1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,820 In this American English pronunciation video, we'll go for a hike in Colorado. 2 00:00:04,820 --> 00:00:10,860 My dad and I discussed the hike and we'll talk about interesting pronunciations and vocabulary words 3 00:00:10,860 --> 00:00:13,900 that come up in real English conversation. 4 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:20,880 This hike is called Chihuahua Gulch. 5 00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:22,140 Chihuahua. 6 00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:27,060 Have you heard this word before? It's a teeny tiny breed of dog. 7 00:00:27,060 --> 00:00:32,800 The spelling is pretty strange in American English because this word comes to us from Spanish. 8 00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:35,020 The breed originated in Mexico. 9 00:00:35,020 --> 00:00:41,480 This hike is called Chihuahua Gulch and it's about seven miles roundtrip. 10 00:00:41,480 --> 00:00:42,980 Roundtrip. 11 00:00:42,980 --> 00:00:46,000 The opposite of this phrase is one way. 12 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,180 So when you go somewhere and come back, that's roundtrip. 13 00:00:50,180 --> 00:00:52,620 Notice how the D is dropped. 14 00:00:52,620 --> 00:00:54,200 Roundtrip. 15 00:00:54,200 --> 00:00:58,640 We often drop the D when it comes between two other consonants. 16 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:00,520 Roundtrip. 17 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:01,820 Roundtrip. 18 00:01:01,820 --> 00:01:07,420 It's about seven miles roundtrip and it goes up about 1,900 feet. 19 00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:10,580 So this hike ends at a lake? 20 00:01:10,580 --> 00:01:19,180 Yeah. You go… you start off going uphill about thirty minutes, then you go through this long valley. 21 00:01:19,180 --> 00:01:23,000 Notice how my dad really stretches out the word ‘long’. 22 00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:24,760 Why does he do that? 23 00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:28,260 When we want to really stress words, we make them longer, 24 00:01:28,260 --> 00:01:34,660 and you might do that especially with the word ‘long’ making it longer for dramatic purposes. 25 00:01:34,660 --> 00:01:37,440 Long Valley. 26 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,760 That took a long time. 27 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,500 That test was so long. 28 00:01:43,500 --> 00:01:48,960 through this long valley with a lot of gorse and little lakes and— 29 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:50,180 Gorse. 30 00:01:50,180 --> 00:01:52,920 Hmm…do you know that word? I didn't either. 31 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:55,080 Let's find out what it means. 32 00:01:55,080 --> 00:01:58,180 With a lot of gorse and little lakes and little streams. 33 00:01:58,180 --> 00:01:59,180 Gorse. 34 00:01:59,180 --> 00:02:01,020 Gorse are these bushes. 35 00:02:01,020 --> 00:02:03,700 Oh! I didn’t…didn’t know that. 36 00:02:03,700 --> 00:02:08,920 And you sort of go to the end of the trees where the jeep road ends. 37 00:02:08,920 --> 00:02:11,340 Did you understand what he said there? 38 00:02:11,340 --> 00:02:14,300 He called this road ‘jeep road’. 39 00:02:14,300 --> 00:02:19,140 So a jeep is a really rugged vehicle that has a high clearance. 40 00:02:19,140 --> 00:02:23,800 That is a lot of room between the ground and the bottom of a car. 41 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:27,540 You would not be able to drive a regular car on this road. 42 00:02:27,540 --> 00:02:32,060 Where the jeep road ends and then it’s just a single path. 43 00:02:32,060 --> 00:02:35,440 And you end up at a mountain lake. 44 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:38,620 And you said that mountain lake: "Eh, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all." 45 00:02:38,620 --> 00:02:41,520 You've seen one. You seen them all. 46 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,880 This is a phrase you might use to say that something isn't special. 47 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:50,220 Now the full grammatically correct pronunciation of this phrase would be 48 00:02:50,220 --> 00:02:55,340 ‘If you've seen one, you've seen them all.’ 49 00:02:55,340 --> 00:02:57,380 but that's not how we pronounce it. 50 00:02:57,380 --> 00:03:00,120 We like to reduce things in American English 51 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:02,900 especially familiar words and phrases 52 00:03:02,900 --> 00:03:06,680 and this is a familiar known phrase. 53 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:08,740 You've seen one, you've seen them all. 54 00:03:08,740 --> 00:03:17,480 We dropped the word ‘if’, we reduce ‘you've’ to just ye-- and we reduce ‘them’ to ‘um’. 55 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:19,320 You seen. 56 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:21,280 Seen um. 57 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:23,820 You've seen one. You seen them all. 58 00:03:23,820 --> 00:03:27,120 Another scenario where you may use this: 59 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:29,360 do you want to visit Paris? 60 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:31,400 Nah, I'm not that into cities. 