Hi everyone, and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 106th episode.

Before I get to the long U sound, I'd like to announce something new we are doing at

Pronuncian, sponsorships. As our podcast and website have grown, so have our bandwidth costs.

Instead of making fewer podcasts or putting less sounds online for you, we're now accepting

sponsors to help cover those costs. If you or anyone you know

might be interested in helping to sponsor our podcast, go to pronuncian.com slash advertising

to see more details. We're particularly interested in helping other English teachers or tutors reach out to students.

It's an affordable way to get your name and services out in front of people who need you.

So again, check pronuncian.com slash advertising if you're interested.

I'm really excited to introduce our first sponsor,

Audible.com.

Lucky for you, Audible has asked us to offer you a free audiobook.

All you need to do is sign up at A audiblepodcast.com slash pronuncian.

That's A-U-D-I-B-L-E-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-A-S-T-A-S-P-A-S-P-P-A-S-P-P-N-N-E.

I've used audiobooks in the classroom with my students a number of different times.

There are a really great way to work on listening skills and learn new vocabulary.

Plus they offer huge opportunities for you to practice mimicking the speech patterns of the book reader.

During the next few weeks, I'm going to tell you some books you might enjoy.

I actually just finished listening to an audiobook from Audible that some of you might find interesting. It's called The Adventure of English.

If you really want to know why English is the way that it is, check out this book.

It's written by Melvin Bragg and is narrated by British actor Robert Powell.

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