Shadowing Practice: 2708 - Honestly, You’ll Be Happy About These Pronunciation Tips - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hello, Lindsay.
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How are you today?
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Hey there, Aubrey.
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I'm doing great.
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How are you?
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How's everything?
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Excellent.
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I have a question for you.
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When was the last time you were hangry?
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It happens a lot, to be honest.
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An hour ago, 15 minutes ago.
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Yeah.
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Over the weekend, we were looking at houses around Denver, and I was like, oh, when is this going to be over?
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I'm hungry, and I'm angry that I'm hungry.
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Usually, it's a self -fulfilling part, right?
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It's like you're hungry.
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You become angry because you're hungry and therefore you are hangry.
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Exactly.
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This is a fun word, right?
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This is that blend of hungry and angry.
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We'll say, well, I'm hangry, like I'm hungry and it's making me grumpy.
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And this episode was inspired by this word
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because one of our students told me about a misunderstanding where she asked someone
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if they were hangry and they thought she was saying angry because the problem was she was not pronouncing the H.
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She wasn't pushing air with the H.
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And this happens a lot.
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Language learners, if the H is more likely to be silent at the beginning of words in their language,
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they won't pronounce that H and it can cause misunderstandings.
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Yes.
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A hundred percent.
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Oh my gosh.
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And I guess the other meaning for hangry could also be you're independently hungry and independently angry about something else.
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Yeah, that's true.
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You never know.
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Yeah, for sure.
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All right.
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So let's clear this up then for our listeners pronunciation today.
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That's great.
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I like that we're getting into pronunciation a little bit different for all ears English, right?
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Yeah, this is going to be great.
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And H really is so tricky because some H's are silent in English.
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So we're going to give three tips to help you with the pronunciation of H
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so you know a little better when to be pushing air with that ha sound and when not.
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So I'm excited to dive into this so you guys have some pro tips.
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Excellent.
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Guys, before we dive in, go ahead and hit that follow button right now.
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We are in the height of the autumn, the fall in the U S at least,
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um, this is the time to buckle down and focus in on your English.
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This is a great opportunity.
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Maybe if you're in the Northern hemisphere, the weather's getting chilly.
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So this is a great time to be inside focusing in on your goals.
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So hit follow.
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All right.
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Yes.
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Love that.
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Wherever you find your podcasts, be sure to hit follow.
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So you don't miss any of our episodes and let's dive in here, Lindsay.
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This is so interesting.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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How do we pronounce H?
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I mean, let's talk about it a little bit, Aubrey.
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Yeah.
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So sometimes it is silent in English and then sometimes we have aspiration.
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So that means a noticeable puff or burst of air that accompanies the sound, right?
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So we push air and go, and then that airflow just means the actual movement of air through the vocal tract.
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So there's not vibrations of the vocal cords, but we're pushing air that can be heard audibly.
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Okay.
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If we put our hand up to our mouth, we should kind of feel something coming out, right, Aubrey?
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So hungry, hangry.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Right.
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You should feel air hit your hand if you're doing that.
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So this H sound is called a voiceless glottal fricative is what it's called for the linguists out there.
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But for us, what's important to know is that if we don't push air when we need to,
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it can sound like a totally different word, like hangry versus angry.
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And it's subtle, but it could cause a misunderstanding.
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So it's important that you know which words the H should be silent and which words air should be aspirated.
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Yeah, that's where this is where it gets a little tricky, right?
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A little bit nuanced.
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So what are some of the words where H is actually pronounced at the beginning of the word up?
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Yeah.
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So as a general rule, H is pronounced air is pushed at the beginning of words in English.
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So, for example, happy, home.
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What are a couple others, Lindsay?
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Yeah the word hope, right?
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Hope I can feel that air coming out of my mouth or hungry, happy home, hope hungry.
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Yeah.
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So a sentence with all of those is just for fun.
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I'm happy to be home and I hope there's something to eat because I'm hungry.
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Maybe hangry.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Great.
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So that one we are asper, as we say, aspirating that air.
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But there are a few common exceptions, right?
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Most words in English, you do hear the H, but there are some exceptions.
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This is what makes it tricky because sometimes you don't.
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And the most common are honest or honestly, honor, and what else, Lindsay?
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Yeah.
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Hour, right?
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So honest, honestly, honor, honorable, right?
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Hour, hourly.
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And there are a few others like air, the air to a kingdom spelled H -E -I -R.
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There are a few, but that's about it.
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There aren't very many.
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Usually if you see H at the beginning of a word, you're going to push air when you make that sound.
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Okay.
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So just to reiterate for our listeners,
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99, 98 % of the time you are pushing air for an H at the beginning of a word, right, Aubrey?
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Exactly.
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Let's do a fun sentence here with some of these exceptions.
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You could say, honestly, it was an.. honor to spend an hour talking with them.
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So as you can see, there are a few words where there is a silent H that that's really what makes us tricky.
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There's not this rule where you can say every time you're going to push air with H.
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Unfortunately, English doesn't make things that easy on us.
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Right.
