Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.
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This video comes to you from Dillon, Colorado,
where I'm spending Christmas with my family.
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I'm going to introduce you to my cousin and
my cousin's husband. Do you notice anything
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interesting about how those words are pronounced?
If not, stay tuned.
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>> Hi, I'm Rachel's cousin Nikki.
>> I'm Rachel's cousin's husband, Steve.
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>> Did you notice how they pronounced the
words 'cousin' and 'husband'? Listen again.
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>> Hi, I'm Rachel's cousin Nikki.
>> I'm Rachel's cousin's husband, Steve.
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Did you notice how they pronounced the S as
a Z sound? This is actually quite common in
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American English. I've done a video on how
to pronounce plural nouns. There are many
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cases there where the final S will be pronounced
as a final Z. The same rules apply to third
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person verb conjugations. But in the words
'cousin' and 'husband', they're not plural
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nouns, and they're not third person verb conjugations.
They're simply words where the S is pronounced
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as a Z. Unfortunately, there are no rules
to tell you why the S is pronounced as a Z.
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But there are a whole slew of words where
this is the case, and they just have to be
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memorized.
Two days ago, my cousin's husband Steve took
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me snowboarding. Unfortunately, because I'm
not very good at it, I fell many times. And
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I've ended up with a huge bruise on my knee.
Both knees, actually. Did you notice? Because,
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with a Z. But also, did you notice, bruise.
Spelled with an S, pronounced with a Z.
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>> Don't believe her, she did an excellent
job. Do believe her about the bruise, though.
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>> Yes, the bruise is, is not a lie.
Other words where the S is pronounced as a
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Z: is, his, use. Now, let's stop for a minute
and talk about use. In verb form, the S in
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'use' is pronounced as a Z. But when it's
a noun, use, it's pronounced as an S. So that's
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one way you can differentiate between which
form of the word is being used. This also
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applies to a few other words, for example,
house. As a noun it is an S, and as a verb,
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house, it is a Z. Was, design, lose. These
are just some of the many words where the
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S will be pronounced as a Z. Special thanks
to my cousin and her husband for being in
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this video with me. That's it, and thanks
so much for using Rachel's English.
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