PRONUNCIATION & EMPHASIS LESSON | Interactive Quiz

so if you are interested in practicing your pronunciation and improving your pronunciation then this lesson is for you my name is Wes and this is Interactive English which you know this channel is all about helping you practice and improve your English skills and specifically today today is all about practice because I have a lesson for you which is a little bit of a quiz and we're gonna talk about pronunciation and emphasis we're gonna focus on those two things today and like I said it's a little bit of a quiz so I want you to practice I want you to participate in today's lesson I have some questions for you and I want you to write those answers I want you to write your answers in the chat or even in the comments if you're watching this later participate in the lesson write your answers in the comments so that I know that you were actually you are interacting with these lessons that is the best way to practice your skills so let's just start out we're gonna start out with something a bit easier and basic when it comes to pronunciation and then as we go through this it's going to get a little more difficult as we go through it alright so let's begin with just the basics and I have a question for you and that question is this which word has three syllables so which of those words right there has three syllables is it a subtle B coconut or C television what do you guys think I want you to write your answers in the chat or in the comments I just want to know that you are participating in these lessons so what do you think all right a B you see subtle coconut television which word has three syllables alright so I hope I hope that you answered be coconut all right this has three syllables and if you want to know what a syllable is because when you start learning pronunciation this is a good starting point you want to be able to break down these words into the smallest unit so in case you don't know I have it written right there that a syllable is a single unit of speech in English it usually contains a vowel and it consists of either the whole word or just parts in which the word is separated when it is spoken or written so let me tell you what that means that it could be the whole word if I have the word box okay it's one syllable it's also one word or a syllable can be parts of the word like coconut it's broken down into three syllables coconut alright and the reason that you need to be able to identify different syllables is because when you see a word you need to understand well how many syllables how many units of sound does this word have and if you're able to put those units together you can pronounce the word correctly and then if you put those words together then you will pronounce the sentences correctly and if you put those sentences together well then you're having a conversation and people will be able to understand your pronunciation so let's let's practice this a little more are you ready so I'm gonna give you this word I'm gonna give you a word I want you to tell me how many syllables does this word have what I want you to do maybe I want you to say the word to yourself this is another great way to practice during this lesson is that I want you to speak wherever you are if you are at home if you're on the bus doesn't matter where you're watching this actually say the words out loud try to say these words and practice your pronunciation so think about try to say that word alright and now I will say it for you I do sing cracy how many syllables do you think this word has idiosyncrasy alright so seeing some good answers a lot of people saying five all right now let me show you the answer idiosyncrasy you guys are close it has six syllables alright and I've broken them down there for you alright II do sing cross C alright six syllables if you don't know what the word means I put meaning down there and you could expand your vocabulary so an idiosyncrasy is a it's a behavior or a way of thought that is particular to an individual it's it's like an unusual feature so for example everybody has certain idiosyncrasies perhaps somebody maybe they like to sing in the shower every time they shower they're singing that is an idiosyncrasy it is particular to that person all right now let's get back to the pronunciation idiosyncrasy has six syllables now if you're wondering well how how can I tell how many syllables a word has one way to do that is to take your hand put it below your chin and then say the word and count the number of times that your chin hits the top of your hand so if I say idiosyncrasy it's going to hit by ten six times whoops six times it's going to hit my chin idiosyncrasy and that is the number of syllables okay now let's let's go to the next one ready how many syllables are in this word first I want you to say the word you say it out loud and then you can listen to me say it so the word is scrumptious Ness scrumptious Ness how many syllables can you count in that word and like I said try try to do this scrumptious Ness how many are you counting what do you think write your answer in the chat or in the comments because again this is a great way to begin with syllables it's the basic unit now I tried to trick you with this one this is a little tricky excellent yes Chun Azizah AE excellent give some shoutouts Krishna there are three syllables the reason I chose this word is because it is a long word but it has few syllables scrumptious Ness and you can see how its separated there scrumptious Ness it is a noun and it just means that something is it's something tastes great often I think it's used more as an adjective which would be two syllables and you'd say something is scrumptious it tastes scrumptious it's another way if something tastes very delicious it's not very common but the reason I chose this is because it's a longer word that only has three syllables so now that we've talked about syllables we're gonna come back to that as we move through the lesson but that is a great