015: Diphthongs
Conversation & Pronunciation: Learn English with The Rachel's English Podcast
Rachel's English
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2017
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Today we do a deep-dive into the American English diphthongs. How many are there, and why doesn’t everyone agree with the number? We discuss the different spellings of the diphthongs, as well as the benefits of studying mouth positions. Rachel talks about the EW as in FEW diphthong, and how sometimes it’s not a diphthong.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Rachel's English podcast where it's my goal to help you speak better American English and to understand Americans more easily. |
| 0:10.8 | I'm here with my husband David. |
| 0:12.3 | Hey, everybody. |
| 0:13.2 | And today we're going to discuss diff thongs. |
| 0:16.6 | If you would like a free copy of the transcript of this podcast, just visit rachelsenglish.com |
| 0:24.0 | slash podcast and search for this episode. |
| 0:28.0 | So this is a continuation of what we did a couple of weeks ago, David, when we were studying the vowels. |
| 0:34.7 | Do you remember that? |
| 0:35.6 | I do. |
| 0:36.7 | And when I asked you what vowels you could think of at the |
| 0:40.4 | beginning of the first episode, you named some diphthongs. By accident. And that was frustrating. You're like, |
| 0:47.5 | why is this a diphthong? Do you remember what I said about what makes something a diff thong? |
| 0:55.1 | No. |
| 0:55.7 | Okay. |
| 0:56.9 | Well, basically a diphthong is two vowel sounds squished together in the same syllable, |
| 1:02.6 | and in this way they form a single unit, like A or I. |
| 1:11.3 | Right. I do remember now how you described it. |
| 1:14.6 | Does it not make sense to you? |
| 1:15.9 | No, it makes sense logically. |
| 1:17.6 | But for me, it's hard to hear the two parts because I'm just used to thinking of it as a vowel sound. |
| 1:23.8 | Okay. |
| 1:24.9 | So look at my mouth as I say it. |
... |
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