And this summer, we're going to use those movies to learn English and study how to sound American.

Every video this summer is going to be a study English with movies video.

We’ll pull scenes from the summer's hottest movies as well as favorite movies from years past.

It's amazing what we can discover by studying even a small bit of English dialogue.

We’ll study how to understand movies, what makes Americans sound American, and of course,

any interesting vocabulary, phrasal verbs, or idioms that come up in the scenes we study.

I call this kind of exercise a Ben Franklin exercise.

First, we'll watch the scene.

Then, we'll do an in-depth analysis of what we hear together. This is going to be so much fun.

Be sure to tell your friends and spread the word that all summer long, every Tuesday,

we're studying English with movies here at Rachel's English.

If you're new to my channel, click subscribe and don't forget the notification button.

Let's get started. First, the scene.

This is space.

It does not cooperate.

At some point, everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south, and you're going to say, ‘this is it, this is how I end.’

Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work.

That's all it is.

You just begin.

You do the math. You solve one problem,

then you solve the next one,

and then the next, and if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.

Now, the analysis.

This is space.

A little three-word thought group. What are the stressed words there?

This is space.

This is space.

This is space.

The stress pattern is: da-DA-da. Stressed, unstressed, stressed. This is space.

This is space.

This is space.

This is space.

We have an ending S: this is-- it links right into the next vowel,

then we have a Z sound in ‘is’, and an S sound in ‘space’. What happens? Can you hear it?

This is space.

This is space.

This is space.

It's subtle. But what I would say is, you don't need to try to make the Z sound.

This is space. This is space.

I think you can just make the S. And I would say this is true of any time word ends in a Z,

when that syllable is unstressed, and the next word begins in an S.

Another common example of this would be 'has'.

That S is actually a Z sound, and if I was linking that into the word 'space', she has space,

she has space, has space, I would just make an S sound.

S and Z are a pair, they go together because they have the same mouth position, and S is unvoiced,

and that's considered strong. Z is voiced and that's considered a weaker sound,

and so the stronger sound S takes over that Z, sort of cancels it out.

So, try that. I think it will make it easier for you. This is space.

To think of just making an IH vowel linking into the S rather than trying to make a Z and then an S.

This is space.

This is space.

This is space.

This is space.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate. What do you hear as the most stressed words there?

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

I'm hearing 'not'. It does not cooperate. It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does, it does, it does, it does. A stop T in 'it', these two words a little bit flatter: it does not--,

compared to 'not' which is longer, and has that falling off in the voice. This part of the stress here

is really the part to me that shows it's stressed. The voice has to go up in order to come down.

But it's that downward pitch, that downward fall, this is not-- not--

that shows me, okay, this is stressed. It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

Co-op-- two o's, the first one makes the OH diphthong: Co--,

then the AH as in father. Cooperate. Cooperate.

And a stop T at the end. Actually, we have a stop T here. We have three stop T's.

So for this first T and the second T, the T is a stop T because the next sound is a consonant.

In this last T, the T is a stop T because it ends the thought, the thought group, the sentence.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

How would that sentence sound if I made all of those T's a true T?

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It sounds really different to me. It feels really different. It feels rushed.

We don't take the time to release those true T's because it takes up time, and we don't need it.

It makes it less smooth. There's a little stop in air, a little break and that shows us that it's a T. It does--

that's different from: ih does, ih does-- There, there's no stop but if I say: it does, it it it it it does,

that little break, that little lift, that is the T.

This can be confusing because a lot of people say: well, I don't hear that T. I get it. It's not released

but there's a little break, and that, to us, is the T.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

At some point--

Whoa! Different day, different outfit, important announcement.

Did you know that with this video, I made a free audio lesson that you can download?

In fact, I'm doing this for each one of the YouTube videos I'm making this summer.

All 11 of the Learn English with Movies videos!

So follow this link or find the link in the video description to get your free downloadable audio lesson.

It's where you're going to train all of the things that you've learned about pronunciation in this video.

Back to the lesson.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

It does not cooperate.

At some point--

Now here, we have another T followed by a consonant. Let's see how that's pronounced.

At some point--

At some point--

At some point--

At some point-- at-- at-- it's not released, is it? At-- at-- at-- at-- It's also a stop T.

That's because the next sound is the consonant S.