way just to begin when you think about pronunciation to be able to look at a word especially if you don't know how to pronounce it try to identify well how many syllables does the word have how many different units of sound does this word have and that's gonna help you try to pronounce it correctly now let's move on to the next part which is silent letters okay I've given you a sentence right here and all I want you to do is count how many different silent letters do you see now the reason why this is important is because when you are reading or or you know you are going to come across silent letters you are reading this right now and as you're reading it you're you're probably saying it in your in your head in your mind even right now I'd say go ahead and say it out loud but when you're saying it in your mind you're still pronouncing the word and if you're not able to identify those silent letters then that means the next time you try to actually speak the language you may end up mispronouncing the word so how many silent letters do you see right here I'm gonna go ahead and say it for you so I would say and you can repeat after me to practice your pronunciation my mechanic told me to fasten my seat belt in case I have a wreck alright my mechanic told me to fasten my seat belt in case I have a wreck how many silent letters do you see in that sentence um alright getting some different ones I like it when everybody has a little different some different answers yes Mahmood excellent AE Maki Mei the correct answer is three all right I tried to highlight them for you I don't know if you can see that so we have the H in mechanik the T in fasten and the W in wreck those are all silent letters I will say it again my mechanic told me to fasten my seatbelt in case I have a wreck those are all silent letters and like I said it's important because usually let's take the word mechanic in this word that CH often we think it has a Chuck sound like in cheese or chess or match but in this case that H it's silent so it has that cooker sound mechanic now of course let's make it more difficult how many silent letters can you find in this phrase right here now what I want you to do is go ahead and say it to yourself say this to yourself right now say it out loud practice your pronunciation then listen to me say it and try to count the number of silent letters there are more than three I will go ahead and tell you that but go ahead say it out loud to yourself practice your pronunciation alright and now you can listen to me say it so I would say on Wednesday the honest night planned to rendezvous with the Nome next to the castle on Wednesday the honest night planned to rendezvous with the Nome next to the castle alright now this is a sentence that you're not just going to say in everyday conversation this is just practicing these silent letters and trying to identify them because there are quite a few in here alright and I don't see anyone yes bucyk aren't perfect there are actually seven silent letters alright you can count them all right you have the D in Wednesday the H in honest the K in night the there are two silent letters in rendezvous the Z and the S rendezvous with the Nome the genome and then the T in Castle those are all silent letters as you're saying this so again just so you can listen to me on on Wednesday the honest night planned to rendezvous with the Nome next to the castle and as I think as you're reading and listening that's a great way to identify silent letters especially if you're doing something like you're reading subtitles if you're watching a movie or a TV show and you're using subtitles that's a great way that you might come across a word and you'll notice oh you know if you say Wednesday you're not going to hear that D sound that D is silent so there are seven total in that all right the we're gonna switch up again we're gonna keep moving along I have a lot of different activities that I want to do with you today but if you guys like what we do here at interactive English then I suggest you can check out our patreon page if you want to support what we do there are gonna throw a link right here in the chat you can also check us out there is a link in the description if you guys want to connect with us through patreon we really appreciate it it really helps us continue what we're doing here at interactive English so let's switch it up again alright my next question for you is this alright the most common sound in English is the MM sound that's the most common sound in English is the MM sound what do you think is it a th sound B the schwa sound or C the the e sound alright what do you think is the most common sound in English and of course if you don't know that's okay I'm getting ready to tell you what do you think is it a th B schwa or C that sound alright well I hope that all of you said I'm trying to find some information that I want to share with you the answer is yes excellent lolly and you know Molly I think many Leonardo many of you got this the most common sound in English is the schwa sound now if you don't know what the schwa sound is it's right here it is the schwa sound which looks like if you're looking at it using the IPA the international phonetic alphabet it looks like an upside-down e that is the symbol for the schwa it is a reduced vowel sound now any vowel can take on this sound and often it sounds like a it's just a reduced sound and it's just gonna sound like an up and a sound now if you want some more information on the schwa sound we did a lesson a long time ago which I'm gonna share with you right here and I will also put links to these lessons down in the description below to give you more information about this so if you're looking to learn a little bit more about the schwa sound and practice the schwa sound you can check out a lesson we did from a long time ago let me I'm getting the link for you right now and here it is so I will throw that in the chat mmm boom there it goes so check out that lesson it's all about