ERICA HILL -- Interview a Broadcaster! -- American English Pronunciation

103,923 views ・ 2014-01-16

Rachel's English


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Hey guys. Welcome to the new Rachel's English mini series, Interview a Broadcaster!
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>> Hi guys. I'm here with Erica Hill.
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Erica, can you tell my fans a little bit about what you do?
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>> Yes. I am the co-anchor of the Weekend TODAY show, on NBC,
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and I'm also a national correspondent for NBC News.
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>> Awesome. Well, I don't know if you know this,
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but another term for the standard American accent is 'broadcaster English'.
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>> I'm just learning this, actually.
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>> So people all over the world are looking to the people in America who are delivering
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the news as a standard, as an example for how to speak American English.
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So, where do you come from? And, did you have to change anything about your accent when you
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came into this field? >> I didn't really need to change anything.
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I grew up in Connecticut. >> Okay.
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>> Um, sort of, almost directly in between New York and Boston. So there was a lot of
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influence around us, and probably, definitely, within people's families. My mom's from
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New Hampshire, so she says words a little bit differently than maybe some of my friends'
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parents did. My dad is originally from Connecticut. >> Okay.
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>> But the town where I grew up, it was fairly standard.
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I think we all pretty much speak like I do. >> Right. Okay, well that's nice, that's easy.
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>> Yeah, it was easy. >> And, when your'e preparing a script to read online,
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or, to read on camera, um, do you have any… how do you practice it? How much time do you
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spend with it, do you have any certain tricks you use?
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>> You know, it depends on the script and how much time I'm given. So, sometimes if I'm,
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if I'm doing what we call a 'day of turn', or, a piece that needs to air that day,
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your'e very limited on your time. >> Yeah.
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>> Um, one of the most important things you do as a broadcaster is,
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you write to your pictures. So you want to make sure that you're writing to what the
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people are seeing on their screen. >> Okay.
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Let's take a second to talk about the contractions Ms. Hill is using.
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Sometimes my students shy away from contractions because they think they're less
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clear. Check out this series of videos that compares conversations with contractions
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to conversations without. Ms. Hill has used 'I'm' and 'you're' several times.
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In 'I'm', nothing reduces. But, it's still quick. I'm, I'm. In 'you're', we're reducing
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the vowel to the schwa, which is absorbed by the R sound. So, it's really just two sounds,
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yy, er, yer, yer. And it should be quite fast. You're. Listen again to this section.
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>> It depends on the script and how much time I'm given. So, sometimes if I'm,
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if I'm doing what we call a 'day of turn', or, a piece that needs to air that day,
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your'e very limited on your time. >> Yeah.
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>> Um, one of the most important things you do as a broadcaster is, you write to your
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pictures. So you want to make sure that you're writing to what the people are
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seeing on their screen. >> Okay.
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>> Um, so you want that language to be visual. And you want it to spark someone's
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imagination, so that it can help give them a more full picture of the story that you're
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telling. Um, so, but when I do have time to really craft a script, I like to take my time
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with it. I love words, I love writing. Um, so that's a roundabout way of saying,
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there's never an exact amount of time that I have, um, but in broadcasting, I think the
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goal is not only to write to your pictures, but you also want to keep it simple, um,
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because it's a spoken story. So, you have maybe 30 seconds,
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or even 15 seconds to tell a story. So it really needs to be about the facts sometimes,
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and not as much about the flowery language. >> Uh-huh. There you go.
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>> What do you do when you come across a word that you don't know how to pronounce?
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>> If I don't know how to pronounce it, I'll look it up. So, I will either call the
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international desk, and see if there's someone there who is familiar.
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If it's a different language, who speaks, who's a native speaker of that language.
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>> Right. >> …so that they can say it for me.
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Ms. Hill's speech, as with all native speakers, is filled with reductions.
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Here, she's given us a great example of the reduction of the word 'can',
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'So that they can say it for me.' Here 'can' is a helping verb. And 'say' is the main verb.
