Why is it so HARD to understand native English speakers?! QUIZ & answers explained!!

Hey there. It's Hadar, thank you for joining me and today I'm going to illustrate why it

is so challenging sometimes to understand native English speakers. If you struggle with

understanding native speakers, whether it's on TV, in movies, on the street, in the store,

on the phone with customer support, then you are not alone. A lot of non-native speakers

struggle with understanding native speakers and there are a few reasons for that.

One of the reasons could be because they just speak too fast and your brain is not catching up

with information and you're actually listening to every single word and then you are not

catching up. So you feel a little overwhelmed and rushed. Okay, and then it everything starts

to get confusing. The second reason might be because the other person has an accent

that you're not familiar with and your brain just doesn't know how to analyze it.

Another reason is because English speakers tend to reduce a lot of words so they can

take a bunch of words and then chunk them up, put them together, and reduce the vowel

there. And it's not going to sound like something you're used to, especially if you learned

English through reading and writing. And then it just sounds like they're mumbling, making

it super confusing for you to follow through. And the last reason is because what you hear

clashes with how you think the word should sound. English is not a phonetic language.

That means that English spelling does not correspond with English pronunciation.

So what you hear is not what you read. Now what do I mean by clashes with how you think the

word should be pronounced? Most non-native speakers started learning English through

reading and writing. So your first encounter with a language was through the letters, right?

You started learning the letters, how to write them, how to read. But what happens is that

you start associating certain sounds to each of those letters, especially the vowel sounds.

So A, it's usually associated with a, and O is usually associated with o

and that's how you remember the words. You usually remember the words phonetically because also English

spelling is so inconsistent that you have to kind of like create sounds in your head

to remember how to spell a word. Now what happens when the letter O actually has several

different sounds? For example, the, ah, as an 'office' or O as in 'go'. Sometimes it's

u as in 'lose' and sometimes it's just ʌ, as in love or ə as in computer.

So it's super- super confusing. So while you are creating a sound or you're creating the pronunciation of a

word in your head.

When you hear the word pronounced without having any written reference, it clashes and

it doesn't find the right placement that you've created in your brain. So you think that it's

probably a different word and maybe you're just not familiar or you get overwhelmed and

then you freeze or you go blank.

Now this video is exactly about that. I'm going to

illustrate how English pronunciation is really different than how you might be perceiving

the sound or the word in your head and how it is so different than how it is spelled.

Last week I published a quiz where I shared a bunch of phrases written out phonetically.

That means I wrote them the way they sound and it was kind of funny because some people

got it right. Some people got some of the sentence or some of the phrase right and other

parts they didn't really understand.

Some were completely thrown off. Now it's a fun quiz, so it's not scientific. There

are no rules of how to write English phonetically. I just wrote it the way I usually write it

to my students and then that helps them understand the word better. But it's easier when you

know the word when you don't know the word. That's when it gets confusing. So what I'm

going to do now is I'm going to show you all those phrases and I'm going to give you a

few seconds. In case you haven't seen the video before, I'm going to give you a few

seconds to guess what the underlying sentence is and then I'm going to explain how I came

up with this phonetic spelling.

So are you ready? By the way, if you want to keep on practicing with those phrases,

then you can download the phonetic phrases and the actual meaning of the phrase with

an audio recording of me saying these phrases and explaining them so it's extremely valuable.

If you want to continue on practicing and it's completely free, you just click on the

link below or right here. Let's begin with the first phrase.

take a second.

What do you think it means? Now here's the thing. You have to say it out loud. It doesn't work if

you only look at it written.

Now I'm going to say it out loud.

Did you do it?

Did you do it?

Did you do it?

Did-you-do-it?

