Good Boys

In the U.S., summer is for sand, sun,

and blockbuster movies.

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 dialog.

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.

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Let’s get started.

First, the scene.

Hey kids, as you know, I am one of the producers

on your movie Good Boys, and unfortunately

I’m here with bad news.

You guys cannot watch the trailer for your own movie.

What?

Are you serious? Come on!

Are you kidding?

It’s just too messed up for kids your age.

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

And although we decided it’s okay for you

to do these things in the movie,

you can’t watch yourself do them in the trailer.

Now, the analysis.

Hey kids.

Hey kids.

Friendly, upbeat,

pitch is a little bit high,

which to me gives it a more friendly tone.

Hey kids.

Hey kids, and the pitch goes up at the end,

because he’s going to keep going.

Hey kids, hey kids.

Hey kids

as you know, I am one of the producers.

As you know, as you know,

and again pitch goes up a little bit,

as you know, I,

and then it links into I which is coming down.

The word as, this vowel can reduce to the schwa,

but I do think I hear it is a pure at the letter a.

The letter S pronounced as a Z and this word,

as, as, as, as,

as you know, as you know.

As you know,

I am one of the producers.

I am one of the producers.

I am one of the producers.

So I and am both have a little bit of length,

as he’s thinking about exactly what to say,

exactly how to deliver this,

I am.

I am one of the producers.

I am one of the producers,

I am one of the producers.

Then we get to one of the producers.

Hey guys, I wanted to pop in here

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Okay, let’s get back to the analysis.

I am one of the producers,

Then we get to one of the producers

and the pace picks up a little bit more,

we have the stress syllables,

one of the pro ducers,

one of the pro ducers,

so one and do have the most stress,

of the, and the first syllable of producers

are said really quickly.

One of the producers,

One of the pro, one of the pro, one of the pro,

of and the, we have the of reduction one-a,

of and the, we have the of reduction one-a,

it’s just the schwa.

The end links right into the schwa,

the schwa links right into the word the,

which is said really quickly,

your tongue tip does not need to come

through the teeth there.

The, the, the, the, the.

You can just make that by having the tongue forward

in the mouth against the backs of the front teeth,

the, the, the, the,

one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the.

And then the first level of producers,

that has the schwa too.

Pro, pro, pro,

one of the pro, one of the pro, one of the produ,

before the voice slows down,

takes more time on that up down shape of du,

the stress syllable of producers.

One of the producers,

on your movie Good Boys.

On your movie Good Boys.

On your movie Good Boys, again,

intonation is going up here, Boys.

And again, that shows he’s not done talking,

he still has more to say about this.

On your movie Good Boys,

In the words on your movie Good Boys,

what’s the most stressed there?

On your movie Good Boys,

On your movie,

little bit of stress there on the noun.

On your movie Good Boys, Good Boys,

a little bit more stress on Good,

and then as I said, Boys,

pitch goes up on your,

said more quickly, a little bit flatter in pitch,

we do have a your reduction, it’s not your,

but it’s pronounced yur, on yur, on yur, on yur.

On your movie Good Boys,

and unfortunately I’m here with bad news.

And unfortunately, and,

okay, usually this word is reduced,

but here it’s not, it’s fully pronounced.

And the a vowel is even a little bit longer,

he holds on to that,

and, and.

and, and.

And, unfortunately,

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.

And unfortunately,

The D almost always dropped,

but I hear it here, it links into the next word,

and-un, and duh duh duh duh.

And unfortunately.

So a fully pronounced and there

as he holds it out, thinks about how to deliver

this bad news.

And unfortunately,

Unfortunately,

a longer word there,

second syllable stress,

un for tunately.

The rest of the syllable is a little bit flatter in pitch,

said more quickly.

This T, do you notice it’s pronounced as a -ch.

Un for ch,

then this T is a stop T,

un for chu nate ly,

un for chu nate ly,

say that with me slowly, we’ll break it up by syllables,

un for chu nate ly,

un for chu nate ly,

unfortunately, unfortunately.

Unfortunately,

I’m here with bad news.

I’m here with bad news.

Here, bad, and news all stressed,

Here, bad, and news all stressed,

all a little bit longer.

I’m and with flatter,

although we don’t have any reductions here,

they are unstressed words,

I’m here with bad news.

I’m here with bad news.

You guys cannot watch the trailer for your own movie.

