🌎 American English Accent Training 🌎How To Improve Your English Speaking

What’s the second Sunday of every  May in the US? Mother’s day.

Her birthday is the second weekend in May.

That’s uh, Mother’s day honey.

Today we’re going to take this scene and we’re  going to study it for every detail of the  

American Accent. When we do full analyses like  this, my students’ listening skills skyrocket.

I’m Rachel, and I’ve been teaching the American  accent on YouTube for over 15 years. Visit  

RachelsEnglish.com/free to get my free course,  the Top 3 ways to master the American Accent.

This is the scene we’ll study.  This first time through,  

there is no closed captioning.  How much can you understand?

Now for the analysis. Also, what  TV show should I do this kind of  

an exercise with next? Let me  know in the comments below.

Kids, just came in to remind  you to keep Saturday open. 

Kids, kids. He comes in, his pitch is a little bit  high. Kids, kids. To me his throat seems kind of  

narrow, that's how he gets that kind of sound  kids, kids, kids. We've got the scoop down and  

up up, that's what lets us know that he's going to  say more. That's the intonation that says I'm not  

done it's different than kids which is a little  bit more of a statement. This is a little bit more  

of a continuation kind of intonation. Kids. Kids, 

Kids, just came in to remind  you to keep Saturday open. 

Oops we forgot the word in here didn't we let's  write that in. Just came in and that's got stress  

on it, just came in to remind you to keep Saturday  open. So some stress on keep, keep and then Sat,  

definitely stress on the day of the week, Saturday  open. So all of our stressed words are a little  

bit longer and have a change of pitch on their  stressed syllable. Sa, it goes up a little bit and  

then down, Sat, Saturday open. I actually should  have drawn the up down shape here because it's  

the first syllable that's stressed. But we want to  think about this pitch change as being very smooth  

and we want to think about connecting each word.

Just came in to remind you to keep Saturday open. 

That smoothness and linking is an important part  of the American accent. So how do we get things  

so smooth? Let's look at our linking.

Just came in to remind you— 

Just came in. Just came in. So all of that just  came as part of our rising intonation and notice  

the t is gone. Just came, just, just. I'm  going to write this with the schwa, just,  

just, uh uh uh uh uh said very fast, very quickly  and the t is dropped because it comes between two  

consonants and that's really common. Just,  first, last, all of these St cluster ending  

words linking into a consonant often has  the t gone. Just came, just came, just came. 

Just came in— to remind you 

Just came in, just came in. So the word into  

is pronounced indu in regular English conversation  quite a bit in conversational English, that's the  

I as in Sit n and then in [flap] a D sound in  the schwa. So in to becomes inda, inda, inda,  

inda. Try that. Inda.

just came into-- 

And it's very fast. Inda, inda. Just came into.  Just came in to. So have your peak of stress. 

just came in to—

I actually want to  

change the way I wrote this stress. Just came in,  just came in to. Now that I'm really focusing on  

that I'm feeling it just came in, that the pitch  change goes up then down. In to, just came in to. 

Just came in to—

remind you. 

In to remind. Then we have up  down shape of stress on mind

In to remind. And again that is a stressed  syllable, the first syllable unstressed. Remind,  

remind. Probably I would write that with a schwa  but I could also see it being written with the  

ih vowel like in sit unstressed. Remind. Now  let's look at what's happening with the D. 

Remind you—   

Remind you. So

ending d and the word u. This is a special  case where we often get a sound that sounds  

like J which we write an IPA with these two  symbols, remind you ju ju ju. So d plus y,  

you're sometimes going to get this  J sound. This is also really common  

t plus y gets a CH like what you, what you  doing? Remind you, remind you, remind you. 

Remind you— to keep Saturday open. 

Remind you to. You to. So again just like  in ‘in to’, the word to became du. That’s  

happening here as well. Mind you to.  Think of your tongue as just being a  

flap for that sound. Remind you to, remind you to. We changed sounds into flaps we combine sounds,  

we make words very fast, this is part of that  important linking in American English. Remind  

you to, remind you to, remind you to.

remind you to— 

Very smooth. Doesn't sound that much like remind  you to. Remind you to. Just one important syllable  

there and it's mine.

Remind you to— Keep Saturday open. 

Remind you to keep Sa. So keep, this is  a stop consonant and he doesn't say keep  

Saturday. We don't release the p and then  make the S, we just stop the air for the P,  

keep Saturday and then we go right into  the S sound. Keep Saturday, keep Saturday. 

Keep Saturday—

So it's not key Saturday, it's not smooth.  

