Speaking English - How to count syllables

Welcome to this lesson. My name is Ronnie. Today, I'm going to teach you something that's

important. Is it? For doing something with adjectives, it is called counting syllables.

Now, why would you want to count a syllable? Do you like math? I hate math. Counting syllables

are important to make superlatives and comparatives in adjectives. So, I will teach you that in

another lesson. So, don't worry. Hold on tight. But, the first thing that you have to know

when you're making superlative or comparative adjectives is how to actually count a syllable.

How to actually count a syllable. What is a syllable? Basically, a syllable is how long

the word is. Not by how many letters it is, but how long you hold the sounds for. So,

when you have to count syllables, it's very important that you count the vowel sounds.

Not the vowels themselves, but the vowel sounds in English. Who knows what the vowels are

in English? Who can say the vowels in English? Me, me. Oh, yes. The vowel sounds in English

are A, E, I, O, and U. Me, you. So, A, E, I, O, and U. Our friends from Latin America

and people who speak Spanish and Portuguese, you will always mix up the E and the I because

it's opposite. To help you remember this, you can put an I above to help you remember

the sound as an I. So, A, E, I, O, U are the vowels, but each vowel and vowel combination

has a different sound. So, to count syllables, you have to count the vowel sounds. The shorter

words are the easiest because one vowel, one syllable. Cat. So, in this very short word,

there is one vowel and one vowel sound. So, this, cat, has one syllable. In this word,

dog, there is, again, one vowel, the O, so there's one vowel sound. This gets easier.

In this word, how many vowels do you see? One. Uh-oh. Sometimes Y is considered a vowel.

There's a tricky rule in sometimes Y. So, if you look at this word, we have "hungry".

The Y sounds like an E sound, so "hungry". There's your vowel there and your vowel there.

This has two vowel sounds and two vowels, "hungry". Oh, no. The next word is "busy".

Because it ends in a Y, the Y makes an E sound, and this makes an I. So, "busy", again, is

two vowels. If you look down at this word, "beautiful", how many vowels do we have?

One, two, three, four, five. Now, remember, don't count the vowels. Count the vowel sounds.

You do not want to say "beautiful". That would be strange. "Beautiful". Because this word,

all of these vowels together make one sound. It sounds like "you". "Beautiful". This one

actually only has three vowels, three vowel sounds, but five vowels. So, this contains

three syllables. This one, how many vowels do you see? A, O, A, E. One, two, three,

four. Let's try this. "Adorable". Oh, it worked. There are four vowels, and therefore

four syllables. One thing to be very, very careful about when you speak English is that

most of the time, the E at the end of the word is silent. But when it's an L-E sound,

it sounds like a "ul". So, because it's L-E, it's going to be an extra vowel sound. In

contrast to this, if you look at this word, "college", this does not end in L-E. It ends

in G-E. So, this, the E is actually silent. So, let's look at this word. How many vowels?

One, two, three. But remember, the E at the end of the word is usually silent, so it's

"college". Two syllables. I want you to try and do these by yourself. I will give you

a couple of minutes to try. I'll be right back with the answers. Count the vowel sounds

and tell me what you think the answers are. Be back soon. Have you finished? Are you counting?

Okay. Let's go through. This word, first of all, say the word "employ". We have how many

vowels? One, two. There's a Y. But this word is "employ". We don't say "employee". We actually

use one, two vowels. The "oy" at the end of the word, the O and the Y together is one

vowel sound. So, you have to think about if it's two vowels together, most of the time

they'll be one vowel sound. Next one. "Employee". There's a special trick in English. If there

are two E's together, they will make an E sound at the end of the word. So, we have

one, two, three, four, five. Five vowels but "employee", only three vowel sounds because

the O and the Y again make one vowel sound and the double E makes an E sound. So, we

have "employee". This has three syllables. This has two. This is a long word. Are you

ready? Count the vowels. One, two, three, four, five. "University". Five amazing vowels.

Five amazing vowel sounds. This word is very long. The longer the word, most of the time,

the more syllables you want to use. We have done this one. "College" has two. And the

last one. We have two syllables. "Power". We have two vowels. Now, you might be curious

and may want to study superlative adjectives and comparatives. If you'd like to do this,

stay tuned for my next video. Goodbye.