You guys, a little bit of a break here,

a little bit of a lift,

you guys cannot watch.

He does that tiny break because it brings

more stress to the next word.

If you put a little pause, a tiny break,

it does bring in more stress to the following word,

it cannot, cannot, this is a two syllable word,

stress on the second syllable, cannot,

no, it would be very common to say can’t.

But he wants to stress it.

So he is not reducing it by using a contraction.

You guys cannot watch.

You guys cannot watch.

Cannot watch the trailer for your own movie.

Those are our longer words, our more stressed words.

You and guys, a little bit flatter in pitch,

leading up to the most stress of cannot.

Oh my goodness it’s unbelievable.

The thing with the word cannot,

we think of the word can, right,

because this is the opposite of it.

But we don’t want to take much time with that,

that’s the unstressed syllable,

cannot, we definitely want to stress the negative cannot,

cannot.

We have two n’s.

It’s just a single end sound, can not, cannot.

I actually just did it there with the schwa didn’t I?

You can pronounce it with the schwa in the first syllable,

you cannot do that,

can, can, can.

He’s not reducing it, he is doing the a vowel,

but it’s still unstressed compared

to the stressed syllable cannot.

Cannot

watch the trailer.

And the T is a stop T,

because the next word begins with a consonant,

cannot watch, cannot watch.

Then we have the,

quickly, flattened pitch, the trailer.

cannot watch the trailer.

Tr cluster being pronounced as chr,

trailer,

trailer, trailer.

The trailer,

for your own movie.

For your, both reduce.

They both have the schwa r,

fur yur,

fur yur,

fur yur,

fur yur, fur yur, fur yur,

for your own, for your own, for your own movie.

for your own movie.

What!

What!

What, high end pitch, showing exasperation,

amazement, disappointment.

What!

And it really goes up in pitch.

That’s showing a question.

This person can’t believe it.

What!

Are you serious? Come on!

Okay, now another kid says, are you serious!

While another kid says come on.

So, again, a question,

and the pitch is really high.

Sometimes when people are angry or excited

their pitch does go higher than it would

in conversational English.

Are you serious?

And it goes up and pitch too, again, a question.

Are you serious? Come on!

[Rachel ] And in that phrase, are you serious?

Ser, the most stressed syllable there.

Are you serious?

Are you serious? Come on!

Are you serious? Come on!

Are you serious? Come on!

Come on, come on!

This is something you can yell when

someone’s doing something you don’t like.

Come on!

Stress on come,

come on!

All smoothly linked together in one arch,

one thought group, ending m links into beginning vowel,

come on!

Are you serious? Come on!

Are you serious? Come on!

Are you serious? Come on!

Are you kidding?

Are you kidding?

It’s almost hard for me to imitate these boys a little bit,

the pitch is so high.

Are you kidding?

And again, pitch goes up.

Yes, no question, they can’t believe it.

We do have an R reduction here.

Are you kidding?

Are you kidding, are you kidding?

I hear it as schwa R, er,

are you, are you, are you kidding?

Are you kidding?

Are you kidding?

Are you kidding?

It’s just too messed up for kids your age.

It’s just too messed up for kids your age.

One thought group, what are you hearing

as the most stressed words there?

It’s just too messed up for kids your age.

It’s just too messed up for kids your age,

it’s just too messed up for kids your age.

It’s just too messed up for kids your age.

I think up is the peak of stress,

kids age too, also those words have a little bit of length.

Let’s look at our first two words here, it’s just.

It’s just

It’s just, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just,

the word just said really quickly,

I would probably write that with the schwa,

it’s just, it’s just, it’s just,

we have an ending T, a beginning T,

those go together into just one true T.

It’s just too, it’s just too.

It’s just too

messed up for kids your age.

It’s just too messed up, messed up.

Now we have an ed ending,

the sound before is unvoiced

so that ed ending is pronounced as a T.

This word is a single syllable, meh.

M consonant, eh vowel, S consonant, T consonant, mest,

messed, messed up, and it links into a word

that begins with a vowel.

Messed up, messed up.

Too messed up,

And the P is not released, it’s not messed up.

But it’s messed up, messed up, lips come together.

They make the stop of that stop consonant,

but they don’t release with a puff of air.

Messed up.

Too messed up,

for kids your age.

They released right into the F sound.

Messed up for, messed up for.

