Well hey there! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish
and in this lesson I'm going to share ten words
that you can start using right now
to sound more natural when you speak English.
So which are these ten magic words
Interestingly, these words have a few things in common.
So firstly, they are very, very, very, common.
In fact, these are some of the most
They're all in the top twenty words
this lesson is worth paying attention to.
But before we go on, I want to make sure that you've
and you've turned on the notifications so that you know
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So just hit that red button down there!
But keep watching to learn how to say these words
naturally and at the end of this lesson,
you'll get to practise with me!
So most of these words are used
for grammatical reasons in English sentences.
On their own, they don't hold a lot of meaning.
They're not nouns or verbs or adjectives
which are the words that help us to understand
what is happening in a sentence or how it's happening
So these words are structure words not content words.
The exception though is the 'be' verb here.
It's the only verb that we've got but it's the exception.
The other thing that these words have in common
is that they all have stressed and unstressed forms
what we're going to go over in this lesson.
Because using the unstressed forms of these words
when you speak English will help you to sound
So this word is not usually stressed,
so you don't hear it pronounced like 'the' very often.
So we have two unstressed forms because
the pronunciation of this word changes
depending on the word that follows it.
So if the word 'the' is followed by a consonant sound,
then it's pronounced 'the' - the lazy schwa sound.
Tell the children to stay inside.
Now if the word 'the' is followed by a vowel sound
but just a shorter version of it.
She forgot to buy the ice cream.
most commonly used word in English
but of course, it has several forms doesn't it?
Depending on the subject and the tense.
So you won't often hear 'be' stressed
When it's the main verb in the infinitive form,
you'll usually hear just a slightly shorter version.
Now in the present tenses you'll hear 'am', 'is' and 'are'
and these forms are usually pushed together
when spoken naturally with the subject
and 'they are' becomes they're.
So when spoken, these contractions mean
that we hardly hear the 'be' verb at all.
The pronunciation of the past tense forms
the vowel sound is often shortened to
Now 'to' is the stressed form but when spoken,
the word is usually unstressed.
Just like I said, moving on to the word 'to'.
Now 'of' is another incredibly common English word,
usually unstressed so it sounds like
with the lazy schwa sound again.
must make our list of commonly used words, right?
And just like the previous words, it's often unstressed
Now this tiny little word 'at'
can be stressed or unstressed.
You need to be here at three o'clock.
I'm adding emphasis. I'm making the meaning stronger.
You need to be here exactly at three o'clock
not before, not after, at three.
So most of the time though, this word won't be stressed.
Just like 'at', 'that' can be stressed or unstressed.
So this word can be used as a determiner
to explain which specific thing we're talking about.
you'll probably need to stress this word
And as an adverb it will probably also be stressed.
But when 'that' is used as a conjunction
so when it's connecting two clauses in a sentence,
it's unstressed and the vowel sound reduces.
So let's talk about the articles 'are' and 'an'
because they are both usually unstressed.
Now they're used with singular nouns, aren't they?
When you're talking about just one of something.
So since we stress English words to make the meaning
really clear, it's much more natural to stress the number
rather than stress the article
because the important information
is that there is just one of something.
So it sounds a bit odd to hear:
No! I said I only wanted a sandwich!
It's much more natural to hear:
No! I said I only wanted one sandwich!
So since most of the time, these articles are unstressed
the vowel sound reduces to become the schwa sound.
Now very often the word 'it' is reduced too.
So instead of 'it'
the vowel sound relaxes and it becomes
and when spoken quickly, the T is often
The air is not released after the sound, so instead of
and then you move quickly to the next sound.
is pulled into the word before it
because it ends with a consonant.
And 'as', this little word can be a conjunction,
so it can connect two parts of a sentence together.
It can be a preposition, even an adverb.
He wasn't as late as I thought.
Again, using the schwa for the unstressed sound.
It wasn't as big as I thought.
Last but not least, another small
but mighty English word 'for'.
Now when I pronounce this word, I don't pronounce
sound and that's my Australian accent
as the British pronunciation of this word,
'for'.
So the standard American accent
That's my really rubbish American accent!
But whether or not you pronounce the R sound
there is a different vowel sound
And this word is usually unstressed.
examples that have come before,
the vowel sound reduces down to become
So you've probably noticed that the schwa sound
is a very, very, important sound
And that's because this is the most common sound
So as you're using all of these small but grammatically
important words in your English sentences,
then start reducing the sounds of them.
This is going to help you to sound more natural
to help someone understand your sentence
and these words are usually adjectives, verbs, nouns
But other words in your sentence can be unstressed
they become difficult to hear.
Okay,
so before we finish I want to practise with you a little.
I'm going to put a sentence up here so when you see it,
and try to reduce the unstressed words.
Well, that's it for this lesson!
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In fact, that one is great for improving
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