Toy Story 4

In the US, 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 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.

Let’s get started. First, the scene.

Situation?

Lost toy. Side yard.

Billy. Goat. Gruff. Raise the blinds.

They have names? You never told me that.

You never asked.

Where is he?

There. How do we reach him?

Operation pull-toy.

Slink?

You got it, Woody.

Barbies.

Go.

Now, the analysis.

Situation?

What is the melody, the song of this word?

If you had to just hum the tune of this word, what would you what would you hum?

To me it sounds like this. Mm-hmm.

Very clearly, it goes up at the end.

Situation? What does that mean at the end that it goes up?

That means it’s a question. She’s asking for information.

She’s like what’s going on? Situation? It’s very different than: situation.

Where the pitch goes down. That’s a statement. Pitch goes up makes it a question. Asking for information.

Situation?

Situation?

Situation?

Lost toy. Side yard.

Lost toy. Side yard. Okay, so he has a little bit of…In his voice

because he’s pulling himself up. But it’s two little sentences put together into one

thought group. Let’s look at how he links everything together. First, the word ‘lost’

and the word ‘toy’.

Lost toy. Lost toy. Lost toy.

Lost toy.

He links them together with a single letter T, a true T.

Any word that begins with a T that is a stressed word, is going to be a true T.

Toy, toy, toy. The exception is if it’s in a TR cluster, then it might be CH,

like the word train. But if it’s just T, not in a cluster, it is gonna be a true T if it

starts a stressed word or syllable. Lost toy. Link those together with a single T. Try that.

Lost toy.

Lost toy. Lost toy. Lost toy. Side yard.

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.

Lost toy. Side yard. Okay. So no break, I put a period there, but there was no break.

The OY diphthong goes right into the S. Side yard. And the D goes right into Y. So there’s

no release of the D. If I did release it, if he did release it, it would sound like

this: side yard, side yard, side, side, side yard. But it’s not that clear, its side yard.

So my tongue is in position for the D. I do vibrate the vocal chords, it’s a voiced sound,

side yard. But rather than releasing the tongue tip down, I go right into the Y consonant.

That helps the two words link together more smoothly.

Side yard.

Side yard. Side yard. Side yard.

And the final D I don’t even really hear. So I wouldn’t say, I would also say it’s no

release. I think he does voice it. Side yard. It’s just that it’s a subtle sound, and she

starts speaking, the music starts, so we sort of lose it. But just know this is a common

pronunciation for D especially when it links into another consonant, is that we don’t release it.

Side yard. Side yard. Side yard.

Side yard. Side yard. Side yard.

If we were linking into a word that began with the vowel or diphthong, it would sound

more released. Like if I was going to say the words ‘side of’ together, it would sound

like this: side of– duf, duf, duf. Then the tongue is coming down, it is releasing into

the vowel. But here, we go right from the voiced to D into the next consonant.

Side yard. Side yard. Side yard.

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Okay, so she calls her three sheep. And each of them is its own little thought group of

a stressed single syllable. What is the melody of that stress syllable? Actually I need to

correct myself, it’s not single. Billy is a two-syllable word. Okay, but what is the

shape of stress?

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Uh-uh– It’s up down. That is the shape of stress.

Billy. Goat. Gruff. And actually, I love that we have an opportunity here to

talk about the fact that this word is two syllables, this word is one, this one is one,

but they still all have the same shape because the second unstressed syllable here just falls

into the same line of pitch. Billy. There’s no skip, there’s no change, I just change

syllables as my voice continues to smoothly come down. Goat. Stop T. Gruff. So it’s this

little up-down shape that makes a stressed syllable. And the unstressed syllable in Billy

just falls into that same line. Really smoothly connected.

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Billy. Goat. Gruff.

Billy. Goat. Gruff. Raise the blinds!

Raise the blinds! What are our stressed words here?

Raise the blinds!

Raise the blinds!

Raise the blinds!

Raise the blinds! Raise and blinds, both stressed, the word ‘the’ unstressed, but does connect

in smoothly. So raise goes up and as it comes down, we get the word ‘the’ at the bottom

before the voice goes back up for blinds. Raise the blinds. Uhhh– uuhhh– We’re really

talking a lot about intonation here. I just want you to be aware of how smooth all the

words are when they link together and also what does a stress syllable sound like.

It has an up-down shape of stress. The unstressed syllables are lower in pitch, but they all

connect into the same line without a skip.

Raise the blinds!

Raise the blinds!

Raise the blinds!

