How Do Americans Really Speak? | 👻SCREAM movie 😱Clip + English Pronunciation Analysis (🎃 Halloween Special 🎃)

🎃 Happy (almost) Halloween! In this special edition Ben Franklin exercise® we’re taking a short conversation clip from the movie *Scream* and diving deep in to how Americans really speak. 

Tagged With: English Pronunciation Analysis   YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video.

Video Transcript:

Get ready to get scared, have your hair stand up on end. To celebrate Halloween later this week, we’re doing a full pronunciation analysis of one of the most iconic scary movies, Scream. Studying movies this way will help improve not just your listening comprehension of American English, but your accent, too. Be sure to stick around for the training section at the end so that you can pick up all the habits that you’ll learn about. First, here’s the scene.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Uh, I don’t know.

You have to have a favorite. What comes to mind?

Um, Halloween. You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters.

Yeah.

What’s yours?

Guess.

Um, nightmare down the street.

You got a boyfriend?

Why? You want to ask me out on a date?

Maybe. Do you have a boyfriend?

No.

You never told me your name.

Why do you want to know my name?

I want to know who I’m looking at.

What did you say?

Now, let’s do the analysis.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Uh, I don’t know.

Classic Halloween scene. Let’s start here.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Uh, I don’t know.

What’s your favorite scary movie? He really draws out the word favorite. So, he stresses the F, he holds it a little bit more. Fei, and definitely the diphthong. In this case, it’s the A as in say diphthong. Each syllable in English has either a vowel or a diphthong. And here it’s got a diphthong, fei. And when we have a stressed syllable, it’s never flat. We like it to go up and then down in pitch, fei. Make sure you get that shape, that voice coming down. That’s really important for understandability when it comes to stressed syllables.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Favorite. Favorite. Now, you may notice it’s not favorite or favorite. This vowel sound is just dropped. We go right from V into R. Favorite. Favorite. And then how does that end? It ends with a stop T. The T is not released. That would be favorite. But instead, he says favorite. And there’s an abrupt stop there at the end of the word. That’s very common for ending T’s, especially when the next word begins with a consonant. You’ll almost never hear an ending T fully pronounced when it comes after a vowel or diphthong and the next sound is a consonant. Favorite. Favorite.

Favorite.

So that’s our most stressed word. Let’s go back to the beginning of the sentence.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

What is your becomes what’s your, what’s your. Way under pronounced compared to the up down shape of stress that we had here on our stressed syllable. What’s your, what’s your. So these words are flat, they link together. This is not pronounced your, but it’s your. In IPA, we would write that with the Y consonant sound and then the schwa R sound. Your, your, your. But there’s not really a separate vowel sound. It’s just the Y into the R. Your, your, your. Low and pitch, flat.

What’s your—

And what’s also said very quickly and also flat. What’s, what’s, what’s your, what’s your.

What’s your—

These words are unstressed and unstressed words in English have a very different feel than stressed words like fei, fei, what’s your, what’s your, what’s your. Flatter in pitch lower in volume linking together and less clearly pronounced. What’s your fei, what’s your favorite.

What’s your favorite—

scary movie?

Scary movie. Scary movie. So, his voice is lower in pitch and he’s losing a little bit of the volume here as we go down. Scary movie. And then it just kind of falls out with this popcorn kind of sound. But these two words also have a little bit of an up down shape of stress on the first syllable. Scare and moo. So we have three, two syllable words here in a row and they each have first syllable stress. Favorite, scary, movie.

Favorite scary movie.

This melody of English is really important. It helps people understand what you’re saying. When you give stressed syllables an up down shape with your voice.

Favorite scary movie.

Uh I don’t know.

Uh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I and don’t both just going up towards that peak of stress on no. This is the only word with an up down shape. No. But it’s very clear. I and don’t lower in pitch flatter just building up to this up down shape. Notice the T in don’t is completely dropped. I don’t know. These two words link together with a single N sound.