It sounds a lot clearer when I say it right? Did you do it? Did you do it? So here's what

happens. The first part is 'did'. But then when I add the word 'you', then the ye-sound

connects with the final D of the word did. When a D and a ye connect they create a new

sound. And that sound is ja, dija. 'Could you', 'would you'. Now the you is a function

word and function words when they're not stressed are reduced to a schwa. So it's not did you,

but dija, so did you actually, sounds like, dija, when people speak dija. Then we move

on to do, that's the primary stress. This is why it's in bold.

Did you do. The next word is 'it', it is also a function of word. So the vowel there actually

reduces to a schwa.

But when I connected u of the do and the schwa, I get another sound.

And that is a w sound. Do w't? Do wi't. Again, notice I'm not saying "do it". Doo w't. That's

what happens when you connect those two words together. So as you can see, what happens

here is that we have two new sounds. Dija, where did this ja come from? And the w w't?

Where did this come from? But when you connect it all together, did you do it? It makes sense.

And if you pronounce it that way, it would sound with more flow and more accurate and

of course it's going to be clearer.

Dija doo w't?

Let's look at the next one.

So let's break it down. The first part is adda-the-ya-fis

Now the stress parts are adda, ya. Adda thee yaa-fis, adda thee yaa-fis.

Out of the office.

Adda thee yaa-fis. 'Out of' is reduced because it's less important. So 'out', this whole

diphthong changes to just a as in cat. The T is a flap T, so it sounds like a D. And

then the 'of' reduces to just up eh, adda out of, adda.

adda

So 'of' is a funny function word, not only it reduces to 'v. The V part and notice it's a V not an F. the V part drops

if the next word is a consonant. Adda, V that's a consonant, V, okay, that's the word the.

But when the word 'the' appears before a vowel, it sounds like 'thee', adda thee.

The next word is office. We begin with an ah sound.

So even though there is an O here, it is pronounced with an open ah, office. But here as well,

when I connect the with ah, I get a new sound. And that is a ye sound. Think about it, the

office, adda thee yaa-fis. I'm gonna be out of the office today, adda thee yaa-fis.

Here's the next one.

Try to guess it and let's read it together.

What are ya do-wing?

What are you doing?

What are ya? What are you, what are. The R reduces

and connects to the 'what'. But then the T is a flap T and the R is sort of dropped. And

then what you hear is whatta. Interestingly enough, what are you? Sounds exactly like,

what do you, what are you, what are ya? What are you doing? What do you, what do ya, what

do you want to drink? Whaddaya, and then again, we have doing. Do, and then the ING at the

end, when we connect those two vowels, we get the W sound. What are you doing? What

are you doing?

Here's the next one.

ai-daw-dit

I doubt it.

So the first one is a diphthong,

the first word 'I'. Then we have 'doubt'. Of course there is no B here, so we don't

pronounce it. Doubt. The T becomes a flap T because it's between two vowels once I connect

it to the next word. Doubt it. I doubt it.

This is a little more challenging.

So let's see if you can figure this one out.

Now I'm going to read it slowly.

Does that make more sense?

'It's an' reduces, it reduces so much

till you don't even pronounce the vowel before the 'ts' of the it's and then you connect

it to the an that is reduced as well, tsuh.

Then we have 'unusual' un-u and then the zhu.

Now the S represents a zh sound, which is not

something that you usually associate the S with. This is why it was confusing. Cause

you might've been looking for words with a just with a G or a J sound.

tsuh nun yuw-zhu...

tense u and then when you move into the dark L at the end of the word unusual, it seems

like you have an O sound and it also seems like you have a W sound. Yes again, the W.

tsuh-nun-yuw-zhu-wol

and then image, the e at the beginning is the same as the e at the end,

even though they're both represented with two different letters, I and A. So again,

sometimes when you see this, you're looking for a word with two Is, right? You're automatically

looking for how you think this word should be spelled. And this is why you couldn't figure

out what the underlying sentence is.

tsuh-nun-yuw-zhu-wol i-mij.

And let's connect it.

It's an unusual image.

Try this one.

Let's break it down.

Which is a way to say: What's wrong? Why do you have this attitude?