the schwa it'll give you I'll give you a lot more information about it now I told you I wanted to come back to the syllables so what I want you to do is I want you to tell me which syllable has the schwa sound so I have given you this word I want you to first identify well how many syllables does it have and then try to determine well which one has that reduced Val sound which word has the schwa so again I would encourage you say the word say it out loud practice your speaking okay now you can listen listen to me celebrate you can listen to me say it celebrate celebrate which syllable do you think has that schwa sound celebrate now what you should have answered celebrate the syllable that has the schwa sound is that second syllable all right so the word celebrate has three syllables there you go I got to put my fingers in front of the camera three syllables that second one right there has that schwa celebrate it had you can hear that celebrate now I've given I just so you guys can reference this this is the IPA which stands for the international phonetic alphabet some of you may already be some of you may be familiar with it so you can see that it's written how it's written there and again that symbol for the schwa is that upside-down e celebrate I've also given you the phonetic spelling which is if you were going to say the word exactly how it sounds this is how you would spell it celebrate so either one you can use either of these the IPA or phonetic spelling if you would like a better understanding of how to pronounce this word alright so celebrate second syllable has the schwa let's go to the next one all right which syllable has the schwa sound this is your word say it out loud all right what do you think say the word out loud and then tell me which one has that schwa now you can I'll say the word too so you can hear me say it photography photography I'll tell you this is a little bit of a trick question this is a little bit of a trick question so the word is pronounced photography which syllable has the schwa or like I said I could say it's a trick question because I could say which syllable have the schwa sound all right so what I mean by that is yes some of you right many of you some of you said the first one some of you said the third one actually you are all correct because both the first syllable and the third syllable have the schwa sound so in this word photography it has four syllables four syllables the first syllable photography that third syllable also has that schwa you can see in the IPA how it's written that upside down e has that schwa that reduced vowel sound that sound or in the phonetic spelling you can actually see that ah that u H written photography the first and third syllable have that schwa sound all right so this is again this is good practice to take some of these individual words identify how many syllables they have and then be able to understand what the schwa sound is and actually identify okay where is it in the word because so many words have that schwa sound and in what I would encourage you to do next time you're listening to an individual word or take any individual word and actually see if you can identify the schwa sound see if that word has the schwa sound and which syllable has that sound as well now what I want to do because this lesson is about both pronunciation and emphasis okay emphasis is a part of pronunciation the way that you're saying word that's what I want to focus on right now okay so I want to take this sentence right here and we're going to do a different exercise on emphasis so the sentence is a just a simple sentence I didn't say you stole the money okay I think you can I can read that sentence you understand what it means but what we're going to do is I want you to think about how does emphasis change the meaning of the sentence because depending on which word we emphasize the meaning is going to change a little bit and what I would encourage you to do for this is I want you to practice and say these sentences out loud and practice that and this is it's a form of shadowing and what shadowing is it is a great way to practice your pronunciation your intonation your emphasis and that you are repeating something the exact same way that you hear it so you're gonna listen to me say the sentence with the different emphasis and I want you to repeat that and we did a whole other lesson that was all about shadowing I just threw a link in the chat if you want to check that out later I will also put a link in the description for the pronunciate for these lessons that I'm mentioning so let's look at this I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you the meaning I want you to think which word should you emphasize if you say this so the meaning is I didn't say you stole the money I said you stole something else which word would you emphasize if that is the meaning that you want to convey if that's the meaning of the sentence which word are you going to emphasize alright when you've tried if you're trying to decide well how do I know which word to emphasize think well first think about what the meaning is all right I said you know I didn't say you stole the money I said you stole something else so you're talking about the thing that is being stolen and in this case down here the thing that is being stolen is money that is the word that you would want to emphasize excellent I see some of you put money lolly Angela dairy Ricardo yes you want to emphasize the word money so you can listen to me say it and I want you guys to repeat this as well practice your speaking practice your pronunciation so I would say I didn't say you stole the money I didn't say you stole the money you can hear that emphasis on money and that's what the meaning is I didn't say you stole the money I said you stole the painting alright something else was stolen I didn't say you stole the money I said that you stole the computer I didn't say you stole the money I said you stole the refrigerator alright so you get the