Episode 2： Fluent Pronunciation Training

All right, episode two of my fluent pronunciation training series is finally here. Thank you so much for your patience. If you're new here, this series is designed to help you improve your pronunciation and sound more natural in English. It is a listen and repeat style training, but we really focus on listening a lot. If you like this lesson, like this video, follow me here on YouTube, and I will keep making these for you. All right, here we go. Fluent pronunciation training number two, listen, internalize, practice, repeat. Okay, so first we're going to work on these sounds, the E versus the I. E, I. E, I. E, I. Now, a couple things for this E sound. The back of your tongue has to be really high up because the air has to flow over and it has to squeeze past your tongue. That is what creates the E sound. Think about a balloon when it's full of air and then you kind of open it like this and it goes E. All right, the air is squeezing out to create that sound. Now, the other thing, this sound E, E, E in English, it travels a little bit. It glides a little bit. It's not super pure. Listen, E, E, E. Okay, your tongue actually shifts ever so slightly, E, E, E, and it gets closer to the roof of your mouth as you travel through the sound. The I sound, I, I, I, is more relaxed, so your tongue is a little bit lower, I, I, I. Okay, so we have E, I, E, I, I. She, ship, sheep, chip, leave, live. Again, she, ship, sheep, chip, leave, live. Sheep, sheep, leave, ship, chip, live. Next, we have rhyming words. The only thing that changes here is the initial sound. We have girl, pearl, pearl, curl, twirl. Again, girl, pearl, pearl, curl, twirl. Now, if I'm going too fast, you can pause the video, you can slow it down if you want, but really what I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to read these words with a specific kind of rhythm that'll hopefully help you lock the sounds in your head. So it's not about you repeating after me right after I say what I say. I actually want you to listen, listen, listen, and then repeat. Spend more time listening than you think is necessary because the more you train your ears, the better feedback your ears will give you. They will be able to tell you when you say something correctly or when it's slightly off, and then you'll be able to make micro adjustments with your tongue, your lips, et cetera, but your ears need to be trained for this to work. So don't just repeat what I say right after I say it. Spend plenty of time listening and then start repeating. Okay? So we have girl, pearl, pearl, curl, twirl. Next, skill practice. This is the silent B, so we do not pronounce the B in any of these words. We have climb, numb, womb, comb, lamb, debt, doubt, subtle. Again, climb, numb, womb, comb, lamb, debt, doubt, subtle. Now we have long words. We have comfortable, vegetable, chocolate, Wednesday, business. Again, comfortable, vegetable, chocolate, Wednesday, business. Now let's notice some things. For comfortable, comfortable. Okay? I really want you to go into the F position when you do the M sound. Comfortable. Okay? Comfortable. It makes it a lot easier to say. Don't try to do the M and then the F. Okay? Do comfortable. Then vegetable, vegetable. Notice the G here, I'm actually pronouncing it like a CH, like ch, ch, ch. Vegetable. Now some people will say veg, veg, vegetable. I say vegetable, so you can choose. Vegetable. Chocolate, chocolate. Notice it's two syllables. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. And finally, business, biz, nis, biz, nis. Hopefully you're able to notice by going through this list of words that we cannot trust the spelling in English. In fact, if you rely on the spelling, it will mess you up and it will cause you to mispronounce words. You have to learn the sounds of English. Learn the sounds first, really lock in the sounds so that way you recognize them when you hear them in words and you'll be able to imitate what you hear. This kind of copying will help your pronunciation be so much more accurate and effortless because native speakers are dropping sounds, letters, syllables all the time and I want you to be aware of it when it happens. Next, we have our culture slide. We're going to go over some cities and how we say them in English. I know that in your native language, these cities sound much different. Right now, we're going to work on the English pronunciation, so here we go. Paris, Rome, Beijing, Dubai, Athens, Barcelona, Cairo, Quebec. Again, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Dubai, Athens, Barcelona, Cairo, Quebec. Next, we have fixed phrases. These are opposites and we're going to work on reducing the and down to an n sound. We did this in episode one as well. So, we have black and white, right and wrong, hot and cold, in and out, give and take. Again, black and white, right and wrong, hot and cold, in and out, give and take. And finally, we have some sentences. We're working on a contraction here. It's when is not becomes ain't. Now, English teachers everywhere will tell you never to say ain't because it's grammatically incorrect and that is true, but native speakers say ain't all the time and I use it especially for comedic effect. I don't usually use it when I'm speaking English in my day-to-day life just because I use it to be silly, to be funny or like I said for comedic effect. So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's actually a saying that we have. