R-Colored Vowels (the Easy Way) - Part 2: Diphthongs | American English Pronunciation & Ear Training

[@laracroftvideos]

Amazing! I had no idea it's possible to say the eye+er diphthong without the 'y' but it actually makes certain words easier to say (e.g. fire) -- at least for me. And I just noticed the paperback copies of "Sophia's Dream" and "Logic of English Prepositions" on your shelf 😃

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

To me, the small "y" would seem to be easier, but whichever way is easiest for you is fine ☺ As for the books, they were there last time, but I suppose Pikachu distracted you haha

[@laracroftvideos]

@@NativeEnglishHacks It's odd, it's only certain words, but I would definitely use the small "y" in "iron" for sure lol. And you're right! I suppose the minute I saw Pikachu I kind of checked out. How are you btw? ;-)

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

You can switch for certain words if you want. For "iron", I use whichever one happens to come out lol. For words with this sound, I seem to use the "y" version more often, though Thanks for asking. Better by the day. But that's also partially because I seem to have accidentally discovered a universal meta-structure that all skills happen to fit into (language, music, programming, art, etc...), much to my amazement. A lot of my free time is currently being taken up by that because it's energizing me and helping me deal with everything that's going on. Still trying to make sure I publish videos here, of course ☺

[@laracroftvideos]

​@@NativeEnglishHacks Wow! That sounds fascinating. I'm glad you're having a better time now. And thank you for keeping us updated, this channel truly is awesome.

[@joshadams8761]

Interesting tidbit: in Ulster English, “power” is always one syllable.

[@siddhantkapoor8079]

Wooww... You make learning all these sounds really really easy. The best thing I like about your videos is that you explain everything ( literally everything). To be honest I was confused about 'y' sound in 'fire' because no one ever told me it was ok to say 'y' sound, but here you are telling all of us that it is ok to say it when necessary. Also in the words like 'military', necessary, primary, secondary.. is it ok to use 'ei + r ' or is it necessary to use the 'third vowel +r'? 'ei+r' is easier for me to pronounce. Thanks Josh. You are amazing!!!!!

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

Thanks for the feedback, glad I could be so useful haha :) As for "ei + r" or "third vowel + r", that's the hard part. As I said, if it's supposed to be the third vowel, it would probably sound weird if you used the diphthong "ei", but if it's supposed to be the diphthong "ei", it sounds fine using the third vowel sound. So the safe thing is to simply use the third vowel, and I'd recommend training that so you don't have to worry about it. However, if it's easier for you to use the diphthong "ei" and you'd prefer to do so, then you have to know which words allow it and which don't. There might be some spelling patterns that you can more or less rely on, but I don't know. The specific words that you listed: it feels unnatural for me to force these into the diphthong, but doing so sounds ok, as long as you keep it "shallow" (don't go all the way up into the full, non-r-colored diphthong). At the end of the day, this is a detail that you get to decide based on whether you want to sound 100% like an American or if you're okay having a little bit of a different sound. Some people don't mind and think that it gives their accent some special character while still being close enough to be clearly and easily understandable.

[@siddhantkapoor8079]

@@NativeEnglishHacks Thank you for replying. I hope you are doing fine. Keep posting these videos. This is amazing content and the way you describe it is even better. Your channel will be a big hit someday.

[@ivomoreira42]

Is this colored I diphthong as in fire without the "y" sound a dialectical thing or would you say it's more like a range of speech that, for example, the same speaker would sometimes say it with and without the "y" sound in between depending on the flow of the speech? I'm asking because when you say it without the "y", I don't know, but to me it sounds like a Southerner saying those words, hahaha. I mean, I love the Southern accent, but without the "y" it kind of sounds like a drawl, haha.

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

It's a range and either can come out at any time. But I get what you mean. The blended one does sound kinda Southern, but they have a bit of a different mouth placement and they seem to do this sound a bit further back in the mouth

[@ivomoreira42]

@@NativeEnglishHacks Ohhh... got it. Thanks, man!

[@siddhantkapoor8079]

Help me with the words 'security','curious' and 'curiosity'.

[@NativeEnglishHacks]

Again, no notification that you left a comment :( security = suh/sih-kyer-rih-dee curious = kyer-ree-uhs/ihs curiosity = kyer-ree-yaw-sih/suh-dee

[@siddhantkapoor8079]

@@NativeEnglishHacks thanks ..

[@samiracle9852]

I'm about to defeat the final boss