Buh-clue. Hi. I'm Ronnie. I have something that... Oh my god, this is amazing. Honestly, this lesson
will change your life. It changed my life when my good
friend, Leaf, told me about this. Leaf, thank you; grammar god, you
are pronunciation god - Leaf. Awesome. So, I've been trying to figure this out for
ages, years, maybe 100 years because I'm a vampire, and I got it. Thank you. Are you confused about the
pronunciation of vowels in English? So, for example, we have a long vowel sound,
and a long vowel sound means that the vowel sounds like its alphabet name. So, for example: "a". But in English, we also
have: "aw" and "a". Different ways to
pronounce the vowels. One of them is a long vowel sound,
so "a" is pronounced like "a". Then we also have a short vowel sound where
"a" is going to be pronounced like: "ah". And how do you know when you read a
new word to say it like "a" or "ah"? I have the answer. Oh, it's amazing. I... Okay, I get really excited about things a
little bit too much; but this, I'm just super excited about it. And I want to teach you this - and, geez,
it's going to change the way that you read things, the way that
you learn English. So, give me some
money or something. Just, enjoy. Listen. It's amazing. So, we have some guidelines. Now, I want to make perfectly clear that people
like to say "grammar rules", and Ronnie hates rules. I'm Ronnie. I do not like rules because they're made to
be broken; and in English, there's always exceptions to rules. So, you study a rule and you learn it, and
then you go: "Oh", but no - sorry; that's an exception. And then you say: "Why?" Maybe you ask someone, maybe you ask your
teacher: "Teacher, why?" and the teacher goes: "I don't know." So, please think of these as only guidelines;
life-changing guidelines, though. Okay? I'm telling you. So, we have words
that have two vowels. Okay? So: "a", "e", "i", "o", "u",
and sometimes "y" are vowels. But this is our guideline: If in the
word you have two vowels, the first... Oh, I'm sorry. The first vowel sound... The first vowel in the word is going to sound
like its alphabet name or it's going to sound like a long vowel sound. The second vowel, it's silent; we
don't even say the second vowel. Crazy. So, in English, if there's an "e" at
the end of the word - we don't say it. In all of the other languages of the world,
we say all the vowels; but English, oh no. The "e" is silent;
we don't say that. So, if you have two vowels in the word, for
example: "a" and "e", we're going to say the first vowel like it sounds
like in the alphabet, so "a". We're going to say: "ba", and we do
not say: "bak-e"; we say "bake". So, the first vowel is going to
sound like the alphabet: "bake". What about this one? We don't say: "fah-me",
like "ah"; we say: "fame". And, again, we don't say the
last vowel in the word. So, this works with
two-vowel words. The "a" we pronounce like an "a", and
the "e" or the second vowel is silent. One more time the rule;
it's life-changing. The first vowel sounds like its alphabet name,
the second vowel is silent; we don't say it. Let's try this again. So, this is "a". The next letter. What's this vowel sound or what's
this sound in the English alphabet? "A", "e". So, we say: "these". We don't say:
"the-se", "the-se". "Look at the-se. Look at these." So, again, we're going to say the "e" like
an "e", and the second "e" is silent. This is amazing. Woo-hoo. This word. So, you look: "dre-am". "I had an amazing dre-am
last night; I was flying." But it's actually just a dream. So, one vowel we're going to say
"e", the second vowel is silent. So, we don't say: "dre-am";
we say: "dream". "I had a dream." Did you have a dream
last night or now? Are you imagining this? No. No, no, no. This is real. Get back into this. It's amazing. Let's see with this letter. What letter is this? Now, this is hard for you guys because in
your languages maybe this is "uh" and this is "e", but in
English, this is "i". So, watch this trick. Put an eye-woo-hoo-on your "i". So, this is the pronunciation
of the letter "i". So, this word is "pie". We don't say: "pi-e". "I'd like some pi-e, please." This word is "ice"; we don't
say: "ic-e" or "ec-e". Okay? So, again, we're going to say the "i"
