This word can be tough—make sure you start it with a Y [j] sound. Learn how to practice this word by breaking it down sound by sound, knowing what’s stressed and what’s not.
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Video Text:
In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to go over pronunciation of the word ‘yesterday’.This week’s Word of the Week is ‘yesterday’. This is a three-syllable word with stress on the first syllable. Yesterday, yesterday. It begins with the Y consonant sound, yy, yy, where the front part of the tongue raises and touches the roof of the mouth here, yy. The tongue tip stays down. Many Spanish speakers will want to say jj, jj, and make a jj sound instead, with the tip of the tongue up. We want to keep the tip of the tongue down. Ye-, ye-, ye-. Then we have the EH as in BED vowel. So, the jaw does need to drop for that. Ye-, ye-. The syllable ends with the ST consonant cluster. Yest-, st, st, and then we have the schwa/R sound. Yester-, yester-, er, er, er. It’s unstressed, so it’s going to be lower in pitch, a little quieter, yester-, er. A lot of people will want to make this just an ‘uh’ sound. Yest-uh, yest-uh. That’s not right. To get the R sound, make sure your tongue pulls back and up into that position. Yester-, yester-. And finally, -day. The D consonant sound, and the AY as in SAY diphthong. Make sure you drop your jaw for the first half of that diphthong. Da-, day, day. Yesterday. I got it yesterday.
That’s it, your Word of the Week. Try it out yourself. Make up a sentence with the word, record it, and post it as a video response to this video on YouTube. I can’t wait to watch it.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.
Hear the difference immediately.
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