[Music] your listening to the Rachel's English podcast made especially for non-native speakers where we study the way Americans really speak my goal is for you to listen to this podcast every week and sound more natural when speaking English and improve your listening comprehension in today's episode we're answering questions from you that have come in on my YouTube videos in the comments I'm here with my husband David who's going to help me answer these questions if you'd like a free download of the transcript of this podcast please visit my website Rachel's english.com slod and search for
this episode it's absolutely free to download all right let's get started with the first question David can you read it for me all right this is from Martin he says hey Rachel I'd love to ask you a quick question is there an sh as in she or a CH as in cheese in the word actually or actual okay this is a great question first of all as I'm looking here at the comment that came in I see that Martin has asked it and someone named Michael has answered it and he says I'm not Rachel but
I'm a native speaker and then he gives a great explanation about what he hears people say so I just want to give a shout out to Michael and let anyone everyone know that everyone is free to answer questions um in the comments on my channel always and I think that's great I love seeing other people chime in with their ideas okay but let's get to the question the question is the word actually so I looked it up in several dictionaries and a couple of them had just one pronunciation A Chu Le four syllables and yes
with the CH sound like and cheese actually actually the Miriam Webster dictionary had this pronunciation but then it also included a pronunciation with SH actually actually so I think either of them are fine they both sound okay but I think the sh is more common it's certainly what I use what about you David yeah I'm I'm in stunned disbelief that you bothered to consult uh Mr Webster I I think it's really clearly if you're going by sound it's sh there's no if we're if you're yeah yeah so David's saying why even look it up in
a dictionary when you hear native speakers do it this way all the time and I don't I don't think it's regional actually actually if I'm going fast you know what actually that that's fine for me it's definitely sh but it doesn't sound weird if it's a ch right let me try it actually does that sound weird to you actually that's when you want to slow down and emphasize a turn in what you're saying so actually but if it's just part of a sentence where it's almost a it's almost a connector word it's not that important
of a word unless it's signifying a change well I mean I would argue that it is often signifying a change but that doesn't always have to mean that you've slowed down your pace I guess well yeah I mean I was saying to differentiate between clarifying what you're already talking about versus changing the direction of what you're saying but the moral of the story is either one is okay sh is more common I also want to say that the dictionary has listed it as four syllables and it's much more common to do this as three so
let's just let me just slow down break it down the way most Americans would say this word most of the time so it's actually Act [Music] act actually actually there we go okay David do you have another question for me so we're having problems with the name here because it looks like Russian characters and I have no idea how those correspond to sounds great and you're the expert and I'm the expert so I'm going to say it's from Napa and the comment is wow thanks Rachel could you please shoot a video with sneak peek and
tell me its meaning sure okay sneak peek is sort of like a preview um it's when something is coming soon and a little bit of it is released early so people can get an idea for it for example this would happen a lot with movies shows here's a sneak peek of next week's episode you could say a teaser also mhm right it's meant to get people excited about it yeah so that's the meaning of sneak peek all right next one is from s and he says you're my bay in teaching English simply and effectively that
was a comment on my slang summer of slaying video where I taught ba that's right uh s says I'm preparing for the El Els exam and it's based on British English can I use American idioms or slang during the speaking test that's a good question I think I would say idioms fine I think a lot of idioms are actually in both American and British English as far as slang I think I probably would say not to use it in a speaking test in that kind of situation David what would you say wow I I guess
I would agree with you that's a hard question in a way it shows like a Mastery of the language right if you're using slang and idioms I think idioms are totally fine yeah I guess that's yeah it's a good distinction also you do need to make sure you're using them correctly an idiom that's you know grammatically not matching up with the rest of the sentence or something might might sound awkward and it might be better just to leave that out than to try to throw it in for extra points yeah I think that's a good
point it's actually if you are positive that you've got it mastered go for it but if not you may end up making a pretty glaring mistake and actually you could sound worse than you are by by misusing an idiom David you just used actually twice actually was s yeah you did it perfectly you did it just the way we described it great okay so S I think go ahead and do use idioms if you feel very comfortable with them and probably avoid slang in that test yep all right the next question is from Gart and
Gart says please how can I be your student permanently so that I can be able to ask you some questions I need to learn American English okay and then here he signs it Gilbert so his username is gerbert but his signed name is Gilbert oh okay I see um so Gilbert great question right now I have an online school called the Rachel's English Academy and it is by subscription so once you sign up you are my student until you choose to cancel and through that I answer questions on the forums the discussion uh Pages within
the school for each course and then I also have a Facebook group where I interact with my students so for anyone who's curious that might be a great way to have you know a little bit more of a consistent uh loop feedback loop with me and I will put a link to that in the show notes all right next question from thomasino hey Rachel appreciate your job and all the time in here I get two words confused and don't pronounce them fluently the two words are Saturday and yesterday it seems to be a problem for