Now, one last thing I want to talk about here is the D sound. So here, side yard, we linked

right into the next consonant, we didn’t release the D. Here, the D comes between two sounds,

two consonant sounds, N and the Z sound, blinds, and she drops it. It’s a common thing to do

to drop T or D between two other consonants. Why do we do that? For smoothness. To make

things smooth, and we still totally get the meaning. No one would ever think: Oh my goodness,

she didn’t make the D sound! It’s just so natural, it’s the way we speak. So do it that

way too, it will make it more simple, and you’ll likely find it easier to say: blinds,

blinds, blinds. Very light weak Z sound at the end, no D.

Blinds, blinds, blinds.

They have names?

They have names?

Quieter. They have names? Intonation goes up again

because it’s a question. In this case, it’s a yes/no question. They have– and the word ‘have’

lower in pitch, but smoothly connects. I actually shouldn’t write that with breaks.

I don’t want you to think there’s any break, there’s not. They have names? It sounds just

the same way that a three syllable word would. It’s a three syllable thought group,

made up of three separate one syllable words, but they all go together smoothly.

They have names?

They have names?

They have names?

You never told me that.

What are our stressed words here?

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

Pitch goes up a little bit at the end.

Why does the pitch go up here? It’s not a question. True. I would say it’s going up because it’s

a little bit of showing surprise, exasperation. You never told me that. It’s like whoa, hey,

I can’t believe that! So that’s why I would say the intonation goes up a little bit at the end.

You never, never, never. Flatter, lower in pitch, it’s a valley compared to ‘you’ and ‘told’.

You never told me that. And let’s look at the D in ‘told’. Comes after an L

before an M, the two words linked together so it comes between two consonants.

Does he make a D sound?

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

I don’t hear it. Told me, told me, told me that, told me that. I believe it is dropped.

When you study how Americans speak, you see how often we simplify things. And it’s still

clear because it’s our habit. Everyone’s on the same page with these simplifications.

But wow, if you really tried to precisely and fully make every sound in American English,

you can see how it would be so hard to do it, and sound smooth, and sound fluent. And

so that is why we really need to study what Americans do, because you probably weren’t

taught this in school. And this is where you can learn it, so that you can see how Americans

really are talking, so that you can speak more easily, and speak with more confidence,

have more fluency, and be more easily understood.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

And he does a stop T at the end of the word ‘that’. That. We usually do that with T’s

at the end of a thought group, or also when they’re followed by a word that begins with

a consonant.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

You never told me that.

You never asked.

You never asked. You never asked. Asked– the most stressed syllable there. Stress syllable

of ne– also has some of that shape.

You never asked. You never asked. You never asked.

Everything really smoothly links together. OO right into the N and the R right into the

vowel AH. Never ah– no break there, nothing showing me it’s a different word.

Just smooth connection.

You never asked.

You never asked.

You never asked.

Now what are the rules for ED endings? The rule is when the sound before is unvoiced,

like this K, it’s a T. So we have a single syllable, five letters but just one syllable

the AH vowel, S consonant, K consonant, T consonant. So we have a cluster here of three

consonants. It’s common to drop the K here. We’ve talked about dropping the D between

two consonants. We also do that with the K. I can’t say if we do it in every case,

but I know we do it in this word a lot. So ‘asked’ becomes: asked, asked, you never asked. Now,

I do think I hear her doing a light K here. Asked. But that’s not usual. Much more common

to drop the K, and just say: asked, you never asked.

You never asked.

You never asked.

You never asked.

Where is he?

Where is he? Where is he? All linked together and we have a great reduction.

First, what’s our stressed word there?

Where is he?

Where is he?

Where is he?

Where is he? Always look for the peak of pitch. So here, it’s the word ‘is’, someone is missing,

they want to know his location. Where is he? Where is he? The ending R links right into

the IH vowel, really smooth. Then with the word ‘he’ we have a reduction, the H is dropped.

This is a really common reduction with he or him. The H is dropped and we just have

the IH vowel. Sorry, the EE vowel. And that links right into the word before. ‘Is’ is

pronounced with the Z sound. So we have the Z sound right into the EE vowel. Zee, zee, zee.

Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?

Where is he?

Where is he?

Where is he?

There!

There! There! It’s short. There’s urgency in the voice, but I still get the sense of

the up-down shape. There. There. It’s certainly not: there, there, there. Flat. There, there,

there. A little rounded word, a little hop. There. There. There.

There!

There!

There! How do we reach him?

Okay, in this thought group, how do we reach him? What are our stressed words?

Our peak in pitch? Our mountains in the melody?

How do we reach him?

