Rachel: In this American English pronunciation video, you're going to visit my cousin Brad's
farm.
You’ll learn reductions like the reduction of the word them and how 'want to' becomes
'wanna'.
You'll hear the phrase "a lot of' pronounced 'a lotta'.
And you'll hear an example of the reduction of because and you are.
Rachel: So Brad, how often do you feed 'em?
Sorry about the wind here, guys.
It’s really common to drop the TH in this word and change the vowel to the schwa.
When you do this reduction, make sure you link it on to the word before.
There should be no break between words.
“Feed them” becomes “feed ‘em”, feed 'em in conversational English.
It’s like an unstressed syllable at the end of “feed”.
Rachel: So Brad, how often do you feed 'em?
So Brad, how often do you feed 'em?
So Brad, how often do you feed 'em?
Let’s look at this short sentence to study stress.
Do you notice that some words are longer and some are shorter?
They’re all one-syllable long, but “twice” and “day” are much longer than “a”.
They have an up-down intonation: Day, day.
“A” is flat and said very quickly.
The other two words are stressed.
This contrast between stressed and unstressed is important in American English.
If everything was stressed and longer, it would sound more like this: twice a day.
Have you ever seen a cockfight Brad?
Did you hear another “them” reduction in that small conversation?
Here the word ‘them’ refers to “cockfights”.
It's the plural pronoun and it's pronounced “em”.
Linked to the word before, it sounds like “have ‘em, have ‘em”.
Yeah! a lot of guys from Washburn got arrested a couple of years ago for big cockfight ring.
Yeah.
Rachel: So you guys had a lot of rain you were saying?
Here was another reduction: of.
The phrase “a lot of” is common in American English, and it’s common to change the word
Notice what happens to the T: it changes to a Flap sound because it comes between two
That helps link the two words together.
Only “lot” is stressed here, the two other words are unstressed.
Rachel: So you guys had a lotta rain you were saying?
So you guys had a lotta rain you were saying?
So you guys had a lotta rain you were saying?
Brad: You wanna play with 'em?
This wind is making it a little hard to hear, but did you hear what my cousin said?
Brad: You wanna play with 'em?
There’s the “them” reduction again, referring to the chickens.
He also reduced “want to” to “wanna”.
This is really common, Americans do it all the time in spoken English.
Brad: You wanna play with ‘em?
Brad: Okay, you can grab ‘em out of there and play with 'em.
Rachel: You can grab ‘em out of there.
Brad: You can grab ‘em out, You can grab ‘em out, You can grab ‘em out of there and play with 'em if you want.
Rachel: No, I do not wanna hold one of those.
I just used the “wanna” reduction.
I do not wanna hold, I do not wanna hold, I do not wanna hold one of those.
That means it sounds exactly the same as another word.
“Weigh” is pronounced just like “way”. Way.
Different word, different meaning, different spelling, but same pronunciation.
We have a lot of homophones in American English.
Click here to see a video I made about homophones.
Yeah,
(laughing)
Rachel: No, that's not how you said it.
I sold 3 of 'em before we went into winter.
Because I knew I was gonna be short on feed.
Here, my cousin is talking about his cows, and I made him say it again so I could get
Do you hear the THEM reduction?
I sold 3 of 'em before we went into winter.
Because I knew I was gonna be short on feed.
Rachel: I don't think I was meant to be a farmer.
You just heard two reductions that we’ve already learned in this video.
Rachel: You wanna feed 'em Ian?
I dropped the word DO, turned “want to” into “wanna”, and used the “them”
Rachel: You wanna feed 'em Ian?
Cows spend lot of time in there.
Rachel's Dad: Do you uh, keep 'em in there during the winter?
My Dad made the “them” reduction too!
Rachel's Dad: Do you uh, keep 'em in there during the winter?
keep 'em in there during the winter?
keep 'em in there during the winter?
Keep ‘em, keep ‘em, just add that unstressed syllable to the end of the word before.
My dad also dropped the T in “winter”. It became 'winner'.
Rachel's Dad: keep 'em in there during the winter? during the winter? during the winter?
keep 'em in there during the winter?
Actually, I noticed my cousin Brad did this earlier too.
Brad: Before we went in to winter.
Americans sometimes drop the T when it comes after an N. “Winter” sounds like ”winner”.
Other common examples of this: center, interview, international, internet.
Rachel's Dad: keep 'em in there during the winter or do they still go out somewhere?
They, they're actually outside even when it's snowing.
Because when I come to feed 'em, they have snow on their backs.
Because when I come to feed ‘em.
THEM reduction, also, my cousin Brad reduced “because”.
Brad: Cuz when I come to feed 'em, Cuz when I come to feed 'emCuz when I come to feed
'em, they have snow on their backs.
Rachel: Brad thanks for showing me your farm.
This is a really common phrase.
We don’t say “you are”, you are welcome.
we don’t generally say “you’re” fully pronounced, but we reduce it.
You studied a lot of reductions today.
Reductions are a part of natural spoken English, but I don’t recommend using them in writing.
It’s not professional.
But please, please, use them when you speak.
Did you like learning this way?
Click here to see more real life English videos.