61 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:33,260 You've seen one, you've seen them all. 62 00:03:33,260 --> 00:03:35,620 Eh, You've seen one, you've seen them all. 63 00:03:35,620 --> 00:03:38,320 A lot of them are pretty similar. 64 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:39,860 A lot of them. 65 00:03:39,860 --> 00:03:44,000 My dad also reduced 'them' to 'um'. 66 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:50,820 This is a really common reduction just like in the phrase ‘you've seen one, you seen them all’. 67 00:03:50,820 --> 00:03:52,320 A lot of them. 68 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:53,620 A lot of them. 69 00:03:53,620 --> 00:03:58,640 Practice that with me out loud, smoothly connecting all the words. 70 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:00,740 A lot of them. 71 00:04:00,740 --> 00:04:01,680 A lot of them. 72 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:03,920 A lot of them are pretty similar. 73 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:09,380 But you do have a great view? You can see a long way out over the... a couple of different mountain ranges. 74 00:04:09,380 --> 00:04:11,860 A couple of different mountain ranges. 75 00:04:11,860 --> 00:04:17,900 My dad reduced the word ‘of’ to just the schwa. Uh. 76 00:04:17,900 --> 00:04:19,820 A couple of— 77 00:04:19,820 --> 00:04:25,280 We do this so much in conversation especially with this phrase: a couple of— 78 00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:30,000 A couple of different mountain ranges. And the lake itself is probably— 79 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:36,140 Probably— This is how we pronounce ‘probably’ most of the time in conversation. 80 00:04:36,140 --> 00:04:40,840 You can do it too. It simplifies the word and makes it easier to say. 81 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:42,040 Try it now. 82 00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:43,760 Probably. 83 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:45,820 Probably. 84 00:04:45,820 --> 00:04:46,680 Probably. 85 00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:53,160 Itself is probably hundred yards across and maybe 200 by 400. 86 00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:55,200 Does anyone ever swim there? 87 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:57,680 I did see somebody swim in there once. 88 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:00,560 - Very cold. - Ice cold. Really cold. 89 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,820 Listen to the different ways we describe how cold it is. 90 00:05:03,820 --> 00:05:06,920 - Very cold. - Ice cold. Really cold. 91 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:08,400 Really cold. 92 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:09,620 Ice cold. 93 00:05:09,620 --> 00:05:11,140 Very cold. 94 00:05:11,140 --> 00:05:19,500 'Really’ and ‘very’ are words we use before adjectives to say there's a lot of something. 95 00:05:19,500 --> 00:05:21,140 Really cold. 96 00:05:21,140 --> 00:05:22,500 Very cold. 97 00:05:22,500 --> 00:05:25,000 A high amount of coldness. 98 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,740 Ice cold is another great way to describe something being very cold. 99 00:05:29,740 --> 00:05:34,700 Now this lake is not ice, its water, it's very cold water. 100 00:05:34,700 --> 00:05:39,800 So describing it as ice cold is an exaggeration, a hyperbole. 101 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:41,860 I know it's not actually ice. 102 00:05:41,860 --> 00:05:44,280 I know it's just extremely cold water. 103 00:05:44,280 --> 00:05:47,740 - Very cold. - Ice cold. Really cold. 104 00:05:47,740 --> 00:05:51,680 I had no temptation to do that. 105 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:54,100 Yeah, I don’t think I will either. 106 00:05:54,100 --> 00:05:57,820 This is just… you can't design a better day. 107 00:05:57,820 --> 00:06:00,900 There's not much wind, hardly any clouds, 108 00:06:00,900 --> 00:06:07,960 cool but not cold, and this time of year, you have a lot of aspens turning yellow. 109 00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:09,660 This time of year. 110 00:06:09,660 --> 00:06:15,960 Another example of reducing the word ‘of’ to just the schwa in natural conversation. 111 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:18,180 This time of year. 112 00:06:18,180 --> 00:06:23,680 This time of year, you have a lot of aspens turning yellow and these bushes, I mean, they would be green 113 00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:26,840 and in the summer. 114 00:06:26,840 --> 00:06:31,300 Yeah it looks awesome. I mean, I love, I love the view. 115 00:06:31,300 --> 00:06:32,800 Yeah. 116 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:34,080 Sweeping views. 117 00:06:34,080 --> 00:06:38,760 And we have seen wildlife along here. 118 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:43,140 Yeah, just a couple hundred yards down. Once, there were four moose. 119 00:06:43,140 --> 00:06:44,460 Moose. 120 00:06:44,460 --> 00:06:47,900 These animals are fairly rare to see in the wild. 121 00:06:47,900 --> 00:06:51,340 One other time when I was in Colorado, we saw one. 122 00:06:51,340 --> 00:06:54,780 Click here or in the video description to see that video. 