I don’t know.

Make sure that you imitate this audio with the melody. Please don’t imitate it flat. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. We want that up down shape of stress on No. This is the O diphthong. No. In IPA, that’s the International Phonetic Alphabet, we write it with this symbol. No. And you do need lip rounding here. We don’t want it to be no. We want no. As your pitch comes down, round your lips. No.

I don’t know.

You have to have a favorite.

You have to have a favorite. You have to have a. So, here we have the word have twice. It’s pronounced differently the first time than it is the second time. The first time it’s the most stressed word in the sentence. We have more up down shape of stress. It’s the ae vowel. A. The word you links right into it just leading up to that peak of stress. And it’s not pronounced Yu, it’s pronounced yə, yə. That’s called a reduction. Yə, yə. So I would write that with the ye consonant and the schwa vowel. Just like up here. Your became your. Now you is becoming yə. So these reductions are very common in spoken English. And even though they seem less clear, as part of the overall music of English, they actually make it easier to understand you when you’re speaking.

You have to have a favorite.

I’m Rachel. I have a background in opera singing and I’ve been teaching the American accent to non-native speakers for over 20 years. Scan this QR code or go to rachelenglish.com/free to get my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. It will blow your mind. It will give you totally new ideas on how to get the sound you’ve always wanted.

You have to have a favorite.

You have to have a favorite. So, the ending V sound in have actually gets changed to an F. Why? This is very common in the phrase have to because the next sound t is unvoiced. It forces this v sound into an unvoiced sound which is F. So instead of have to, it’s haf tə. Haf tə. And we don’t pronounce the uh vowel in to but it’s again the schwah. Just like you became yə, to becomes tə. haf tə.

Have to—

And notice how it all links together smoothly. You have to.

You have to—

have a favorite.

Have, the second time not stressed. So, it’s lower in pitch and flatter. Have to have. These three words very different than this word as far as length and shape of stress. Here, it is a weak V sound, but it links right into the schwa. Have a, have a, have a, have a. So these three words to have a are pronounced to have a, to have a, to have a. Not very clear but overall in this sentence, the contrast of stressed and unstressed makes it clear. To have a, to have a, to have a. Practice that. To have a, to have a, you have to have a.

You have to have a—

favorite.

You have to have a favorite. And just like up here, our word favorite pronounced the same way. We’ve got an up down shape of stress for our first syllable. Favorite. There is no middle syllable. The t is a stop t. It’s not released. And we have the a diphthong. Fei. Favorite.

Favorite.

What comes to mind.

Now you listen to this phrase. Three times and see if you can hear which word has the most up down shape of stress. Which word do you feel this happening on?

What comes to mind?

What comes to mind? It’s very clearly the last word. What we have a little dip down. What comes to. And then those words are just going up to our peak of stress on mind and it all links together like one single word not like four individual words. What comes to mind?

So, the word what, again stop T. Why? Next sound is a consonant sound before a vowel or diphthong. So instead of what, it’s what, what. Abrupt stop. What comes, what comes, what comes.

what comes—

The letter here is O the vowel sound is the uh vowel, uh, total relaxation for that vowel. No lip rounding neck throat muscles all very relaxed. Comes. What comes, what comes to. The Z sound in comes which is weak links into the T and it becomes an S. A very weak S. Comes to, comes to, comes to, comes to. And again the word to pronounced tu, tu, tu, comes to, comes to, comes to mind. Min. Finally, we have that up down shape of stress.

What comes to mind?

By the way, at the end of this video, I will have a training section where you can practice yourself. So, here you’re learning about the linking and how all the sounds change. At the end, you’ll hear looped audio. You’ll hear each little phrase or part of a phrase three times and then you’ll repeat it out loud to see if you can start building this habit of this smoothness and the connection between words and the up down shape of stress.

What comes to mind?

Um, Halloween.

Um, unstressed word very flat. Um, Halloween. And then we have first syllable stress there. Halloween. Everything else just falls back from it. This word should actually be underlined because it is a title. Halloween.

