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hello and welcome back to easy english
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with james in this new series we are
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going to look at all of the sounds of
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english we're going to do it by looking
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at the alphabet and we're going to go a
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b c
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all the way through until you have
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mastered every sound in english okay so
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this is the first lesson this is the
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letter a
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okay if you want to know how many ways
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this letter can be pronounced in english
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stick with me for this lesson
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[Music]
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it looks like just one letter but there
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are seven ways to pronounce this letter
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in english
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we're going to have a good listen today
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at all the different ways we can
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pronounce this sound all seven of them
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okay starting with number one number one
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is the a as in
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cat
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or
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rack
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or exactly
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or even
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actually and had
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this is that
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a sound ah say it with me
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okay it looks like this the ipa
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transcription looks like this
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for a practice sentence with this try
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this
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actually that cat had exactly 10 apples
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actually that cat had exactly 10 apples
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lots of
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one more time try it with me repeat this
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after me
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actually that cat had exactly 10 apples
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actually that cat had exactly 10 apples
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ok rewind if you need to practice some
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more we're going straight to number two
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okay number two is the a as in
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rare
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care
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share
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prepare
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rare
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care
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share
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and prepare this is that famous
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diphthong sound air
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air
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diphthongs mean two sounds two vowel
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sounds combined together so you'll
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notice we start with that air and we end
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with a schwa air
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air
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air it can be important if you want to
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practice to move your head like this air
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air
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just to practice don't go around outside
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like air air air because you'll look
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crazy okay but the sound for this one is
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air
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air listen to the word care
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care
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or prepare
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to practice this one repeat this
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sentence
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prepare to share it's rare to care
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prepare to share it's rare to care
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repeat after me
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prepare to share
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prepare to share
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it's rare to care
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it's rare to care
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okay practice that one again and let's
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go to number three the third sound
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number three is the a as in
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father or
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rather or
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car
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or
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bar
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this is that long vowel sound ah
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ah
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mouth wide open ah
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ah just like when you go to the doctors
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and they ask to see your mouth ah
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ah okay it actually sounds like the
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letter in the alphabet r okay it's how
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we pronounce that letter in the alphabet
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ah
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ah
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ah
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ah in british english it's not rhotic
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which means we don't round it like this
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we just say ah the long
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vowel ah
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so practice the words father
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father and
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rather
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and
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car and bar you'll notice that before
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the letter r if the a is before r it's
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normally always
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okay to practice this repeat after me
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father i'd rather not go to the bar in
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my car
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father i'd rather not go to the bar in
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my car okay your turn father i'd rather
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not go to the bar in my car
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okay rewind again if you need to
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practice that some more we're gonna have
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a look at number four okay number four
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is the a as in call
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or hall
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or tall
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or even walk
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and saw
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and law
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now you'll notice before a w law and saw
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also before two l's whole and tall
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this is when we the a is pronounced like
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all
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all and look at the shape of my mouth oh
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it's that oh
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really really long vowel sound very long
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in english and the mouth has to sort of
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go crush together and then down like
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this or
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or
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or
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listen
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whole
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tall
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wall behind me there's a wall
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wall
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okay
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to practice this sentence try this i
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walked through the hall and i saw the
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tall man calling the law
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the law sometimes is a slang word for
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the police in parts of america and some
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parts of england so if you're saying i'm
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calling the law it can mean i'm calling
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the police
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i walked through the hall and i saw the
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tall man calling the law
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repeat after me i walked through the
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hall and i saw the tall man
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calling the law
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okay well done let's have a look at
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number five okay number five is the a as
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in pay
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way
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stay
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cable
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able
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table and fable okay that a sound this
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one's easy because it is the sound that
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you look at that you say when you see
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the letter a in the alphabet the letter
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in the alphabet when we look at it we
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say a
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a
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and in the ipa it looks like an e and a
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little i okay a
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a
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this way
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this way to the table
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able
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fable okay you'll see again that when
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it's before b l e able fable stable
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table it is always pronounced as an a
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a a
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except in some crazy words where it's at
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the end like manageable okay manageable
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little bit different okay
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repeat after me i'm not able to pay the
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cable bill
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i'm not able to pay the cable bill
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one more time i'm not able to pay the
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cable bill
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okay well done let's go straight to
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number six
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okay number six is the a as in words
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like private and climate and in some
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accidents words like legitimate as well
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legitimate okay
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this can often be changed for another
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sound which we will look at as number
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seven the schwa sound but in many
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accents especially in britain or the uk
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private will be pronounced with a short
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so you'll see the a here is
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private
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private and climate climate okay many
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other accents change these sounds to a
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schwa so they'll say climate and private
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okay
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private and climate to have a go with
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this sound practice this sentence
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my views on the climate are legitimate
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but private
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my views on the climate are legitimate
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but private
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my views on the climate are legitimate
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but private now legitimate you probably