like an eye, and the "e" is silent. "Pie", "ice". Well, this is making sense. I wonder who made
this guideline. Why didn't they tell me before? This word: "drone". Do you know what a drone is? Do you know what pie is? It's delicious. But a drone is something that... Like, a remote control aircraft that
you can make fly and find aliens. What? If you don't know what a drone is,
Google it, because I'm not Google. So... Or Yahoo, whatever. A drone, we're going
to say the "o" sound. "O". So, we're going to say:
"drone"; not "drune", not... Again, we're going to pronounce this like
an "o"; we're going to say: "drone". What about this word? This is confusing English. "Soap" and "soup" Hmm. Again, these are guidelines. So, "soap", we don't
say: "so-ap". "I used some so-ap yesterday. It was delicious." We say: "soap". So, we don't even say the "e"
because the second vowel is silent. We only say the first vowel. It doesn't have to be an "e" at the end; if
there's two vowels together, we're going to say the first one here and we're
not going to say the second one. Damn, this is great. Great content, Ronnie. The next one, oo, so cute. Eee. "Cute", again, "u", "u", "u'. You, you're cute. So, "cute" is "c-u-t-e",
so we say: "cute". What's this word? This is a girl's
name, it's "Sue". It's also a verb. So, we say: "u". "Sue" and "cute". Again, we're not going to say
the "e" at the end of the word. Are you getting this? This is fun, this is
easy; I love this. Now, English just became easier for me;
and I can imagine you, too, I hope. So, let's go to the second one. So, remember: If in one word you have two
vowels together or two vowels, the first one is going to sound like its alphabet name and
the second one-shh-is silent; we don't say it. Okay? If we have one vowel... So, if we have a word that only has one vowel,
then our game is a little bit different. And, again, this is a
guideline; not a rule. The vowel sounds
like a relative. Now, not your aunt
or your uncle. A relative means, as I said,
the short vowel sound. So, instead of having
"a", it's "ah". So, we don't say: "hayd"; we say: "had", because
there's one vowel - it's going to be the short vowel. We don't say: "jaym"; we say... Oh, hi, James. We don't say: "jaym";
we say: "jam". So, these vowels are "ah"; not
"a" because there's no vowel... There's no two
vowels; there's one. The next one: "I'm
going to go to bed. I'm not going to go to bead",
but I'm going to go to "bed". If we said it like this, it would be "bead"
and this would be "beand", which sounds like I'm from New Zealand now. So "uh": "bed"; "uh": "bend". There's only one vowel, so you're going to
say it like a short vowel - "bed", "bend". Next one, it's a man and
it's "him" - "uh", "uh". This word: "pin", "pin". "I have pins. I have safety pins
as a bracelet." Don't steal my idea. "Him", "uh"; and "pin", "uh". We don't say... Oh, I can't even say
this: "he-, hime. Hime. Hime. Did you see hime? This pine is amazing." So, we say: "him" and "pin". In this letter, "o", if it's said like the
alphabet, it's "o"; but when it's like this, it's "aw". "Aw". So it more sounds like this. "Aw". Some people... If you're cute-oo, oo, ute-if
you say: "Aw, you're cute." So, this word is: "hot", this
"aw" sound and this is "snot". Do you know what "snot" means? It's one of my favourite words. "Snot" is something that comes out of your
nose if you have a cold, with liquid, like nose water. We don't say "nose water" in
English; we call it "snot". Yup. So, snot-woo-hoo-mucous - we don't say:
"snowt"; we say: "snot", like the word "not". We don't say: "sume";
we say "uh": "some". So, we don't use the
"u"; we use "uh". And we don't get on the
"baws"; we get on the "bus". So we have "some" and "bus". Do you understand this? I hope so. I think the most difficult one is the two-vowel
guideline - that one has been plaguing me for years. I am teaching you English, but
I'm not te-aching you English. I'm only teaching you. So, if you'd like to grab a cup of tea and review
this, I promise it will make your pronunciation of English words, when you're reading new
words, like a breeze, which means very, very easy. And, again, thanks to Leaf. Wow. And thanks to everyone
out there for watching. I'm Ronnie, and I
will te-ach you soon. No, I mean teach. Bye.
