keep up? Today, we're studying English with TV, the

series, 'Friends'. It's a scene from their New Year's Eve Party and we're going

to talk about all the tricks of spoken English that make up the music of English. The linking

between words, the stress and the melody. You'll understand how Americans speak so

fast, you'll improve your listening skills, and you'll be able to sound more natural

speaking English. Here's the scene: Monica and Chandler are dating and Joey is the only

one that knows. This scene is about a minute long and we're going to study everything

about the pronunciation. Here's the full scene.

What's the matter? We wanted to kiss at midnight, but nobody else

is going to, so, you know. Alright. I'll take care of it.

Oh no. Joey!

Huh muh muh muh... Thirty-three, Thirty-two, Thirty-one

Ross, Ross listen, who you kissing at midnight huh? Rachel or Phoebe?

What? Well, you got to kiss someone. Can't kiss

your sister. Oh who's going to kiss my sister?

Chandler. Oh man really?

Dude, dude who would you rather kiss your sister, me or Chandler?

That's a good point. Yeah.

Well, since I have that whole history with Rachel, I guess Phoebe.

Okay, great! Right.

Phoebs! Phoebs! Listen, Ross wants to kiss you at midnight.

It's so obvious. Why doesn't he just ask. Rach, Rach, listen, I'm going to kiss you at midnight.

What? Well, everyone's got to kiss someone, can't

kiss Ross, you got the history. So?

So, who would you rather have kissing you, me or Chandler? Oh, good point.

Yeah. Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

Did you catch how 'or' was pronounced 'ur'? There are lots of changes like that

in spoken English. Here's the full analysis. What's the matter?

So this first sentence isn't too clear, is it? What's the matter? What's the matter?

What's the said really quickly and everything leads up to the stressed syllable 'ma',

What's the matter? And then comes down. So, very connected, very smooth, a little bit

breathy, 'What's the' becomes 'What's the'. What's the,What's the. Barely

a W sound at all. And this is a actually a word that can be shortened to ts. What's,

it's, that's and let's are all sometimes shortened to just the ts sound. Ts'the matter?

What's the matter?

And he's kind of doing that here, maybe

a little bit of schwa. What's the matter? Huh,huh,huh. What's the matter? But it's very

unclear isn't it? Definitely not “what's” fully pronounced.

The word 'the', this is unstressed word that begins with the voiced th just like this

that, these, those, those kind of all be pronounced with different kind of th. So, rather than

the tongue tip coming through the teeth, the tongue tip presses the backs of the teeth,

uhuhuh, and then pulls away, very quickly to make that schwa. The word 'the' is

this: the, the ,the, the. Said so quickly, low in pitch, low in volume, not too clear

because it's unstressed. Then our stressed syllable with the æ vowel, ma, ma, has that

change of direction, the pitch goes up then down and then a flap t into the schwa sharp

r sound, (flap) on the way down. Ahu. All one connected, utterance, it can actually just

feel like one word. No brakes, with the one stressed syllable ma.

What's the matter?

We wanted to kiss at midnight.

So we have a couple of stressed syllables there that are a little bit longer. Ahuhauhhau, and that's

the way how American English works. We have stressed syllables, they usually have a curve

up and curve down. We wanted to kiss at midnight. So, three of those and the rest of the syllables

are a little bit lower in pitch, volume, now here he sort of whispering a little bit, he's

not saying it to the whole room, he only wants Joey to hear because the relationship is secret.

We wanted to kiss at midnight.

We wanted to kiss. We wanted. Do you hear

wanted, wanted. That t is dropped. That's the most common pronunciation of that word.

So, the ed ending here makes ih as in sit d when nt is followed by a vowel, it's really

common to drop that t. The word 'wanted', almost every time you hear an American say

that, they will not say the T. Even if it's in a business meeting, even if it's an important

speech, even in those formal cases, we don't usually say wanted. We almost always say wan-id, wan-id.

We wanted to kiss

We wanted to kiss.I love when you hear that on a loop, how you really start to hear the

rhythm. Tadadadada. Tadadadada. Tadadadada. So those unstressed syllables probably, you're

not making them short enough. That's the main thing I work with on my students when

it comes to rhythm, shortening up unstressed syllables. We wanted to, nid to, nid to, nid

to. So id said really quickly then the word to reduces, it's a very quick true T and then

schwa. We wanted to.To, to. We wanted to kiss. Uhuhuh.

We wanted to kiss

We wanted to kiss at midnight.

At midnight. How was the word 'at' pronounced?

I don't hear at, do you? At. That's the vowel in that word fully pronounced. But I

don't hear a, I hear schwa and then a really quick stop of air at midnight. That's the

stop T, at,at,at. So the word at, how do we make it faster? Change to vowel, make that

a stop T, at,at. It really does need to be that fast. At midnight, at midnight.

At midnight

Notice the d in midnight is not released,

it's not mid, midnight, but midnight, mid-night. So, the d very fast, the vocal cords vibrate

but it's not released. Midnight.

Midnight.

And again a stop T. So, the T pronunciation is usually a stop t if it comes at the end

of a thought group or if it's followed by a word that begins with a consonant.

Midnight

But nobody else is going to–

But nobody else is going to. But nobody else. So we have a little bit of stress, a little

bit of that up down melody on no and then a lot more on else but nobody else is going to

But nobody else is going to–

Going to, going also stressed, this one goes down and up. Usually they go up and down but

sometimes, down and up. Going to.

Going to–

Little lift there, but nobody, do you notice that? Another stop t, next word begins with

a consonant. But nobody else. Okay, we need to talk about the dark L here. An L is a dark

L if it comes after the vowel or diphthong. So this is a one syllable word, the main sound

here, the vowel is the eh as is bed. So the L comes after that vowel so it's a dark

L. And for dark L, especially when the sound is a consonant, we don't lift the tongue

tip. So that's just made at the back of the tongue, uhl, el, uhl. Tongue tip is down.