Keep Sa. But we have a little bit of a stop  there for the P, for the Stop quality of the  

P consonant. Keep Saturday.

keep Saturday— 

Saturday. Satur, this T is a flap T also flap T  is so common and it's part of this smoothness in  

American English. It's different than Saturday,  Satur, Satur, which has that crisp stop and  

release. By turning that into a flap T we get a  smoother sound and we make a t a flap T between  

two vowels. Satur, Satur Saturday.

Saturday— 

Keep Saturday open. You're going to want  to link right from the a diphthong into  

the O diphthong. Smooth, no break, Saturday  open. You can think of a y sound is helping  

you connect those two words. That's going  to give us the smoothness that we want. 

Keep Saturday open.

Wow, we have only studied one sentence  

and we've already learned so much about linking  and reducing and changing sounds, all to get that  

smooth characteristic of American English.

Keep Saturday open. 

What's Saturday?

What’s Saturday? What  

Saturday? One peak of stress, it's on Sa,  everything else leads up to it smoothly,  

what's Saturday, and then falls away from it.  So smooth. Another flap T, Satur, Satur, don't  

put a real full vowel in here, it's just schwa R  and R takes over schwa, Satur. So it's from that  

flap right into the r sound and it can help you  to think about holding out the sounds before and  

after a flap T that can sort of help you focus on  smoothing that out. Satur, satur, what Saturday? 

What Saturday?

I also notice we have ending s beginning s and  

he doesn't say what's Saturday? He doesn't give us  two S's but it's what Saturday, what Saturday. One  

S connecting these two words. What's Saturday?

What's Saturday? 

What’s Saturday? It's your mother's birthday.

So he repeats the exact same phrase the exact  

same way. What’s Saturday? Going up and peeking  on Sa, What Saturday? Again, flap T, again,  

schwa R. Saturday. Again, one S to link. What  Saturday? What Saturday? Try that. And both of  

them are making just a pure W sound, what’s,  there's none of this little H release that  

can sometimes happen. What’s. That's a little bit  old-fashioned, it's much more common now to just  

say whu, whu instead of whu, whu, what’s Saturday?

What’s Saturday? 

It's your mother's birthday.

It's your mother's birthday. So there's  

no break. The a from Saturday links right into  the i from it's. Saturday? It's your mother’s,  

one stress syllable there and then another  one on bir, birthday. And everything smooth,  

smooth pitch change, smooth links.

What's Saturday? It's your mother's birthday. 

So don't put a break here if you're going to  be imitating this audio because he doesn't.  

What’s Saturday? It’s. Again you  might feel like you go through a  

y consonant to help you link Saturday it's.

What's Saturday? It's your mother's birthday. 

It's your mother's. It's your. Do you hear how the  word your is not pronounced your but it's reduced,  

it's your. The vowel changes to the schwa  which we've already said R takes over the  

schwa so you can just think of there  as being two sounds Y and R, your,  

your. This is not a word that has a pitch change,  it's just a smooth little quick word that is part  

the whole line. It's your mother's birthday.

It's your mother's birthday. 

We have two tricky sounds here. Two different  th's. The th in mother's is vv, voiced, the  

th in birthday is f unvoiced. These symbols I'm  using are the International Phonetic Alphabet and  

it's a way of using symbols to write sounds that's  different from the symbols you use to write words. 

It's your mother's birthday.

So it's worth familiarizing  

yourself with the symbols and the sounds of  American English and I have some playlists  

on the International Phonetic Alphabet and  American English so you can look those up. 

It's your mother's birthday.

A common replacement is to make a z muzes  

or a d mudes, try to just keep that th,th,th,th  as a th tongue tip against the backs of the teeth.  

Also birthday, it's pretty common to make that an  S try not to do that. F, f, f, tongue tip through  

the teeth. And keep in mind the word ‘birthday’,  we have first syllable stress and it's all R,  

it's the r vowel consonant combination so it's not  B it's nothing like that, it's straight to R, BR,  

so make sure your lips are having that R position,  BR right after the B. Birthday, birthday. 

Birthday.

No. 

No. I love this, she holds it out. No. She's  got sort of an interesting intonation there. No.

No.

Her birthday is the second weekend in May. 

Her. She holds out the word ‘her’ a little  bit but I just want to point out that it's  

the r sound that's being held. Her. Again,  it's the r vowel constant combination just  

think of it as a single R sound it's not  her but her, right from H and R. Her. 

Her—

birthday is the second weekend in May. 