123 00:06:54,780 --> 00:06:59,220 There were four moose grazing right by the path. 124 00:06:59,220 --> 00:07:03,800 Further down yet, we saw heard of maybe 10 or 15 antelope. 125 00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:06,880 - Wow. - Galloping along. You often see deer. 126 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:08,400 You often see. 127 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:14,400 My dad reduced ‘you’ to ye, changing the vowel to the schwa. 128 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:16,740 This is also a common reduction. 129 00:07:16,740 --> 00:07:18,180 Why do we do this? 130 00:07:18,180 --> 00:07:26,380 Because in American English, the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables is really important. 131 00:07:26,380 --> 00:07:32,040 So if we can make unstressed syllables even shorter by changing something, then we do that. 132 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:32,940 You often see. 133 00:07:32,940 --> 00:07:37,880 You often see deer up here and then on the rocks, you can see marmots 134 00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:43,880 sometime and pike which are little tiny animals like and they squeak. 135 00:07:43,880 --> 00:07:45,840 How many times have you done this hike? 136 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:47,360 Probably five or six. 137 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:48,540 Probably. 138 00:07:48,540 --> 00:07:53,100 There's another probably to probably reduction. 139 00:07:53,100 --> 00:07:55,280 Probably five or six. 140 00:07:55,280 --> 00:07:59,880 And to me, it's the most scenic hike around here especially in September. 141 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:08,440 Scenic. This is a great word you can use to describe a beautiful landscape. Scenic. 142 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:09,740 Scenic. 143 00:08:09,740 --> 00:08:13,660 To me it's the most scenic hike around here especially in September 144 00:08:13,660 --> 00:08:21,880 because the aspen are turning yellow and a lot of these bushes are turning red and in June, July, 145 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:28,000 it's just the waters too high you'd have to take off your shoes and put on sandals and just wade through. 146 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,780 So usually, we wait till August or September to do this one. 147 00:08:31,780 --> 00:08:32,880 Wade. 148 00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:35,920 This is what you do when you're walking through water. 149 00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:39,720 So you're not swimming. You're walking like through a creek. 150 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:43,520 If the water is too deep, then you can't wade. You have to swim. 151 00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:47,660 Take off your shoes and put on sandals and just wade through. 152 00:08:47,660 --> 00:08:55,640 Here is David walking over the creek that dad says you have to wade through when the water is higher. 153 00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:57,860 We didn't make it to the top. 154 00:08:57,860 --> 00:09:02,100 Yeah but we got to a good turning around point 155 00:09:02,100 --> 00:09:07,640 and we had a fantastic view, we had lunch looking out down the long valley. 156 00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:08,980 Couldn't have been better. 157 00:09:08,980 --> 00:09:10,880 Couldn't have been better. 158 00:09:10,880 --> 00:09:14,560 A word here is being reduced to just the schwa. 159 00:09:14,560 --> 00:09:16,700 What word is it? 160 00:09:16,700 --> 00:09:21,060 We noticed before that the word ‘of’ reduces to just the schwa. 161 00:09:21,060 --> 00:09:24,320 But here it's the word ‘have’. 162 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:31,780 Yes, the word ‘have’ can be changed to just the schwa sound: uh in conversation 163 00:09:31,780 --> 00:09:39,060 especially after could, couldn't, should, shouldn't, would, wouldn't. 164 00:09:39,060 --> 00:09:46,300 I've actually seen native speakers mess this up and write ‘should of’ instead of ‘should have’. 165 00:09:46,300 --> 00:09:53,860 It makes sense because ‘of’ and ‘have’ can both produce the same single sound, the schwa. 166 00:09:53,860 --> 00:09:55,700 Shoulda. 167 00:09:55,700 --> 00:10:04,880 But if this sound is following could, couldn't, should, shouldn't, would, wouldn't, the word is definitely ‘have’ 168 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:11,380 and reducing ‘have’ to just the schwa after these words will help your English sound natural. 169 00:10:11,380 --> 00:10:13,560 Practice. 170 00:10:13,560 --> 00:10:15,600 Couldn’t have. 171 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:16,800 Couldn’t have. 172 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:23,000 Notice I'm dropping the T in the contraction. This is how native speakers will say this phrase. 173 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:25,240 Couldn’t have. 174 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:26,720 Couldn’t have. 175 00:10:26,720 --> 00:10:32,280 Special thanks to my dad for being in yet another Rachel's English video. 176 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:40,060 To see more videos that use real English conversation for teaching, check out my Real English playlist.