American Accent Training | Stress in Pronouns & Thought Groups

Having an understanding of grammar is going to help you understand my explanations about the patterns in pronunciation, okay? Oh, really? Oh, yes. So, people say, oh, grammar. Yes, grammar is very important because it's the structure of our language and it helps explain the patterns. I have to thank you, my English teacher. Yes, do. Do. Okay? Pronouns are words that replace names of people and things. Like instead of John, we say he or him. As we look at different kinds of pronouns, you'll see they follow certain word stress patterns. Learn these patterns and you'll sound more natural when you say the pronouns. If you're new to my channel, welcome. I'm Jennifer and I teach American English for confident, effective communication. If you'd like my free digital downloads to boost your fluency, then visit my website englishwithjennifer.com. We also have patterns for certain pronouns. There's a group of pronouns called reflexive pronouns. They all end in self, right? Myself, yourself, yourself, etc. They follow a pattern. Myself, two syllables. But which one do I stress? I'll do it myself. Self seems to be stressed out. Exactly. So, we're going to put stress on self. Repeat after me. They're all two syllable pronouns. Myself. Yourself. Itself. Himself. Herself. Ourselves. Like, we'll do it ourselves, right? We will do it ourselves. Yes, okay. Yourselves. As in, you have to do it yourselves. All of you guys. You've got to do it yourselves. I'm not helping, right? Yourself. Themselves. You got it, okay? So, bum-bum, bum-bum. So, reflexive pronouns all follow that pattern, okay? Let's practice those reflexive pronouns in sentences. Listen and repeat. She told me so herself. We sat by ourselves. They keep to themselves. The second self seems to be assessed out always in the reflexive pronouns, correct? Correct. It's a good thing that I've studied all the grammars. Like, all the things that you were taking the name of reflexive pronouns, I've gone through all the studies. You're going to see that it really helps to have this overlap of skills. It's hard to do pronunciation and never talk about grammar. They come together very often. Having an understanding of grammar is going to help you understand my explanations about the patterns in pronunciation, okay? Oh, really? Oh, yes. So, people say, oh, grammar. Yes, grammar is very important because it's the structure of our language and it helps explain the patterns. I have to thank you, my English teacher. Yes, do, do. Okay. When I get in touch with them these days, I speak much faster than them. Which is fine. But remember, speed is not always your friend, okay? What you want to do is speak clearly and naturally, confidently. Those are the key words. Clearly, confident, naturally, and appropriately, too. Next group of pronouns are indefinite pronouns. When we don't name a specific person, there's a certain pattern with these ones, too. Like, no one, someone, anyone. Am I stressing the beginning or am I stressing one? Obviously, the beginning one. Beginning. So, repeat after me. No one. Someone. Anyone. Do you know anyone? Yes. Our voice is going up, but the stress is still on any. Do you know anyone? Okay. Nobody. Somebody. Anybody. Nothing. Something. Anything. Great, right? Now, the interesting thing about these words is that they are pronouns. In general, in general, we don't often stress pronouns, but there are exceptions, right? When you're speaking in fast, relaxed English, you usually don't stress these words. Like, do you know anyone? Know is going to be the most important word, a very important content word that we would stress. Do you know anyone? But, anyone does happen to have three syllables. Anyone. And in those three syllables, we are going to stress the first. Right? Yup. So, say with me. Do you know anyone? Like, I'm looking for someone who can help me with editing. Do you know anyone? Right? I'm looking for someone who can help me with editing. Do you know anyone? Yeah, I think you do. I think you know someone. Yeah. Good. Let's practice some of the indefinite pronouns in a dialogue. Listen and repeat. No one else is here. Nobody but us. Something's wrong. Somebody got the day or time wrong. That somebody could be us. Practice the dialogue again. First, you can be Person A. Then, you can be Person B. Nobody but us. Somebody got the day or time wrong. No one else is here. Something's wrong. That somebody could be us. We've talked a little bit about content words and function words. I want to go more in-depth now about the importance of our content words, especially when we start getting into phrases and sentences. We're going to work with a text that's very familiar. It's your self-introduction. So, when we look at this, first of all, punctuation helps us by showing us thought groups. Every time we see a period, we know it's the end of an idea, the end of a sentence, right? So, when I like to mark up text, I use a double slash to show that this is a full stop. I can fully breathe. This idea is complete. And I can also take a full breath if I need to. Commas also help us. Commas can also show us where we might pause. For example, between clauses, if we have a complex sentence or a compound sentence, that's actually two different thought groups very often, like this. Okay. Okay? The other thing that helps us is understanding how sentences