Hurricane Sandy American English Pronunciation
As many of you probably know, hurricane Sandy
devastated the east coast at the end of October,
- The next day I hopped on my bike and
checked in on friends who live in southern
Manhattan to see how they were doing.
First, let me talk about the word ‘hurricane’.
Three syllable word, stress on the first syllable.
It has the H consonant sound, the ‘ur’ as
in ‘her’ vowel/consonant, hur-, hur-, that’s
the stressed syllable. Then the IH as in SIT,
K consonant sound, AY diphthong, and finally
the N consonant sound. So the two unstressed
syllables: -icane, -icane. No shape in the
voice, lower and flatter. Also, lower in volume.
Hurricane. Hurricane.
Laura, the reason why I can hardly see
you is because power’s out.
In this sentence, the word ‘can’ is a helping
verb. It’s not the main verb. So, it’s a function
word, and I’m reducing it to ‘kn’, ‘kn’, ‘I
kn’. Listen again.
Laura, the reason why I can [3x]
Laura, the reason why I can hardly see
you is because power’s out.
That’s correct.
Now, what time did you guys lose power
last night?
Let’s take a look at the T pronunciations
in the sentence fragment ‘last night’. Notice
I didn’t say the T in the word ‘last’. Normally,
as being part of an ending consonant cluster,
that would be pronounced. But often, when
the next sound is another consonant, the ending
T in a consonant cluster will be dropped.
Last night, last night. Are you noticing also
a stop T at the end of the word ‘night’? I’m
not releasing the tt sound. Night, night.
However, it’s not the same as dropping the
T: nigh', nigh'. The stop T makes the word
more abrupt, night, night. And it doesn’t
have quite the downward shape in voice, nigh-,
nigh-, that it would have if I dropped the
T altogether. Night, night. Last night. Listen
again.
Now, what time did you guys lose power
last night? [3x]
Uh, we lost power just a little after 8:30.
Another stop T. Eight-thirty. Eight, eight.
Eight-thirty. Notice that the T in the word
‘thirty’ is being pronounced as a flap T because
it comes after an R and before a vowel. Thirty,
thirty. Eight-thirty. Listen again.
8:30 [3x]
Any idea when you’re going to get your
power back on?
No idea — could be several days.
What are you going to do with these days
with no power?
What are you going to do? A couple reductions
here. First, the word ‘are’ is being reduced
to ‘er’, ‘er’. So, the T at the end of ‘what’
now comes between two vowel sounds and is
a flap T. What are, what are, what are, what
are you going to do? Notice I’m also reducing
‘going to’ to gonna, gonna. What are you gonna
do? Listen again.
What are you going to do [3x] with these
days with no power?
Um, well. Plan to do a lot of sitting and
thinking. Staring out windows. Maybe some
Balderdash. Who knows?
Games.
Games.
That sounds like a great way to spend the
next couple of days. If you ever need to recharge
anything, just come on up to my apartment.
Apartment. Two stop T’s. So the T’s in this
word don’t really follow the rules for T pronunciations.
Apartment, apartment. Listen again.
My apartment [3x], you can have all the
power and internet that you want.
Another ‘can’ reduction: you can, you can.
You can have.
You can have [3x] all the power and internet
that you want.
Will do.
And hot water.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
I also want to point out something interesting
about the word ‘weather’. ‘Weather’ can be
both a noun or a verb. Now, that’s not that
interesting. There are lots of words in American
English that are that way. But thing about
weather is that both as a noun and as a verb,
it’s pronounced the same way. Stress on the
first syllable: weather, weather. Normally,
there will be a difference in pronunciation.
For example, the word ‘present’. Present is
the noun, stress is on the first syllable.
Present. But as a verb, present, present,
stress is on the second syllable, so the two
words are pronounced differently. Present,
present. But with ‘weather’, both the same.
Both as a noun: we’re having terrible weather.
And as a verb: we’ll weather this storm. Weather,
weather.
So Sara, How did you guys weather the storm
last night?
We weathered it amazingly well. Um, perhaps
because the weather was not too crazy around
here. At least it didn’t seem so.
But you did lose power.
We lost power.
So, most people are out of power. But luckily,
they don’t live too far from me. So my home
has been able to be a haven of internet and
electricity for all my friends.
Thank you to those who showed concern about
me and my family during the hurricane. As
you can see, I came through just fine. It
was great to see so many supporting those
who went without electricity, heat, and hot
water for many days. For example, some stores
that had power set up charging stations in
front so people could see the news and be
in touch with loved ones. It was strange to
walk around a darkened Manhattan. Though for
most people, life is back to normal, others
are still living without electricity and even
running water. And others lost their homes
entirely. As time goes on, let’s continue
to help out those affected by this hurricane.
That’s it, and thanks so much
for using Rachel’s English.