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One of the things that makes American English sound so natural and so fast is linking.

And today, we’ve invited Tom Kelley, who’s a standout Rachel’s English teacher, to teach you a lesson.

He’s going to take a single sentence from the TV show, Madam Secretary. And he’s going to do a full analysis.

He’s going to analyze the rhythm for you, the intonation, and the linking.

Each link, how does each word flow into the next word? He’s also going to do a sound analysis.

This entire lesson, one sentence, takes over 15 minutes. How does Tom do it? How does he go so much in-depth?

Well, when you’re done with this, I promise you’ll be able to say this sentence absolutely perfectly.

But also, on top of that, you’ll have the tools that you need to be able to do a sentence analysis yourself,

to really change the way you hear English, so that you can start speaking English even more naturally.

Tom, thank you so much for this lesson. We’re going to get to him in just a second, but first,

if you haven’t subscribed please do with notifications. We make new videos every Tuesday

and we’d love to see you back here. Okay, Tom. Take it away.

Hi! I’m Tom Kelley, a Rachel’s English teacher with Rachel’s English Academy.

Today, we’re going to analyze and practice with a single sentence

and get an enormous amount of information out of it.

I’m going to teach you a technique that you can use on your own

as you work on your American English pronunciation.

It covers the major concepts of pronunciation like music,

rhythm, reductions, linking, and how specific sounds in words are pronounced.

That’s pretty much everything right? Right. So let’s get started.

The sentence we’ll be practicing is from the first episode of the television show “Madam Secretary”.

Let’s watch and listen.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Seems simple enough. Six words.

We absolutely did the right thing.

What makes this sound like natural American English?

We absolutely did the right thing.

I’m moving smoothly from one sound to the next, keeping everything connected.

this connected quality combined with the intonation of the voice, creates the music of American English.

A great way to hear the music of a sentence is to listen to the sentence three or four times in a row.

Let’s try that with this.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Can you hear it?

What do you hear as the peak of the sentence? The syllable that is most stressed

by being highest in pitch, and using the most vocal energy?

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

I hear it as the third syllable of ‘absolutely’.

Absolutely.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

When you’re listening for the music, it can be helpful to listen for the peak, the most stressed syllable.

Another practice tool you can use is to practice just the music of a sentence using the UH as in butter vowel.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Uuuhh…

Uuuhh…

We absolutely did the right thing.

Uuuhh…

Do you hear that music? Let’s slow it down.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Try and imitate it with me.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Uuhhhhh…

We absolutely did the right thing.

Uuhhhhh…

Now at regular pace.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Uuuhh…

Uuuhh…

Now try and say the sentence using that same music.

Uhhhh…

We absolutely did the right thing.

It might feel pretty difficult to do, but let’s keep analyzing and see if it gets easier by the end.

The important thing right now is that you can hear it.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Uuuhhh…

We absolutely did the right thing.

Now, let’s move on to the rhythm of the sentence.

We absolutely did the right thing.

When you study the rhythm of American English, you want to think about using both stressed

and unstressed syllables in your speech.

Depending on your native language, you may have trouble creating contrast between your syllables.

English is a stress-timed language, so some syllables are longer than others.

If you come from a syllable-timed language, where all of the syllables are the same length,

this can be quite a challenge.

Let’s take a look at this sentence and determine which syllables are stressed and which are not.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Stressed syllables are longer, they often slide up in the voice and then down, uuhhh.

We call that the shape of stress, uuhhh, uuhhh, uuhhh.

And they use more vocal energy, making them a little easier to understand.

Knowing that, how many stressed syllables do you hear?

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

I hear 5 stressed syllables.

The first and third syllables of ‘absolutely’ and the three one-syllable words: ‘did, right, and thing’.

All of those syllables are a little longer and clearer than the others.

We absolutely did the right thing.

If you look up the word ‘absolutely’ - you’ll notice that the first syllable is actually a secondary stressed syllable.

You can hear that in the way the third syllable slides up a little higher in pitch,

making it the primary stressed syllable in the word, and as we discussed earlier,

it is actually the primary stressed syllable in the entire phrase. The peak of the sentence musically.

Absolutely

Absolutely

Absolutely did the right thing.

All right. What does that leave us with? Our unstressed syllables.

‘We’ is unstressed and spoken very quickly.

We absolutely– we, we, we, We absolutely–

The second and fourth syllables of ‘absolutely’ are unstressed.

Absolutely. So– ly– So– ly– Absolutely.

And the word THE is unstressed and reduced to just the voiced TH consonant

followed by the schwa. The, the, the.

Now, let’s practice just the rhythm of this word using the sound ‘da’ - for stressed syllables we’ll say DA

using a D consonant and the AH as in FATHER vowel.

