Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, I'm Connor and you're listening to episode 41 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well.
I want to say thank you to those who have signed up to be Listening Time members or super members.
I'm sure that you're going to benefit a lot from being a member.
In case you don't know, now we have a membership for this podcast.
It's on our Patreon page, patreon.com.
And here you can sign up to be a member.
It's just $2 per month.
And if you do that, you'll get access to one extra episode each month and one new listening practice seminar each month, which will help you train and improve your listening skills.
Or if you become a super member, for 3 per month, you'll have access to one extra episode, one new listening seminar and one older listening or pronunciation seminar that I recorded in the past.
So some of you have already signed up, so i'm very happy to to see that.
Let me just answer a few questions because i know some of you have a few doubts about this membership or just in general.
So, first of all, i'm no longer using the website polyglossacom, So I know that some of you are probably looking for the seminars there, but they're not there anymore.
So I won't be using that website.
If you want access to the listening practice seminars, you'll need to do that through our membership.
So this is how you can gain access to seminars now just by signing up to become a member or a super member.
And in this way, it's better because now the seminar doesn't expire after 24 hours.
The word expire means that something is no longer good or usable.
So we say this a lot for food, like that food already expired.
It means that it's not good anymore.
It's too old.
So when I had the seminars on the website, they expired after 24 hours.
So you only had access for one day.
But now with the seminars that I'm releasing for members, you have lifetime access.
Lifetime access just means that you'll have it forever, right?
As long as you're a member, you'll have access to these seminars, so you can watch them again and again, and again and train as much as you want.
So this should be better for all of you.
Another thing is that you can see that there are different levels of membership members and super members.
And most of you who have signed up have become super members.
So it seems like most of you want more, right?
So I'm thinking of creating another level, maybe a 4 level, where I might offer even more content, like maybe one more seminar or maybe one more episode.
But I don't think I'm going to do that yet.
I'll probably wait at least until the new year, or I'll wait until more people have signed up, so that I can actually dedicate more time to making more content.
So of course I'll announce that if I make another level of membership, so that those of you who want more content can sign up for that.
But not yet.
Right now, there are only two levels, members and super members.
And then one other thing is is that I have a new email address now.
It's listeningtimepodcast at gmail.com.
If you want to contact me, if you have any questions, you can email me there and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.
I don't always respond very quickly because I don't check my email throughout the whole day, but I'll try to respond as quickly as possible.
Okay, so I think that is all that I wanted to talk about in terms of the membership.
So, for today, we're going to have another episode related to language.
This one will be about the sounds of English.
So, I hope that all of you are interested in these language topics.
This is my favorite thing to talk about, so I'm making more episodes related to language learning topics.
So today we're going to talk about the sounds of English.
I definitely won't be able to go into too much detail because I don't have enough time.
So I might make a part two or a part three of this episode in the future, or of this topic in the future.
But I'll try to give you a general overview overview of the sounds of English in this episode.
The word overview just refers to a summary of something, just a general look or view of the subject.
Okay, remember that you have access to the transcript.
Just go down to the episode notes and you'll see the transcript there.
Today's transcript might be a little bit strange because I'm probably going to say some strange sounds, because I'm talking about the sounds of English, so I might not be able to include those sounds in the transcript.
But yeah, you have access to it in the episode notes.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so we're going to talk about three different elements regarding the sounds of English.
And of course I'm talking about American English, so British English might have some differences, but of course I speak American English, so this is what I'm talking about today.
I'm talking about the sounds of American English.
So first of all, let's talk about isochrony.
Don't worry, I know that none of you have heard this word before and it's not important, but this word talks about the general rhythm and timing of a language.
So, there are certain languages that are considered syllable-timed languages.
What does that mean?
Well, that means that most of the syllables in this language, in the different words and phrases, are the same length.
They last for the same amount of time.
You don't have a lot of variation.
You don't have really long syllables. and then really short syllables.
You have syllables that are generally the same length.
They last the same amount of time.
And because of this, in these languages, it's pretty easy to read.
If you can understand the alphabet in these languages, you can read and kind of match the rhythm that a native speaker might also have.
The rhythm is probably not the hardest aspect of these languages.
They might have other really difficult aspects, but the rhythm probably isn't the worst part.
So some examples of syllable-timed languages include Spanish, Italian, Korean.
Those are some examples.
