-DA-da-da. Per-sni-cke-ty. Persnickety.
The T there will sound like a D
because it comes between two vowels
and starts an unstressed syllable.
Persnickety.
Well, Kate, thank you
so much for your time.
Absolutely. » I really appreciate
it, I know my audience appreciates it.
Follow Ms. Snow on Twitter and
check out her segments on TV
or online for a great example of
American English pronunciation.
Guys, that’s it, and thanks so
much for using Rachel’s English.
Check out all the videos in the Interview
a Broadcaster series by clicking here,
or on the link in the video description below.