Sound like a Native Speaker: Compound Nouns

392,716 views ・ 2015-05-06

English with Emma


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi, there. My name is Emma, and in today's lesson, I'm going to teach you what a compound
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noun is, and how to pronounce compound nouns. So, in this video, you're going to learn pronunciation
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and also about what is a compound noun.
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So, let's look at what a compound noun is to get started. I have here five words. "Bed",
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"news", "hair", "sun", "foot", and beside them, I have another word: "room", "paper",
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"cut", "glasses", "ball". These are examples of compound nouns. So, you might have guessed
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it already, a compound noun is where you have a word and another word that have been put
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together to form a new word. So, "bed" and "room" together become "bedroom". "News" and
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"paper" become "newspaper". "Hair", "cut" becomes "haircut". "Sun" and "glasses" is
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"sunglasses". And finally, "foot" and "ball" is "football". Pretty simple, I think.
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So, what I would like you to do now is I want you to take out a piece of paper and a pen,
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and try to think of as many compound nouns as you can. Okay? So take a moment, pause
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the video, brainstorm for maybe one to two minutes all of the compound nouns you can
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think of. All right.
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01:39
Okay, so now that you have your list of compound nouns, I want to teach you about how to pronounce
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these words. Okay? So, the key here is a compound noun is made up of at least two words. Where
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do you think the stress is? What part of the word do you think we say louder and longer?
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What do I mean by this? Well, for example, do you think I say: "bedroom" or "bedroom"?
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If you said "bedroom", you are correct. For compound nouns, the very first part or the
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first word in the compound noun, we say it longer and louder. All right?
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So repeat after me: "Bedroom. Bedroom". Okay? And again, here: "news" is the part we say
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louder and longer. "Newspaper. Newspaper." Okay. Here, again, we say the first part louder
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and longer. "Haircut. Haircut." Okay. Can you guess where the stress is going to be
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here? If you said: "On 'sun'". You are correct. "Sunglasses. Sunglasses." Okay?
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And I'm saying the first part very loud and long, maybe a little bit too exaggerated.
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But with stress, it's very important to stress your syllables correctly, because this can
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really impact whether or not a native speaker understands you. So, this is very important.
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Stress is very important. Okay. Finally: "Football. Football." So what part was louder? This part
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was louder. "Football." Okay?
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So, let's try to say some of these words in a sentence, and I want you to repeat after
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me and pay attention to the stress. Okay? So, I have this sentence: "My bedroom is nice."
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So, again, this is the part that's loud. "My bedroom is nice.", "Your sunglasses... Your
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sunglasses are pink like the sunrise." Oh, great, we have another compound noun right
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here. "Sun" and "rise", they are two different words that have been brought together. So
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"sun" will be louder. "Your sunglasses are pink like the sunrise." Okay? And finally:
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"She pays football." So, again, we have our stress at the first word. "She plays football."
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So, again, you can find these compound nouns everywhere. If you look in an English newspaper,
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if you look on an English website, there are thousands of them. So this is quite important.
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Again, it's usually the very first word within a compound noun that is stressed, that is
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longer and louder.
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So, I invite you to come check our website at www.engvid.com. There, you can actually
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do a quiz to make sure you understand what a compound noun is. You can also subscribe
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to my YouTube channel where I have a variety of videos on many different subjects.
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Until next time, take care.
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