How to Pronounce Oscars!

Rachel, what are you doing?
I’m attempting to fill out my Oscar ballot.
Guessing who will win what, in what category for our Oscar party tonight. Have you done yours yet?
No, I haven’t.
I’m finding it hard because I’ve not seen many of these movies. I saw The Artist, with you, we had a blast. But other than that, I saw Midnight in Paris and Tree of Life. Those are the only ones I’ve seen for Best Picture. I didn’t see War Horse, but I did see the play on Broadway. I don’t think that counts. What have you seen out of the Best Movie nominations, do you know?
Um, I’ve seen The Artist, with you, obviously, and, the Des—is the Descendants on there? Um, I think that’s all I’ve seen, I’ve seen actually.
Really?
Yes, I’m completely—
We’ve got to start going to more movies!
We have a lot to do.
We have a lot to do.The word ‘Oscars’. The first syllable written with the letter O, but pronounced with the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ sound. Then, there’s the SK consonant cluster. The second syllable has the schwa-R sound. And it’s plural here: the S is pronounced as a Z because the final sound in ‘Oscar’ is rr, a voiced sound.Typical New York. There’s always a siren somewhere.So the first syllable, stressed, will be longer, higher in pitch, and the second syllable, unstressed, will be shorter and lower in pitch. Long-short, long-short. Oscars, Oscars.

Are you going to watch the Oscars? Who do you think is going to win Best Picture? Put a comment.

In case you haven’t heard, in April and May, I’m offering my first online course. It’s 8 weeks long, and it’s going to take the topics that I work on most with my one-on-one students. It will take all the videos that you already have access to and match them with the supplemental material that I’ve made for my students. Each week we’ll work on a sound, but also a non-sound topic in either linking, word stress, reduction, or intonation. For more information, see my website. And if you’re interested in knowing the specific topics that we’ll be covering, just email me for a syllabus. It’s going to be a great class, quite rigorous, and I think everybody who takes it will really improve their spoken English.

That’s it, have fun tonight watching the Oscars!

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