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don't know what that means legitimate is
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when something is real or true okay if
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you have a legitimate view it's a view
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that other people will know is real and
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truthful based on
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real knowledge that's out there okay
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something that is legitimate is
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something that is not fake it's not fake
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and it's not false legitimate okay
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number seven is the a as in the schwa
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sound okay number one most common sound
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in english the schwa sound if you want
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to practice it make sure that you look
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for my schwa video up here but this is
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the most common way that you'll see this
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letter a pronounced in english whenever
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a vowel is unstressed whenever that a is
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not stressed especially at the beginning
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of words like about
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around
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amazing okay it is a schwa sound okay
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also in uh an um two of the most common
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words in english a man
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an amazing woman okay a man an amazing
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woman
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they are very commonly confused many
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students of english pronounce them ah an
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an which sounds horrible it sounds crazy
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in english to pronounce them that way
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make sure that you're using the schwa
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sound
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now a common word with this schwa sound
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in with the letter a pronounced as a
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schwa is banana
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banana so try this an amazing banana
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an amazing banana
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an amazing banana um
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uh
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amazing
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lots of schwa sounds in there
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let's make it a little bit longer an
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amazing banana for around a pound
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an amazing banana for around a pound
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a pound that looks like this it's what
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we use it's money in england an amazing
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banana for around a pound it must be a
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very amazing banana to be just one pound
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okay an amazing banana for around a
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pound repeat after me an amazing banana
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for around a pound
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an amazing banana
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for around a pound lots of schwa sounds
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in there i wonder if you can tell me how
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many schwa sounds are in that sentence
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okay
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now we're going to look at a sentence
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which will help you practice all seven
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of these a sounds in one sentence okay
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this is a tough sentence i've got to
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remember it okay so try this for an
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amazing sentence that will help you to
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master the a sound
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an average father may share all he has
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an average father may share all he has
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an average father may share all he has
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i want you to practice this sentence
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100 times as many times as you can
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because it contains every single a sound
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and it'll also help your brain
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understand and feel where the a sounds
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come in this sentence what letters are
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around the a okay
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an average father may share all he has
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okay
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look at all the different a sounds in
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that sentence
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um you've got that uh
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average you've got that ah and
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in edge average okay
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father you've got that ah
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then may you've got a
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a the diphthong sound a okay then you've
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got share another diphthong
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air share
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all that long vowel sound super long all
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and then he has that ah sound again at
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the end okay practice that sentence as
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many times as you need to
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okay this is a bonus to this lesson and
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in the bonus part of this lesson i'm
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going to teach you some secrets about
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the letter a there are some special
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cases for example
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you've learned all of the seven
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ways to pronounce this a sound but there
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is some hidden ways that are very very
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rare
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not including those seven sounds we can
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also very rarely pronounce the a as an e
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in words like any
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and
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many and the river in london the river
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thames
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okay this is very
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very rare you will not find this very
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much in english it will take you a long
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time to find more than these three words
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okay but do remember that in many
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and any and thames
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the a is pronounced not as any of those
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seven sounds but as an e
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e
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e
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any and the river thames
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we also have strange words in english
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that people always fight over how to
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pronounce words like
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data
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data okay you'll see this has two a's in
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it
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de
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tu
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and many people pronounce it like that
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with an a
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and a
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schwa sound at the end but there are
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many other people who argue that is
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wrong and it should be pronounced data
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with a long r sound data
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so you will hear this across the english
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speaking world
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about 50 percent of people will say data
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and about 50 of people will say data
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data data remember both data data it's
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really good to practice three of those a
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sounds okay you've got a as in data and
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you've got r as in data both of them
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finish in that schwa sound data data
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okay now the letter a can also sometimes
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not be pronounced at all it can be
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silent it can be a silent a in words
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like basically
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that final a
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we can't see it it's gone basically
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basically
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also in words like separately
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separately you can't really hear an a in
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there anywhere separately okay
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separately
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in words like automatically
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automatically whenever you see that lly
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and sometimes l y at the end if there's
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an a
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we don't need it okay that is where we
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can see there is a silent a
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we don't pronounce it okay repeat after
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me
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typically
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typically
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automatically
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automatically
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basically
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basically
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basically okay practice those silent
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sounds there's not many it's usually
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always before an l y or an lly okay but
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remember the letter a can sometimes be
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silent in english too
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okay let's move on finally in the word
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what
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what
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now you didn't hear this in the seven
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sounds again but it's a very common word
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what is your name
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that's because this is a very particular
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pronunciation it's one of the only words
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in english where the letter a is
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pronounced as an o
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o
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as in on or top okay is it like an o
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sound the ipa
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what so the last thing i want you to
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practice today is to remember that the
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seven a sounds
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perfect remember them all but the word
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what is an exception it is an o here the
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a sound is pronounced
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okay what did you think of that lesson i
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hope you really enjoyed it and found it
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useful there is another lesson the
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letter b is next we're going to go all
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the way through to the letter z okay the
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letter z so stick with me if you want to
00:17:07
watch the rest of these lessons make
00:17:09
sure that you hit like and subscribe so
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that you don't miss c d e f g h i j k l
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m n o p q r s v rst uvw xyz okay
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well done and i'll see you for another
00:17:21
lesson bye
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you
