Pronunciation - QU

428,805 views ・ 2013-04-24

English with Ronnie


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

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Hello everyone. My name is Ronnie. Today I'm going to teach you some pronunciation. Are
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you confused or do you become a little bit scared when you see this 'q' and 'u' together,
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and you're not too sure how to pronounce it?
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First of all one very important spelling trick, especially if you do crosswords is "q" must
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always be followed by "u" in English. So every time you have a "q" you must follow it by
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a "u". This is the capital "Q" and this is the baby, small "q."
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Most of the times when you see the "q" written it will be with a smaller "q" so spelling
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"q-u" 100% of the time, all of the time. Pronunciation is like this. It sounds like a "k" and a "w"
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together, so the sound is like '"kw" - "kw" - "kw" - "kw" -"kw" -"kw." Try and do that,
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"kw" - "kw." Your mouth goes open at the end.
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Let's try our very first word. It's a word that's very common in a lot of story books
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for children or in newspapers. The first word is "queen - queen." So if you take the first
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'"q-u" sound, you're going to make it like a "kw", so it's like "queen' - "queen". The
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queen, of course, is always a woman who is married to a "king." The king and the queen
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sometimes are monarchs of some countries.
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The next word is "q-u - quilt, q-u - quilt." When you say the "q-u" sound, it is unvoiced
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so it does not vibrate, so it's "q-u - q-u - quilt." A quilt, it's a blanket. Sometimes
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people do "quilting" as a hobby, but a "quilt" is just basically a difficult word to pronounce
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for blanket, again it's the "k and w" - "quilt."
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The other thing that's very important is that you always are very, very strong in your pronunciation
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of the "t"' sound at the end of the word, because if you don't, it could sound like
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this word "quill", so if you don't say the "t" here, it could sound like you're saying
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"quill."
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"Quill" is a very, very old writing instrument that they used hundreds of years ago and it
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was basically a feather. What is a feather? A feather is a bird hair. Let me draw you
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a feather, shall I? So a "quill" is a bird feather and what they did was, they put ink
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at the nib of the feather, and they were able to write before they had the modern pens,
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pencils, or iPhones. This word is "quill - quill, not quilt."
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And the one in-between, this we don't really use this word a lot, but it is still in our
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vocabulary, in my vocabulary. This word is "quaint." "That's quaint." "Quaint" means
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it's cute or nice. Some very, very small cities in Canada, that haven't been overrun with
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condominiums you could describe as being quaint. So: "queen, quilt, quaint, and quill" If you
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can practice the "kw" sound, you'll have much ease at saying these words.
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The next three words, they're a "doozy" and by "doozy" I mean "Oh, my god. How do I say
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this one? How do, which, which, which?" Even when I read these words or see these words,
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I have to think about is it "quaint, quick, quiet?" What, what, what was it? What is it?
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So let me help you. What you have to do is look at the spelling of these words. This
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one's the easiest, because you have the "kw" sound, and then you have "it." So it's "kw
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- it - q-u - it - quit. "Quit" means to stop doing something. So, for example, you can
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"quit smoking." You can "quit your job." You can "quit learning English, but you can't
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do that now," so this word is "quit." It means to stop doing something.
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This word is almost the same spelling as this word, and this word, but there is sneaky little
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"e" here. So if you have the first part of the word, it's "k-w" with our "k-w" sound.
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Then we have an "i" and you can say it like an "i." And then we have "e-t" at the end,
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so it's "k-w - i - e-t - quiet" This word "sh-h-h- quiet" means don't talk. So this
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word you can break down, as a "q-u" sound, so "k-w and i, and an e-t" is "quiet - quiet
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- quit."
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Then we come to this one with the "e" at the end. This word is "quite - quite". So it would
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rhyme with the word "white". So you can rhyme "quite, and white - quite - white". "Quite"
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basically means "very." I can say "Wow, it's quite cold today in Canada." It's the same
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as saying it's very cold.
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The reason why this is so difficult is because you only have one letter. The only thing that's
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different here is the "e" has switched positions this one is easier, because there is no "e."
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So one more time, this is "quite - quiet - sh-h-h, and quit."
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If you would not like to quit studying English, go to engvid.com and learn some more, Good
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Bye.
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