This is an All-Ears English Podcast episode 2249, adventures in pronouncing US states.
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Some US states have the most confusing pronunciation.
Today, clear up your confusion about some of these and find out why you should take a US adventure with all ears English.
Hello, Michelle. How's it going today?
Hey, Lindsay, good, good.
Lindsay, what's new Hampshire like?
What's new Hampshire like?
It's very woodsy. Michelle, very woodsy.
Yeah, did you like growing up there?
Yeah, I kind of felt it was boring.
That's why I lived in Tokyo and New York and Boston and all these cities after after high school.
And I left New Hampshire when I was 18 for college.
I just felt it was a little small.
Yeah, a little small. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clearly, you're like getting out there and traveling and all sorts of things.
So today, we have, this is, I'm really excited about this episode.
Cool. It's going to be fun because we are going to talk about the United States, the states and the states.
And it's because we have a listener question that is a really interesting one.
So before we get into it, we want to remind you to listen to episode 2233 of the All-Ears English podcast.
That was, oops, oh no, put everything into English.
So I wanted to connect it to this one because just another fun episode, a fun lighthearted, good one that can be super helpful as well.
Yeah, cultural episodes, you know, today's episode is going to have a cultural episode, which I love.
I think there's a lot of curiosity about the US and the states and kind of the culture here.
So I'm going to go ahead and read the question from Vlad Armstrong on YouTube.
Guys, don't forget All-Ears English is on YouTube.
Hit subscribe over there on our channel and you can watch us talk to each other five days a week.
And it's awesome. So, yes, love it.
All right, so Vlad says, hello there.
I have a question and here it goes.
How can I, I predict, but correctly pronounce the names of some states like Arizona, California, etc.
You clearly say Arizona in episodes, but I've heard another version of pronunciation and my brain freaks out.
Oh, we don't want that. We don't want that.
I hope you could settle a beef inside my head around this pronunciation dilemma.
Oh, I love that this listener is playing around with some fun vocabulary.
Yes. Good stuff. So Lindsay, who says Arizona?
I have no idea who this is.
There's four of us on the podcast here.
So we're going to have to come down to it and figure it out.
So Vlad, let us know where you're hearing this.
I have never heard this from our podcasting team.
I've never heard it in general.
Have you? Erie, no, no, I haven't.
I mean, maybe somebody said it as a joke once.
I don't know. Aubrey lives in Arizona.
So I'm going to say it was Aubrey.
No, but also that was the and Aubrey knows better than anyone.
How to say it? So who knows?
Who knows? But yes, it is Arizona.
Right? Lindsay. Yes. Correct.
Right. It's not an e sound error.
It's more of an a sound like a schwa sound.
Arizona Arizona Arizona Arizona.
Right. So and how do we spell that?
Yeah. AR eyes. Z O N A. Yeah.
Yeah. So we figured we would take this opportunity to go over like our listener asked some of the states and how to pronounce them because they can be tricky.
I actually just pulled up a list of the states.
And did you have all the states memorized?
Memorized. You mean, I mean, could you spit them off in my mind?
Could you could you if I said list all the 50 states right now?
Would you be able to do it right now?
I'd probably miss a few.
And yeah, but then you would hear that there was a friends episode where they were trying to list them and then it was so hard.
And then Ross was going crazy.
And at the end, he realized you forgot Delaware.
So it's such a small state.
Small wonder is the is the slogan for because it's a tiny state Delaware.
But it's very small. Yeah.
So today we're just talking about the ones that can be particularly confusing, right?
Because of spelling. Is that is that what it is?
Is that a shell? Yeah, yeah.
Mostly because of spelling because I went through the list and I picked out some of the ones that I felt might be the tricky as.
So yeah, we can also talk about these places.
Do we have any connection to them?
Have we been there? So of course, it's going to be fun to talk about that today.
So we were also asked about California or California was mentioned in that listener's question.
So yeah, pronunciation here.
California. California.
Yeah, California. But do you feel like it sounds more like an like California?
California? The the eye does it sound more like an oh when you say it or an it California?
California? Do you say California?
Oh, because I said gosh, California.
California. Okay. California.
California. California.
California. California.
You know what? I think you could say either one.
I never thought about this.
You can say California.
Yeah. I think you can say either they're so close here, but the but the important thing is the yeah, right?
California. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. And the other important thing to keep in mind is a lot of Californians call California Callie.
Right. But we don't say Callie.
For Yeah, when we put it together as the full state name.
Okay. Good. Good point.
Yeah. So this is spelled C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A.
Boom. There you go. And I have a lot of mixed feelings about California, but the thing that we need to know is Southern California is always beautiful.
The weather is amazing.
You know, 365 days a year.
Yep. Yep. Yep. So what's next?
I like to go back again. Yeah.
You should. The next one is Arkansas.
Yes. Okay. This one. Yeah.
Yeah. Come on. Well, and I think the reason that this state is problematic is not so much because of the state itself.
It's because of another state.