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Meaning, if something's not broken, don't waste your time trying to fix it. Don't try to make it better if it's already working. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Say it ain't so. Like, oh no, don't tell me that. I don't want to hear that. Say it ain't so. Tell me that's not true. We have to work now on weekends. What? No, say it ain't so. Things ain't what they used to be. Things ain't what they used to be. Meaning, things were better in the past. What do you think about that? Things ain't what they used to be. And finally, if it ain't one thing, it's another. Meaning, something is always going wrong. If it ain't one thing, it's another. Okay, so now we're going to go through the whole lesson again, but without the explanations. And again, what I'm trying to accomplish here is I just want you to hear the lesson. We are working on training your ears. This is not a slow lesson where I'm going to leave lots of room for you to repeat what you hear. You can take the list of words and phrases and sentences at the end of this, and you can just practice out loud. I don't necessarily want you to repeat what you hear right after you hear it. With me, I want you to train your ears. And then later, your ears are going to help you train your mouth. So here we go. Fluent pronunciation training number two, listen, internalize, practice, repeat. Sounds, ee, ih, ee, ih, ee, ih, sheep, ship, sheep, ship, cheep, chip, cheap, chip, leave, live, leave, live, sheep, sheep, leave, ship, ship, live. Rhyming words, girl, pearl, pearl, curl, twirl. Again, girl, pearl, pearl, curl, twirl. Skill practice, silent b, climb, numb, womb, comb, lamb, debt, doubt, subtle. Again, climb, numb, womb, comb, lamb, debt, doubt, subtle. Long words, comfortable, vegetable, chocolate, Wednesday, business. Again, comfortable, vegetable, chocolate, Wednesday, business. Culture, cities, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Dubai, Athens, Barcelona, Cairo, Quebec. Again, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Dubai, Athens, Barcelona, Cairo, Quebec. Fixed phrases, opposites, black and white, right and wrong, hot and cold, in and out, give and take. Again, black and white, right and wrong, hot and cold, in and out, give and take. And finally, sentences, contractions. Is not becomes ain't. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Say it ain't so. Things ain't what they used to be. If it ain't one thing, it's another. Again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Say it ain't so. Things ain't what they used to be. If it ain't one thing, it's another. Okay, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the lesson. If you would like a lesson from me every single day, including a fluent pronunciation training lesson every single week, then I highly encourage you to join our English Life community. You get daily lessons, monthly challenges, lots of speaking practice, and so much content that I don't share publicly here on YouTube. I think you're going to love it. More than anything, it's going to help you use English actively, improve your fluency, and really become a fluent, articulate, and expressive English speaker. I made this community to help you fall in love with learning English again, to help you become an active English speaker, so I really think you're going to love it. Check the link in the description. Right now, every new annual member is going to get four months free. Also, if you're still struggling with the sounds in English, then I want you to check out my SoundBank course, because I teach you every single sound of American English based on my accent, so the way that I speak. I become your role model. You get to imitate and copy me. I teach you all the sounds that I use, how to learn the sounds, how to lock them in, and how to make them automatic in your own speech, and these sounds, I consider them to be the building blocks of good English. If you want to be clear, if you want people to understand you, you have to lock in the sounds, so check that out as well, and finally, I do have a free starter pack for you with a few pronunciation guides. I think you're really going to love that as well. I'll leave the in the description. That's it, and I'll see you in another video.