me to change the tongue position from tur tur to day at least not so smoothly okay so the word Saturday and the word yesterday and the problem is switching from the r sound to the D sound well let's talk about the tongue position so for the r in F or Yer is tongue tip pulled back a bit so it's not touching anything I also lift the tongue tip a little bit so it's like lifted and pulled back um and this is a sound that you should be able to hold out if you're unable to hold
it out then that's a sign that you're definitely not doing it right and I always tell people with the r it's very good practice to hold out the sound within your word sad it just sort of helps you home in on the right position make subtle changes let your ear give your body some feedback there so if your tongue is pulled back like that back and up tongue tip back and up then for the D it comes forward and flaps against the roof of the mouth [Music] once so that's the movement it's from being slightly
pulled back and up not touching anything to bouncing once against the roof of the mouth for the D it's a flap here so just practice that and definitely hold out the r sound first it can help you concentrate on the flap that comes next and sort of clean up that transition Saturday yesterday hold out the r sat yesterday try that as you practice practicing also he he um points out I can make it in British English which goes without the r sound so like yesterday yes uh uh I can see how that's a lot easier
the transition from R to a flap can be hard for sure but there we've broken it down and if you break it down as you practice practice it slowly that way I think it will improve and it will become more smooth and natural for you great so the next um the next thing that we want to talk about and actually we won't say the um the user's name on this one but somebody wrote sir how I respect your family you are really an example for our society and I think you wanted to talk a little
bit about um about that comment yeah I did so it's very common for people to comment on my videos and to address me as sir and of course in my videos I believe it's very obvious that I am a woman and Sir is used with men and ma'am is sort of the female equivalent there m i don't particularly love ma'am but that's for different reasons I just wanted to point out here that sir is not something that you would use with women this is not a way to address women um you can use ma'am or
miss or M I think that they're all I don't even know what I want to say about it ma'am feels kind of formal and a little stuffy like if I'm checking out at a store and someone says here's your change ma'am I'm like whoa I don't know it just sounds weird yeah they're they're more formal um sir imp particular well maybe ma'am too they're a little bit Antiquated also I feel like they would have been a lot more popular definitely uh in in a different era yeah no I agree so I guess one thing I
would say is uh it can always be left out like if you're wondering well how do I should I use ma'am should I use a different word you can actually just leave it out like if I was checking out and so had said ma'am here's your change or here's your change ma'am it's not necessary to even use it I mean I guess it's being used to show politeness but I don't know it's a little formal MH but the main point is don't you sir with women I don't know why it happens so frequently but it
it does show up on my channel a lot MH all right so the next question is from Gavin and Gavin says I'd appreciate it if you can help me compare Go versus goal and so versus soul I spent quite a bit of time practicing but I still find it hard to pronounce them correctly I'm a teacher of English in China cool I love hearing from other teachers okay so go G versus go g a l so the thing that's interesting to note here is the word goal is supposedly that has the same exact sounds just
with an L at the end so we have the G consonant and the O diff thong go but I have found that the dark L does change this diff thong so it's not go go that's not how we say that word we say it g really it's just the G and the dark sound go go go there's not much of an O diff thong really before the L so for go go your jaw drops a little bit your lips round for the diff thong jaw drop then lip rounding go go but for goal you make
the G you do drop your jaw a little bit but then you're making a movement with the back of your tongue go the back part part of your tongue moves back a little bit presses down a little bit and this makes a dark sound go go so you will round your lips a little bit first but then they'll relax towards the end for the L towards the end for the L go go I also think I have had students who have done an amazing job changing difficult pairs like this changing how they pronounce them by
listening over and over and over I had a student from China once who didn't have a good I vowel like in sit she always said e like and seat so I made an audio file for her where I said minimal pairs like this sit seat and she listened to them for about a week and then she said okay I got it and then she practiced it for a week repeating out loud and she came back to me that next week with a perfect e sound I was actually blown away so one thing you could do
here is just practice a bunch of minimal pairs listening go go and guys if you're wondering well that's great Rachel where can I get the audio files for this there's a site called forvo.com where a bunch of native speakers have uploaded themselves saying tons of different words so you can download a bunch of those and put them together in your own audio file um also I just to make another pitch for my online school I have thousands of audio files on my online school that do with a lot of minimal pair comparison cuz my online
school is really all about training not just learning the concept but training it so if you're having a tough time with a minimal pair like go and goal or so and soul that's a great way to work on those all right our next question is from Joe Joe says hi could you post a video of pronouncing millionaire and billionaire I found it difficult thanks okay Joe sure well not a video but I'm going to put it in the podcast so um these are three syllable words with stress on the first syllable [Music] mire Bill yire
millionaire billionaire I always think it helps with multi- syllable words like this to break it down and practice the stressed syllable and the unstressed syllable separately millonaire so there I'm separating the stressed from the unstressed so try that millonaire billonaire do that for a while and then put them together millionaire billionaire put them together in slow motion then do that for a while and then just try the word at regular base millionaire billionaire I think working with it working with these words that way will help all right so the next uh comment question is could