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And this could be, maybe we could create this into like a series on silent letters or something.
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That would be kind of cool because I'm thinking about the silent K
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that comes in the beginning of a word before the end that is usually silent.
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But anyways, thinking of new episode ideas.
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There's so many.
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It's really tricky.
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There's so many.
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We'll get into it later in the fall.
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Guys, hit the follow button if that sounds like a good plan to you.
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So what else do we need to know here?
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Nice.
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So our number two tip here is that H is also usually pronounced
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if it begins a new syllable in the middle of a word.
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So for example, behind, behave.
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When I make that H sound, I'm pushing air.
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You still have to kind of aspirate, push out the air, put your hand in front of your mouth, feel the air.
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So behind behave in habit, I have to make that H sound inhibit or prohibit.
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So fun sentence behind the house, we have signs that prohibit smoking.
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Yeah.
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And this is tricky, but there are a few exceptions.
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This is a good pro tip.
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All of the exceptions begin with EX.
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So for example, exhibit, exhaust, those have an H after that EX, but it is silent.
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It is silent.
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Exhilarate or exhort.
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What does exhort mean, Aabria?
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I'm not really a...
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Like to convince, right?
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I would exhort you to do this means I'm trying to convince you to do something.
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It is a pretty rare word.
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It's not used very commonly.
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It's pretty rare.
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And here's an example sentence where we can hear that these are silent, right?
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The museum exhibit was so impressive that it exhilarated visitors, but left them exhausted.
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Yes.
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Love it.
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And the one exception to this is exhale, which I think it's nice that the meaning of it,
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you're exhaling air, that H is printed.
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This, I like did quite a bit of research.
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I'm like, are you sure there's no other exceptions?
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Is it always EX?
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And this seems to be the only exception where a word that begins with EX, but the H is aspirated is that word exhale.
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Yes.
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Interesting.
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Okay.
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Good to know.
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So there's some tricky, sticky things here about English that we have to be aware of when it comes to the H.
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Is it silent?
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Is it not?
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But we've gone through some of the major guidelines, I think.
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Right, Aubrey?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Hey, quick question.
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Do you want to feel more confident when you speak English?
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If so, we made a free guide for you.
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It'll help you avoid those common mistakes and start speaking more naturally in real conversations.
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go grab it in the description below.
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And if this is helpful for you, make sure that you like and subscribe.
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We're here five times a week to help you connect in English.
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Okay, Aubrey, let's put this into action with a little role play.
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So here I am asking you about a recent vacation.
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All right.
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All right.
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Hey, you just got back from Hawaii, right?
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How was it?
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Honestly, it was great.
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I I stayed at this little hotel near the beach.
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Nice.
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Did you have a good time?
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Yeah, I was really happy to get away for a few days.
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I spent an hour just walking along the beach.
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That sounds relaxing.
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Yes, it was fantastic.
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I hope I can go back next year.
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Yes.
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All right.
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Good.
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Nice conversation here.
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Lots of H's, but not any more than could turn out.
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I think H is a pretty common letter in the English alphabet.
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Comes up all the time.
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The question is, should you be pushing error or not right?
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And I started us with something really tricky.
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This is a bonus that for most of the continental
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United States, when we say Hawaii, we push air.
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We say it just like that, Hawaii.
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But actually on the island of Hawaii, a lot of Hawaiians don't.
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They say Hawaii and you don't hear that air push.
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So no wrong answer here.
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However you say Hawaii is correct.
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But in general, most
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Americans who don't live in Hawaii, we do aspirate air for that word.
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that's interesting I have I have a couple friends have had over the years two friends from Hawaii actually and I
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but I definitely remember hearing them pronounce more of the end of the word Hawaii
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I feel more um yeah they that's they'll make that double vowel kind of emphasis
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but I'm not I'll have to listen in and see
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if they pronounce the h or not I'll have to see
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and it could be not even all Hawaiians I remember
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I was there I went to Maui it's the only time I've ever been to Hawaii
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and I heard a few people say it that way without the h
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and I was like oh interesting or you will hear it in movies sometimes, but probably not everybody.
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Like, I feel like that's probably a regional dialect thing.
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Probably.
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Yeah.
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Probably.
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Or how long they've been there or I don't know.
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That makes sense.
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That kind of thing.
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So for this episode, we're teaching to pronounce the H or you can not depending on how you want to do it.
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But then the next phrase, pretty obviously we need to pronounce the H and how.
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How was it?
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We can't say, ow, was it?
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Right?
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Right.
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Exactly.
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And that is a word of, if you're hurt, you say ow without any push of air.
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So that's where this often becomes a new word if you don't push air for the H.
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Right.
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Someone would say, are you okay?
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Right.
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Are you okay?
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Was it, wait, what?
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What's happening?
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What's happening?
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And then honestly, it was great.
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So here, is it silent or is it pronounced?
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Honestly is one of our exceptions where it is silent.
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So when you say honest or honestly, it's totally silent.
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You don't aspirate any air.
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Yeah.
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And then I say to this little hotel near the beach here, I need to aspirate the H.
