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Today you're transforming your spoken English by studying a scene from a movie,
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The Art of Self-defense, with me. When you study this way, you'll be able to understand American movies
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and TV effortlessly without subtitles.
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Today, we're really going to study how Americans shape their phrases.
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We're going to study what happens with volume, pitch, and vocal quality.
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This can really quickly impact how natural you sound speaking English.
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A gun to-- So, the vowel almost always reduces here to the schwa.
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We're going to be doing this all summer, June through August, stick with me every Tuesday,
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they're all great scenes and there's going to be so much to learn
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that can transform the way you speak and understand English.
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And as always, if you like this video, or you learn something, please like and subscribe with notifications.
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You're going to watch the clip, then we're going to do a full pronunciation analysis together.
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This is going to help so much with your listening comprehension,
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when it comes to watching English movies in TV.
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But there's going to be a training section you're going to take what you've just learned,
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and practice repeating it, doing a reduction, flapping a T, just like you learned in the analysis.
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Okay, here's the scene.
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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Oh.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Instead, they have to wait a little while before they can do that.
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Do you have any children?
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No, I don't. Just a dog.
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Good.
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And now the analysis.
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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It's a pretty long thought group here to begin. What do you feel is the most stressed syllable there?
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What has the most volume?
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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Definitely feeling that on the word waiting. There is a waiting period.
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So that would just be the first syllable, not the second syllable, just the stressed syllable,
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and that does have a flap T in it. Waiting, waiting, because the T comes between two sounds
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that are vowels or dipthongs. Waiting. There is a waiting period.
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There is a waiting period.
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He even does a gesture on that stressed syllable. So why does it matter?
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Stressed syllables are what give us our anchors in American English, so
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it's really important to have that contrast. We have those stressed, more clear, bigger syllables,
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compared with smaller, less important, more quickly said syllables. There is a, there is a, there is a.
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There is a,
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That has a really different feel than way, there is a way, and that contrast is important.
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Let's look for other syllables in this thought group that have a little bit more length, that are stressed.
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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There is a waiting period before you can legally purchase this gun.
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There is a legally purchase this gun.
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Before you can legally purchase this gun. I feel some more stress there.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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But the other syllables are said pretty quickly. We've already studied 'there is a' which becomes:
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There is a, There is a. See if you can practice that, simplifying your mouth movements as much as possible.
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There is a, There is a, There is a.
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You should be able to do that without moving your mouth very much.
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There is a...
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So after our stressed syllable 'wait', we have a bunch of unstressed syllables.
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The unstressed syllable of that word: ting, ting, ting, ting period before you can,
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ting period before you can, ting period before you can. Again, you have to simplify your mouth movements.
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Make them minimal.
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Waiting period before you can,
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And let's notice that we have a reduction here, the word can, is not said fully pronounced,
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it's reduced to the schwa. And the schwa gets absorbed by the N and is called a syllabic consonant.
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So you don't even need to try to make a vowel here.
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It's just the K sound and the N sound: kn, kn, before you can, before you can, before you can.
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Before you can,
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And we don't want any breaks between our words here.
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Waiting period before you can.
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Right from the D sound, I'm not releasing it that would be period, period, but I'm going period,
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right from the D into the B, no release, we want that smoothness,
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that continuous sound linking in American English.
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Period before you can,
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legally purchase this gun.
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Now let's look at just the last three words, and let's listen to that rhythm.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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It kind of starts to take on the feeling of a song doesn't, it? Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
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Legally purchase this gun. Legally purchase this gun. Uuuuhhh--
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with this up-down shape, when we have a more stressed syllable, and then coming down in energy and
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pitch on an unstressed syllable. Legally purchase this gun. You might want to think about English,
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American English, as singing, might help you link things together, might help you focus on the melody and
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the rhythm of the language, and in ways that is maybe different from your own native language.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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Legally purchase this gun , legally purchase this gun, legally purchase this gun.
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And of course, when we speed it up it, doesn't really sound like a song, it does feel like speech.
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Legally purchase this gun.
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Legally purchase this gun ,
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Notice how quickly I'm saying the word 'this'. It's not 'this', it's: legally purchase this,
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purchase this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, saying it quickly with simplified mouth movements.
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It's an unstressed word it does not need to have length. It shouldn't have length.
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Because then we don't get the contrast that we need.
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We have to have short syllables so we have contrast.
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Purchase this..
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gun.
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Oh.
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And then he says so quietly, Oh, Oh, oh, oh, little up-down shape, he blinks his eyes twice, he looks nervous.
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I love this actor. I think he does vulnerability so well.
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Oh.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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So now we have a very long thought group. What is a thought group? It's an utterance between pauses.
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For example, this guy could have said: So, a person who's upset with another person,
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can't come in here and buy a gun, to shoot that person with.
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Did you hear how I put all of those breaks in? So, a person who's upset with another person,
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so there I made a break here, making so its own thought group, I made a break after person,
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making this line its own thought group,
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but he just kept going, he didn't put in any breaks, so it's a long thought group.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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I'm just gonna take the first part of it through here,
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let's look at our most stress syllables definitely we have so, so.
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So--
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a person who is upset with another person---
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So a person who is-- I'm actually not gonna write that as a contraction, I do feel it is another syllable.
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If it was a contraction, it would be one syllable, who's.
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If it's not a contraction, its two syllables, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is.
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There's a little difference and I do feel like I hear that as its own syllable, as its own word.