The word for is reduced.

For, for kids, your age.

For, for kids, your age.

The word your reduced.

For kids your age.

For kids your age

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s violence,

there’s swearing.

Now I want to talk about some grammar here.

There is something that happens a lot in American English

that is recent, and it’s a grammatical error.

It happens a ton in spoken English.

I used to notice it and it would bother me.

And now, I’ve heard it so much, I find that I do it too.

It still bothers me for the record,

it bothers me when I hear myself do it,

but I don’t stop and correct it,

it’s just become so widespread.

And that is there is, the contraction there’s,

that’s supposed to be used with something that is singular,

a singular noun.

Well this is plural, drugs.

So that should be there are drugs,

which we would pronounce there are,

there are drugs, there are drugs,

but we just hardly do that anymore.

It just seems that everyone started using there’s

for things that are either singular or plural.

For example, I could say there’s a problem,

but I could also totally picture someone saying

there’s problems with this, there’s problems,

it should absolutely be there are,

there are, there are problems.

But this is what happens so there’s drugs, there’s drugs.

He is using the is contraction and then a plural noun.

There’s drugs,

Not grammatically correct,

but very, very common these days.

And I do think that we only do that

because it’s a contraction.

I think if he said there is, he would not say drugs,

there is drugs, I think he would say there are drugs

in those cases.

But when we use this reduction, this contraction,

somehow the habit is crept in where the verb doesn’t agree.

So it should be there are, but it is there is,

there’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing,

there’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

And in all three of these utterances,

there’s drugs, there’s violence,

the stress is on the thing that’s there.

There’s drugs.

There’s violence.

There’s swearing.

All of these things that are in movies

that kids can’t watch.

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing,

there’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing.

And although we’ve decided it’s okay for you

to do these things in the movie.

Sort of a longer thought group,

and some longer syllables that are stretched out

a little bit longer than they would be

in just normal conversational English.

And although we decided

And although we’ve decided,

And although, we decided.

Actually I think he’s saying we have decided.

I think I’m hearing we’ve, and although we’ve decided.

So, and, a little bit longer.

Again, he doesn’t reduce it like he did before,

he’s thinking about exactly what to say.

And although we’ve decided,

Fully pronounced a vowel and consonant,

and I do hear a D linking into the next word.

And although, and although,

although.

The stress syllable of though really held out

while he’s thinking of how to articulate this.

And although

we’ve decided

We’ve decided, we’ve,

we’ve held out.

This word normally would not be stressed,

and although we’ve decided,

it would normally be unstressed but he’s holding it out,

because it’s a crazy thing to say.

Kids can do this in the movie

but because of the ratings for movies kids can’t watch it.

He knows it’s crazy, it’s ridiculous.

And as he’s thinking about how crazy this is

and how to tell this to these kids,

he’s holding out some words.

We’ve decided,

it’s okay.

Decided it’s okay, decided it’s okay.

K also a little bit longer than it may be would be

in normal conversational English.

Decided it so, decided it so,

decide, the stress level of ci has a little bit of length,

although it’s actually just a normal

conversational pace there.

Decided it so, decided it so.

Decided it’s okay, decided it’s okay,

Here the ed ending comes after a D.

In this case it’s pronounced I plus the D consonant,

it adds another syllable,

decided, decided.

Decided,

So now we have a couple stress words here

for you to do these things in the movie.

He’s making the crazy distinction that these actors

can be in the movie, doing these things

but they can’t watch the movie.

So in, gets a lot of stress, a lot of that up down shape.

For, you, to, how are these three words pronounced?

For you to,

For you to, for you to, for you to,

we have to reductions, the word for is reduced,

fer, you just almost never fully pronounce that word.

The word to is reduced, it’s a flap T plus schwa.

For you to, for you to, for you to.

Try that, those three words smoothly linked together,

all flatter in pitch,

for you to, for you to, for you to, for you to.

For you to do.

Then we link into the next word, the stress word,

that does have that length,

that does have that up-down shape.

For you to do.

For you to do,

these things.

These things, these things.

This could be a little tricky.

We have two th sounds, these.

The first one is voiced,

the second one is unvoiced.

These things, these things.

These things,

Try to use just the very,

very tip of your tongue for these THs,

see if that helps you simplify them.

These, these, these things,

these things.

The S in these is a Z sound.

These things,

in the movie.

