Question and Answer with Rachel's English -- American English

In this video I’m going to answer some questions from you, my audience. We’ll talk about

N’T contractions, what languages I speak, and lots more.

Hey guys, thanks to everyone who posted a question on my Facebook page for this video.

If you never saw that post on Facebook, I’m not that surprised because only about 10%

of Rachel’s English fans see any given post. The best way to make sure you’re hearing

all the news from Rachel’s English is to sign up for my newsletter so you get the emails

in your inbox. You can do that by clicking here or in the description box below.

We’re going to start with an email from my friend Staci, who’s actually been in

a couple of my videos, one on knitting terms and one on how to greet Americans. If you’re

interested in those videos, you can watch them by clicking in the description below.

She asks: What’s your opinion on pronouncing place names (cities, mainly), when the accent

of the people living in that area is different from how the word looks? New Orleans comes

to mind, or the city Bath in England. This is a great questions, and there isn’t a

right answer. That’s why she’s asking for my opinion. There will be lots of other

people out there with a different opinion, and I’m sure they’ll let me know in the

comments. My opinion is, it’s ok to pronounce a place name the way that people where you

live pronounce it. Not necessarily the way that the people who live there pronounce it.

For example, if I was to say ‘Bath’, and I was to pronounce it ‘Bath’, that sounds

pretty weird in American English because we have that word, ‘bath’. And we pronounce

it ‘bath’. And actually, someone commented on the Facebook page that even within England

there’s variation on how that place name is pronounced. So I think it’s ok to pronounce

it the way that you’re comfortable with, the way that you hear people saying it. New

Orleans. That’s how I say that word, but I’ve heard it pronounced lots of different

ways, New Orleans, New Orleans. And my guess is, if you went there, and asked people who

live there how they say it, there would be some variation too. Um, this is sort of related

to a video that I did before on the word ‘burrito’. I got a lot of people commenting, saying,

‘You can’t pronounce it that way, it’s wrong. There’s no American pronunciation

of that Spanish word. So, difference of opinions. But, Staci, thanks for asking, and that’s

mine. Let’s keep going.

Next question: It’s said a language changes and modifies itself during time. In your opinion,

is the way of speaking American English changing? Interesting question. Yes, I think in small

and subtle ways. I think the core isn’t changing much, or it’s changing very slowly.

So what you’re learning on my channel is probably going to be true for a very long

time, if not your full lifetime. But there are ways in which we use language that are

changing. For example, over the past few years, there has been a fad of taking two words and

combining them to make one word. For example, ‘frenemy’: the words ‘friend’ and

‘enemy’ put together. What is a frenemy? That would be someone in your social circle

that you might be outwardly nice to, that you don’t like very much, and that doesn’t

really like you. The media is really doing this with celebrity couples, like Brangelina,

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Maybe you’ve heard that or something like this before.

The next question is about American culture: “can you please explain about engagement

rings”. Some of you may know, recently I got engaged, and I posted a video about that

on Facebook and YouTube. An engagement ring is generally a diamond, but it can be anything,

and it’s usually set in gold, white gold, or platinum. But, a good friend of mine was

recently given a very beautiful wood engagement ring. Generally men will propose with this

ring, and the women wear it for the whole engagement period, and then often beyond that

as well. Men do not wear engagement rings. Then on the wedding day the couple exchanges

wedding rings or wedding bands. And generally, the woman will wear this with her engagement

ring. The wedding ring goes on first, then the engagement ring second. So, again, these

can be made of a variety of metals. And for both men and women, it’s worn on the ring

finger of the left hand. There are all generalizations, but that’s usually how it works.

Next question: If we are visiting New York, can we visit you , or see you somewhere, MY

DREAM IS TO MEET YOU !!!! I do go to New York a lot, but I actually don’t live there anymore.

I moved in January, down here to Philadelphia because David has a great job down here. And,

to answer your questions, sometimes I meet up with fans in person. I think it would be

great to travel a little more so that I could meet fans in other countries, have meet-ups,

maybe. Um, but I just need to find out a way to make that financially possible, but that

would be incredibly fun for me because I do love to meet you guys.