But now let's talk about stress-timed languages.
So stress-timed languages are languages where the syllables are different lengths, okay?
They're not all the same length.
Some are longer and some are shorter.
So, for example, English is a stress-timed language.
German is also a stress-timed language, Russian as well, and European Portuguese is another one.
Portuguese is an interesting language because Brazilian Portuguese is more syllable-timed, whereas European Portuguese is more stress-timed.
So I thought that was a really interesting feature of Portuguese is that one dialect has a very different rhythm than the other dialect.
But English is a stress-timed language and this means that the length of the syllables are very different and it's much harder to read this language.
It's much harder to read it with the right rhythm and it's very hard to get the syllables to sound exactly like a native speaker says them.
So, for example, one syllable could be four times longer than another syllable.
Okay, so let me think of an example word.
If I say the word about right, that first syllable uh, was very, very short and the second syllable bout, was probably four times longer than the first syllable.
So you can see that this feature the word feature just means characteristic this feature of English makes it very hard to pronounce and understand.
So in stress-timed languages there are syllables that have stress.
The long syllables, like in the word about the second syllable, has stress.
And then you have other syllables that are kind of stressed, but they're a little bit less stressed.
And then you have syllables that are completely unstressed.
And these are the syllables that are very difficult for English learners.
Right.
In the word about, that first syllable is unstressed.
Right.
I'm saying I'm not saying about or about or about.
I'm saying about.
Right.
If you hear that sound that I'm making, that sound, this is what we call the schwa sound in English.
The schwa sound is the most important sound in English, because it's the sound that every vowel makes when it's unstressed.
Okay, it doesn't matter which vowel we're talking about.
An A, E, I, O, U, Y. All of those vowels can become this schwa sound when they're unstressed.
For example, I already said the word about in that word.
The letter A becomes the schwa sound.
And if I say the word emerge right in that word the first unstressed syllable is the letter E, And that also becomes the same schwa.
Sound emerge and also the word occur.
The word occur starts with an O, but it's also the same schwa sound.
So you can see that the schwa sound is extremely important, because all of these unstressed syllables turn into this sound.
In English, the phrase turn into just means become.
So these syllables become this schwa sound.
And this sound can be very tricky for English learners because when they're listening to a native speaker speak, They oftentimes can't understand the word because this schwa sound was too fast for them to hear.
Or maybe they were expecting a different syllable, a different sound, I should say a different vowel sound.
And maybe they weren't expecting this very short sound.
And so they don't understand the word that someone is saying.
So this can be very tricky for English learners.
And what this is.
When we have unstressed sounds, unstressed syllables, and they kind of change their sound, this is called reduced speech.
So in English, we have reduced speech everywhere.
Okay.
So, for example, if I say the sentence I bought her a box of chocolates, if I say this at normal speed, I would say I bought her a box of chocolates.
Listen again.
I bought her a box of chocolates.
So notice all of the reduced speech that was in this sentence.
So for example, instead of saying I bought her, I say I bodder.
I skip the H sound in the word her.
I bought her.
I bought him.
So that's one example.
And then if we go further into the sentence, I bought her a box of chocolates.
Notice that I didn't say a box of chocolates.
I said a box of chocolates.
So I skipped over the F sound.
This is the way that native speakers would say this sentence.
And so this is very tricky for non-native speakers because they probably wonder where is the H?
Where is the F?
Well, in English we have a lot of reduced speech, and so we can change the pronunciation of many words or many letters, or we can just skip letters or skip syllables, depending on the stress in the sentence.
So the last word I said, chocolates, notice that it's just two syllables, cha-clits, right?
We don't say cha-co-lits.
That's how my students say this word, but that's not how native speakers say this word.
We skip the middle syllable, cha-clits.
Just like with the word restaurant.
We don't say restaurant.
We say restaurant.
We skip the middle syllable due to the stress in this word.
So, as you can see, that can cause a lot of problems.
But this is something... that we work on a lot in my seminars.
So if this is something that's really tricky for you, or if this is something that you're interested in practicing, definitely become a member and you'll have access to these seminars so you can practice more with this reduced speech.
Okay, let's move on to another aspect of the sounds of English, which is vowels.
Let's talk just a little bit about vowels.
In English we have long vowels and we have short vowels.
So a long vowel is the vowel that kind of makes the sound the letter, for example the letter a.
