you'll be able to understand American movies and TV effortlessly, without subtitles.

Today's video uses the trailer for the movie Top Gun: Maverick.

You know, this movie was supposed to be out this month for a summer blockbuster, but because

of the coronavirus, it got pushed back to December. We'll see what happens.

We're going to go as in-depth as we can on the way Americans speak, how they speak,

so you'll not only be able to understand everything, but you're going to understand what Americans do

with English, in a way that will allow you to imitate perfectly. You might be the next Tom Cruise.

Maybe so, sir.

We're going to be doing this all summer.

June through August, stick with me every Tuesday, they're all great scenes and there's going to be so

much to learn that can transform the way you speak and understand English.

And as always, if you like this video or you learn something, please like and subscribe with notifications.

You're going to watch the clip then we're going to do a full pronunciation analysis together.

This is going to help so much with your listening comprehension

when it comes to watching English movies in TV. But there's going to be a training section.

You're going to take what you've just learned and practice repeating it, doing a reduction, flapping a T,

just like you learned in analysis. Okay, here's the scene.

Thirty plus years of service. Combat medals. Citations.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Yet you can' get a promotion, you won't retire.

Despite your best efforts, you refuse to die.

You should be at least a two-star admiral by now.

Yet you are here.

Captain.

Why is that?

It's one of life's mysteries, sir.

The end is inevitable, Maverick. Your kind is headed for extinction.

Maybe so, sir.

But not today.

And now the analysis.

Thirty plus years of service.

Okay to start, let's go ahead and write out thirty and plus. It would almost always be written this way

with the digit and then the plus sign, but as we talked about the sounds, we'll write it out.

Now you probably noticed that the T in thirty is a flap T.

This follows the rules in that it comes after an R before a vowel. Like in dirty, this is a T that we would flap.

So rather than being ttt, a true T, the tongue simply flaps against the roof of the mouth. Thirty da-da-da thirty.

Thirty. Thirty. Thirty plus--

Thirty plus--

Thirty plus--

And we have first syllable stress on thirty.

Thirty, so stressed, then unstressed, the ending unstressed EE sound. Thirty plus--

Thirty plus-- thirty plus-- thirty plus years of service.

Some stress on plus, then we also have stress on years, and ser--vice.

So of and --vice, are both unstressed. Thirty plus years of service.

Thirty plus years of service.

Thirty plus years of service.

Thirty plus years of service.

Thirty plus years of service. So those are our longer syllables with the up-down shape of stress.

The other syllables are going to be shorter, but everything links together we don't want to feel

any separation between the words. Thirty plus years of service, would not be natural sounding American English.

We need this contrast and then we also need the linking. Thirty plus years of service. No breaks there.

Thirty plus years of service.

Thirty plus years of service.

Thirty plus years of service.

Combat medals.

Okay, now in this little two-word phrase, you tell me what are the most stressed syllables?

Combat medals.

Combat medals.

Combat medals.

Combat medals. The most stress probably on combat, the adjective here describing the kind of medal.

Combat medals. And then also some stress on the noun. Combat medals. The second syllable of combat

is unstressed, it has a stop T, bat bat bat, because the next word begins with a consonant.

So again, the T is not released. Combat medals. Medals.

Combat medals.

Combat medals.

Combat medals.

This D can also be a flap just like thirty, medals, rararara, because it comes between two vowel sounds.

Here, it's the EH as in bed vowel and then the schwa L combination. Medals, medals, medals. Combat medals.

The vowel here in the unstressed syllable is AH, but we don't want it to be AA,

that would be stressed, we want it to be ah, ah, combat, combat medals.

Combat medals.

Combat medals.

Combat medals. Citations.

Citations. Do you feel how it's that middle syllable that's stressed? Citations.

The letter A here is TAY, the AY as in say diphthong. That letter A can have several different pronunciations.

Here it's: ay, ay, citations. The letter C makes the S sound.

Citations.

Citations.

Citations.

The letter I makes the AI diphthong. The letter I, so many of the letters, almost all of the letters in American English

can have various different pronunciations, which makes English so hard you can't necessarily tell

the pronunciation by looking at it. Citations. SH schwa N, and then Z, a weak ending Z sound.

Citations.

Citations.

Citations.

Citations.

The stress is really important in American English. We want to know what stressed, and what's unstressed,

so that we can feel that we make a peak on that stressed syllable. We definitely don't want all syllables

to feel the same. Citations. That would have the right pitch, but not the right rhythm.

It's not DA-DA-DA but it's da-DA-da. The first one is very short and the last one is very short. Citations. Citations.

Citations.

Citations.

Citations.

Also I should point out this T in ta-- is a true T because it starts a stressed syllable.

So if a T starts a stressed syllable, and it's not part of the TR cluster, then it will be a true T. Tay, tay, citations.

Citations.

Citations.

Citations.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Okay, now we have a much longer phrase. I want you to listen to it a few times and see

what you think is the most stressed word.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

I hear it is the last word. In the last forty years-- years-- he sort of holds on to the beginning Y consonant a little bit.

