How to Pronounce Ending T Clusters + Homophones

How to Pronounce Ending T Clusters + Homophones

Hey guys!

Here with my friend Laura in Massachusetts, and we’re going to make bagels.

A very New York thing.

And, as you know, I live in New York, but I’ve never made these before.

So this video

isn’t actually about making bagels, it’s about American English pronunciation.

And, will you just confirm that this is accurate? Just by reading it.

So I’m going to put four and a half teaspoons of yeast in, right?

Yes, that is correct.

Let’s take a look at a T

in an ending consonant cluster.

In the phrase ‘just confirm’, the T was dropped.

In the phrase ‘just by’, the T was dropped.

In the phrase ‘yeast in’, we heard the T.

We also heard the T in the word ‘correct’.

What’s going on here?

If the T comes between two consonant sounds, like it did in the first two phrases, native speakers will often drop the T.

This is true of the D sound as well.

Just confirm, just by, yeast in, correct.

Let’s listen again.

And, will you just confirm that this is accurate?

Just by reading it.

So I’m going to put four and a half teaspoons of yeast in, right?

Yes, that is correct.

And then we need the sugar.

Which we already decided

was two and a half teaspoons.

Did you notice that I dropped the L sound in the word ‘already’. Aaaw-ready.

I just used the vowel.

I’ve noticed that I and other native speakers do this with ‘already’ and ‘alright’.

Listen to a few more cases

from our baking day.

Which we already decided was two and a half teaspoons.

Alright.

Alright.

Alright, four more.

We need to add two cups of flour.

‘Flour’ is a homophone.

We bake with flour,

but a flower grows on a tree or a bush.

We need to add two cups of flour.

And I bought just the perfect amount of flour.

‘Just the’. Did you notice?

The T was dropped in ‘just’

because the next sound was a consonant.

And I bought just

the perfect amount of flour.

So this needs to be three minutes.

Do we need to be …

Oh yeah. Let that stand for three minutes.

And I took the clock out of the room because it was so freaking loud.

Don’t you have a watch on?

Did you notice that

Laura dropped the H in ‘have’?

This is a common reduction.

Dropping the H in function words ‘have’, ‘had’, ‘her’, ‘his’.

You have a, you have a.

Don’t you have a watch on?

Don’t you have a watch on?

No, but my iPad says…

It does say,

“Add additional flour if needed.”

I’m saying, I need it.

Do you want me to get some regular flour?

I got it right here.

Ok. Yeah. It seems that you do need it.

Yeah.

And I don’t mean ‘knead it’.

No, you mean the other ‘need’!

Yeah!

Another homophone. ‘Need’ and ‘knead’.

Different spellings, different meanings, but pronounced the same.

I’m saying, I need it.

We’re going to knead it. [3x] So, the bagels rested.

Quietly, they were behaving very well.

For four minutes,

and now we’re making the hole.

For four.

Did you hear how I reduced

the function word ‘for’ to ‘fer’, but I did not reduce the content word ‘four’, for four.

For four minutes,

and now we’re making the hole.

Ok. Where are your hot pads?

Third drawer down.

Where are your.

That’s a lot of schwa/R sounds.

I reduced ‘are’ to ‘er’, and ‘your’ to ‘yer’.

But I still made it sound like three different syllables by reemphasizing the R sound for the second syllable.

Where are, where are, where are, where are your, where are your.

Where are your hot pads?

Third drawer down.

We are taking an egg white, separated from the yolk.

Another homophone.

‘Yolk’, with the letter L, is the yellow, is the yellow, middle part of an egg.

The other yoke is this.

Something you can use to attach animals to a cart or something similar.

…separated from the yolk, and brushing it on the bagels.

Because not only does it give it a shine, but if you want to add some toppings to it, like onion flakes,

you can do that and it sticks that way.

Because it’s kind of sticky.

Just like most sentences

in conversational American English, there were a lot of reductions there.

‘Want to’ became ‘wanna’. If you wanna add.

‘Can’ was reduced to ‘kn’. You can do that.

‘Because’ was reduced to ‘cuz’. Cuz it’s.

We contracted ‘it is’ to ‘it’s’, cuz it’s.

‘Kind of’ became ‘kinda’.

But if you want to add some toppings to it, like onion flakes,

you can do that and it sticks that way.

Because it’s kind of sticky.

I had a lot of fun making these bagels, and making this pronunciation lesson for you.

What do you want to see me bake next?

Let me know in the comments below.

That’s it, and thanks so much for watching Rachel’s English.

Close. It’s ‘using’ Rachel’s English, but that’s good.

Oh.