idea when you're emphasizing that word that money that's gonna change the meaning I didn't say you stole the money so again this really depends on the context that somebody is accusing somebody of something else like oh why did you say I stole the money it's like no I didn't say you stole the money I said you stole the the the clothes all right anything all right let's look at the next one so again we have our sentence here's the meaning I didn't say you stole the money I implied you stole the money which word would you emphasize to have that meaning I didn't say you stole the money I don't want to I didn't say you stole the money I implied you stole the money and if you don't know what it means to imply something it means to suggest to imply means to suggest that something happened now again if you want to identify the word all right that's the meaning you want to identify the word well if you are suggesting something in this case you're not suggesting you're saying it so the word you want to emphasize is say and that is going to tell us that meaning all right excellent so some of you got it so if I said listen to how I say it and repeat it I didn't say you stole the money so if somebody says I didn't say you stole the money then I didn't say it I did something else to imply it maybe I pointed my finger all right I didn't actually speak it out loud I didn't say you stole the money I used my eyes and said it was this person over here he stole the money right there all right I implied it I didn't say it so if somebody says well I didn't say you stole the money it means you didn't say it but you maybe did something else too imply that this was stolen let's continue because I know this is this is a little challenging this is difficult when it comes to really understanding the meaning of what somebody says now now I've given you the word that I want you to emphasize and I want you to think about well what is the meaning first I want you to say this on your own and I want you to emphasize the word you and then you can listen to me say it and then again try to repeat it practice shadowing so that you are emphasizing it the same way that I am okay so if you want to say it you're emphasizing it I would say I didn't say you stole the money I didn't say you stole the money what does that mean if somebody says well I didn't say you stole the money what do you think all right so if you're emphasizing you um alright excellent uh sandrine perfect lolly nice the 14-j ABC b20 excellent so if you're emphasizing you alright you're saying well I didn't say you stole the money I said somebody else did I said I didn't say you stole the money I said that Wes stole the money r I didn't say you stole the money I said that the the child stole the money so again when you hear when somebody's emphasizing you then that's the word that's going to change that word is going to change and it's gonna take on a new meaning what if I said let's do a couple other practice so there I don't know if you can see it the word I is highlighted that's the word that I want you to emphasize now I want you to practice saying it and then again listen to me say it and then think about well what is the meaning because this sentence this is a great sentence to use and that you can emphasize each word and it's going to give you a different mean all right what does it mean so if we're gonna emphasize if somebody says well I didn't say you stole the money I didn't say you stole the money what is that now that I emphasize I what does that mean if you're telling somebody and somebody says well wait why did you say I stole the money I said whoa whoa I didn't say you stole the money yes somebody many of you excellent got it so if you're emphasizing I what it means is well I didn't say you stole the money someone else said it I didn't say you stole the money it was this person this person said that you stole the money I didn't say you stole the money so again this is a great exercise to be able to listen to something because you're going to hear this if you're watching a movie or a TV show people are going to use emphasis quite often and depending on the word they emphasize the meaning can change a little bit let's look at another one all right I've given you this sentence this is the last live lesson of December I want you to emphasize is okay and unfortunately yes this this is actually true this is actually true this is the last live lesson of December I just gave you the example I just emphasized it for you so you can try to practice your pronunciation practice your shadowing say it with me this is the last live lesson of December okay now when I emphasize is what am I really what am I saying because we use I'll tell you this this is a sentence in the present simple we use the present simple in this case to talk about things that are facts all right I could say you know the Sun sets in the west this is the last live lesson of December if I emphasize that is then basically what I'm telling you is that this is a fact I'm emphasizing the fact that well this is a it is a fact it will definitely be the last live lesson of December I know shocker spoiler alert where we're gonna be going we're going to travel for the holiday so this will actually be the last live lesson of December but I will be back in January I'll be back before you know it don't worry about it actually our our schedule is gonna be changing a little bit for the rest of this month I will give you a little more information about that later on but this is a good example that if you are emphasizing is it's just talking about that certainty you're saying something definitely is going to happen yes like somebody mentioned you LAN this is true perfect all right honey it is a fact yes this is the last live lesson of December practice that speaking say that practice you're shadowing now let's look at this one one more um how would you I want you to emphasize the word duh okay now when people emphasize the word though you might hear this is when you