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Who is up-
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So a person who is upset with another person,
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a little bit of stress on other, definitely some stress on per-- our stressed word, person.
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So a person who is upset with another person---
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So a person who is upset with another person---
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So a person who is upset with another person---
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Also some stress on upset. Upset. Upset. Second syllable stress on that word.
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So a person who is upset with another person-- notice we have a stop T here in upset.
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Upset with, upset with, that little pause, that little break is a stop T, we stopped the air in our vocal cords,
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upset with, and that to us, gives us the feel of the T even though it's not released.
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And the reason why it's a stop T is because the next word begins with a consonant.
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Upset with--
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And everything really links together, there are no breaks. So a person, here, the word a, the article a,
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is just a schwa, it's its usual pronunciation, and it links the words together so a per-- so a per-- no break
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so a person who is upset with another person.
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So a person who is upset with another person--
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So a person who is upset with another person--
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So a person who is upset with another person--
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See if you can do that with no breaks, slow it down if you have to, really feel uuhhhhh, a slower glide up and down.
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We don't want abrupt changes in pitch. It's usually a glide up or a glide down.
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So a person who is upset with another person--
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So a person who is upset with another person--
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Okay let's look at the second half of this thought group.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Now, the whole second half here is quieter, isn't it?
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The general trend of a phrase in American English is we start louder and higher in pitch in general,
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and throughout the sentence, we lose some volume and some vocal energy and the pitch tends to go down.
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And so here, it's a long phrase and the whole second half of it is quieter.
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Here we have the actual volume of that phrase, and you can see how the first half has more higher peaks
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and the second half is in general quite a bit lower, and then really tapers down at the end.
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Let's listen to that phrase and pay attention to the volume as you listen.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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And this is a really important part of American English. We want to have that feel of bigger at the beginning,
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and then fading a bit at the end. Shaping your phrases like that will help you sound a lot more natural.
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A lot of my most advanced students still have to do this.
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They still have to figure out how to take out some of the energy and
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volume at the end and let the pitch come down,
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so that it really falls off a little bit and gives it the more natural shape to phrases.
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Let's listen to this one more time and again, watch the volume here at the bottom,
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and really pay attention to what you hear and think about how you can shape a phrase like this.
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So, a person who's upset with another person can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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So now let's go ahead and look at what words do have a little bit more length,
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what syllables have a little bit more length in this second half of the thought group.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here-- little stress on in, can't come in here and buy a gun shoot to that person with.
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I think those are our peaks of stress here. Shoot being the most stressed.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Now let's just listen to: can't come in.
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Can't come in.
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Did you notice the stop T here?
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N apostrophe T has a couple different pronunciations, and one of them is with a stop,
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a little break, can't, can't, can't come, can't come,
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and that's how he pronounced this N apostrophe T contraction.
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Can't come in,
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here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Can't come in here and-- in here and-- The word 'and' sounds sort of like in, this is common when we reduce it.
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We drop the D, we reduced the vowel to the schwa, which sounds to me a lot like the IH vowel
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like in the word in, when it's unstressed. Can't come in here and-- can't come in here and buy a--
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So maybe if you think of the word and as in,
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that might help you reduce it as you say it quickly and link it to the words around it.
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Can't come in here and buy a--
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Can't come in here and buy a--
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Can't come in here and buy a gun to shoot that person with.
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Buy a gun. Again just like up here with 'so a person', 'buy a gun', it's just a quick schwa that
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we glide through between those two words to link. Buy a gun. Buy a gun.
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Buy a gun.
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And now let's listen to the reduction of the word 'to'.
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A gun to shoot,
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It's not to, is it? It's: a gun to, a gun to, so the vowel almost always reduces here to the schwa.
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The T can be a true T or a flap T, which can sound like a D, and that's what happens here. Gun to--
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gun, your tongue is already at the roof of the mouth for the N, gun to-- and rather than making a T,
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we make a D and release it into the schwa. Gun to-- gun to-- buy a gun to--
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It's just another way to smooth that word out. You don't have to do it. He could have said: gun to-- gun to-- gun to--
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What's really important is that we do do the schwa reduction,
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that is something you need to do in order to sound natural.
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And you know what, why not try it with that D sound? Buy a gun to-- buy a gun to--
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Buy a gun to--
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It's also important that it feels shorter, and that it's less stressed. Make that as quick as you can. Da,da, da.
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So it shouldn't be DA, it should be the: duh, duh. Gun to-- Gun to shoot. \
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Gun to shoot.
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Just like with upset the T in shoot is a stop T
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because the next word begins with a consonant let's just listen to the last four words of this phrase.
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Shoot that person with.
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Shoot that person with.
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Shoot that person with.
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So the stop T is really subtle, but I would definitely say it's not totally dropped. Shoot that, shoot that.
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Shoot that.
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Shoot that. And another stop T at the end of that. Shoot that. Shoot that person with.
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Now, do you notice, what is happening with his voice in these last four words?
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Shoot that person with.
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Shoot that person with.
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Shoot that person with.
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They all have a popcorn quality in the voice. Shoot that person with.
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Uhhhh. We have that in the voice as he speaks. Now, it's not that way at the beginning:
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So a person,
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But it is that way at the end.
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Shoot that person with,
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This is part of that shape of the phrase that I've been talking about.
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More energy, more volume at the beginning, lower energy, lower volume,
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also lower in pitch towards the end, and that does bring in that popcorn quality.
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