you please teach how to pronounce words that contain R and L at the same time I can never pronounce the word rural for me it's just a sound like Royal or loyal okay David did a great job pronouncing the word rural it's a tough word actually it's funny a couple years ago I did a series on my YouTube channel called interview a broadcaster and I was interviewing a guy named Craig Melvin who's a broadcaster for NBC here in the United States and he I was asking him if there were any words that he found it
difficult to pronounce and Rural was one of the words he mentioned so it's it's not just you it's Americans too so this word is is interesting because R we have the r consonant and then the dictionary would say it's the a vowel like in book or push but it's not really it's just really the r vowel so we have R consonant R vowel R consonant Al together so there's sort of a re-emphasis of the sound that happens for the second aable rural R and then we go right from that R into the dark sound rural
so if you have a hard time with the r or a hard time with the L this is going to be really difficult but for the r lips flare a little bit tongue tip pulls up and back a little bit roll reemphasize the sound and then roll engage the back of the tongue to make that dark sound for the dark L um now this is also reminding me of an episode of 30 Rock David have you seen that show I have yeah have you seen every episode do you think um no so there's one where
Jenna is cast in a movie and she's really excited about this side project and the name of the movie is called the rural jur and it's making fun of these words that have the in it um in them and so she's people are asking her you know they're trying to be supportive and they're like oh what's the movie and she's saying the Royal juror and then the joke is no one knows what she's saying okay I'm gonna see if I can find a clip of that and I'm going to put it in the show notes
that's great it's so funny and of course she's like pronouncing it even more silly in the show to make it even harder to understand rural juror was the name of the movie anyway I'll try to find a link for that but it's hilarious so the moral of the story is rural is not just hard for non-native speakers all right the next question is from Cho hello thank you for your good lectures I have a question about a pronunciation of on hour I can't hear on hour I would like to explain I would like you to
explain how to pronounce on hour okay so David's doing a great job pronouncing this quickly it's on o n our o u r well here's the thing is that we almost never pronounce our that way we so frequently reduce it to so let's take a let's make a phrase that would use this how about on our anniversary so I would say that on our anniversary mhm honor honor honor honor honor anniversary just sounds like the letter R yeah it does on R yes exactly so it reduces so onor so your your tongue touches the roof
of the mouth for the n on and then it pulls back right away for the r consonant sound don't don't try to make a vowel there between the n and the r honor honor honor anniversary onor trip David what are what would be another phrase that would use on r on our last day of school mhm it's actually it sounds exactly like the word h o n o r yeah honor right it's like stressed syllable unstressed syllable the sounds are all the same mhm interesting okay I hope that helps Cho all right the next question
is from Rena Rena says Rachel please help me pronounce find that and like that I find that they are difficult to pronounce fast thank you so much okay well let's start with the phrase find that David can you help me find that piece of paper find that find that what's happening to the D it's getting dropped because it comes between two other consonants we do that a lot with the D between two consonants so I'm just saying fine that right from the N consonant into the th can you help me find that telephone number I
want to find that article that my friend was talking about find that find that okay and then the other phrase was like that I don't like that I think I do a very light K release like so light I don't like that like that that K that K that K that that really light K before the th I don't like that oh I like that I like that but it's really fast so I I can see how it would be hard to catch when someone's saying it but the good news is with find that there
is a shortcut you can drop that D okay David I think we have time for one more question all right we have a question from Raphael for our last one Raphael says could you do a video on the pronunciation of the word certain it sounds like it is a stop te but I'm not quite sure Raphael you are exactly right it is a stop T CT CT I'm stopping the air there so certain curtain Mountain kitten button there's a whole bunch of words that have the sequence t schah n and I I think this way
that I've just pronounced them is the most common and is the most standard although definitely you will hear a light try certain certain mountain mountain curtain curtain and you'll also hear pronunciation where people do the stop and then they make more of an open E vowel sound like Mountain kitn butn I think that's maybe new englande I'm not sure I know some one from Connecticut who used to do that I personally think that pronunciation sounds really weird I would say stick with a stop plus the N sound like curtain or if you're more comfortable you
could do a really light true tea but if you make too much of it curtain then it starts to sound a little bit strange David what what do you think about the pronunciation do you prefer a stop or a light true Tea Stop stop more common don't you think yeah I think so so actually I have a video on how to pronounce the word Mountain where I go over this and I will link to that video in the show notes so that there is more to learn there and also that video was shot outside in
the mountains in Colorado so there's some good background to look at it actually was it actually was yep okay guys that's it thanks so much for listening to this podcast and to David for asking the questions that came in absolutely it was great to talk to you guys once again again if you guys would like a copy of the transcript it is absolutely free to download on my website Rachel english.com slmp podcast and just look for this episode on my website you'll also find the show notes which will contain links to related topics and videos
if you're not subscribed please do make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or whatever is your podcast software of choice and if you're so inclined think about leaving a review in the iTunes Store I would love to hear what you think of this podcast [Music]