So 'what is' reduces to 'watts

wi-thee', you connect it: wi-thee, wi-thee. And then when you connect 'the' with 'attitude',

you get another ye sound to help connect the vowels. Thee-ya, that's the a as in cat, the

T is a flap T and then it's a schwa, thee-ya-duh. So it's not an I or what you would assume

to have in this word because of the spelling. 'Watts wi-thee ya duh' and then 'tude'. There

is a W there because the 'u' is long and it feels as if you're adding a W.

Okay, this is fun.

I'm going to give you a moment to try and figure it out. And then we'll talk about it.

So let's break it down.

Again it clashes with how we perceive the words. Because who here was looking for words

with the word see maybe S E E or S E A T with the word seat. But because there is a P in

the spelling of the word, you probably didn't think that I was referring to the word 'receipt'.

So you were searching for other words. But if you just say it the way I just did, it

makes all the sense in the world, because that's how the word is pronounced. So let's

look at it from the beginning. Kuh-nai, so the 'can' is reduced kuh-nai, we connect words

together. So the end of 'can' becomes the beginning of the word 'I'. Can-I get a, we

connect the two words together. The T becomes flat, gedda, gedda. And then the receipt is

just ra sound it's an R and a schwa. Ra, and then C.

Can I get a receipt please?

Here's another long one, try it.

And now let's break it down together.

I'll start with the end, the word

quarter might've thrown you off as well because you might be used to thinking of the word

quarter as qua because of the spelling Q and U, qua. However, the way you actually hear

it pronounced is 'core', like the 'core' of my being core-dr. Core-dr, quarter. So that's the end.

The beginning it was, twas. The 'it' reduces completely twas, twas. Okay, also the A in

'was' reduces 'twaz' and then you uh, twazuh. Then profitable, most of the word is comprised

of schwas, so there isn't a vowel there. Praa, although it's spelled with an O, it's the

open ah sound. Okay, so you might've been looking for a word with A in your head, but

it's actually an O. Pra-fuh-duh-bol, profitable. I put an O between the B and the L, profitabOl

because of the dark L. The dark L kind of affects the vowel before the schwa before

and it turns into, oh.

Okay, we have two more, try this.

And let's break it down together.

Starts to make sense?

Okay, so the C H, right? That was the confusing part because you are

looking for a word that starts with a T H but when there is a T and an R at the beginning

of a word, it creates a new sound and that is the tʃ as in 'chicken'. Try and then when

you connect the I with the uh, you get a yu sound. T chra-yuh li -d’l, the T is flat,

so it sounds like a D. li -d’l bi da another flap T bida vit. The V sound of the word 'of'

becomes the beginning of the next word. Beause that's what happens when you connect the words together.

And the last one is this.

'Let me' connects together and the T drops. So it just sounds like, 'lemme'. 'Give you' stays the

same, but then you connect it to a, give you wa. Right again, that W when you have an u

sound that connects to a schwa or a front foul, you get a W sound. Lemme giv-yu-wa pee

-suh v, we separate it differently P-suh | v'd so the V becomes the beginning of the next

word, pee-suh v'd and then vais. And that's what happens when you connect words together.

It's called resyllabification. You divide the phrase into syllables differently than

how you would divide the separate words.

Let me give you a piece of advice. And notice that I said 'a piece of advice' and not 'an

advice' because advice is an uncountable noun. So there isn't one advice, two advices. But

just advice or some advice or a piece of advice.

Okay, that's it. Thank you so much for watching.

Please let me know in the comments below if

you like this video and write a comment in phonetic writing. So say something out loud

and then try to write it phonetically because that is a lot of fun and it makes you look

at things differently. It's a really good practice. Also, as you remember, you can download

the PDF with the phrases, the phonetic phrases and the sentences and an audio recording of

me reading those sentences slowly and then in normal speed.

Thank you so much for watching.

Have a beautiful week and I'll see you next week in the next video.

Bye.