ملاقات با والدین من!

Meet My Parents!

In this American English pronunciation video, you’re going to meet my parents.

Now, I’ve been spending a lot of time teaching you English, and I thought it would be fun to show you who taught me English. These are my parents Rita and Stan.

Rita. Notice we have a flap T there, because the T is coming between two vowel sounds.

-ta, -ta, Rita. Stan. Now here we have the AA as in BAT vowel followed by the N consonant.

When this vowel is followed by the N or the M consonant, we get an extra sound. Aa-uu, uu, an uh-like sound before the nasal consonant.

Stan, Stan, Stan.

These are my parents Rita and Stan.

Hello.

So guys, do you remember what my first word was?

I remember your brother’s first word.

Ok. So, I’m the youngest of two. Clearly I’m not a memorable child because the first one is the more interesting one.

His first word was ‘hi’.

Hi.

And, I don’t remember Rachel’s first word, but once she started speaking, she never stopped.

That’s true.

So you don’t remember my first word either?

It was probably ‘mama’.

But you don’t actually know.

I don’t actually know.

Ok.

The pronunciation of this word is four syllables, and with the CH consonant sound. Actually.

But I notice both my Mom and I here pronounced it actually. We’re reducing the word by substituting the CH with a SH sound, that has no stop; we’re making it a little bit smoother. And we’re dropping the schwa syllable altogether. Actually.

Actually.

But you don’t actually know.

I don’t actually know. Ok.

They’re trying to think of something cute that I might have said to tell you guys. But my Mom said:

I can think of something cute your brother said.

Yeah. See? It’s terrible.

Well, I remember doing lots of things with you.

Right. No, it’s fine.

I remember riding you to school on the handlebars of my bike.

Yeah. That hurt. I always wished that he would buy an actual seat to put on the bike.

One thing I remember is sending off a card three days before she left for summer camp so she would receive a card on the first day of summer camp.

Yeah. That was nice. I used to go away for two weeks, and Mom was very good about sending cards and also treats.

Well, thanks Mom and Dad so much for being willing to meet my Rachel’s English audience.

One last thing I want to say about them is tomorrow is their 45th wedding anniversary.

So, happy anniversary, guys!

Thank you!

Are you ok?

Yeah.

This is my favorite uncle John. This is my dad’s older brother. Isn’t he cute? John, this is Rachel’s English.

Hi Rachel’s English. How are you? Rachel comes from a very talkative family.

Yeah. We, we all talk a lot.

Yeah.

It makes sense that I’m doing what I’m doing.

Right. I’m the quietest one I think.

Yeah, probably. And he’s not that quiet.