There are a couple of different ways to pronounce ‘sure’. Perfect its use in conversational English through word reduction, seamless linking, and grasping its melodic shape.
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In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to go over the pronunciation of the phrase ‘for sure’.
This is part of a sentence study series, where we look at a short common phrase, and discuss it’s pronunciation
Saying ‘for sure’ is a very solid affirmation. >> Will you be there tomorrow?
>> For sure.
For sure, da-DA. The word ‘sure’ is the stressed word in this phrase, so it’s going to be longer than the function word ‘for’, which will reduce. da-DA, for sure.
We begin with the F sound, so the bottom lip has to come up and touch the bottom of the top front teeth. The inside of your lips is what’s touching, so it shouldn’t be ff, but ff. Now we move straight into the R sound. Forget about a vowel altogether. So, my tongue tip was here for the F, maybe not quite touching the teeth in this case, but close behind. For the R, it needs to pull way back, pulling up towards the roof of the mouth, with the tip not touching anything. Even though this word is very short, it should be a sound that we can hold out, rrrrrrrrrrr. Fer, fer.
For sure. We want to take the R sound and transition directly into the SH sound. Rrrr-shh. To do that, we have to close our teeth, which should have been close to each other, but not yet closed for the R. Rrr-shh. Then we have to bring the flat, top part of the tongue, in the front, really close to the roof of the mouth (but not touching). The lips for the SH are flared, but you’ll already be transitioning into that right after the F because the R sound is so short. Now, to go from the SH back to the R, reverse what you just did. Drop the jaw a little bit, and pull the tongue back again so the front isn’t so close to the roof of the mouth. The tip shouldn’t touch anything. Now, the voice will fall off in pitch because it’s a stressed syllable, and it’s the last syllable of a sentence. For sure, for sure.
And now let’s look at the phrase up, close and in slow motion.
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That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.