Study English | American English Pronunciation | What Makes American English Sound AMERICAN?

today is the third video this december where we're using the friends christmas episode the one where rachel quits her job to study english last week she had a job interview now in this episode she's gotten the job and it's her last day working at the coffee shop we're going to study this scene and everything we can about american english pronunciation to figure out what makes american english sound american here's the scene there you go enjoy [Applause] should i tell her i owed a t no no um excuse me everyone uh this is my last night

working here and uh i just wanted to say that i made some really good friends here and uh it's just time to move on as of this moment i will never have to make coffee again and now let's do the analysis together there you go okay our first thought group here is three words long what is the stress what's the most stressed word there you go there you go there you go there you go there you go the stress is all going up towards the peak the energy peaks out on the word go that has

the o diphthong you will need some lip rounding for that there you going up in pitch going up in energy in volume there you go and then the up down shape on the stressed syllable there you go there you go there you go try to do that try to do it really smoothly connected with that peak of stress on go you'll listen to it three times then there will be a little pause for you to try it there you go there you go there you go there you go enjoy enjoy enjoy second syllable stress enjoy

enjoy enjoy enjoy so the context here this is rachel's last shift the end of her last shift she did get a job in the video that we studied last week this section of the episode she had just had an interview where she didn't feel like she did very well but she did get the job and so this is her last shift and she knows that she has a job to go on to enjoy enjoy enjoy [Applause] should i tell her i owed a tea no okay chandler didn't actually order coffee what is the stress of

his question here should i tell her i owed a tea should i tell her i owed a tea should i tell her i owed a t should i tell her the verb should i tell her i ordered t t and the pitch goes up it's a yes no question those are our two most stressed syllables there should i the word should i would say is i would write that with a schwa should should should i should i the d is a flap sound because it comes between two vowels or diphthongs the l is silent here

so it comes between the schwa and the i diphthong so it's just should i shoulda bouncing on the roof of the mouth should i tell her should i tell her should i tell her should i tell her should i tell her tell begins with a true tea because that starts a stressed syllable that's always going to be a true t unless it's the tr cluster then it might be a ch sound teller we have a dropped h the er the schwa r ending just links on to the word before tell her tell her should i

tell her should i tell her should i tell her should i tell her i had a t i ordered both a little flatter lower in pitch i ordered i ordered i ordered i ordered tea before the stressed word t and again that is a true t because the t there begins a stressed syllable i ordered i ordered i ordered these two words flatter and pitch simplified less clear i know the word order can be really tough i actually have a video that goes over how to pronounce that word when it's stressed you can check it

out i'll put a link in the video description prior to t priority priority no no no no quick up down shape no no no no no no um excuse me everyone excuse me everyone stress on skews notice the word is not excuse but it's skews she turns it into one syllable this is pretty common so the letter x here represents two sounds k and s excuse but it's not uncommon to drop the first vowel and drop the k and just say skews skews s sound k you diphthong z excuse excuse me and that's what she

does here stress on that syllable excuse me everyone excuse me everyone excuse me everyone excuse me everyone uh this is my last night working here uh okay after the word uh what is the stress of this thought group uh this is my last night working here uh this is my last night working here uh this is my last night working here this is my last night this is my this is my these first three words said pretty quickly this is my last then we have more stress there last night working here this is my last

night working here this is my last night working here this is my last night working here so last and work have the most stress even so even though last is one of the stressed words it does have a dropped sound there is no t the reason is because it's part of an ending st cluster the next word begins with a consonant the t between two consonants like this even when they're in two different words is often dropped last night it's just the s sound into the n sound last night and then we have a stop

t at the end of night that's because the next word begins with the consonant and the sound before it was a vowel or diphthong in this case the i as in by diphthong so the sound before is a diphthong but the letter before is an h which we would think of as being a consonant letter but if the t was between two consonants we would drop it just like here we don't talk about letters the rules are all about sounds so here the t is not between two consonants it's after the i diphthong before a

consonant that's why this t is a stop t if you're completely confused about the t pronunciations i do have a playlist that goes over all of the different ways that we pronounce teas and the rules around them this is my last night this is my last night this is my last night working here last night working here stress unstress stress unstressed unstressed last night working here so the ing ending and the word here flatter lower in pitch coming down in vocal energy the word work this is a really tough word don't try to make a

vowel it's the r vowel consonant combination this is how we do it in american english this vowel doesn't really have a sound by itself it just blends with the r er work so no wuck no jaw drop we don't need much jaw drop for the sound tip of the tongue pulls back and up a little bit we're working working here working here working here working here and uh and uh okay it's not that common to hear the d in the word and but she does do it especially you'll hear people doing that when they're thinking

of what to say next then they're more likely to fully pronounce and and uh the d-links right into the next sound which is the uh as in butter sound and uh and uh and uh and uh i just wanted to say that what's the stress of this next thought group i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that again st cluster followed by a consonant just like last night becomes last night just wanted becomes just wanted i just wanted to say

that i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that everything links together really smoothly we have three more t's here let's study them what happens with these t's i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that wanted to say wanted to say this first t totally dropped that's pretty common in this word because it comes after an n lots of other people will do that so the e d ending here it's funny because we drop the t but