In the movie.

In the movie, again, a bunch of stress on in,

the word the, the pitch comes in on the way down.

In the movie, and then we have a little bit more stress,

movie and pitch goes up,

because he’s not done talking.

In the movie,

You can’t watch yourselves do them in the trailer.

Okay now we get into a bunch of stressed words.

This is not like fully conversational pace and the rhythm,

it’s like, how would I describe it,

it’s like can’t believe it kind of declaration.

You can’t watch yourselves.

Everything sounding a little bit stressed.

You can’t watch yourselves,

You, up down shape,

you can’t watch yourselves.

A normal way to say that would be

you can’t watch yourselves, you can’t watch yourselves.

You and can’t would be much flatter,

watch would be the peak of stress,

but here they’re all their own little stressed syllable.

Even the word yourselves, I would usually say yourselves.

First syllable unstressed, it would be the schwa sound,

yur, yur, but that’s not how he does it.

You can’t watch yourselves,

He says yourselves, yourselves,

stressing the first syllable too, fully pronouncing that,

and that’s not normal conversational pronunciation at all,

we would never say yourselves in a more casual conversation.

Yourselves,

Yourselves, or yourself,

would be pronounced yourselves, or yourself.

but here it is five stressed syllables in a row.

You can’t watch yourselves,

With the word can’t,

even though he’s stressing that word, making it longer,

he still doesn’t release the T.

We almost never do that, he makes it a stop T,

can’t, can’t watch, can’t watch,

so there’s a little break between can’t and watch,

and that little break signifies to me a stop T.

Can’t watch,

yourselves do them in the trailer.

Do them in the trailer.

So now his voice has taken on more

of a normal conversational rhythm.

We have reductions, we don’t have every syllable stressed.

So what is stressed in this part of a sentence?

Do them in the trailer,

Do them in the trailer,

do them in the trailer,

do definitely longer, up-down shape,

do them in the tray ler,

do them in the tray ler,

and then trailer again with a chr pronunciation, trailer.

Then in the, flatter, lower in pitch,

definitely unstressed, definitely not with

this up-down curve with the length of a stressed syllable.

Do them in the trailer,

Them in the, them in the, them in the.

The word them, the e vowel reduces, it’s the schwa,

them in the, ending M linking right into beginning vowel,

and the N right into the th sound with no break.

For the th in the word the

you don’t have to bring your tongue tip through,

you tongue tip can be behind the teeth,

in the, in the, in the, in the,

them in the, them in the, them in the, them in the.

Do them in the trailer.

Do them in the trailer,

Welcome to Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood.

All smoothly connected, one line.

Welcome to, and the pitch goes up to peak

on the stress syllable of Hollywood

before the voice comes back down.

Welcome to Hollywood.

How is the word to pronounced?

Welcome to Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood.

Welcome to, welcome to,

I would say that’s a flap T,

quick, light, the vowel is reduced to the schwa.

So we make the T a flap T in the word to

sometimes when the sound before was voiced.

So in this case it was the M consonant.

He wouldn’t of had to,

he definitely could’ve made it a true T,

welcome to Hollywood.

T, t, t,

but you will often hear that native speakers

do make that a flap, it’s just a little smoother.

Welcome to Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood.

When we say welcome to something,

we sometimes use that in like a friendly way,

welcome to the party, or whatever,

but we often use it sarcastically

when someone is seeing the reality

of a situation and it’s negative.

So these kids are seeing, oh, we can act

in these movies, but, because of these restrictions

we’re not supposed to actually go watch them in a theater,

that’s ironic, isn’t it?

And so he’s saying, welcome to Hollywood,

a little bit sarcastically as if to say

you’re being introduced to the way life

really works in Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood.

Let’s listen to this whole

conversation one more time.

Hey kids, as you know, I am one of the producers

on your movie Good Boys, and unfortunately,

I’m here with bad news.

You guys cannot watch the trailer for your own movie.

What?

-Are you serious? -Come on!

Are you kidding?

It’s just too messed up for kids your age.

There’s drugs, there’s violence, there’s swearing,

and although we’ve decided it’s okay

for you to do these things in the movie,

you can’t watch yourselves do them in the trailer.

Welcome to Hollywood.

We’re going to be doing a lot more

of this kind of analysis together.

What movie scenes would you like to see analyzed like this?

Let me know in the comments,