Um, Halloween.

This word has a couple different pronunciations. It can be Halloween, with the a vowel linking into L or it can be Halloween with the A vowel linking into L. Halloween. Halloween. Both pronunciations are great.

Halloween.

You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters.

Okay, this is a long phrase. Let’s break it up a little bit. First of all, let’s look at the beginning. You know, we’ve already seen how the word you and the word your can change, can reduce. Let’s see what happens here.

You know.

Wow. I mean, honestly, I don’t even hear it. The first time I was listening, I clearly heard, you know, as this, you know, you know, you know, a very quick Y sound. Now, as I’m listening to it on a loop, I barely even hear it. I know it’s there grammatically because I know that’s what would be correct. But that word is so reduced, I almost don’t hear it at all, you know?

You know.

The one with the guy in the white mask.

The one with the guy in the white mask. So, we have four up down shapes of stress there. The one with the guy. When you start listening to the rhythm, it really starts to sound like a song.

The one with the guy.

It almost stops sounding like speech. It has a rhythm to it. The and with the, those words are said very quickly. The one. The one. The–

It’s quieter. It’s so fast. The one. See if you can make it that fast. The one with the. These two words will link together with a single unvoiced th. And this is the symbol for it in the International Phonetic Alphabet. With a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a guy, with a guy,

With the guy—

in the white mask.

Now we know we also have white, mask. Two more up down shapes of stress. Again, a stop t. The next word begins with a consonant so we don’t release that. Also, this word white and all WH words can be pronounced two ways. Either with just a plain clear W, white, or with a little escape of air before white. White. I prefer just the clean W pronunciation.

White mask.

I think she does do a little subtle escape of air before. The white mask.

The white mask.

Who walks around and stalks babysitters.

Now here we have another wh word. And actually this is not pronounced the same way. There is no w here. It’s just h. It’s just an h sound. Who? Who. So there is no W sound in the word who, but there is a W sound in the word white. And there’s not really an H sound unless you go with this pronunciation.

Who walks—

around and stalks babysitters.

Walks around and stalks babysitters. Okay, so we have more up down shape of stress. Walks around in stalks babysitters.

Now, rather than going up down, the pitch goes down up. Babysitters. So that is first syllable stress, but the stress is opposite. It goes down then up. It does that because it’s a question. She’s asking if he knows this one. So it’s a yes no question. Do you know this movie or not? Yes or no? Yes, no questions go up in pitch at the end. So instead of saying babysitters, she says babysitters.

Walks around and stalks babysitters.

Walks around and. Walks a. The letter S links into the schwa which is the beginning of the word around. Walks around. The word and gets reduced to just n, around and.

The D links into that schwa, around and, around and, around and it’s flat. None of this up down shape of stress. Then we have up down for our verb, stalks. This word actually can sound just like this word stocks, like stocks and bonds. Stalks.

We don’t say the L. Stalks.

walks around and stalks.

babysitters.

Stalks babysitters. Babysitters. Notice the double T here is a flap T [flap]. It’s just like the D between vowels in American English. Babysitter. Depending on your native language, this may sound like an R to you.

Babysitters.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He’s got a lot of breath in his voice. He’s a little bit freaky sounding, isn’t he? A little bit scary. Yeah. But it has a quick little up down shape of stress.

Yeah.

What’s yours?

What’s yours? So, two little up down shapes of stress. Little on what’s and then bigger on yours. What’s yours? Yours. This time it doesn’t reduce. We don’t reduce words at the end of a sentence. Those are going to be more fully pronounced. What’s yours? And notice how this is a question, but still the pitch goes down. That’s because it’s not a yes no question. He cannot answer this with yes or no. He has to give the title. So that’s why the intonation goes down here. What’s yours? Please don’t make it flat. What’s yours? What’s yours? What’s yours? What’s yours? They’re both stressed. They need the up down shape of stress and a little bit more time to give that up down shape. What’s yours?

