Green Book

In the US, summer is sun, sand, 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 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.

As my mother always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

Look at them over there.

Take a good look at the officer you hit. Look at him. He’s over there having a grand old time.

Chatting up with his pals.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

And where are you?

In here, with me, who did nothing.

Now, the analysis.

As my mother always said,

as my mother always said,

as my mother always said.

Sort of a long thought group. What are our most stressed words here?

As my mother always said,

as my mother always said,

as my mother always said.

As my mother always said. Moth- and ‘said’ a little bit longer. Some of that up-down shape.

As my mother always said,

as my mother always said,

as my mother always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

What kind of bran– brand new fool. Lots of stress on ‘brand’.

Brand new fool are you.

So we have quite a few words in this long thought group that are a little bit longer and

have that up-down shape of stress. I think brand is the most stressed word there.

Now, it’s interesting because even though it’s the most stressed word, there is a reduction happening.

Listen to these two words together. Brand and new.

Brand new fool.

Brand new fool.

Brand new fool.

You might be noticing there is no D sound. This word ends in the N sound, begins in the N sound,

the two words linked together: brand new. And these two words go together somewhat frequently.

We use the phrase ‘brand new’ and we never say that D.

I got a brand new computer yesterday. We’re going to get you a brand new pair of shoes.

Brand new. Brand new. The vowel in the word ‘brand’ is the AA as in bat vowel, and when it’s followed by N,

brand, there is an UH sound as the back of the tongue relaxes before the front of the tongue lifts.

So try to imitate that. Bra- Bra- brand new, brand new, brand new.

Brand new fool.

Brand new fool.

Brand new fool.

Let’s look at other things that are happening in this phrase, reductions, for example.

What kind of brand new fool are you?

What kind of brand new fool are you?

What kind of brand new fool are you?

‘Kind of’ is pronounced: kinda, kinda, kinda. So it’s really common to take the word ‘of’

and make that just the schwa sound, but it’s a little bit less common to drop the D. Kind of, kind of, kind of.

It’s a little bit more common to hear a D there. Kind of, kind of, ddddd.

But he drops it, and that does happen sometimes. Kinda, kinda. Rachel do you feel okay? Mmm I feel kind of sick.

Kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of.

What kind of–

what kind of–

What kind of brand new fool are you?

We have one other reduction. It’s the word ‘are’. How do you hear that pronounced?

What kind of brand new fool are you?

What kind of brand new fool are you?

What kind of brand new fool are you?

Fool are you– fool are you– so it’s a little bit hard for me to decide do I think it’s just a schwa?

Or do I think I hear schwa R? Rrrr– fool are, fool are, fool are, or fool uh, fool uh, fool uh, fool uh.

It’s said so quickly, it’s hard to tell. I usually tell my students to make this a quick R sound.

Fool are you, fool are. But it’s said so, so quickly you could probably get by with just making that the schwa

as long as it is said very, very quickly, and links the two words together. Fool are you.

Fool are you?

Fool are you?

Fool are you?

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.

Fool are you?

Fool are you?

Fool are you?

So aside from our stressed words, we have a lot of unstressed words and syllables that are flatter in pitch,

go a little bit more quickly. For example, the beginning two words: as my.

As my, as my, as my, as my, as my mother, as my a mother, as my mother always said.

As my mother always said–

As my mother always said–

As my mother always said–

Always said. Something interesting happening here. The word ‘always’ ends in a Z sound,

that’s considered a weak consonant sound, it’s voiced. It links right into the S which is a stronger sound.

I think you can think of it as just dropping the Z sound altogether. Always said.

And just make an S sound linking them together. Always said, always said, always said, always said.

Always said,

always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

What kind of– what kind of– Stop T at the end of ‘what’, that’s because the next word begins with a constant,

very common to do that after, sorry, before a consonant. What kind, what kind.

What kind of

What kind of brand new fool are you?

So in this long thought group, all the words glide together smoothly with no brakes.

The intonation slides up or slides down. This is our unit, this is a single thought group.

As my mother always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

As my mother always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

As my mother always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

Look at them over there.

What are our stressed words in this shorter thought group?

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there. Oh, there, and look, all a little bit longer. At them, lower in pitch, flatter, unstressed.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

The word ‘at’ is pronounced: it, it. Very quick, schwa, stop T. At, at, at them, at them, at them.

That’s because the next word is a consonant. The next word begins with a consonant, the voiced TH sound.

At them, at them, at them. Now, you could definitely hear this pronounced: at ‘em, at ‘em, at ‘em,

with a flap T and the TH dropped.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there. Look at them, at ‘em, at ‘em, at ‘em.

But if you don’t drop the TH, then you do make that a stop T. At them, at them, at them.