Whenever practicing stressed syllables we want to practice the shape of stress, as well.

DA-DA

For unstressed syllables, we use the D consonant again but this time, followed by a schwa.

da, da.

This will be quicker and will be flatter in pitch and will use less vocal energy.

Da. Da. So we have stressed syllables: DA. DA.

And unstressed: da. Da. DA. Da. DA. Da.

We decided that ‘we’ was unstressed, so the rhythm of this sentence starts out as: da, da.

Then ‘absolutely’ has secondary stress on the first syllable, an unstressed second syllable,

primary stress on the third syllable, and the fourth syllable is also unstressed.

So that would sound like this:

da-da-DA-da.

Da-da-DA-da.

So the first two words together, We absolutely, We absolutely, would be:

da-DA-da-DA-da.

Da-DA-da-DA-da.

We absolutely.

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

Da-DA-da-DA-da.

We absolutely–

Then have ‘did’ - this is stressed, so there’s another ‘DA’.

‘The’ is unstressed, right? Da-da. So there we have: da-da.

Next, we have the word ‘right’ and ‘thing’. They’re both stressed, so they are both DA.

DA-DA.

So, ‘did the right thing’, ‘did the right thing’ would be: DA-da-DA-DA.

DA-da-DA-DA.

Did the right thing.

Did the right thing.

Did the right thing.

Now, let’s try to put it all together:

We absolutely did the right thing.

Da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-DA.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-DA.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-DA.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-DA.

Can you hear the rhythm in the sentence now?

Hopefully you can hear it a bit more clearly.

Now, one way you can enhance your ability to feel and hear the rhythm

is to practice what the sentence would sound like if all of the syllables were stressed,

or if all of the syllables were unstressed.

This can help you feel the contrast between the two.

Here is the sentence with all syllables stressed next to the sentence spoken normally.

WE ABSOLUTELY DID THE RIGHT THING.

WE ABSOLUTELY DID THE RIGHT THING.

Versus:

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

WE ABSOLUTELY DID THE RIGHT THING.

We absolutely did the right thing.

WE ABSOLUTELY DID THE RIGHT THING.

We absolutely did the right thing.

WE ABSOLUTELY DID THE RIGHT THING.

We absolutely did the right thing.

And here is the sentence with all unstressed syllables next to the sentence spoken normally.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Do you hear the difference there?

Over time, that difference will become clearer and clearer.

Okay, what’s left to analyze? We’ve looked at music, rhythm, including reductions,

but we haven’t taken a look at linking and specific sounds yet.

All right. Let’s analyze the linking in this sentence.

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

These two words link together using vowel to vowel linking.

The unstressed EE vowel of ‘we’ links into the secondary stressed first syllable of ‘absolutely’

which is an AA as in BAT vowel.

Let’s listen:

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

Do you hear how there is a bit of a Y consonant sound that helps to link the EE vowel to the AA as in Bat vowel?

‘We Yaa, We Yaa’, ‘We absolutely.’ We absolutely-

This is common when the vowel sound the comes first has a tongue position that is high in the mouth.

For the EE as in SHE vowel, the tongue is arched in the middle, so as it moves into the AA as in BAT vowel,

you will hear a slight Y consonant sound.

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

Next we have: ‘Absolutely did’ - these two words link together using vowel to consonant linking.

This is considered one of the easier types of linking, because you simply move

from the previous vowel sound directly into whatever consonant sound follows.

In this case, you have the unstressed EE as in SHE vowel of ‘absolutely’

linking into the D consonant sound of ‘did’.

We absolutely did–

Next: ‘did the’.

Here, we go from one of the easier types of linking to one of the more difficult.

This is consonant to consonant linking.

But in this case, we are linking from the ending consonant of ‘did’

into the voiced TH consonant of the reduced ‘the, the’.

Let’s listen to what he does here.

Did the–

Did the–

Did the–

It’s a little tricky to hear, but he uses an Unreleased D here.

The D consonant is a Stop Consonant - and there are two parts to a stop consonant.

The first part is stopping the air flow, and the second part is releasing the air flow.

So, in this example, did the, did the, the second D is not released.

We have the vibration of the vocal cords, making the D sound, but then it goes right into the next sound.

So the tongue still comes up behind the upper teeth, and the vocal cords vibrate for the D consonant,

but instead of releasing into a True D sound, we move on immediately into the voiced TH consonant.

Here it is in slow motion, which is a little easier to hear:

Did the–

did the–

did the–

did the–

did the–

did the–

Of course, it happens much more quickly when speaking, but that is the sound that it is in slow motion.