What’s yours?

Guess.

Guess. Guess. One word, one syllable, little up down shape of stress. Guess. Guess.

Guess.

Um, Nightmare on Elm Street.

And she does it again. Um, and holds out her M. That’s the uh as in butter vowel. Very relaxed. Um.

Um,

Nightmare on Elm Street.

Nightmare on Elm Street. Two up down shapes of stress. Nightmare on Marin on just part of the line as the voice falls down. Elm Street. And then another up down shape of stress on the proper noun Elm. Nightmare. Notice the T is not released. It’s a stop T. The next sound is a consonant. The sound before it was the I diphthong. Night. Night, nightmare. Nightmare on. Mare on, mare on. Flatter. Faster. No up down shape of stress here. These syllables are unstressed. Nightmare on Elm Street.

Nightmare on Elm Street.

One of the ways you’ll hear STR pronounced is sch, as an s and then a ch sound and then an r. street. Street. Don’t make this very heavy. Make it pretty light. But that might help you pronounce the consonant cluster to think of it as a ch instead of an r. Street. Street street. And again, it ends with a stop t. If a word ends in a t and there was a vowel or def thong before and there’s nothing after it, then it’s usually going to be a stop t. So, we know if the next word begins with a consonant or the next sound is a consonant, then that’s going to be a stop t. But it’s also true at the end of a sentence where there is no next sound.

Nightmare on Elm street.

Now, we’re going to skip ahead a bit in this scene.

You got a boyfriend?

Again, this is a yes no question, either she does or she doesn’t. So, it’s going to go up in pitch. That’s why instead of saying boyfriend, the voice instead goes boyfriend? So, stress is on the first syllable and it goes down and then up. Boyfriend? You got a.

You got a boyfriend.

This is short for have. Have you got a. It’s pretty common in spoken American English to drop this have. Let’s look at how you got uh is pronounced.

You got a—

You got a, you got a, you got a. Not you but yə with that reduction into the schwa, yə. Then the t in got links into the schwa and it becomes a flap. Got to, got to, got to, got to, got to, linked together. You got a becomes you got to, you got to, you got to. Notice how it’s all flatter.

You got a—

And it’s lower in pitch. There are no up down shapes of stress here. You got a, you got a, until we get to boyfriend and then we have more pitch change. boyfriend.

You got a boyfriend.

Boyfriend. And we don’t really hear the D at the end. It could be lightly released, but sometimes it’s just kind of dropped. And that’s how I hear it here. I hear it is just kind of dropped.

Boyfriend.

Why? You want to ask me out on a date?

Why you want to. I notice a couple things here. First of all, why pretty big up down shape of stress there. Why? You want to. And it links right into the word you with no break at all.

Why?

You want to ask me out on a date?

You want to ask me out on a date? And again, this is a yes, no question. So, we’ve got the down up at the end. Date?

Date?

Before that though, you want to ask me out on a date. We have two little up down shapes of stress. Ask out a phrasal verb. That’s when you show romantic interest in someone. You’re thinking about wanting to be in a relationship with this person. You want to go on a date. So, you ask them out.

You want to ask me out on a date?

Want to pronounced wanna, wanna, wanna. No t at all.

The final sound is the schwa. Wanna, wanna, wanna. You wanna, you wanna. Now I don’t really hear her doing the full reduction like he did. He did yə. I think I hear the oo vowel. You you you. But it’s fast. It’s not stressed. It’s not you. But it’s you. You, you, you wanna. You wanna. You wanna. You wanna ask. You want to ask. So smooth. So connected.

You want to ask—

me out on a date?

Ask me out on a date. Ask me out on a. Do you notice how the T here links together? Out and on. And it’s a flap. Out on a out on a out on a [flap]. And the N links into the schwa. The schwa links into the D. Everything is smoothly connected and blends together.

Ask me out on a date.

Now, do you hear the ending T here? Date?