Her birthday is the second weekend in May. So  she says that pretty quickly but we still have  

our long syllables there. Birthday is the second  weekend in May. And then one more little up down  

shape. So again, birthday, no vowel, just an R  sound held out, birth, birthday, tongue tip has  

to come through for that unvoiced th. Birthday  is the, linking a vowel to vowel in this case,  

a diphthong to vowel, it's the a diphthong.  Birthday is. Linking into the I vowel for is  

and you might think of a why to help you connect  birthday is. Birthday is the. So is and the said  

quickly, no skip or breaks, just part of that same  line. Birthday is the. Try that. Birthday is the. 

birthday is the—

second weekend in May. 

Second weekend in. Second, so we  have syllable stress on se. Second,  

second syllable very fast. K schwa ND, kund,  kund, kund. Not Cond or conned or Coned.  

Second, second weekend in May.

Second weekend in May. 

Second weekend. I actually should have written  that with a little bit of a up down shape on week.  

Weekend, weekend. It's a little bit longer,  a little stressed, second weekend in May. 

Second weekend in May.

The D in second is sometimes  

dropped especially when the next word begins with  a consonant. I don't really hear much of a d, you  

can think of it as being second weekend, you can,  I think of the N just linking directly into the W. 

Second weekend in May.

Weekend in May. Again, so smooth n  

right into M no break. Weekend in May.

weekend in May. 

Depending on the consonant combinations in your  own language, some of these links might be tricky  

but in American English we really want to practice  on our links vowel to vowel, vowel to consonant,  

consonant to consonant. In May. In May.

In May. 

Linking gets us smoothness and smoothness  is the characteristic of American English. 

in May.

That's Mother's Day honey. 

That’s uh. That’s uh. Okay, so we have up down  shape of stress for that. That’s uh, then we have  

the thinking vowel, in American English that's  the uh vowel like in butter like in us. That's uh. 

That's uh,

Mother's Day honey. 

Mother's Day. So in that two-word phrase that  two-word concept, Mother's Day, we've got stress  

on the first syllable. Mother's Day honey.

Mother's Day honey. 

In both of these cases the letter O makes the  uh vowel like an us like in butter. Mother's  

Day honey. Uh, uh.

Mother's day honey. 

I don't think so. Yeah, this girl cracks me up. Okay,  

I don't think so. One stressed word in that  forward phrase so everything is leading up to it  

or falling away from it. I don't think so. Let's  look at how we're linking together for smoothness. 

I don't think so.

I don't think. N apostrophe T, this  

is an interesting contraction. We've got several  pronunciations of it in American English, they  

all have to do with changing the sounds for more  smoothness. And here, we're dropping the T sound  

all together. I don't think. The N is linking  right into that unvoiced th. Don't think. There's  

no stop, there's no separation, there's no tt,  true T release. So it's a nice smooth connection. 

I don't think so.

I don't think so. A really,  

really, really light release of the K, I think as  it transitions down into the s for so. Now keep in  

mind with the O diphthong, you are going to want  a little bit of lip rounding, we don't want so,  

we want so, so, some relaxed rounding in the lips.

I don't think so. 

I just don't think that this is the year.

I just don't think this is the year. Okay, so  

let's look at our stress. We definitely have year  at the end. Year. I just don't think that this  

is a. This is his own opinion so he's stressing I  and the rest of the words, wow, so fast, a little  

sloppy, so many th’s in there, let's look at this.

I just don't think that this is the year— 

The first thing, let's look at the St ending  of just, the next word begins with a consonant,  

now I've said in that case, it's very often  that we would drop the T. Let's listen. 

I just don't—

I just don't. I just don't. Yep,  

T is dropped. Also, the vowel in just hardly  there, I would write that as a as a schwa. Just,  

just, just, just, just. So the whole word  ‘just’ becomes just, just, just. So fast. 

I just don't—

Let's look at the N apostrophe T contraction. 

I just don't—

Up here I felt that she dropped  

it completely. What do we think is happening  here? It's followed by the same word, so the  

same exact initial sound.

I just don't— 

Okay it's so fast it is hard to tell, but I'm  going to say I think I'm hearing a little tiny  

lift, don't think, don't think, and that  little tiny lift or break is another one  

of the ways we pronounce an apostrophe T, I  just don't think, don't think, don't think, so  

I'm going to write that as a little stop. Then we  have, well let's look at our K. Do we hear that? 

I just don't think that---

Not really. Think that. The n  

in the word think is actually the NG consonant  which is written in the International Phonetic  

Alphabet with this symbol. Think that, think  that, think that, think that, think that. I'm  

just really not hearing much of a K. I mean,  I'm just going to put that in parenthesis. 