I think it might be a little bit more common to drop the TH, but either one sounds perfectly fine and natural

as long as these words are unstressed against the more stressed words, at and them,

not nearly as important as look, over, and there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

And again, everything links together really smoothly in this thought group.

The ending K releases right into the schwa. Look at, Look at, Look at, look at them over there.

Them over there– no breaks between words, no skips in our pitch.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Look at them over there.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Okay, now what are our most stressed words here?

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Four more stressed syllables and the other words are said quite quickly. Look at the word ‘good’.

This is a content word, but it’s not stressed. We don’t always stress every single content word.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

He’s stressing look, a good look. If you take a good look at something, that means you really study it,

you really see it, you take time to look at it, and take it in. But ‘good’, a little unclear, it definitely

has an unstressed feeling compared to ‘take’ and ‘look’. It has the same vowel, UH as in look,

this is the vowel that we have in ‘push’. Sometimes, people see OO and they think OO: good look.

But it’s: good look. Actually, just on the subway the other day, I heard someone say: looking, looking.

That’s not right. It’s: looking, uh, uh, looking. Take a good look.

Take a good look–

Take a good look–

Take a good look–

So in the word ‘good’, he says it so quickly, I think the G is a little unclear, I think the D is little unclear.

We have the schwa, so these two words said very quickly between our stressed words, take and look.

Now, we have two more unstressed words between the word ‘look’ and the stressed first syllable of ‘officer’.

How are ‘at the’ pronounced?

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

So unclear. As I try to isolate that, and loop it, at the, at the, at the, at the, at the.

Definitely not ‘at the ‘. Much less clear, much more simplified, much faster than that.

Again, I would write this as schwa, stop T, and then a very quick unvoiced TH, schwa, sorry, voiced TH.

Now, for the voiced TH here beginning an unstressed word, tongue tip doesn’t have to come all the way

through the teeth. That would take way too long. We have to simplify that. The tongue presses behind

the teeth. It’s not at the roof of the mouth, it’s not pointed way down, it’s touching the teeth but it doesn’t come

all the way through. At the, at the, at the, at the, at the. ‘At the’ becomes: at the, at the, at the. Can you do that?

Look at the officer–

Look at the officer–

Look at the officer you hit.

Officer you hit– So ‘ffi-cer you’ three unstressed syllables here. Fficer you– fficer you– fficer you–

Flatter in pitch before our stressed word ‘hit’. And he does do a light release of a true T. Hit, hit.

Now, because it’s the end of a thought group, it would be pretty common to make that a stop T, hit,

but he does release it lightly, it sounds fine.

Officer you hit–

officer you hit–

officer you hit–

Look at him.

Okay, three-word thought group what’s the most stressed word here?

Look at him.

Look at him.

Look at him.

Definitely ‘look’. Look at him. And the other two words sort of just fall down in pitch, part of the same curve.

Look at him.

Look at him.

Look at him.

Look at him. Look at him. Now, he doesn’t reduce the vowel in ‘at’, in ‘at’, he keeps that AH vowel.

But he does drop the H, that’s common. And he connects the two with a stop T which sounds just like

a little flap of the tongue, a little D between vowels, at him, at him, at him, at him, at him.

Really smoothly connected. Look at him. Look at him.

Look at him.

Look at him.

Look at him.

He’s over there having a grand old time chatting up with his pals.

Now, we have a really long thought group. Half of it is on this slide, half of it is on the other slide,

what are the stressed words in this fragment of that thought group?

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

So ‘he’s’ has some stress, and then ‘grand old time’ has some stress, the most stress on ‘grand’.

Now earlier, we had the phrase ‘brand new’ and we talked about how we dropped that D.

Brand is very similar to grand, how is this D pronounced?

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

Grand old, granddd, grand old. I do hear the D there. It’s because the next word begins with a vowel,

or in this case, diphthong, the OH sound. If the next word began with a consonant, I think

there’s a really good chance he would have dropped that D. But he does make a D sound.

Grand old, grand old time.

Grand old time. Grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

Over there having a– over there having a– These four words here, a little bit less clear, a little bit lower in pitch,

flatter in pitch, less pitch variation.

He’s over there having a–

He’s over there having a–

He’s over there having a–

Having a– He switches the NG sound and makes just an N sound. Havin’ a, havin’ a, havin’ a, havin’ a.

That does happen quite often in really familiar ING words. What does it mean to have a grand old time?

It just means to have fun. He’s very relaxed. He’s chatting with his friends.

He doesn’t have any cares or worries.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time.

He’s over there having a grand old time chatting up with his pals.

What are our most stressed words in this part of the thought group?

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals. I think ‘up’ has the most stress, it’s the highest pitch to me.

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

‘With’ and ‘his’ flatter in pitch, much more simplified, less clear, and did you notice that we had a flap T here?

Chatting, chatting. Because that T sound comes between two vowels. Chatting up.