Years. Draws out the length and it definitely has that up-down shape. Now certainly, we have other syllables

that are stressed in the sentence, but I think this is the most stressed in the phrase.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Let's look at our other stressed syllables and do we have any reductions?

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last forty years.

Everything links together really smoothly. So let's take it bit by bit.

Only man to shoot down--

Only man to shoot down--

Only man to shoot down--

Only man to shoot down-- So we have stress on OH. Only man-- not on the word 'to', that's a preposition,

usually not going to be stressed. Shoot and down, both have some stress and length.

Did you notice that the word 'to' wasn't pronounced 'to' it was reduced. Man to-- man to--

Flap T or a D sound and the schwa. Man to-- man to-- only man to--

Only man to--

shoot down--

I have a friend named Amanda, and we often as a nickname, as a way to shorten it, call her just 'Manda'.

Manda. And it sounds just like these two words together: man to-- Manda, Manda, Manda,

when you make that a flap T.

Only man to--

shoot down--

Only man to shoot down--

Only man to shoot down--

So we have two letters T here. The first one is a flap T, or it's sort of like a D sound, and then the second T

is a stop T. Shoot down. Which means we stop the air, but we don't release the T, that would be shoot down.

We definitely don't hear that. It's just shoot down, shoot down.

Shoot down--

Now a word of caution with the word down, a lot of my students, especially students whose native language is

Chinese, but not just those students, have a hard time with the word down. It's the OW diphthong,

OW, plus the N consonant. And they kind of mix the N into the diphthong and nasalize it. Down.

We don't want that at all. We want it to be completely un-nasal in the diphthong.

Dow-- Dow-- Dow-- nnn-- Dow-- nnn--

And then you can practice it that way splitting off the N, make sure you're not going down,

and mixing the two into a nasal diphthong sound. Down, down, shoot down.

Shoot down-- shoot down-- shoot down three enemy planes.

Then we have three words, and they're all stressed, so we have quite a few words and syllables that are

stressed in this sentence. Three enemy planes. I want to point out that even in a stressed word,

if it has more than one syllable, it will have unstressed syllables. So the only syllable stressed here is EH.

Enemy. Nemy. Nemy. Nemy. Then the rest of the syllables are unstressed and said very quickly.

Three enemy.

Three enemy.

Three enemy.

Three enemy.

Now, we have a vowel to vowel link here. We have the EE vowel in three and the EH vowel in enemy.

Some students feel like they need to split that up a little bit to make it clear, the change between words,

you don't need to do that in English. And we don't want you to do that. We want it to glide together smoothly.

Three enemy. Three enemy.

If you have a hard time linking them together, it can help to think of, in this particular case, with this particular link,

a Y consonant. So you could think of the word as being yenemy, three enemy, three enemy, three enemy.

If you link it together, that might help you smooth it out you don't want to make a very big heavy Y,

but a little light Y glide consonant to link those two words together,

might help you make a smooth transition.

Three enemy.

Let's talk a little bit about the consonant cluster here. It's TH unvoiced and R consonant.

Thr, thr, thr, thr, thr, thr. His TH almost has like a T quality in it. I think when I listen to it on repeat.

But it's definitely not: three, three, three, that's something that a lot of non-native speakers do, they substitute in TR

instead of THR and then it sounds like a tree, you know, like, oh, a tree. But we don't want to be saying tree.

We want to be saying three , three , three. So let your tongue tip come lightly through your teeth,

don't build up the air, don't put pressure there, don't bite on the tongue at all, that will make it sound more like a T.

We want th-- the easy passage of air. Three, three, three enemy planes.

Three enemy planes-

in the last forty years.

In the last forty years. So in and the, both said so incredibly quickly.

Let's just listen to: in the last--

in the last--

I actually think it sounds like the TH is dropped. In the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the.

It's just IH as in sit, N linking right into the schwa. In the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the.

You can only do this if you do it very, very quickly. It's low in pitch, it's low in volume, try that.

In the, in the, in the, in the. You should be able to do it without moving your jaw at all.

Your lips, your face, should be totally relaxed, the only thing moving is the tongue inside the mouth.

You want to take away all the extra movement that

you don't need so that you can say this as quickly as you need to. In the, in the, in the, in the last forty years.

The last forty years.

The last forty years.

The last forty years.

Okay, again, we're going to write out the word 'forty'.

Our T again is a flap T because it comes after an R and before a vowel.

The vowel is the EE as in she vowel. Forty, forty, forty. Thirty, thirty, thirty.

These all have a flap T which can sound like a D. Dadadada forty forty.

Forty--

years.

Now we have some stressed words other than years, let's listen to the phrase again:

In the last forty years--

In the, in the, last forty, and then we've already marked years. So the unstressed syllable of forty is unstressed.

We have stress in the word last with the AA vowel. Notice the T is dropped there.

It's very common to drop the T in an ending cluster like ST when the next word begins with a consonant,

the next word begins with F, so we're gonna drop that T to smoothly connect. Last forty, last forty.

Last forty--