might hear them say thee instead of the you might could say thee so you know personally I always just I kind of just stick with uh I don't really catch myself saying thee often but I could say it again practice it say it after me he's taking me to the dance or I could say he's taking me to the dance and we're emphasizing the or you could say thee and in this case think about it when we use that article the we are talking about we are talking about something specific so if I'm emphasizing it and I'm talking about the dance or the dance he's taking me to the dance he's taking me to the dance what does that tell you about the dance all right now if somebody is emphasizing it that you may even hear them emphasize the word that comes after the noun yes Sayyid perfect it is a dance that everybody knows about it is it is the dance or the dance it means that is either mate maybe it is the only dance or perhaps it is an important dance but whoever you're talking to that person knows about this dance you don't have to specify you can just say well it is the dance or the dance the it might be the only one or it is the most famous one and that is a way that you can emphasize and stress well like it is it is the one that everybody knows about okay so this is great practice about how you can use emphasis to to not only just change meaning but really emphasize the meaning of what you're trying to say because it like in this case you don't need to explain you don't need to give the name of the dance this is the dance everybody knows about this dance so let's do another we're gonna we're gonna practice a little bit more and what I did yesterday and this is something I may do later on in the future I asked all of you guys I said well what are some words that you would like me to pronounce and I've taken some of those words and I've put a list together and that list is right here so I'm not gonna spend a bunch of time going through this I've given you the word the meaning and I've given you both the IPA the international phonetic alphabet if you are familiar with that and you can you can you understand those symbols and you can practice pronouncing it as well as the phonetic spelling in case that helps you to be able to see how it's spelled so again I will say the word I would encourage you to say it after me all right this word is thorough thorough these are some difficult words that that all of you in our community have asked about I've got these words this is from our patron our patron community and then I got to a few words from just everybody so thorough it's just talking about extremely attentive complete I I hope all of you do thorough work I hope that your work is thorough Thoreau the next word is listened some someone in our patron community asked about that IDI ending and if you want to learn more about that again we have another lesson we talked a lot about how to pronounce those IDI words this is very important because if you're talking about those regular verbs that IDI ending it can have three different forms in this case listened alright that final sound is a voice sound that mm-hmm you can hear that feel that vibration in the throat so that IDI is going to have a D sound at the end but it is not an extra syllable so listen has one syllable listened also just one syllable it is one syllable listened listened listened alright that is a good one hope that oh wait let me post that there you go there that is the IDI lesson that I just put in the chat if you guys want to check that out again I will leave a link in the description to these lessons that I mentioned today the next one democracy democracy it's talking about government by the people many forms of governments countries have a democracy now notice that schwa in that third syllable democracy democracy personally I think if if I'm speaking I'm having a conversation I act sometimes I actually pronounce that first syllable also with a bit of a schwa sound and I say democracy democracy but again the the schwa really definitely is in that third syllable democracy democracy again say it after me repeat that this is a great time to practice your pronunciation the next word many many people are confused with that RL that especially that our LD combination world world it's talking about the earth or the globe I think you're familiar with this word world there's the IP check out the phonetic spelling in case it helps world alright that LR you can hear that Earl Earl Earl girl twirl alright world you do hear that D at the end world alright the next word is this one sixth sixth this is the ordinal number four six again use the IPA or the phonetic spelling to help you pronounce this word say it after me six I think it ends with that that that X and then you got a transition into the th six six six six all right you can feel like that air coming out the end sixth alright the next one I may do I may do a whole lesson on these words later and just ask you guys four more words the next word I have for you people were asking about this word entrepreneur again this is another loan word that English has taken from French this is a French word that English has taken it we now use it entrepreneur is a person who starts a business it has four syllables entrepreneur with no [Laughter] entrepreneur there you go entrepreneur entrepreneur person who starts a villa business entrepreneurs say it after me entrepreneur entrepreneur entrepreneur and you are going to have that schwa sound in that second and third syllable ah try pro nor entrepreneur alright the next word is somebody mentioned conscientious conscientious I think this word is difficult to pronounce because of the way it's spelled and that spelling I think can really throw people off what it means is that you're you know you are controlled by what youth is right you are going to do the things that you think is right and you might try to make a conscientious decision you're going to just make a decision based on what you think is right a conscientious decision all