And that's Kansas. Right.
So right. Let's talk about this.
When I was a kid, I would see our Kansas and Kansas.
And I got so confused. Why are Kansas?
In my mind as a kid. I never thought about that.
Of course, if there was a state called Kansas, then Arkansas must be our Kansas.
Our Kansas. Right. Right.
It's. Oh, man. Oh, right.
Yeah. That's that's tricky.
And also, so Arkansas. So it's spelled our Kansas.
As one they said, so A-R-K-A-N-S-A-S.
So it doesn't make sense that it's S-A-S.
It does. It does. It costs Arkansas.
Arkansas. Arkansas. Arkansas.
No. And Kansas. The other state more toward more in the plain states, right, closer to Colorado out here has a different intonation.
So that spelling is there K-A-N-S-A-S.
But it's Kansas. Right.
The stress is different.
Kansas. Arkansas. Arkansas.
So totally different. But yeah, I can definitely see why someone would say, oh, it's Arkansas.
Yeah. Arkansas. Exactly.
Exactly. Oh, so funny. So don't make that.
Don't fall into that little trap that I did as a kid.
Eventually I figured that out.
But the next one is Georgia.
Yes. So this is interesting because, well, number one, I could be confusing because of the G and the J.
So it is spelled with a G.
It's spelled like the name George G-E-O-R-G-I-A.
Yes. But California has that.
Yeah. But Georgia is not Georgia.
Yeah. That's a good point.
That's a good point. I mean, it kind of it.
I mean, it's like Georgia.
It's like Georgia. No, it's Georgia.
No, that's a good point.
So we can't always infer based on the spelling that how it's going to sound.
This one can be a little easier because it's a woman's name.
It's actually my mom's name, Georgia.
Oh, I knew that. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's a beautiful name, I think.
And you know, it's so yeah, I mean, go visit Georgia.
Why not? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
So let's move to the next one.
Okay. Lindsay, what's the next one?
And oh, my goodness. Also, especially confusing because of, well, it doesn't.
It's not spoken the way it's spelled.
So Illinois. And again, this is another one as a kid.
I used to think Illinois.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.
Sure. Why? Because there's an S at the end.
So yeah, it's spelled I L L I N O I S I L and noise.
But we don't pronounce the S.
We said Illinois. Yeah.
Interesting. Of course, this is where Chicago.
We find the beautiful city of Chicago, which I love Chicago, Michelle for the food culture.
Yes. The pizza pizza and just it has a really elevated food scene.
Really? I won't I won't even once like 15 years ago.
But I I really liked it. It was I liked how in Chicago, I liked how the water was just in the middle of the city.
Yeah. In New York, it's really on either side.
Yeah. I liked how you just, oh, there's the water.
So little canals and things.
That is really cool. And Chicago and May is beautiful.
And actually, we take you to Chicago to a diner, an elevated diner in our connected communicator.
Of course, we'll tell you a bit more about that guys later in the episode.
But just keep that in mind.
We're going to take a quick break and come back.
All right. All right. Okay.
Michelle, we're back for another tricky state.
Yes. Louisiana. Oh, man.
Why is this one tricky to pronounce and spell?
Wow. Wow. It could look like the name Lewis, right?
So Lewis. But it's actually there is a name Louise, right?
So it's just a confused.
Oh, he's spelled L-O-U-I-S-I-A-N-A.
What do you think of us? One?
Have you been to Louisiana?
Yeah. New Orleans. Of course.
Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. There's a lot of French influence, obviously, in Louisiana.
Check out New Orleans if you get a chance.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Now the next one is where you live.
Where I'm living. I'm going to tell you, well, Michelle, in your mind, how do you pronounce this state?
Because I didn't know, I didn't know how to pronounce it correctly until I got here.
I was corrected immediately.
Wait, really? Yeah. I pronounced it Colorado.
So that's actually according to the locals.
Now you could get away with that on the East Coast.
But if you came to Colorado, you wouldn't get away with that.
It's actually Colorado.
Colorado. Colorado. In the same way, what about the state view?
Sorry? Nevada? Yeah. Exactly.
It's that same. So on the East Coast, I always thought it was Nevada.
Nevada. But it's actually as Jessica.
She grew up there. It's Nevada.
And it's Colorado. Colorado.
Colorado. Colorado. Colorado.
Yeah. So. Oh, wow. Interesting.
Well, I, okay, well, you learned something new every day.
Yeah. I never, I never knew that.
But it, it, it looks like it could be color.
I do, right? I mean, is C-O-L-O-R-A-D-O.
I love that color. I have to share that with the locals and see what they have to say.
Yeah. I was going to say that Colorado is an entry Colorado.
See, I still make the mistake, right?
It's an interesting state.
I've never lived in a place or visited a place where people have such a strong state identity.
People, everyone here has a flag, a Colorado flag in their basement or their house or in front of their house.
Oh, wow. And it's, it's a strange thing just because there's been a lot of migration here from the coasts and people, there's a lot of sunshine.
