Daily English - Day 22

Let's get started with today's session. In this video, we are going to talk about voicing. We'll also talk about consonant pairs and what they are. And then we'll cover S sounds and Z sounds. Okay, here we go. Voicing. You're going to hear me say this word a lot. And you need to understand what it is and what I'm talking about. All speech sounds, all of them, are either voiced or unvoiced. Now, what does that mean? Well first, let's take a look at this video. It may look a little bit disgusting. Do you have any idea what this is? It looks like something is opening and closing. I'll give you a hint. You've got a pair of these and you use them when you speak. Any idea? Those were vocal cords. Vocal cords are those tiny muscles that are right here in your throat that vibrate quickly and create sound. And that sound is your voice. Now, you can easily make your vocal cords vibrate by just saying, Ah, that's it. That's voicing. Voicing is when your vocal cords are vibrating, producing a sound. And you can feel the vibrations if you put your hand right here on your throat. Do this with me. Put your hand on your throat and nice and loud say, Ah. Do you feel the vibration? Those are your vocal cords vibrating. Now, all vowel sounds are voiced. Ah, Oh, Ooh, Eh, Ee. You cannot produce a vowel sound without voicing it. Nothing would come out. You see? You need voicing. Ah. So all vowels are voiced. Now, consonants are a completely different story. Some consonants are voiced and some consonants are not voiced. And many consonants are what we call paired. So let's talk about paired consonants. Paired. Let's look at the sound the letter P makes. P. That's the sound of the letter P. Are your vocal cords vibrating when you're saying the sound? P, P, P. Are you feeling any vibrations in your throat? No, your vocal cords are not producing a sound. So therefore, the P sound is what we call unvoiced because there is no voicing. And this is the sign I'm going to make when there is no voicing. So now let's look at the same sound, the P sound. P, P, P. But this time, we'll add voicing by vibrating our vocal cords. Now, we won't change a thing with our mouths. We'll keep that the same. We'll just add voicing. So what happens to the P sound? P, P, P. B, B, B, B. It becomes a B sound. Watch again. P, no voicing. P, P, P. B, B, B. B voicing. P, P, P. B, B. You see that everything here stays the same. The only difference is my vocal cords are either vibrating or they're not vibrating. So we say the P sound and the B sound are paired consonants. They are produced exactly the same way here in your mouth, but the P sound has no voicing and the B sound, B, B, does have voicing. Okay, having said that, let's look at another set of consonants. How about the letter T? What sound does that make? T, T, T. Is that voiced or unvoiced? T, T, T. It's unvoiced. Your vocal cords are not vibrating. T, T, T. Now don't change a thing with your mouth. Just take the same sound and add voicing. What does that T sound become? T, T, T. D, D, D, D. It becomes a D sound. D, D, D. So we say that the T sound, T, T, and the D sound, D, D, are also paired consonants. Okay, now let's look at the F sound. F, F, F. Where you're biting down on your lower lip. F, F, F. Is that a voiced sound or an unvoiced sound? F, F, F. It's unvoiced. Your vocal cords are not vibrating. F, F, F. Now, same sound, but this time we add voicing. V, V, V. It becomes a V. V, V, V. You see that? F, F, F. No voicing, V voicing. V. So the F and the V are also paired consonants. There are many more consonants that are paired, and we'll get to those at another time. But for now, I'm going to mention just one more. The S consonant, made with air going through your front teeth. S. Any voicing going on with the sound? S. No, the S sound is unvoiced. S. And what would be if you didn't change a thing, you just added voicing? What would the S sound become? S. It would become a Z sound. Z. So S has no voicing. S. Z has voicing. Z. So we say the S sound and the Z sound are also paired consonants. And this brings us to what I'd like to cover today. S sounds. S. Z sounds. Z. And how they work in terms of word endings. I find that most people who learn English as a second language do not use the proper voicing on S and Z endings. And what happens is it can cause your speech to sound unclear and sometimes may cause you to be misunderstood. I'm going to show you three easy rules that will help you pronounce many of these words correctly. This first rule is easy, and this one I know you probably do already. Rule number one. If the last sound in a word is unvoiced and you're adding an S, well then, the S remains unvoiced too. Let me explain that. Take the word cup. Cup. It ends with an unvoiced P. P. Cup. Well then, if you add an S to the word cup to make it plural, the S you add also remains unvoiced. So, for example, you have one cup or two cups. There's no voicing at the end of that word. The S remains unvoiced. One cup, two cups. That's easy. You already do this. I'll show you another word. Cat. Cat ends with an unvoiced T. One cat, two cats. Again, the S ending is unvoiced. Cats. Now, this also goes for verbs, like in the verb break. I break. Break ends with an unvoiced K sound. K. There's no voicing on that K. So, when you put the word in the third person, he breaks, the S you add also remains unvoiced. He breaks. I stop ends with an unvoiced P. I stop. He stops. Unvoiced S. Stops. Now, as I said, you already follow this rule and there really isn't anything new to know. But on rule number two, now this one you probably do not do. So, pay close attention to this rule. When adding an S to a word to make it plural, if a word ends with any of these sounds, S or J as in judge, don't worry, you really don't need to memorize this. It will become automatic. When you add an S ending, this time we always add the ending IZ with a voiced Z. IZ. It doesn't matter that it's spelled with an S. It's never IS. Unvoiced, never. It's always IZ with a voiced Z. Okay, do this with me. Put your hand on your throat because I want you to feel the vibration in your neck and say IZ. I want you to feel the vibration in your neck and say IZ. Feel that right here. IZ. Okay, so let's look at the word page, for example, which ends in a voiced sound. One page becomes two