If you lift your tongue tip here, else, else, else. It's an extra movement you don't

need. It's probably going to get in the way of making the dark sound. L, uhl,uhl, L, else.

See if you can challenge yourself to make that without lifting your tongue tip.

You might need to slow it down, really think about it, L, uhl,uhl. That dark sound is made

at that back of the tongue pressing down and back a little bit L, else.

But nobody else–

But nobody else is going to,

Nobody else is going to. Now here the word to, not reduced, that is the full u vowel,

here it was reduced. We usually don't reduce the word it if it's the last word in a thought

group and there is a little lift here so I would say that's why this word is not reduced.

going to,

So, you know.

So, so, again a little down up stress so, you know.

So, you know.

You know, you know, sort of a questioning

intonation. Do you understand what I'm talking about you know the word you, reduced. It's

not you know, but it's jə, jə, said so quickly, not a u vowel but a schwa. You know,

you know.

Alright.

Alright. Alright, again, down up stress, alright. When we do this, it can signal a couple of different things.

It can signal a question, it can also signal that there's more to say. So he says 'alright',

then he follows it with 'I'll take care of it.' So, intonation going up on our right

to show, okay I understand, I'm going to say more, I'm going to solve that problem for you.

Alright.

Now the L in 'Alright' can be dropped. Alright, alright. I think that's what he's

doing here, you can think of it as in aw as in law vowel, alright, alright and stop t.

You don't hear t. a true t release, that's because it's the end of a thought group.

Alright.

I'll take care of it.

I'll take care of it. I'll take care. So all of those words are either leading up

to or going away from the peak of stress on the word care. And notice his pitch is going

down here. He's done. He doesn't have more to say, so statement intonation. The

words I will in contraction often sound like the word all. And that's what's happening here.

I'll take care of it.

And again we don't hear a t, a true t release, I'll take care of it, it, it ,it, it. Quiet

abrupt stop.

I'll take care of it.

Notice how everything links together really smoothly, there are no breaks. Here we have

take care, a word ending in a k sound, a word beginning with a k sound they just link one

k sound. Take care, take care, I'll take care of it. Now the word care written in IPA

would be, let's bring this over here. Would be k consonant, eh as in bed, schwa r, and

the r, well it takes over the schwa first of all, so you don't need to think of making

an extra schwa sound. And the schwa r sound, the r sound can change some vowels eh is one

of them. So a pure eh would be eh, bed, k, care, care, care, are, are. That's not how

we say it, we say caaa, So the jaw drops less, caa-aa. It's a little bit more of the beginning

of the ei diphthong, care rather than care. So less jaw drop, modified vowel there. Care

of it. The ending r links right into the schwa for of and the ending v of of links right

into the e vowel of it so everything very smooth. Care of it I'll take care of it.

I'll take care of it.

Okay, then Chandler starts making some sounds

like, Uh, nonono, and Monica says Joey! High intonation, going even higher up down for that peak

of stress on that stressed syllable Jo, Joey! Joey!

Uh, no. Joey!

Huh muh muh muh…

Huh muh muh muh, okay, they don't want him to go tell people that Chandler and Monica

want to kiss, Joey's the only one that knows that they are in a relationship. So, Joey's

going to solve the problem in a different way.

Uh, no. Joey! Huh muh muh muh…

Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one! Ross listen.

Okay, so Ross is counting down starting in the thirties, of course it's crazy, we, most

people don't start counting down until ten. But notice, when we have a compound number

like this , Thirty-three, stress is on the last one. thirty-two, thirty-one! So no matter

how long your number is, Eight thousand nine hundred and twenty two, the stress is always on

the last digit. Another thing to notice here is the t in the word thirty is a flap t. That's

because if I write it out, we have unvoiced th, then we have the ur as in bird vowel r

combination, a t and the e vowel. So, the t is a flap t if it comes between two vowel

sounds or if it comes after an r before a vowel or diphthong like here. So, all of these

are not thirty but thirdy, thirdy, [flap]. A flap of the tongue. That will help smooth

that out, that will sound a little both natural, thirty, thirty. We also want to make sure

that we're doing a little bit of stress on the first syllable there so that the second

syllable feels unstressed. Thirty, dada. Thirty-one. So a little bit of stress on thir, no stress

on ty and then the most stress on three, two and one.

Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one! Ross listen.

Ross listen, Ross listen. So two stressed syllables there. Ross. Listen. The name and

also the first syllable of listen, that t is silent, it's not that he's dropping

the t, it's just that in that word the official full pronunciation doesn't have a t. Listen.

Ross listen.

Who you kissing at midnight?

Who you kissing at midnight? Who you, so he drops the word are which makes

the sentence more grammatically correct. That's okay,that happens sometimes. Who you kissing,

so he's stressing you. Its the peak of stress for this sentence. Because he's saying everybody's

going to kiss somebody, who are you kissing?

Who you kissing at midnight?

Who you kissing at midnight? A little bit of stress on the way down on ki, kissing

at midnight, also mid. The ing ending gets changed to just the n ending, so the ending

vowel there, ih as in sit, n unstressed, kissing, kissing. Who you kissing at, so we have two

unstressed syllables in a row, the unstressed syllable of kissing the second syllable, also

the word at which you all know already reduces, the ah vowel changes to the schwa and we have

a stop t, stop t because the next word begins with a consonant. Kissing at, kissing at,

kissing at midnight.

kissing at midnight?

And again, stop t there because it's the end of his thought group, he puts a little