At some point-- at some point-- at some point--

What about this T? How's that pronounced?

At some point-- at some point-- at some point--

Also not released. At some point-- point--

if it was released, it would sound like this: point, at some point--

but it's not, it's: at some point-- point, point, a little bit of a nasally stop there.

The sound before is the nasal consonant N. At some point. Point-- what if the T was dropped?

Then it would sound like this: at some poin-- poin--

It's not quite that: point, point, that abrupt stop.

That is the T. And the word 'some' is the stressed word in this thought group.

At some point. So let's look at this.

We've studied three little thought groups so far. We've had five T's, and they're all Stop T's.

None of them are true T's. When you stop and study the pronunciation of T's,

you realize that there aren't even that many that are fully pronounced.

Even though when you look up a word in the dictionary, it will probably show just the one symbol

which is this symbol, and that's the symbol for the true T.

So you really have to study how Americans actually pronounce the T

in order to get a natural sounding T pronunciation yourself.

At some point-- at some point--

At some point, everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Let's talk about our stress syllables there, our longest syllables with the up-down shape. What do you hear?

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

I'm hearing the first syllable: everything's going to go south on you.

What does that mean? To go south, that's a direction, right?

If you're looking at a map of the US, it's the downward direction.

So when things go south, what we mean idiomatically is that they start doing very poorly.

So when he says: everything is going to go south on you, that means at some point, when you're in space,

things are going to go really wrong. Your equipment's going to fail, who knows?

Something is going to go poorly. It's going to go south.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Let's look at the rest of the words besides our stressed syllables. What's happening here?

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything is going to go--

Everything is going to go--

Going to go-- pronounced: gonna go. So we have a reduction here: going to-- becomes gonna.

Everything's gonna go south on you. And 'on you' unstressed, flatter in pitch, but no reductions.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south on you.

Everything's going to go south, and you're going to say 'this is it'--

He repeats himself and this time, he's stressing EV even more.

Everything's going to go south-- South has less stress here because he's already talked about what will happen.

Things will go poorly. But now, he's really stressing that everything will go poorly.

So that EV syllable gets the most stress. Another gonna reduction. Going to, gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna.

Practice that right now and can you do it without moving anything except your tongue?

Gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna.

I have my jaw dropped and I'm only using my tongue to say that. Everything's really relaxed. It's the G consonant,

UH as in butter vowel, and schwa.

Gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna. Do it without moving your lips at all.

That will help you stay relaxed. It will help you get the right sounds.

Everything's going to go south--

Everything's going to go south--

Everything's going to go south and you're going to say: this is it--

And you're going to say: this is it--

And you're going to say--

And you're going to say--

And you're going to say--

And you're going to say--

That's all said pretty quickly, isn't it? And is not fully pronounced, it's reduced, its just schwa N.

And you're-- and you're-- and you're--

The words 'you are' contracted, that's reduced, you're-- you're-- you're-- and you're-- and you're--

Going to-- That's reduced, gonna.

So we have three gonna reductions already as he's talking about something in the hypothetical future.

And you're gonna say--

And you're gonna say--

And you're gonna say: 'This is it.'

And you're gonna say: 'This is it.'

So 'say', I would, I would say isn't even stressed.

It's maybe a tiny bit longer, but it's flat in pitch. He doesn't really get into more of that up-down shape

until he gets into the quote: 'This is it.'

And you're gonna say: 'This is it.'

And you're gonna say: 'This is it.'

And you're gonna say: 'This is it.'

And you're gonna say: 'This is it.'

And you're gonna say--

And you're gonna say--

And you're gonna say--

Flat.

This is it.

There, we have the pitch variation. This is it. Stop T.

This is it.

So really after the stressed syllable here of EV, all of this is unstressed, is flatter in pitch,

doesn't really have much of that up-down shape, not a whole lot of inflection, until we get to: this is it.

This is it.

This is it.

This is it.

This is how I end.

This is how I end.

What are the most stressed words there?

This is how I end.

This is how I end.

This is how I end.

This is how I end. I think 'how' and 'end' are a little bit longer, definitely end.

This is, this is, this is.

This and is, said more quickly. This is, this is, this is how. This is how. This is how I end.

And then I also said quickly, unstressed, in a little valley of pitch here.