pages with that voiced Z. Two pages. It's not two pages, unvoiced, no. It's two pages with a voiced Z. Even though you spell the word like this, in American English you pronounce the word like this. Pages. You're probably saying, I never knew that. See what you're learning from me? Okay, let's look at another word. In the word bus, for example, bus ends with an S sound. Bus. So if you make it plural, you're going to add the ending IZ with a voiced Z. So we've got one bus, or two buses. Buses. Two buses. Buses. Two buses. The last sound you hear is that voiced Z. Buses. Next one, lunch. Lunch ends with a CH sound. So we've got one lunch, or two lunches. Lunches. Very good. Let's do some verbs. Raise, meaning like to raise my hand. Now this word is a bit unusual because even though it is spelled with an S, it's pronounced with a voiced Z. Raise. So we say I raise with a voiced Z ending. And he raises. Raises. He raises his hand. It's voiced. Next one, brush. Like to brush my teeth. I brush. He brushes. Brushes. It's a voiced ending. Push. I push. He pushes. Very good. By voicing these endings, your speech will become clearer, sharper, and cleaner. Most likely you haven't noticed that American English is spoken this way, but now that I've pointed it out, listen for it when you hear people speak. To an American listener, this makes a very big difference. Okay, here comes the third rule. This one's easy. If a word ends with a vowel sound, all you do is add a voiced Z. It's simple. Let's look at the word tree. The last sound you hear in that word is the vowel E. And remember, a vowel is always voiced. So the word ends in a voiced sound. Tree. So what you want to do if you're going to add an S to a word like this to make it plural, is you continue the voicing throughout the whole word and add on a voiced Z. So here we go. You've got one tree or two trees. It's not trees with an unvoiced S. It's trees with that voiced ending. You see that? Another example, the word day. It ends with a vowel sound, A. So you have one day or two days. It's not days, unvoiced. It's days with a voiced Z ending. Next one, shoe. One shoe, two shoes. Next is the verb fly, which ends in the vowel sound, I. So you've got I fly, he flies. Keep that ending voiced, flies. The last sound you hear in the word game is the M sound, which is a voiced consonant. So because of that, when you add an S, the S should also be voiced. One game, two games. Now the word head ends with a voiced D. So we've got one head or two heads. Heads. It's voiced. Two heads. Very good. Next word, train, ends with a voiced N. See that? So you've got one train or two trains. Two trains with a voiced Z ending. Song ends with a voiced NG sound. So if you make it plural, don't forget to add a voiced Z ending. You've got one song or two songs. Two songs. Now what I just showed you takes some practice to actually incorporate it into your English. But I can tell you from past experience that most of my clients were able to master these S and Z voiced endings in just a few weeks. Okay, now for something else. As you know by now, English is a difficult and a crazy language. All these words that I'm going to show you now are written with an S. However, they are all pronounced with a voiced Z. Why this is, I have no idea. But this is how English is. Here we go. The word is. It's not S on voice. It's pronounced as if it were a Z. You hear that? Same thing. It also has a voiced Z ending. You pronounce it with a voiced Z. The phone rang. A very common word. These. Voiced ending. Those. Those are my books. Again, the S is like a voiced Z. Because, which is another common word. Because we were late. Okay, now let's do some practice with reading passages. Each of these has many voiced and unvoiced S and Z sounds. All of the voiced Z sounds you will see are underlined. If you've printed out the training manual using a color printer, you'll notice that the voiced Z sounds are all printed in red. This will help you visually see which sounds should be voiced. I'm going to go slow and exaggerate the sounds. You may just want to listen to me first, then stop the video, practice on your own, and then later on watch this video again and practice it with me. Whatever feels right to you. Now this first one has many voiced Z sounds. Here we go. Another zippy zappy crazy day comes to a close. Voiced Z sounds. Here we go. Another zippy zappy crazy day comes to a close. As we zoom up to Joe's snooze zone, Zoe Jones' Z sounds. Here we go. As we zoom up to Joe's snooze zone, Zoe Jones' Z sounds. Who plays with her zipper. Very good. Next one. Last week, Jim's brothers were picked to represent their country. Very good. Next one. Last week, Jim's brothers were picked to represent their country in the Olympic Games. Very good. Next one. Last week, Jim's brothers were picked to represent their country in the Olympic Games. Next one. Were swimmers, while brothers were picked to represent their country in the Olympic Games. Two of the brothers were swimmers, while the other two were games. Two of the brothers were swimmers, while the other two were long-distance runners. In the Olympic Games, the brothers wore glasses, swimmers, while they worked hard. All of the brothers wore glasses. Team Athletics worked hard at qualifying for the Games. All of the brothers wore glasses. Athletes worked hard at qualifying for the Games. They were hoping to come home with prizes. Since the brothers go to the same university, they often take the same courses. This makes studying easier and gives them more time to do other things. Okay, here's the last one. On Thursday, I had a very lazy day. I woke up early and first squeezed oranges into juice. I had a very lazy day. I woke up early and first squeezed oranges into juice. I then got dressed and watched the sunrise come up over the mountains. It was so beautiful that I took many pictures with my camera, and I used three rolls of film. It was so beautiful that I took many pictures with my camera, and I used three rolls of film. After drinking two cups of coffee, I got dressed and left the house. I watched three rolls of film. After drinking two cups of coffee, I got dressed, left the house and walked three miles home. After drinking two cups of coffee, I got dressed, left the house and walked three miles home. I walked three miles home.