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Where did you get those flowers? I got them at the farmer's market.
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Did you notice how I pronounced the word 'them'? I dropped the TH entirely. 'Em, 'em. This
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is great news for people who have a hard time with the TH. In this American English pronunciation
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video, I'm going to go over the pronunciation of the word 'them' in conversation.
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There are lots of words in American English that will sound different when they're part
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of a sentence than they do on their own. 'Them' is one of these words. The word 'them' on
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its own is pronounced with the voiced TH, th, th, tongue tip just through the teeth,
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the-, the 'eh' as in 'bed' vowel. So the jaw will have to drop quite a bit for that: the-
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the-. And finally, the M consonant. Them, mm, mm, mm. Lips come together to make that
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sound. Them. But, as part of a sentence, the vowel will reduce to the schwa. Them, them.
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All of a sudden, the word is very short, them, and very flat---them, them---compared to before:
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them, them. But, it can reduce even further. We can drop the TH and have just 'em, 'em,
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'em. The schwa and the M sound. As always, when you reduce a word, you have to link it
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to the words around, so let's look at some example sentences.
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I'll take them with me. Take 'em, take 'em. So, the K sound is linking right up to that
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schwa. Take 'em, take 'em. I'll take them with me. I'll get them later. Get 'em, get
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'em. Do you notice that the T here is not a true T? It's a flap T. Why? Because when
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we connect the schwa-M sound, the T now comes between two vowels. Get 'em, get 'em. I'll
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get 'em later. I gave them to you last night. Gave 'em, gave 'em, gave 'em. Again, no break
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between the V and the schwa. Gave 'em. I gave them to you last night. You can have them.
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Have 'em, have 'em, have 'em. You can have them. We can buy them later. Buy 'em, buy
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'em, buy 'em. We can buy them later.
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Reducing a word and linking it to the words around is a great opportunity to smooth out
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your speech and sound more American. So don't be afraid to pronounce 'them' this way. That's
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it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.
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Don't stop there. Have fun with my real-life English videos. Or get more comfortable with
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the IPA in this play list. Learn about the online courses I offer, or check out my latest
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video.