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Most of the time, 'can' is a helping verb. In these cases, we reduce the pronunciation
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to 'kn'. So we change the vowel to the schwa. But just like in 'you're', the next consonant,
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here the N, absorbs the schwa. So it's just two sounds: kkn, nn, kn, kn.
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She says it incredibly fast. But the main verb, say, has much more length,
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and that nice shape of a stressed syllable. Can say. This rhythmic contrast
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of short and long syllables is very important in American English.
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>> So that they can say it [4x] for me. Um, or I'll look it up online, if I can't find it.
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You know, if it's a regular word, I'll go to one of the dictionary websites.
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And oftentimes you can hit a button and you can hear that word. >> Right, yes.
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You can hit. Again, a great reduction of the function word,
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the helping verb 'can'. You can, you can.
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>> And oftentimes you can hit [3x] a button and you can hear that word. >> Right, yes.
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Another 'can' reduction: can hear.
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>> You can hear [3x] that word. >> Right, yes.
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>> I'll do that. Or I will go and listen to whatever I can find in terms of video online.
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Another 'can' reduction: can find.
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>> I'll do that. Or I will go and listen to whatever I can find [3x] in terms of video
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online, to hear, if it's a name, to hear that person saying their name.
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>> So it can be time-consuming. >> It can be, yeah.
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It can be time-consuming. Here, we're stressing the word 'can'. Not always,
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but it can be. So, we're not reducing the word. We're keeping the AA as in BAT vowel.
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>> So it can be [4x] time-consuming. >> It can be [4x], yeah, but it's worth it.
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I think one of the worst things you can do is mispronounce someone's name.
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>> Yeah. So when you, when it's someone's name that you don't know,
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or a word in a foreign language and you hear it, what do, what do you do with that?
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Do you just practice it repetitiously? >> I do. I, um, I'll listen to it a few times.
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Did you notice her 'I'll' contraction? It sounds great when we reduce it to 'all',
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so it sounds just like this word 'all'.
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>> I'll listen [4x] to it a few times, I'll say it out loud a few times.
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If there's someone, if it's not just hearing it online but there's an actual human being…
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>> Yeah. >> … who's giving me the pronunciation,
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I'll say it back to them until they tell me that I have it correct.
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Because I think it's really important to take that time and make that effort.
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>> Yeah. That's great. Now, are there any words in American English
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that you find especially difficult to pronounce?
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>> Yes. I am almost incapable of the following phrase.
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And I literally have to think about it before I say it. War of words.
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>> Ok. War of words.
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>> Which is pretty much the only thing that I have asked anybody who ever writes a script
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that I have to read to please not put in it. >> Leave that out.
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>> Because I have a very difficult time. >> Interesting.
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War of words. This refers to a long debate, either spoken or in writing.
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The stress pattern is DA-da-DA, DA-da-DA. 'Of' should be very short.
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War of words. War of words.
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>> When you write something, you want to make sure you say it out loud. >> Uh-huh.
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>> To make sure that it works when you're, when it's a spoken word. >> Good tip.
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>> Um, and, you know, it's just in doing that exercise that I've realized,
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I have to pause and think about each one of those words separately. >> Interesting.
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>> And it's, yeah.
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>> Yeah, you don't have time to do that. >> I don't like that phrase!
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>> Okay, well, what about a phrase or a word that you especially like?
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>> Um, one of the words I love the most is 'mama' because I like,
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I like hearing my kids say 'mama'. >> That's, that's beautiful. >> Yeah.
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'Mama' is a word that very young children often use for their mother.
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Mama, DA-da, mama.
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>> Well, thank you so much for the time. >> My pleasure.
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>> I think my users are going to really enjoy this.
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Follow Ms. Hill on Twitter and check out her segments on TV or online
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for a great example of American English pronunciation.
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>> And, uh, that's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.
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Check out all the videos in the Interview a Broadcaster series
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by clicking here, or on the link in the video description below.
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