Date?

No, you don’t because again, it’s a stop T. The sound before was a vowel or diphthong and there is no word or sound after. Therefore, date it is not released. It is not date. Simply date with an abrupt stop of sound. Our ears hear that as a stop T.

Date?

Maybe.

Maybe. We’ve got a lot of pitch change there. Maybe. I would say he’s going up and down. And that can be used for a yes, no question, but it can also be used to show that you’re going to continue speaking.

Maybe.

Do you have a boyfriend?

Maybe, is the first part of his thought and then reasking do you have a boyfriend is the second part of his thought. So his intonation goes up here. Maybe. Do you have a boyfriend?

Do you have a boyfriend?

Do you have a boyfriend? Do, I feel it this is quite stressed because this is the second time he’s asked. Do you have a boyfriend? And then everything else is just going up. Boy, until we get to boy where there’s another little dip down. Do you have a boyfriend? Uh.

Do you have a boyfriend?

Again, no D at the end of boyfriend. And all linked together. Do you have a boy? No breaks. All so smoothly connected.

Boyfriend.

Um, no.

Um. Um. Very quiet. Um, no. I think she kind of brings her voice into an up down shape and then up again a little bit at the end. No.

That intonation going up invites more conversation about it. If she had said no, no, just going down and ending, no. That is a clue with that she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. But by going no, and going up a little bit at the end, that shows that she’s interested in hearing more about what he has in mind. It’s a little bit flirty.

No.

You never told me your name.

Usually, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are the most stressed in a sentence, but not always all of them. For example, never is not stressed here, but our verb told and our noun name are stressed. And that’s common. It’s very common for the verbs to always be stressed.

You never told me your name.

Here’s another you. Does he say you?

You never—

You. He does not say you. Very flat in pitch again. Y without the oo vowel but reduced to the schwa. You. You never, you never, you never, you never, flat. You never told me. Told. Now there we have some length. There we have up down shape of stress. A clear beginning true T. You never told me. If you’re getting confused here, we’ve talked about a stop T, a true T, a flap T. I have lots of videos on my channel that go over the different T pronunciations. It can help you sound really smooth and natural when speaking American English.

You never told me.

Now, this word is tricky because it has what we call a dark L. You probably learned that when you pronounce an L, you bring your tongue tip up to the roof of your mouth, but not a dark L. Told. That dark sound in there is made with a tongue tip down. An L is a dark L if it comes after the vowel or diphthong in a syllable. And here it’s a one syllable word and the vowel is before the L. So it’s a dark L. Told. We make it by keeping the tongue tip down and pressing down and back with the back of the tongue a little bit. It’s a tricky sound. And I have lots of videos on the dark L on my channel.

You never told me—

Your name.  

Told me your, told me. The D is not released. It’s not told me, but it’s told me. So, a very quick D linking into the M. Now, we have the word your. Do you think it’s going to be pronounced your? Let’s listen.

Your name.

Your name. Your, your, your. So, it’s not your, it’s reduced. It’s said very quickly. Your, your, your. It’s flat. You can forget about the vowels. Just do a Y sound and an R sound quickly. Your, your, your name. Your name.

Your name.

Why do you want to know my name?

Why do you want to know my name? Three up down shapes of stress there. Why do you want to know my name? And the general trend overall is the pitch is falling. That’s normal for statements in American English and everything links together really smoothly.

Why do you want to know my name?

Do you want to. How are these four words pronounced? We know they’re unstressed.

Why do you want to know—

Do you want to—

Very fast. Do you want to, do you want to. The ooh vowel linking into the Y sound of u. The oo vowel linking right into the w sound of want to, w. I would write that with the uh as in butter vowel, want to. It ends in a schwa. We don’t hear the t’s at all.

Do you want to—

We have to simplify to make that as quickly as we can so that we have more contrast with our length on our stress syllables. Do you want to, do you want to, do you want to know?

Do you want to know?

my name?

