Shadowing Practice: Learn English with TIE: Rhythm - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hi, welcome back to the Tutorium in Intensive English.

My name is Katie, and in today's pronunciation module,

we're going to be kind of combining everything we've learned and applying it.

So it should be kind of fun.

I'm excited.

So get ready and bear with me.

And here we go.

Before we get started on today's practice, I want to review some of the important concepts that we have talked about so far.

First, let's review thought groups.

Remember, thought groups, that's where we add pausing, right?

We have to pause, we have to breathe.

And we have to group these phrases and clauses, we have to decide where do we pause, right?

Where does it make sense to pause?

And usually we want to pause between thoughts, right?

That's what we call them thought groups.

And we use our grammar a lot to help us decide where to pause between these groups.

um clauses phrases they want to stay together right we wouldn't want to break up an adjective

and the noun that it modifies right so grammar

and the relationships between the words can really help inform where

we put those pauses with thought groups comes the idea of content

and function words right inside each thought group we have

that thought right and there are content

and function words in there some of them you know our

content words are stressed our function words are not stressed they're

reduced they might be completely reduced we might delete some sounds um

and this creates that pattern of stressed and unstressed sounds

that gives english its rhythm right and

so within each thought group there's going to be a content word

that receives the main stress now there are going to be

other content words in there they'll be stressed they might not

have the same degree of stress right there's going to be one word

that is the loudest the longest

and the highest pitch we talked a lot about linking right we link words together based on sounds this creates smooth

transitions between words.

We don't want to hear every sound always between words.

We want to link those.

We want to have a smooth transition between the beginning, the end of one word, and the beginning of the next word.

We're going to smoosh things together and that also creates rhythm.

Finally, reductions.

Reductions are super important to creating that rhythm in English.

like I said, we don't want to pronounce every single sound.

We don't always hear every sound at the end of a word.

If we did, it wouldn't really sound like natural speech, right?

It would sound different, it would sound affected.

So reductions are really important.

We reduce those function words.

We may reduce, you know, an unstressed syllable inside of a content word.

So that's really important.

All these things are working together when we pronounce English.

So let's get started.

I have this dialogue here.

This is a conversation between me and Jordan, and we're talking about a lamp.

So I purchased a lamp at a thrift store, and I'm telling Jordan about it.

And this is a true story.

I actually did buy an old lamp that I am trying to restore.

So I went ahead and I divided this into thought groups.

So I'm just going to read through this once so we can kind of feel those pauses.

Now remember, thought groups, there's more than one answer, right?

So some of these are a little shorter than I would naturally pause from where I would naturally pause.

I'm a native speaker, so I can speak in pretty long thought groups, but we can always shorten those up, right?

If you need more pausing, you're not as fluent.

Create a thought group.

All right.

So Jordan is going to start us off.

Hey, Katie, how's it going?

I feel like I haven't seen you in such a long time.

I see that pause was really brief.

So a thought group pause doesn't have to be long.

I feel like I haven't seen you in such a long time.

What have you been up to?

Hey, not too much.

I've been trying to learn how to rewire an old lamp I bought at a thrift store.

Oh, cool.

Have you done anything like that before?

Do you usually find some good stuff at the thrift store?

Oh yeah, but I've never tried to do this before.

I always see so many cool vintage lamps, but they're so expensive.

I can never afford them.

So I decided to clean up an old lamp and fix the wiring.

That's pretty cool.

How much was the lamp that you bought?

It was only $2.

Can you believe that?

I also had to buy the rewiring kit.

So that was about $10, but that's way less than some of these restored lamps you see for $150.

That's awesome.

I love to look for old furniture that I can make new again.

It's so fun to fix something up and restore it to its former glory.

I totally agree.

Have you finished any restoration projects lately?

So you notice as I read through that, when we pause on a thought group, it's not always a dramatic long pause.

In fact, it's usually not.

It's usually just a beat and then we're on to the next thought group, but there's a definite kind of boom, then we move on.

Okay.

All right.

So we're going to focus in on just this small portion of our dialogue.

And this looks kind of wacky.

