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

My name is Mandy, and this is our 38th episode.

I hope you're enjoying our words of the week. We'll continue with this format

until January 1st when I'm going to start video podcasts. Today I'm going to talk about the word

idea. Idea is a short little word that causes a lot of problems for

multiple reasons. First, the word is three syllables long. I, D. Yeah. If you're saying it as two syllables, it will be very hard for people to understand what word

you're saying. So repeat the word after me to notice all three syllables, idea. Then the first sound of the word is a long I sound.

If you remember from way back in episode 8 about long vowels, the long I sound ends in a very

quick Y sound.

Listen to just the long I sound. I. Say the sound and feel your tongue

go toward the top of your mouth. I. The next troublesome issue with this word is that there are two

vowel sounds next to each other.

There is a long E, then a schwa sound that sounds like a short U sound.

Remember, schwa has no distinct sound of its own.

It often sounds like a short U, short E, or sometimes a short I.

It usually happens next to a stressed syllable. In the word idea, the middle syllable is

stressed, and the letter A at the end is said as a.

Idea.

When there are two vowel sounds next to each other in a word, native speakers add a very quick

W sound or Y sound between the vowels. If you don't do this, one of two things

will happen. You will tend to blend one vowel sound into the next, which we just don't do,

or else you will add a glottal stop between the vowels.

...