Why do you want to know my name? And my also, said very quickly. So we have stressed, unstressed, stressed. Dadada, know my name. Know my name. It’s not know my name. They’re not equal. Got to make my shorter.

Know my name.

Know my name.

Because I want to know who I’m looking at.

So he says cuz, it gets a little bit cut off because we still hear her finishing the word name. So really all we hear is the Z sound of the because reduction which is cuz, cuz, cuz I, and that Z does link in because so many of our words link together. Zai, zai, zai. So it’s just like adding a Z sound to the beginning of the word I. Zai, zai, zai.

Because I want to know—

who I’m looking at.

Cuz I want to know. Know. Up down shape of stress. Again, don’t forget we need lip rounding for that. Know who I’m looking at. And then another up down shape of stress on the word look. Here the double O is the uh vowel. Don’t give me Look. Just uh, uh, look. It’s the same vowel that we have in push. Look. Uh, looking.

Because I want to know who I’m looking at.

Cuz I want to know, cuz I want to know, cuz I want to know. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna. Just like up here. Want to, so often pronounced wanna. Wanna, wanna. No T ending in the schwah. Wanna, wanna, wanna. Cuz I want to know. Cuz I want to know.

Because I want to know—

who I’m looking at.

Because I want to know who I’m looking at. And the second syllable of looking and the word at just falling down in pitch. Looking at. And notice there is no T. Looking at. We do not get that. It is another stop T. Looking at.

Looking at.

What did you say?

What did you say? Okay, now she’s feeling nervous. Her voice is a little bit breathy. Maybe it’s a little bit higher in pitch than normal.

What did you say?

What did you say? And it all links together so smoothly. We have two little dips down changing the direction of stress. What did you say?

What did you say?

Let’s notice how what and did linked together. What did? So the vowel here is the uh vowel like in butter. There is no T sound. It just links right into the D. This is a really common way to pronounce these two words. What did becomes what did. What did, what did, what did.

What did—

What did you say?

What did you say? The D and the Y link together to produce a J sound. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it’s written with this symbol. Dj, dj. D connecting to the word U is very common for this reduction to happen. Let me say that sentence again. When a D connects to the word you, an ending D, it’s really common to do this reduction to link them with a J sound. Did you, did you, did you, did you, did you say?

What did you say?

Let’s listen to the whole conversation one more time.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Uh, I don’t know.

You have to have a favorite. What comes to mind?

Um, Halloween. You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters.

Yeah.

What’s yours?

Guess.

Um, Nightmare Elm Street.

You got a boyfriend?

Why? You want to ask me out on a date?

Maybe.

Do you have a boyfriend?

No.

You never told me your name.

Why do you want to know my name?

Because I want to know who I’m looking at.

What did you say?

What do you think? Are you feeling scared? You can watch this full clip on YouTube, but first I would love you to work with the training that comes next in this video in order to start changing your own habit of English speaking. You’ll hear each little part of a phrase three times. Then there will be a break for you to repeat and you should repeat it out loud. For each phrase, you’ll hear this three times. There’ll be three times for you to repeat after listening to it looped before we move on to the next phrase. See what happens when you do this. Try to do this section every day for a week. See how much more comfortable it becomes for you to link words together and imitate this melody.

What’s your

favorite scary movie?

I don’t know.

You have to have a favorite.

What comes to mind?

Halloween.

You know,

The one with the guy

in the white mask

who walks around

and stocks babysitters?

Yeah.

What’s yours?

Guess.

Nightmare on Elm street.

You got a boyfriend?

Why?

You want to ask me out

on a date?

Maybe.

Do you have a boyfriend?

No.

You never told me

your name.

Why do you want to

know my name?

Because want to know

who I’m looking at.

What did you say?

Keep your learning going now with this video. And don’t forget to visit rachelenglish.com/free to get my free mini course, the Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. You’ll be amazed at what you learn. Please subscribe with notifications on. I love being your English teacher. That’s it. And thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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