How to Pronounce WE’LL SEE

In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to go over the pronunciation of the phrase, ‘we’ll see’.

This is part of a sentence studies series, where we look at a short common phrase, and discuss its pronunciation.

We use this phrase to show uncertainty, something to be decided in the future. For example,
>> Are you going out of town for Christmas?
>> I’m not sure, we’ll see.

The stressed word here is the verb SEE, we’ll see, da-DA, da-Da, we’ll see. That means it should have the shape of stress in it, a slight curve up, and then a falling off of the voice: we’ll see, seeee, seee, see, see. We’ll see. I’m reducing the contraction “we will” a lot. I’m not saying WHEEL, I’m saying WULL. It’s basically two sounds, the W, and the dark part of the dark L. To start, the lips are in a tight circle, and I’m sort of holding, then, releasing the air in my throat. www, www, www, www, wull. Then we have the dark sound. My lips will relax out of the circle. Wull, wull. My tongue tip, which was touching the back of the bottom front teeth for the W, stays there. The back part of the tongue stretches back a bit, making that dark sound. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll. For the S, my teeth come together, and the corners of the lips might pull a little wide. We’ll sss, sss. The tongue tip still hasn’t moved, touching the back of the bottom front teeth. It presses there for the S. We’ll sss, we’ll see. Finally the EE vowel. Tongue tip stays where it is, the teeth part a bit, and the front part of the tongue reaches towards the roof of the mouth. See, see. We’ll see, we’ll see.

And now let’s look at the phrase, up, close, and in slow motion.

This video is part of a series, click here to see other videos, just like it.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.