They Were WRONG!...(They THOUGHT They Knew How to Say this Word)

It’s so simple, but most native speakers don’t  think about it at all, and most non-native  

speakers are taught the wrong pronunciation of  the most common and most simple words in American  

English. Today we’re having fun teaching Americans  things they didn’t know about their own language,  

and we’ll make sure you know the most  common pronunciation of English reductions.

Were you taught that these two words  are pronounced the same? If not, wow,  

bravo to your teacher. If you ask most native  speakers how they’re pronounced, they’ll say:

How do you say this word?

For

Four

What about you?

For

And you know what, this word too.  Let’s see, are all three the same?

Right now?

Yeah.

For, four and fore.

A non-native speaker if someone  came up and said excuse me,  

how’s this word pronounced? Then you  say what you would say, okay? So.

For

Four

Fore Are you the same John?

Yeah.

But the thing is, even though these  people all said all three are FOR,  

none of them pronounced this one that way  when I asked them to put it in a sentence.

And that’s because this is one  of the most common reductions  

in American English. It’s not ‘for’.  But it’s actually [fər]. What? Yes.

Be sure to download my sounds  of American English Cheat Sheet,  

it’s free, it’s an illustrated reference  guide for you for all the American English  

sounds including the phonetic symbols you need  to know. Link here and in the video description.

Fr. Said so quickly said with

basically no vowel. One of my students was  married to an American and she told him that  

I taught her the pronunciation is ‘fr’ and he  said, “that’s wrong. I don’t say it that way.”  

And then she noticed later, he did say it that  way. When we change or drop a sound like this,  

it’s called a reduction, and American English is  full of them. When you use reductions in your own  

speech, you sound more natural and you’re  easier to understand. When you study them,  

your listening comprehension improves. So let’s  hear these native speakers say some sentences.

I’m bringing an umbrella for the rain.

Fr the rain. So natural. Fr the rain.  Not for, but fr, fr, fr the rain.

“For Agnes’s birthday, we had cake.”

Fr Agnes’s birthday. Fr, not FOR.

Is this gift for me?

It is.

Fr me? Fr me? Fr, fr.

Let's wait fr the car to pass. Because like  why let him ruin my audio, right?

Wait for the car to pass. Wait fr, fr.

Did you notice ‘to’ was also reduced?  It wasn’t ‘to’. It was ‘duh’. Car-duh.

Car to pass.

Let’s wait for the car to pass.

Car-duh pass. Wait fr the car-duh pass. Okay, now,  you might be thinking, why does this matter? Two  

reasons. First, if you know about reductions  and you study them, and you understand them,  

and then it’s really doing to improve your  listening comprehension of fast, native English.

Second, believe it or not, using reductions  will make you easier to understand. The  

contrast of unstressed reduced words with  clear, stressed words creates the rhythm  

of American English. And a familiar rhythm  really impacts how easily other speakers  

will understand you. It’s actually better  than each word being fully pronounced.  

Not only is that not very natural, but if  some of your sounds are a little bit off,  

it can be pretty hard to understand because we  don’t have the rhythm to anchor and guide us.  

Wait for the car to pass. Wait for the car to  pass. That rhytym helps us get the sentence.

Let’s wait for the car to pass.

Four, F-O-U-R, does not reduce. It’s a  word that will be clear in a sentence.

Oh yeah, I played tennis four days ago.

Four days ago.

Four days ago. F-O-U-R, not  reduced. Also, this word does  

not reduce. ‘fore’, it’s not very common in  conversational English. It means forward.

What’s yours?

I have four children.

Yes you do.

Four children, four, no reduction.  F-O-R, fr. Now, like I said before,  

native speakers aren’t taught  reductions, because we learn  

speaking first. So we just naturally  do them. So we’re not even aware of it.

We had sauerkraut for lunch.

Uh-huh

So, Audrey, you actually said for lunch.

For lunch.

Right.

Now, you told me that this was pronounced for.

Oh

Did you know like would you ever teach  anybody that this was pronounced for?

For

Would you ever tell me that.

No.

Yet, like that’s probably how you  say it almost every time you speak.

Okay, so, something funny happened when my  niece was making up a sentence with F-O-U-R:

Does anyone know what these for pies are for?

They’re for me.

Yes.

She used both F-O-U-R and F-O-R,  but she didn’t do the reduction.  

Does anyone know what these for pies are for?

Are for? For? Not reduced, but why? I just told  you to reduce it! Okay, there is one exception.  

We don’t reduce the last word in a sentence.  F-O-R was the last word, and it wasn’t reduced.

My mom also did this in her sentence.

What is this for?

Mmm, nice.

I love when native speakers become aware of this  and learn something new about their own language.

Okay now I don’t know if you  guys noticed but when you are  

being conversational, you actually said for.

For.

Yep.

I noticed that.

You did notice that?

Yeah.

Is this for me?

For me.

For dinner, this is for New Year’s Eve.  Isn’t it funny that we think that it’s four.

Right.

That’s what we would tell somebody.

Right.

But it’s actually, we never  actually say it that way.

Ever.

Weird.

Almost never.

Actually if it’s the end of the sentence  you said, “What are these four pies for?”

The end of a sentence, you didn’t  kind of pronounce it that way.

Right.

Wow, Interesting.

Anyway, that’s just a little funny pronunciation  thing because people are taught that this is for  

and then when they get into real life  English and they’re not hearing it as  

that and their pronunciation of it is more  clear then it can lead to just confusion.

Anyway, fər.

Thank you guys for joining me for this video.

Fr this video.

Now, every time I teach a reduction, I  have some haters. We all have haters.  

And my haters say things like “I can’t  believe you’re teaching this wrong,  

lazy English! People need  to speak proper English!”

But the thing is, reductions are a part of proper  English. No English speaker fully pronounces every  

word, it’s just not the rhythm of our language.  So let’s look at some more formal talks. Most of  

the time, you’ll still hear this reduction. Here  are four examples. F-O-U-R, Four examples of ‘fr’.

For me, precision medicine  comes from a very special place.

For me--

Not just for you, but for me.

For you--

For me--

It’s premature for us to say that…

For us--

Now, our usual tactics for  tackling problems like these…

For tackling--

I hope I’ve convinced you. Most native speakers,  though they would say this word is pronounced  

‘for’, say ‘fr’. If you want to further  explore the reductions in American English,  

I encourage you to check out my series on  the 100 most common words in English. It’s  

absolutely crazy how many of them reduce. And if  you want to train those words in sentences, check  

out my online school Rachel’s English Academy.  I have a course on the 500 most common words in  

American English and of course it all includes  a bunch of training audio so you can really  

imitate those reductions. Be sure to subscribe  here on YouTube, with notifications turned on,  

I love being your English teacher. That’s it  and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.