When it's a long vowel it's pronounced a, like the word hate, for example, or the letter I, for example in the word ice or ice cream.
That's a long vowel, right?
So the vowels that make the sound of the letter a e i o u, those are considered long vowels, whereas short vowels are the vowels that don't make this sound.
For example, in the word hat, the letter a is not a, it's a.
So hat or hit in that word, the letter I is I, not I. So these are considered short vowels.
So, for example, in Spanish, all of the vowels always make the same sound.
So this is tricky if a Spanish speaker wants to learn English, because they're expecting the vowels to always make the same sounds, but they don't.
So, for example, the word hotel has a different O sound than the word hostel, right?
Notice in the first word we had O and in the second word we had A.
But most of my students would pronounce both of these words with the same O sound.
So that can also be a problem.
So long vowels have what we call a glide sound.
A glide sound refers to a W sound or a Y sound.
So listen as I say these vowels and listen for that Y or that W sound.
So if I say the vowel A, like hate, notice that there's a Y sound.
A-Y.
You hear that Y?
Or in the sound O, like go, notice that there's a W sound.
O-W.
So long vowels have a Y or a W sound afterwards.
A-E-I-O-Y.
Do you hear those glide sounds, those w's and y's?
This is how we end a long vowel but, on the other hand, short vowels don't have a glide sound.
So, just right, those vowels don't have a glide sound.
And another type of vowel sound that we can have is a diphthong.
A diphthong is a syllable that kind of has two different sounds.
For example, in the word boy.
This is considered to be a one syllable word, but it has two different vowel sounds.
Right?
Or how about the word pain, right?
This is also a one syllable word, but it has two vowel sounds.
A, pain.
Do you hear that?
Here's one more example.
The word like.
Notice that we don't say like, we say like.
Do you hear those two different vowel sounds?
These are what we call diphthongs in English.
And these can be extremely hard for students, especially students that are from certain language backgrounds.
This concept of a diphthong might be completely new to them.
So many English learners have a lot of problems with these sounds.
OK, lastly, let's talk about consonants.
OK, so consonants in English can be either voiced or voiceless.
So a voiced consonant is a consonant that uses your vocal cords.
This is like your throat, right?
So with these consonants, you'll hear some vibration.
But in voiceless consonants, there is no vibration.
You don't activate your vocal cords.
So for example, if I say the word hats, Notice that the final S is voiceless.
There's no vibration.
Hats.
But if I say the word dogs, the final S is voiced.
It has vibration.
Dogs.
Do you hear that?
So some consonants are voiceless and some consonants are voiced.
This can also be tricky for students.
Many students have trouble making this Z sound at the end of a word.
So instead of saying dogs, they might say docs with a voiceless S.
And if you say it like that, native speakers will have trouble understanding you.
So this is actually a very significant error.
So another example of a voiced consonant in English is the B sound, b, b.
I make a vibration in my throat, but there's a similar consonant, the P, that has almost the same mouth movement, or exactly the same mouth movement, but it's voiceless.
There's no vibration in your throat when you say it.
Uh, That P sound is a very similar sound to the B sound, but it's voiceless.
There's no vibration.
So that's what I'm talking about when I say voiced and voiceless consonants.
And one other thing about consonants is that we have muted consonants.
So many times in English, consonants don't receive their full sound.
They're muted.
So when we mute a consonant, it just means that we don't release the air afterwards.
So for example, I wouldn't say, I hate this.
I would say I hate this.
So the word hate, the T at the end is muted.
I don't say I hate.
I say I hate.
I just stop the T sound without the air.
So this happens at the end of words when the next word also starts with a consonant.
So this is something that's tricky for students to copy.
They often want to release the air when they say these consonants at the end of words.
So this is something that makes their English sound different from a native speaker's English.
Okay, so I'm out of time, so I'm going to stop there.
There is so much more that I could talk about, so I'm sure I can go into more detail about these subjects in future episodes.
But, of course, if you want to practice more with these elements, make sure to sign up to become a Listening Time member or a Listening Time super member, so that you can receive my seminars and practice more with these elements.
All right.
Remember that you have access to the transcript in the episode notes.
And please share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful and help this podcast grow.
All right.
Well, I hope this episode was interesting for you.
I hope you appreciate these topics related to language learning.
And thank you for listening.
And I hope you'll come back for episode 42 of the Listening Time podcast.