So let me explain what's going on here.

We're going to talk about stress for a minute.

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And you'll notice how we have some words in green.

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Those words or syllables that are highlighted in green, they're also the largest font.

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And those words represent the focal point of each thought group.

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Remember how I said each thought group is going to have one word that receives the major stress?

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Those are these words.

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Okay.

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So, hey, Katie, how's it going?

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I feel like I haven't seen you in such a long time.

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What have you been up to?

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Hey, not too much.

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I've been trying to learn how to rewire an old lamp I bought at a thrift store.

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So those words we hear the most.

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Now, there are other content words within some of those thought groups.

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For example, in the thought group, I feel like I haven't seen you.

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We have feel, like, and here haven't, even though this normally wouldn't be a content word.

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Since it is a negative, it is stress, right?

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That not makes it a stress word.

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so feel like haven't and seen are all content words

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so they're all going to receive more stress than i i

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and you right those are pronouns those are function words we're

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going to reduce those we're not going to give them a lot of attention now you can see feel

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and haven't are bold so the words

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that you see in bold are receiving more stress than the content words

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that are not bolded right

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so I feel like I haven't seen you I feel like

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I haven't seen you hey Katie how's it going I feel

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like I haven't seen you in such a long time

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so we don't want to go too low in our in our tone on you

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because more is coming I feel like I haven't seen you

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in such a long time what have you been up to

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hey not too much I've been trying to learn how to rewire an old lamp

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an old lamp i bought at a thrift store so here in this part of our conversation

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how to rewire an old lamp old is technically a content word

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but it doesn't get a lot of attention

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if you listen to me say this i've been trying to

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learn how to rewire an old lamp old is not a

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doesn't receive as much attention how to rewire a little lamp

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old lamp lamp gets the most right how to rewire an old lamp.

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Not too much.

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I've been trying to learn how to rewire an old lamp.

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An old lamp I bought at a thrift store.

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So if I give you this dialogue,

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now pay attention while I read and try and see if you can feel where those stresses are in my speech.

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Hey Katie, how's it going?

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I feel like I haven't seen you in such a long time.

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What have you been up to?

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hey not too much i've been trying to learn how to rewire an old lamp i bought at a thrift store

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all right so there is our stress it's a little complicated

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when we break it down that's why we just did a

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small piece okay now brace yourselves we are going to talk about linking and reductions OK,

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so everything inside one thought group is going to link or possibly reduce.

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Okay, so that's where we're going to have all of our links happening.

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So we're not going to link across a thought group because that would be, it would ruin the thought group.

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So first we have, hey, Katie.

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So we just kind of have to practice, hey, Katie.

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Hey, Katie.

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How's it?

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Now here we have a consonant vowel link, right?

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The Z sound, how zit, is going to connect onto the it.

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Kind of like the word zit.

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It's not the best visual, but there it is.

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How zit. And this is T.

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We don't want to release that T.

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Remember we talked about our stop consonants.

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They're not going to release.

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So we're going to close our mouth.

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Like we're going to make that T sound and then we're going to move right into the G.

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So we're going to link all these words together.

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How's it going?

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How's it going?

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How's it going?

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How's it going?

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My tone goes, um, how's it going?

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It goes down, right?

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Because this is a WH question.

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Hey, Katie, how's it going?

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How's it going?

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Okay, let's talk about the next thought group.

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I feel like I haven't seen you.

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So here we have one long L, L, L, link, same consonant.

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I feel like, I feel like,

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like chi, because we have K consonant attaching to a vowel sound. So, Kai.

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I feel like Kai.

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I haven't.

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I haven't.

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Kind of practiced that.

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I haven't.

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I feel like I haven't.

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Now, here, we're not going to pay any attention to that T.

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We're just going to say haven't.

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We're going to close our mouth, but we don't even hear a T at all.

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I feel like I haven't seen, haven't seen, seen you, seen you.

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So that new goes on to the U sound.

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I feel like I haven't seen you.

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I feel like I haven't seen you, and I'm holding my tone.

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More is coming.

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So my tone, we can kind of work tone into this slide, too.