It's a great place to live.
But I've never seen people get so into this idea of I'm from here and I'm proud of it.
I don't know. Maybe New York, but it's not the same.
It's really interesting, but we can go into that another day.
Yeah, that is state pride.
Pride, pride, state pride.
Okay. Now. Okay. Do we have time for a few more?
Let's, let's do one more.
Pick your favorite. Okay.
You got, how about you pick your favorite?
All right. Well, so Mississippi has always been my favorite because this was a little jingle.
How do you spell? M-I-S-S-S-I-P-P-I?
Right. Yeah. Why is this one?
I suppose if you slow down and look at the way it's spelled, you can get it right when it comes to pronouncing it.
Don't you think? Right.
Right. But I wanted to bring this one up because when you see it, it's like, whoa, it just looks, I mean, I'm staring at the word now.
It looks crazy. It could be Miss, Miss CeC's P-P.
It's like, it's very confusing just to look at.
So I wanted to highlight this.
Yes, it's true. If you take the time and you take a look at it, you could break it down by just seeing it all in once.
It's a little bit overwhelming, I think.
Yeah. And you do want to slow down here because we also encounter this word in more places than just the state, the Mississippi River, cuts down kind of the mid, an important part of, I would call that the, what is that?
It's not the Midwest. It's sort of the south, almost the south, it cuts down the middle of the country.
So you're going to see that in a lot of different places.
Right. Right. It's not just about the state.
Yep. Yeah. Lindsay, do you have a favorite state?
That is such a complicated question for Rachel because I've traveled a lot.
I love the different cultures and the different states.
I'm going to pass. I'm going to throw that to you.
Do you have a favorite state?
No. Do I have a favorite state?
Well, it's funny. I feel like I, you know, I have more favorite cities than this favorite state.
So I mean, I, I, I, New York is definitely my favorite state in the US.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, New York is my favorite city.
Do I know New York state so well?
No. So it's more to me about the city.
Okay. If I had to pick a favorite state, I would say New York.
But I got it. I don't know what's so well.
I mean, I've seen New York is very different from New York City.
Right. Exactly. So I think it's more about the city than the state because yeah.
And I feel like we just have to invite our listeners into connect to communicate because this is exactly what we do.
We take you on a 12,314 mile journey around the United States with me by recorded video lesson.
Okay. So I got in my car, I bought a camera, I rented a Chevy Malibu and just started driving west.
And I stopped in all sorts of places.
The rust belt, Wyoming, to see the Wild West, California, Texas, the deep south.
We learn about so many complicated topics and how to talk about them.
So it's really a cultural conversations course.
That's really what it is.
Right. Yep. And yeah, Michelle, any thoughts on that?
Anything to say about that?
Well, I just love how everything is so natural.
How you actually went and interviewed people for the course.
These were totally unplanned.
And that's how we like to do things here at all.
I was English a lot of the time.
This just have things naturally come about.
So you can hear the real English.
And also the fact that you're hearing it from different places, different dialects, different opinions.
Just there's so much because it's a big country.
And Lindsay took a big trip.
It's an incredible adventure.
It's been called the most unique English course on the internet.
Of course, call that by us.
But we think we think it is the most unique English course on the internet guys.
So go and check it out. Go to allersenglish.com slash connection.
And join the adventure.
Right. Come along with us get in the car with me and let's go across the country together.
All right. Yep. Michelle, should we sneak in a quick roleplay?
What do you think? I think we can do it guys.
There might be some we didn't do.
And we're just sprinkling in a few.
But we can bring it up when we go over it.
Okay. Here we go. All right.
We have our friends talking about our summer plans.
Here we go. Yeah. Here we go.
Okay. So yeah, we will be out of town for a week and August.
Oh, are you going to your place in Georgia?
No, we're going to visit Bill's parents in Arkansas.
Okay. Got it. I don't know why.
I thought they were from Mississippi.
No, that says aunt. She lives there.
Oh, right, right, right, right.
So we'll, well, I'll be off in Michigan for two weeks then off to Virginia.
Sounds like a nice trip.
Oh, we're just going all over the place here.
Yeah, we're bouncing around the country.
We love road trips. So I mentioned Georgia.
Are you going to your place in Georgia?
And then you said no. Right.
I said no. We're going to Bill's parents in Arkansas.
And then our favorite Mississippi came in here.
I thought they were from Mississippi.
And again, guys, when you see that, just slow down and voice every syllable.
You can get it right. If you, it's not tricky in the sense that it's going to confuse you like California or Georgia at the end, just repeat the say the syllables, Mississippi, and then put it together.
You got it. And then you said, I'll be off to Michigan for two weeks.
So Michigan, I put in, but we didn't have chance to talk about, but basically it's spelled M-I-C-H, right?
It's pronounced M-I-S-H.
It's actually like Michelle.
Right. Michelle is always the same.
M-I-C-H, but it's pronounced M-I-S-M-I-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M-I-S-S-M Level.
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