right it has four syllables and you have that schwa in that final syllable say it after me conscientious I am going to make a conscientious decision conscientious next is the word Q and this is just referring to a line when people are waiting instead of saying a line you could say a Q those two words are synonyms line Q again the pronunciation of the spelling and the pronunciation can throw people off a little bit you're saying it you're pronouncing it like you are saying the letter Q the name of the letter Q Synod and you just pronounce it Q Oh God yesterday I had to wait in such a long queue it was terrible I hate it or you go to someplace and you find that there is a queue there is a line you have to wait in it there is a queue the next word is Erie all right this means something is Erie it's an adjective it means there's a strange or just a weird feeling often that something is wrong Erie the the pronounciation I think if you can use the IPA or the phonetic spelling I I think that you can understand a little bit easier again Erie both of those values start with the long vowel sound in the first set of year and then it ends with that long e sound as well eerie eerie something is eerie it's strange it's confusing it's unusual it's eerie then the next word again months it's a word that I think you know you know this word it's a very common word but people have trouble pronouncing it sometimes it is a challenging word to pronounce a month it's a part of the calendar year months especially I think when you're referring to it in the plural and you're talking about more than one month and you'd say several months several months all right look at the IPA look at the phonetic spelling repeat after me months you can do you can slightly hear that th sound months months all right I am I wish I could take a vacation for several months I'm sure all of us laughter all of us would like to take a vacation for several months but it's just not possible months then we have all right literally this means in a in a strict sense word for word you you do something literally you say something literally I think again it's challenging because of that R and L R that L and R sound literally literally try to repeat it after me practice your pronunciation literally use that IPA that phonetic spelling that is a great guide in order to pronounce these words literally alright the next word hypocrisy hypocrisy has four syllables hypocrisy hypocrisy that schwa is in that third syllable now you guys you know what that schwa sound is that reduced found sounds like a hypocrisy say it after me hypocrisy hypocrisy perfect and massage this is I think some people might confuse it with the other verb message in which you it is spelled differently too with an E but this is talking about you're treating your body you know a rub giving a massage and that first syllable has that schwa ma massage massage okay massage I hope you could say it after me massage this is a great way to actually practice your speaking skills and again these notes this is something that for patrons if you're at a certain level we do put this we do put our notes up on for for those patrons because I think it's useful it's helpful we make those notes available to people so again if you're you know if you're not able to connect with us through patreon that's perfectly okay another way to connect with us is based on our email list if you want to have access to the secret fluency lesson we send different lesson updates and just talk a little bit about what we do we also share some resources with you as well there is a link in the description I'm throwing a link right there in the chat in case you want to check that out so there's a lot of a lot of links that I just gave you today I hope that you found this lesson useful if you did participate in the activity and actually spoke to me and practice your speaking skills let me know write the word speaking in the comments that way I know that you were actually participating and practicing your pronunciation practicing your emphasis if you enjoyed this lesson this little quiz about pronunciation and emphasis hit that like button that tells me well okay I should do more of this next time because there is value that you guys find it very useful to practice your pronunciation to practice your emphasis you can always write to us in the comments we love hearing from you and join us on social media we are active on Facebook Instagram and Twitter and of course here on YouTube all right excellent honey perfect speaking Moda is perfect thank you guys so much for joining remember this is the this is the last live lesson of December I will be back for more in January starting a whole new year can you believe it I think this is our 100th lesson of 2019 we have done a hundred lessons this year which is pretty incredible very happy that you guys have been with me this whole time I really appreciate it thank you guys for joining me thank you Brian Pierre Lucia just given some quick shoutouts princess mira AP a star in the sky excellent Marat Chung thank you for participating FA Daniel rush thank you thank you thank you I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend I have a strong finish to 2019 and I will see you guys back here in 2020 for another live lesson we still we will have more lessons this year this month in December there will be more lessons keep an eye out for those but I will be back for a live lesson next next year and I will see you guys then all right so long

Channel: Interactive English

Views: 10,637

Keywords: interactive english, learn english, english pronunciation, pronunciation lesson, pronunciation quiz, learn american pronunciation, american accent, english quiz, english live lesson, pronuncation and emphasis, learn english emphasis, practice pronunciation in english, practice emphasis in english, pronunciation and enunciation, pronunciation and accent

Id: n6g4BPST6pw

Length: 45min 0sec (2700 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 14 2019