it still follows the rules for coming after a t sound so the rules for e d ending is when it comes after t or d it's the e as in vowel and the d sound so even though the t is dropped that rule still holds wanted wanted wanted and when the word before two t-o ends in a d it's common to just drop the t sound altogether and just put a schwa at the end wanada wanada wanted to say wanted to say that i just wanted to say that i just wanted to say that just

wanted to say that she does a true tea release here at the end of that it's also common to make that a stop t when it comes to the end of a thought group like it does here but here she makes it a true t so in i just wanted to say that we have four t's that are part of the official pronunciation of those words but only one of them is pronounced as a true t the other three are all dropped that's crazy i love english i just wanted to say that just wanted to

say that just wanted to say that i made some really good friends here what's the stress of this phrase i made some really good friends here i made some really good friends here i made some really good friends here i made some really good friends here i hear made the verb i made some really good friends now here so the general way that stress works is content words are usually stressed those are nouns verbs adjectives and adverbs but they're not always stressed for example the word good is not stress compared to really really good really

has more stress i made some really good friends here i made some really good friends here i made some really good friends here i made some really good friends here the word some if that was fully pronounced it would have the uh as in butter vowel if it was stressed it would have that up down shape some but i would actually write that with the schwa some some it's flattering pitch i think the vowel is not full i think it's reduced made some really good friends here i made some really i made some really i

made some really good friends here friends here friends here i noticed she is ending with her pitch going up a little bit friends here that's to show that she's not done talking she has a little bit more to say friends here friends here friends here and and uh there she goes again thinking about what to say fully pronouncing the word and linking the d into the next sound the thinking vowel the uh as in butter and uh and uh and uh and uh it's just time to move on in this last thought group on this

slide what is the stress it's just time to move on it's just time to move on it's just time to move on time on and part of the phrasal verb it's just time to move on now we have a lot of interesting reductions here first i'm sure you can guess the t is dropped in just because it comes between two consonants just time the s going right into the next t there's no extra t and the t in time is a true t because the t begins a stressed syllable what about the word it's it's

how's that pronounced it's just time it's just time it's just time it's just time the vowel is dropped that's not an uncommon pronunciation you will hear that it's that's what's and let's can all do this i actually have a video that goes over those reductions i'll link to that in the video description it's just time it's just time it's just time to move on so it's just the ts sounds linked right into the next word it's just it's just it's just time now the word two this word reduces usually almost all the time the vowel

will reduce to the schwa and the t changes so it can be a true t but it can also be a flap t and it's a flap t here that happens when the sound before was voiced not always you don't have to do it that way but you'll hear it that way a lot time to timed timed so it's more like a d sound a flap sound in american english than a true t we don't have the true t release time to it's just time to it's just time to it's just time to move on

time to move on time to move on and then part of the phrasal verb move on the final word has some stress too time to move on it's time to move on it's time to move on it's time to move on as of this moment what's the stress of this thought group as of this moment as of this moment as of this moment definitely the most stressed word is the word this as of this moment mo is has a little bit of stress too it's the stress syllable of that word but this has the most

stress as of this moment as of those two words linked together really smoothly with a z sound as of this moment as of this moment as of this moment as of this moment as of this moment and she does a true tea release here you won't always hear that but she's feeling energized she's excited about what's happening she's also speaking to a larger group so in those cases you might pronounce more of your teas than you would in conversational english as of this moment as of this moment as of this moment i will never have

to make coffee again and then she breaks up this next statement into a few thought groups with some pauses to bring extra emphasis i will never i will never really stressing that word going up in pitch because she's not done and then a break i will never i will never i will never have to make coffee again have to make coffee and again she goes up in pitch because she's not done talking and then the pitch at the end again goes down because that is the end of her statement so she broke that sentence up

into three different thought groups to just bring extra stress to it i will never have to make coffee so by putting the break after the word the stress word never and the stress word coffee just brings more emphasis to those words have to make coffee again have to make coffee again have to make coffee again have to make and actually i'm noticing here she is not reducing the word to she's making that a true t and an ooh vowel which again we almost never do but she is bringing emphasis to each word in this phrase

she is so excited to never have to serve coffee again that she did actually fully pronounce that word but it was still flat it was still unstressed low in pitch have to make coffee again have to make coffee again have to make coffee again have to make coffee again the joke of this episode of course is that the very next scene is of her at her new job where she is being told that her boss likes coffee and that she needs to make it for him let's listen to this whole conversation one more time there

you go enjoy [Applause] should i tell her i owed a tea no no um excuse me everyone uh this is my last night working here and uh i just wanted to say that i made some really good friends here and uh it's just time to move on as of this moment i will never have to make coffee again if you love learning english with tv we do have a whole playlist for that check it out and if you love this kind of full pronunciation analysis i do a lot of it in my academy my academy

is where i help students train and really reach their accent their pronunciation goals it's rachel's english academy there's a 30-day money-back guarantee so don't be afraid to try it also don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel i make a new video every tuesday that's it guys and thanks so much for using rachel's english