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

My name is Mandy and this is our 192nd episode.

It's that time of year when things seem to be hectic.

No matter what your religion or culture is, it's

a busy, busy time. The holidays can also be hard because they come with their own special

vocabulary that many non-native speakers don't really get to interact with enough to learn very

well. So in this and the next episode, I'm going to try to fix that.

The schedule is a little messed up because I'm a few days behind I'm posting this episode,

and then I intend to post the next episode early so you can hear it before Christmas.

After New Year's, I'll be back on schedule. Today I'm going to go over some common holiday vocabulary that can be difficult for non-native

speakers to pronounce. Then next week, I'm going to play an audio recording of Twas the

night before Christmas, which was originally known as a visit from St. Nicholas.

I'll also be giving you some tips for finding your own free audio recordings to help you with pronunciation.

Getting back to vocabulary, we've obviously got the words Merry Christmas.

I did a whole podcast about this, oh, a year or two ago that I'll link to from

this episode's transcript page so it's easier to find if you want to learn more. The words

Mary, M-E-R-R-R-Y, Mary M-A-R-R-Y, and the name, Mary, M-A-R-R-Y and the name Mary, M-A-R-Y, are all pronounced the same in most of the United States.

Use the A-I-R sound, air, and you'll be fine.

Then, don't try to add a T sound into Christmas.

It's not there. The two syllables are Christmas.

Repeat after me. Merry Christmas.

Speaking of a silent T, there's also one in the word mistletoe, spelled M-I-S-T-L-E-T-O-E. If you haven't ever heard of mistletoe before, be careful. It's a little green plant that people hang from the ceiling. If you

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