Did the–

Here it is more quickly:

Did the–

You do hear the beginning of a D consonant, did, the voiced part, did, but you don’t hear the release.

Did the, did the.

Linking stop consonants in this way allows us to speak more smoothly.

If we released the D consonant, our speech would get a little choppier:

Did the–

Did the–

Did the–

Do you hear the difference?

Did the–

Did the–

Did the–

Did the–

Did the–

Okay, what’s next: ‘the right’.

What kind of linking does this look like to you?

‘The right’.

It’s vowel to consonant, the schwa of the reduced THE links directly into the R consonant of ‘right’.

The right–

The right–

Okay, last one: ‘right thing’.

The type of linking here?

Consonant to consonant again.

The T of ‘right’ links into the unvoiced TH of ‘thing’.

This time the T of ‘right’ is pronounced as a Stop T to create a smoother linked quality:

right thing, right thing.

Since the T is an unvoiced consonant, you won’t hear that voiced quality like we did with the D in ‘did the’.

Because of that, you don’t need to bring the tongue up behind the teeth for the Stop T.

Instead, you can simply stop the air in your throat using what we call a glottal stop.

Right, right, right, right thing–

Right thing–

This makes it easier to immediately release the air into the unvoiced TH consonant.

Let’s hear the difference between releasing the T and stopping the T:

right thing, right thing, versus right thing,

Right thing.

It’s much smoother using the Stop T.

Right thing–

Alright, let’s hear the whole thing, all linked and connected:

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Awesome!

We’ve covered almost everything.

The last thing to take a look at are the specific sounds in each of the words.

Now, we’ve already done some of this by looking at linking and reduction.

But let’s talk through the sentence from beginning to end:

We - this is one of our unstressed syllables and uses a W consonant sound and the unstressed EE vowel. We. We.

Which links into the AA as in BAT vowel of the secondary stressed syllable of ‘absolutely’.

The AA vowel is followed by a B consonant that is barely released as it moves into an S consonant, Abs–

followed by a schwa sound, followed by a Light L which begins the primary stressed syllable ‘lu’.

Absolu– The Light L is followed by the OO as in BOO vowel, Absolu– which is followed by a Stop T,

which releases into an L consonant and finishes with an unstressed EE vowel.

Absolutely–

absolutely–

We absolutely–

Now, I’m going to play the clip of ‘we absolutely’

and I want you to listen to the clip and there there will be a space for you to repeat it three times.

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

We absolutely–

Great. Now, let’s look at the end of the sentence.

The unstressed EE of ‘absolutely’ links into the D consonant of ‘did’.

The D consonant is followed by an IH as in SIT vowel, followed by the Unreleased D consonant sound

that we talked about earlier. Did, did.

This links into the voiced TH consonant sound of ‘the’.

The voiced TH consonant is followed by a schwa sound in the reduced ‘the’.

Did the– Did the–

That schwa links into the R consonant of ‘right’.

Right. The R consonant is followed by an AI as in BUY diphthong, followed by a Stop T.

Did the right–

Did the right–

Which links into the unvoiced TH of ‘thing’.

The TH is followed by the IH as in SIT vowel, which is followed by an NG consonant. Thing.

Did the right thing.

Did the right thing.

Now, we’ll play that part of the clip and repeat three times.

Did the right thing.

Did the right thing.

Did the right thing.

And now let’s do the entire sentence, you’ll hear the clip and there will be a space for your own repetition.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

And that’s it. Wow! Well done. That’s a lot of information about one six-word sentence.

Now, let’s listen to the sentence a few more times and see if you can hear the music,

the rhythm, the linking, the reduction, and specific sounds in a new way.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

We absolutely did the right thing.

Hopefully, something about this sentence is new for you.

That is the great thing about these kind of in-depth analyses.

They help you hear words and phrases in new ways.

So often the thing that keeps students from improving their pronunciation

is the fact that they feel like they already know how to say certain things -

not realizing that the way they are saying some words is very different from a native speaker.

You wouldn’t need to do ALL of this analysis to gain something from it.

You could just use the Rhythm Pattern analysis, or the specific sound analysis, or the music analysis.

Any of it, or all of it, will help you feel more confident as you speak.

This sentence analysis technique helps you listen to English in a deep, possibly new way.

At first, this technique may seem overwhelming. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes to hear the music,

feel the rhythm and name the types of linking that are being used to create the smooth

and fluent quality of English we’re all aiming for.

Take a sentence from your favorite TV show and do this same analysis.

I guarantee that if you do this, you’ll be able to imitate that sentence

with more precision and sound more like a native speaker.

Good luck with this, and happy practicing!

And thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Wow, that was a lot of work. Thank you Tom, for showing us this method.