Here’s a pronunciation question: do I hurt her and I heard her sound the same? I hurt

her, I hurt her feelings. I heard her, I heard her say that. They do sound the same, don’t

they. Because when we drop the H in ‘her’, which we often do, look at what we have. All

the sounds are the same except T and D. But T after an R before a vowel, like ‘party’,

is flapped. Which sounds just like a D sound in the same situation. So now these two phrases

sound the same. I made a video on homophone phrases a while ago that goes over this concept

of phrases like this sounding the same. Check it out here or in the description below.

What languages do you speak other than English? I used to speak Spanish, it’s been really

a long time. I studied it in college and went abroad for a semester, I lived in the Dominican

Republic. I spoke ok Spanish, I could get by. I don’t remember much of it anymore,

and that was 15 years ago. I haven’t used Spanish much since then. More recently, I

lived in Germany, and that was for six months, so I’m a little bit better at speaking German,

but it’s been, now, 6 years since I lived there. So unfortunately that’s slipping

too. In grad school and just after, when I was studying opera, I also studied Italian

and French. But it was more for the pronunciation than to be conversational in that language.

I think I can order food and drink in French but that’s about it.

I got a few questions about N’T contractions: ain’t, aren’t, weren’t. Nn, nn. Do you

hear how those are all ending a weird nasal sound, ain’t, nn, nn, nn. I’m not saying

TT at the end, I’m making an abrupt, pinched sound in my nose. I made a video about this

sound and these N’T contractions, and I have another video, an interview with newscaster

Rehema Ellis, which has a lot of real life examples of N’T contractions in it. So be

sure to check out those two videos.

Question: What is your feeling when you realize new interesting pronunciation in your own

language? This happens all the time. Sometimes it’s a pronunciation thing, sometimes it’s

just how we use the language. But generally, I get a rush from it, it’s very exciting.

Most of us don’t notice anything about how we speak or use our own native language, I

know I didn’t before I started making this channel, so it’s really fun to have this

project, which sort of orients my mind towards that. I notice a lot more. So I get excited

and I think, I want to tell my audience that! For example, when I was walking around New

York last weekend, I passed someone who said “I’m dating myself”. Usually when we

say I’m dating … we’re talking about a boyfriend or girlfriend. I’m dating David.

What does it mean: I’m dating myself? She meant she was putting a date to herself, she

was making her age known. She recognized a costume from the 1970s, this was Halloween,

and by doing that she was dating herself because she was recognizing herself as someone who

knew what that was. Someone who grew up in the 70s or before the 70s. So she was dating

herself, she was putting an age or an age range on herself. I smiled to myself because

even as a native speaker, when you hear someone say I’m dating myself’ out of context,

it’s pretty funny.

Last question: I find it hard to pause my sentences reasonably because I need to think

while speaking . Are there any tricks? This is what’s really hard about going from a

studying situation to a real life situation. I tell people you can practice even this.

When you’re alone, just practice talking out loud. Try it even just 10 or 15 minutes

a day. It’s surprising how even that can help build confidence and fluency. How to

do this? Write down a few topics, like “What’s up?” or “What are you doing?” Prompts

that you see happening in conversations on TV or in movies. So write them down, and then

take that paper and answer them. Speak as long as you can on one topic, and when you

run out of things to say, move on to the next one. You could also just current events, something

you read in the paper that day. The point is just to practice speaking, and you don’t

have to worry about the pauses you’re making. The more you worry about them, the more tense

you’ll become, and the more they will happen. And, just remember that native speakers also

pause sometimes when we need to think of something, so it’s ok. So write down prompts, and practice

on your own. That way you don’t need to worry about, Am I doing this right? You can

just focus on hearing something, responding to it, thinking what to say and speaking at

the same time. And just the practice of that, daily, will help.

Guys, I’m so sorry I can’t answer everyone’s questions, that would probably make a video

that would be two hours long, which seems a bit much But thanks again, for everyone

who suggested a question. If you missed my last Q and A video, you can see it here, and

don’t forget to sign up for that mailing list! That’s it, and thanks so much for

using Rachel’s English.