Chatting, Chatting, chatting up with his pals.

With his pals, with his pals, with his pals, with his pals. ‘With’ and ‘his’ pretty unclear. Is the H dropped in ‘his’?

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

Chatting up with his pals.

H is definitely dropped. With his pals. With his pals. TH here pretty unclear.

With his, with his, with his, with his. I rarely would say this but I think you could get away with a really light D,

it almost sounds to me like he’s saying: what is, what is, what is, what is. But if that D is all heavy, or all clear,

it won’t sound right. It has to be unclear, said quickly, simplified.

With his pals.

With his pals.

With his pals.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Ok, now listen to the next thought group and you tell me what’s stressed there.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

I hear enjoy, enjoying a nice, a nice cup of coffee.

Joy, nice, coff– So ‘cup’, it is a content word, it’s a noun, but not all content words are always stressed.

And I don’t really hear that as stressed compared to the other stressed words in that sentence.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

The word ‘a’ reduced to the schwa. Enjoying a, enjoying a. Links together the words ‘enjoy’ and the word ‘nice’.

Enjoying a nice, enjoying a nice, and then ‘cup of’ both flat, low in pitch, less clear: cup of, cup of, cup of, cup of.

The word ‘of’ is reduced, it’s just the schwa. So we have, I would probably right ‘cup’ with a schwa too,

because it’s said so quickly. Cup of, cup of, cup of, cup of. Do that with me: cup of, cup of, cup of, cup of coffee, cup of coffee.

Cup of coffee. Do you hear the rhythmic contrast there? We have ‘cup of’, very fast, da-da, and then coffee.

Da-da, da-da. A longer syllable on ‘co–’. Cup of coffee. Da-da da-da.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

And where are you?

Ok, now this is interesting, we have a little four-word thought group. Where are.

How are those two words pronounced?

And where are you?

And where are you?

And where are you?

And where are you? So the word ‘where’, W consonant sound, EH as in bed, schwa R. Where.

Now, the word ‘are’ is reduced. It’s just schwa R. Schwa R, I say, is one sound, it’s urrr. It’s not ar, ar, ar.

We don’t really hear the schwa, it gets absorbed by the R. So here we have one sound, well, and then that

word ends in schwa R but this word is schwa R. So these two words kind of blend together. If you would say to me:

Rachel, I don’t hear the word ‘are’, I would totally understand why you didn’t hear the word ‘are’.

I do, I hear it, super subtly, but I can understand if you wouldn’t hear it at all because it’s unstressed

and it’s basically, they’re just the same sound that we just heard, I hear a super slight reiteration of it

where I’m exaggerating there, where rrr, it’s not quite that clear, but I hear a hint of that.

That’s how I definitely hear the word ‘are’. But if you don’t hear the word ‘are’, I totally get it, I totally understand.

When you’re working with the audio that goes with this video, why don’t you think of it

as being completely dropped? See if that helps you simplify and smoothly link the sounds together.

And where you? There I said it without thinking of the word ‘are’, it still sounds right.

And where are you?

And where are you?

And where are you?

How’s the word ‘and’ pronounced?

And where are you?

And where are you?

And where are you?

Super quick: and, and, and, and, and. I think I would write that with AA as in bat vowel, not reduced

from the vowel, but the D is definitely dropped. And, and, and. And where are you? And where are you?

And where are you?

And where are you?

And where are you?

In here, with me, who did nothing.

Okay, now he puts these little breaks in and that breaks it up into different thought groups.

So we have three thought groups. What is the stress of each of these little thought groups?

In here, with me, who did nothing.

In here, with me, who did nothing.

In here, with me, who did nothing.

In here, first syllable stress, in here, and the voice falls down a pitch, with me, same with the next one, in here,

with me, uhhh, uhhh. Pitch is the same, rhythm is the same, words or different, sounds are different.

See if you can do that, thinking of that same pitch, and rhythm. Uhhh, uhhhh.

In here, with me–

In here, with me–

In here, with me, who did nothing.

And what about the final little fragment there? What’s the stress of that?

Who did nothing.

Who did nothing.

Who did nothing.

Who did nothing. Who did– voices going up towards ‘nothing’. The peak of pitch on ‘nothing’. Who did nothing.

But I love how we can see this in these two little thought groups here. In here, and with me,

how the feeling is exactly the same.

Uhhh, uhhh. Same notes of the voice, same music of the voice, but different words.

In here, with me, who did nothing.

In here, with me, who did nothing.

In here, with me, who did nothing.

Let’s listen to his monologue one more time.

As my mother always said, what kind of brand new fool are you?

Look at them over there.

Take a good look at the officer you hit.

Look at him.

He’s over there having a grand old time chatting up with his pals.

Enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

And where are you?

In here, with me, who did nothing.

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!