I just don’t think that—

I just don’t think that this is the-- 

Think that this is the, think that this is  the, think that this the. Think that this. So,  

stop T at the end of that, that this, that this,  that this. It's not t, but it's also not the this,  

the this, the this. There's just a little tiny  lift. The this, the, the, the, the. You probably  

noticed I'm not saying the, I'm not saying the a  vowel. The a vowel in that actually changes to the  

schwa. So many, so many sounds and words change  to have schwa in them. So many sounds change to  

the schwa in reductions, that this, that this is  the, that this is the, that this is the. So that  

this is the becomes that this is the, that this is  the, that this is the. You have to really simplify  

your jaw movement, your tongue movement. All of  these THs, that, this, the, they're all the voiced  

th and they're all beginning and unstressed word.  This is a case where sort of special. The tongue  

tip does not have to come through the teeth but it  can quickly press the backs of the teeth. That's  

how we can say these faster. That this is the,  that this is the, that this is the. Try that. 

That this is the—

Notice there's not  

a lot of volume in my voice. That this is the.  There's almost no pitch change. That this is the,  

because they're all unstressed. I have more  volume, I have more pitch change on year.  

That this is the, that this is the year. In fact,  the four words that this is the take about as much  

time as the one word year. That this is the year.

That this is the year— 

to be doing—

To be doing. He  

does a tiny little pause here, holds out his NG  sound a little bit. To be doing, to be doing,  

to be doing. So the word ‘to’ pronounced with  a true t, tt and the schwa. Tt, tt, tt, to be,  

to be, to be, and those are both flap.

To be doing— 

They don't have a big pitch change like year.  To be, to be, to be doing. Then we have that  

pitch change on do. To be do and again to be  doing all smoothly connected. To be doing. 

to be doing—

The word doing has D consonant, u vowel  

and then the I as in Sit ng ending. Sometimes it's  hard for students to connect two vowel sounds like  

U and I and it helps to connect them by thinking  of a quick glide consonant in this case it would  

be w. Doing. That can really help students  smooth out those connections. Doing, doing. 

Doing—

something big. 

To be doing something big. Something big,  something. All kind of leading up to just  

the one stress word big something big. I as  in sit vowel falling down in pitch at the end,  

unvoiced th. Something, something. Something big.

Something big. 

It's not something, some. It's not stressed,  it's something, something. I would write that  

s schwa n. Some, some. Something big.

Something big. 

To be doing something big. So we have two up down  shapes of stress there. To be doing something big  

and everything is connected so smoothly.

to be doing something big— 

I love this show. It is funny, I do recommend  you check it out but for now let's listen to  

this whole conversation one more time.

Kids, just came in to remind you to  

keep Saturday open. What’s Saturday? 

What's Saturday? It's your mother's birthday. No. Her birthday is the second weekend in May. 

That's uh, a Mother's day honey. I don't think so. 

I just don't think that this is  the year to be doing something big. 

Now let's put in a little training for  you. You're going to hear each part of  

each phrase three times in a row, think  about the analysis that we've just done,  

you'll hear it three times. Each time you hear  it there will be a pause for you to repeat it. 

Kids,

It will get easier, your mouth will start to relax  around these sounds, it's going to be amazing. 

So do, do this out loud, don't skip the training.  It's going to really help you learn how to  

simplify your mouth movements and link things  together. Now, at first it may be incredibly hard  

and frustrating, stick with it, do this training  part of the video twice today, twice tomorrow and  

for an entire week. It will get easier, your  mouth will start to relax around these sounds,  

it's going to be amazing.

Kids, 

Just came in to--

remind you to— 

keep Saturday open.

What's Saturday? 

It's your mother's birthday.

No. 

Her birthday is the--

second weekend in May. 

That's uh,

Mother's Day honey. 

I don't think so.

I just don't think that this is the year-- 

to be doing something big.

I love this show, it is funny. I  

do recommend you check it out. But for now let's  listen to this whole conversation one more time. 

Kids, just came in to remind  you to keep Saturday open. 

What’s Saturday? 

What's Saturday? It's your mother's birthday. No. Her birthday is the second weekend in May. 

That's uh, a Mother's Day honey. I don't think so. 

I just don't think that this is  the year to be doing something big. 

So much to learn in one scene. If you want  to practice working with audio training for  

a video like this, check out my free course  the top three ways to master the American  

accent at Rachels english.com/free. Keep your learning going now with this  

video and don't forget to subscribe with  notifications on I love being your English  

teacher and your American accent coach. That's  it and thanks so much for using Rachel's English