How do we reach him?

How do we reach him?

How do we reach him? How and reach, do we, lower in pitch, connect

in, in the valley, and him, comes down off the end of ‘reach’ as the pitch of the voice

goes down. How do we reach him? All really smoothly connected. Now, we already talked

about the reduction of he, I mentioned we do this with him too. And look! Here’s an example.

The H is dropped, it’s just the IH vowel and the M consonant. Now, I want to say,

when we do this, when we drop the H, we always link the word on to the word before.

So we go right from the CH sound to the IH vowel, no break. If you did a break, the reduction

wouldn’t sound right. So chim– chim– reach him– reach him– How do we reach him?

How do we reach him?

How do we reach him?

How do we reach him?

Operation pull-toy.

Okay. Operation pull-toy. What is the most stressed syllable or word there?

Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

We have some stress on the stressed syllable, operation, and then the most stressed, operation

pull-toy, on the word ‘pull’ and the word ‘toy’ falls off and pitch as we come off of

that peak for pull.

Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

Operation. First syllable stress. Now, you see the letter O, I know my students can be

very tempted to round their lips, say something like: oh, oh, oh, but there’s no lip rounding,

it’s not an O like vowel, but it’s the AH vowel like in father.

AH– operation, operation pull-toy.

Operation– Operation– Operation pull-toy.

Pull– This word can be tricky. P consonant, the vowel like what is in push, UH, and the L, pull.

The L here is a dark L because it comes after the vowel in the syllable.

And I don’t really think you need to try to make the UH vowel then a dark sound, then lift

the tip for the L. Pull toy. When I do that, I really just make two sounds, the P sound,

and the dark sound for the dark L before I make the T. I don’t lift my tongue tip. Pull toy.

I lift it only to get in position for the T, which is a true T.

Pull-toy. Pull-toy. Pull-toy.

Pull-toy. So for the dark L, we make that not with the tongue tip, tongue tip stays down,

but we make it with the back of the tongue. Uhl, uhl, uhl, uhl, pull toy.

Pull, see if you can work on the word pull by itself without lifting your tongue tip.

It might be a really strong habit, try to fight that.

Try to make the uhl sound with the back of your tongue.

Pull. Pull toy. Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

Operation pull-toy.

Slink?

Slink? Slink? Pitch goes up, it’s a question. He’s like saying are you there? Are you listening?

So if someone says Rachel? I know that they’re wondering if it’s me, they’re wondering where I am,

it’s always a question when the pitch goes up like that.

Slink? Slink? Slink?

You got it, Woody!

You got it, Woody! All right, I love what’s happening with the pitch here. You got it.

The word ‘you’, the pitch is going up, because the pitch is on ‘got’ and we want all of the

pitch to be smoothly transitioning. You got it, Woody! And then we have another little

bit of a mountain on that stressed syllable ‘Woo–’

You got it, Woody! Got it. Got it. These two words linked together with a flap T.

This is how the D sounds in American English between vowels, and we link two words with a flap T,

or we make a T a flap T when it comes to between two vowel sounds. Now here, the T

is followed by a consonant. That’s going to be a stop T. You got it. It, it,

it’s not it, with the released T, but it’s it, with a stop T, my tongue goes into position,

or I cut off the air with my vocal cords, it, and that’s a stop. You got it, Woody!

You got it, Woody!

You got it, Woody!

You got it, Woody!

Barbies!

Go!

Barbies! Barbies!

The up-down shape again, it’s a single thought group. It’s two syllables, the first syllable

is stressed, and the second syllable falls into the intonation as the voice goes down.

Barbies. Now, this is different than ‘Slink?’ where the intonation went up. He was like

are you there? Are you paying attention? She’s not asking anything. She is commanding. Barbies.

So pitch goes down. It’s a statement. Barbies. Go.

Barbies!

Barbies!

Barbies!

Go!

So she’s shouting ‘go’, intonation is higher. Go! Go! But it still has that up-down shape

even though it’s fast, it’s not flat. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

It still has that up-down shape.

Go!

Go!

Go!

I liked this scene because there were so many short thought groups. And I feel like that

really lets us focus in on that up-down shape of what we want in a stressed syllable.

Let’s watch the whole scene one more time.

Situation?

Lost toy. Side yard.

Billy. Goat. Gruff. Raise the blinds.

They have names? You never told me that.

You never asked.

Where is he?

There. How do we reach him?

Operation pull-toy.

Slink? » You got it, Woody.

Barbies.

Go.

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! And if you want to see all my Ben Franklin videos, click here!