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I feel like I haven't seen you.

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More is coming.

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And now we're gonna get onto our next thought group in such a long time.

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So let's look at how these play out. In such.

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Now these are just two consonants linking together.

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So there's no magical rule about this.

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It's just practicing the movement from the N to the such. In such.

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in such now such a cha that's a consonant vowel link in such a

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long we don't want to release this this kind of ng sound

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so that is gonna we're gonna close our mouths like we're going to say long

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but we're never gonna say that we're gonna say long

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and then go right into time in such a long time in such a long time

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and here my tone is going to drop

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because i have a period i'm finished with this thought completely

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i feel like i haven't seen you in such a long

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time okay now we have our what have you been up

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to now what have you just smush together we have some reductions

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and a lot of linking happening here what of

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so the t becomes a d right what of what of

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what of view the v from the have attaches to you

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we have a consonant vowel link what have you what have you been up

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so consonant vowel link n attaches to up what have you been up to don't release

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that stop consonant p close your mouth like you're going to make a p

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and then go right into our t sound what have you been up to what have you been up to

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and my tone falls because this is a WH question.

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What have you been up to?

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Up to.

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Now, pitch goes up on up and then drops on to, right, because up is our strongest stress.

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What have you been up to?

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Now, hey, Katie comes in with her response.

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Hey, long T, not too, not too, not too much, too much.

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Kind of that rounded vowel, too much.

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Kind of easy to go into an M, right?

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M is made with both of our lips.

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Our lips are rounded from that long vowel sound right into the M.

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Not too much.

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Not too much.

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And we drop our tone because that was the end, right?

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I'm going to go into a new thought.

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Kind of ended my sentence there.

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I've been.

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So here we have two consonants.

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We just have to practice our mouth moving from a v

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to a b i've been i've been i've been

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trying again n to t i've been trying been trying i've been trying trying to

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but this is going to reduce to i've been trying to I've been trying, trying to, I've been trying to learn.

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I've been trying to learn.

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My tone is holding, kind of goes up almost a little bit because more is coming.

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I've been trying to learn how to.

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Now here, the T becomes a D sound because I'm kind of between two stressed things.

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The how and the re, right?

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The re is kind of emphasized the rewire.

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So that T in two, it becomes a D sound and two reduces to da.

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How to.

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I've been trying to learn how to, how to,

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how to rewire so that r in wire is going to connect to un rewire run old

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so we have two skips there the n goes on to old how to rewire run old rewire run old

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so run run old that's a tough one can we do

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that in one swoop how to rewire an old lamp don't

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release your D old lamp how to rewire an old lamp

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now I dropped too far we don't want to drop our tone all the way

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because more is coming how to rewire an old lamp lamp here comes the end rewind old lamp

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I bought at a thrift store.

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So that T, bought, becomes a D sound.

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Bought at a.

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Bought at a.

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Bought at a.

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And that D attaches to our vowel.

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Bought at a.

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Thrift store.

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Again, with thrift store, I don't say that T at all.

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Doesn't become a D, it just is deleted.

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all right I bought I bought at a thrift store bought dad thrift store there we have it

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and thrift store

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so we put this whole thing together hey Katie how's it

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going I feel like I haven't seen you in such a

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long time what have you been up to hey not too

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much I've been trying to learn how to rewire an old lamp I bought at a thrift store.

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That is everything.

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Okay.

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So everything's combined.

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We have all of our links and reductions.

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We talked a little bit about tone.

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We worked that in there too.

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So I hope that this was helpful going through this together.

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This is a process.

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Okay.

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So this is something that comes with a lot of practice, a lot of time, a lot of listening, But now that you are aware of these things,

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start to pay attention to them when you're listening to, you know, TED Talks or watching television or interacting with native speakers in real life.

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Pay attention to their speech.

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Pay attention to their pausing, their tone, their stress.

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Listen for links, you know, listen for reductions and your ears will get better at hearing it.

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And eventually, you know, you feel confident and your English becomes fluent enough, you can start to try to incorporate some of it into your speaking as well.

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All right.

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Keep practicing until I see you again.

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