are put together. Like, we have a subject and a predicate. If it's a very short subject, we might stick it with the predicate. Like, Jennifer plays the piano. Very short sentence, so I'd just say it in one breath. But if I start listing people, like, Jennifer and Nitiz are studying together, I would do subject and predicate. Jennifer and Nitiz are studying together. I took that longer sentence and broke it up into two thought groups. The thought groups are how we start to create rhythm at the sentence level. We can't speak endlessly without taking a breath, but we breathe in logical places. Can I interrupt you here for a minute? Yeah. When you say thought groups, what do you exactly mean? We group our ideas into thoughts. When you do your introduction, it's not just all about me. Within that are many little ideas about you. Okay. Thought groups are natural ways we break up our words. Thought groups help us break our ideas into natural pieces of language so that we can breathe. And then people can digest our ideas more easily. If we break in unusual spots, it sounds weird. Right? You wouldn't say, I'm a high ticket closer. Sounds weird. Why are you pausing? Right? You wouldn't say, I'm a high ticket closer, and I work with businessmen. It's like, why are you pausing in weird places? I'm a high ticket closer, and I work with businessmen. That's a compound sentence, and it's very logical to break it into two thought groups. We have our first clause and our second clause. So thought groups are natural ways we break up our ideas, and they help create a natural sense of rhythm. So now that we have our double slashes to mark ends of statements, we can look inside longer sentences and see, are there more thought groups to mark? And what do you do? You help them close more deals by doing what? Like taking sales cards. Exactly. A lot of the time prepositional phrases in that final position of the sentence are going to be their own thought group. I'll say that again. Very often prepositional phrases like to be their own thought group at the end of a sentence. Just like I help creators and business owners, the objects, so we can keep the my girl and playing cricket as a last thought group. You could say, I love talking to my girl and playing cricket. I personally like breaking it up a little bit because talking to my girl is quite a mouthful to say. Same thing in the last sentence. I is the subject. What do you think? I think my friends would say, and then it's natural. What would they say? I'm funny and caring. And do you see this time when we're joining ideas with and, we have just two single adjectives. So I'm not going to break it up like I'm funny and caring. Why? We don't need to. They're short enough that we can keep this as one thought group. Let's go through the text and I want you to listen and repeat. You're going to follow my rhythm. Pay attention to the content words that I'm stressing and think about how I'm phrasing this. Where are my thought groups? Where am I breathing? Okay. Hello everyone. I'm Nitish. I'm a high ticket closer. I help creators and business owners. By taking sales calls for them. I love sales. When it comes to my hobbies and free time. Free time without an S. When it comes to my hobbies and free time. I love talking to my girl. And playing cricket. I think my friends would say. I'm funny and caring. We like to roast each other. Nice. Was that better? Yes. It was the first time we read through it. But you're actually seeing it for the first time. Written out with thought groups and with stressed words. So it's something that you said more naturally before. And now of course it's like weird to say it as a scripted text. But I want you to visualize what's happening in our pronunciation. How are we breaking our ideas up into thought groups? Which words are we stressing? And why? Right? So you have more understanding. I'm going to let you read it once to me. And I'm not going to give you the model. Just follow the marking. Come on. I'm going to get in trouble. Okay. So try on your own now. Go ahead. Hello everyone. I'm Nitish. I'm a high ticket closer. I help creators and business owners. Close more deals by taking sales calls for them. I love sales. When it comes to my hobbies and free time, I love talking to my girl and playing cricket. I think my friends would say I'm funny and caring. We like to roast each other. Nice. Okay. Was that a little bit fast? It was okay. What I'm listening for at this point is are you using that kind of rhythm? What I'm listening for at this point is the rhythm. Are you using thought groups? Are you stressing content words? And yes, you are. There are other things that we didn't talk about yet and you're doing very well. Like a lot of your intonation patterns are natural. There are some individual sounds that we still need to work on. But at this point, I'm happy with what I'm hearing in terms of rhythm. Okay? Okay. That's great. Super. Thanks to your guidance. Yes. That's all for now. But before I go, I'll ask you to hit that like and subscribe button so that you don't miss any of the lessons I have planned for you. If you'd like live interaction and feedback, then join my English with Jennifer community on Patreon where we practice all skills for confident, effective communication. The link is in the video description. I hope to see you again soon. As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!