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I can't say hotel.
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I have to say hotel, right?
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And this is a very common error for, because there are language like French is one where it's the same word,
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but pronounced with a silent H hotel, just like that.
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So that's such an easy mistake to make in English.
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so don't make that mistake it kind of requires taking in a little bit of breath
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because you're pushing out breath before you say it
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so you kind of need to like prepare to say the
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word hotel a bit more than just saying like hotel for example
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that's true you have to have some air in your lungs in order to make
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this sound in order to push that air out
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so we're kind of thinking that as we're speaking preparing by taking the breaths
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that we need exactly and then what Aubrey and I said, did you have a good time?
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And yeah, again, whenever we say have, have, we're going to be pushing air for the H.
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And then you said, I was really happy to get away.
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Again, you're going to hear that H for happy.
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I spent an hour just walking along the beach here.
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That H is silent.
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Hour.
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I spent an hour.
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And be careful not to get confused.
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And this is so tricky because it's a homonym, right?
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Our that's spelled O -U -R sounds exactly the same as our that starts with the H.
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So you just have to know from context.
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That's what I was going to say.
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Be careful not to get it confused, right?
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Yes.
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Okay.
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What's the last one?
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And then I hope I can go back next year.
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So yeah, whenever you say hope, make sure that you're pushing, like you said, Lindsay, that you could put your hand in front of your mouth
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and you would feel air hit it when you push that air.
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Exactly.
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Great episode today.
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Unique one.
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I love that this question came out of our Q &A.
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By the way, what is weekly Q &A, Aubrey, and who gets to go?
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Yeah, everyone who is in our personal coach classes, you get feedback from one of us to your assignments.
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And you also are invited to this weekly Q &A, which it's so fun.
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It's a chance for everyone to ask questions about what they're learning in their course
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or anything that they think about as they're studying English and it's amazing the questions that students come up with there.
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It's always a really fun conversation.
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Yeah, really good stuff.
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So guys, check out our courses.
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Go to allersenglish .com and you can see them right there on the homepage.
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Check out what we have going.
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Join us so that you can be present at the next Q &A when the next good question comes up.
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Aubrey, where else can our listeners go right now to keep listening?
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Yes, don't miss Allers English 2706.
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Scroll up if you missed that one.
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When to use that in English, you have likely noticed that sometimes native speakers say that sometimes they drop it.
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So don't miss that episode for details about why.
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Yes, love it.
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And any final takeaway, Aubrey, that we can leave our listeners with?
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Yeah, this is one of those things where it's not the end of the world to miss the H, but there is potential for a misunderstanding,
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just like hangry versus angry.
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It changes the word entirely so you can avoid that
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if you have these tips about when to pronounce h yes love it
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so good great episode today aubrey
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i'll see you back here very soon all right awesome see you next time bye all right bye
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “2708 - Honestly, You’ll Be Happy About These Pronunciation Tips”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: word, silent, english, Aubrey, hungry. This video has 9 sentences and 2669 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:43. The speaker talks fast, about 195 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| silent adjective | /ˈsaɪ̯lənt/ | Free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet. |
| pronounce verb | /pɹəˈnaʊns/ | To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously. |
| hungry adjective | /ˈhʌŋ.ɡɹi/ | Affected by hunger; having the physical need for food. |
| exception noun | /əkˈsɛpʃən/ | The act of excepting or excluding; exclusion; restriction by taking out something which would otherwise be included, as in a class, statement, rule. |
| tricky adjective | /ˈtɹɪk.i/ | Hard to deal with, complicated. |
| listener noun | /ˈlɪs(ə)nɚ/ | Someone who listens, especially to a speech or a broadcast. |
| ear noun | /ˈɪə̯/ | The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea. |
| dive verb | /daɪv/ | To swim under water. |
| pronunciation noun | /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken. |
| confused adjective | /kənˈfjuːzd/ | unable to think clearly or understand |
| spell noun | /spɛl/ | Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers. |
| versus | /ˈvɝsəs/ | Against; in opposition to. |
| breathe verb | /bɹiːð/ | To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases. |
| convince verb | /kənˈvɪns/ | To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence. |
| exhibit verb | /ɪɡˈzɪbɪt/ | To display or show (something) for others to see, especially at an exhibition or contest. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| push out verb | To force (someone) to leave a group. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. | |
| get away verb | To move away (from). | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- When was the last time you were hangry?
- We'll get into it later in the fall.
- I'm like, are you sure there's no other exceptions?
- Did you have a good time?
- We can't say ow was it, right?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was inspired · can be heard · is called |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've gone · have had · I've ever been |
| Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea | should kind · should feel · should be |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | were looking · was saying · wasn't pushing |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 66 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: exception /əkˈsɛpʃən/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, vibration /vaɪˈbɹeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, independently /ˌɪndɪˈpɛndəntli/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, accompany /əˈkʌm.pə.ni/, misunderstanding /ˌmɪsʌndɚˈstændɪŋ/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like silent, pronounce, hungry.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.