471. How to pronounce pronouns correctly in real life English

Pronouns are one of the first things you learn in English, but are you actually pronouncing them correctly? So today I'm going to teach you the correct pronunciation of pronouns. And along the way, we are going to practice connected speech. Hey, you're listening to the Influency podcast. I'm Hadar, your host, a pronunciation expert, fluency coach, and a proud non native speaker. With over 16 years of experience teaching, I am here to share with you all my secrets on how to show up in English clearly with confidence and freedom. On this podcast, I'll provide step by step strategies, lessons, stories and practical tips to keep you inspired and motivated on your English journey. Are you ready? Let's do it. Hey everyone, it's Itar. Today we are going to talk about pronouns. Pronouns are one of the first things you learn in English, but are you actually pronouncing them correctly? Because when it comes to pronouns, it's not about the proper pronunciation, it's about how you pronounce them. Or would you connect words together, which is what we usually do in English. So today I'm going to teach you the correct pronunciation of pronouns. And along the way we are going to practice connected speech. If you're new to my channel, then hi, my name is Hadar. I'm a non native speaker of English and I'm here to help you speak English with clarity, confidence and freedom. You can check out my website for a lot of free episodes and resources and PDFs and audio practice absolutely free. So go to hadar shemesh.com and explore a way you can also follow me on social media. So today we're going to talk about the pronunciation of pronouns so you can speak faster, link words more easily, and understand other speakers better. Let's start with he, him, his and himself. So third person singular male. The word he is pronounced with an h and a high e. He, he, he. Well, when it's unstressed or in the middle of the sentence, which is usually the case, we drop the h and we just pronounce it as E. For example, Izzy, is he, Is he, Is he coming over? Is he coming over? Is he, is he? Is he? Is he coming over? But he doesn't like the movie, but he, buddy. The t becomes a flap T. The h drops buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy doesn't like the movie. Now, yes, if you hear the word buddy, hey, you're my buddy or buddy, my favorite guy in the world, it does sound the same because a D between two vowels and a T between two vowels sound the same. In American English, Buddy, Buddy. Buddy. Buddy doesn't like the movie. So when you hear that, it could be, but he doesn't like the movie, or buddy, my friend, Buddy doesn't like the movie. How do you know? Context. When we use pronouns, it's usually when you already know who we're talking about. So this is when you'll know it's he and that someone named Buddy. But he doesn't like the movie. I didn't know he was there. I didn't know he was there. No, we. No, we know he was there. I didn't know he was there. Now, you can absolutely pronounce the H here. I didn't know he was there. I didn't know he was there. That's good. Okay, but the reason I teach you that is first, because sometimes when you drop the h, it's easier to connect. And for some speakers, the H is actually difficult to pronounce. So if you can drop it and you're still going to sound clear, why not? I didn't know he was there. Now, here's the thing. You can only drop the H when it's unstressed, okay? If you want to indicate that he is John and not Mark, then you definitely want to pronounce the H. For example, I didn't know he was there. So when the word he is emphasized in the sentence, you got to use the h, you can't say, I didn't know e was there, because then it's just not going to sound great, okay? I didn't know he was there or I didn't know he was there. Now the word him is pronounced as im. I met him. I met him. I met him. I met him last week. Again, the flap T. I met him last week or I know him from school. Know him, know him, know him. I know him from school. His is pronounced as is. Is. Is. I couldn't find his hat. I couldn't find this hat. Now, something interesting about connected speech. If a word starts with a vowel and the previous word ends with a consonant here, in this case, it's the D of find. And the next word is is. Because we drop the h, then the D of find becomes the beginning of the next word, the beginning of D. That's what happens when you connect words together. He couldn't find this hat. It's just easier. He couldn't find his hat. Find his. Find is Find his. He couldn't find his hat. Or I spoke to his mom. I spoke to his mom. I spoke to his mom. Now, sometimes even if it's the beginning of the sentence, you will still drop the h. His dog is out of control. His dog is out of control. However, when it's at the beginning of the sentence, sometimes you will hear people pronouncing the full H. His dog is out of control. His dog is out of control. Even when it's not stressed. Okay, let's move on to she. I have nothing interesting to say about the word she. She is always pronounced as she. She. She. She is always right. And she's always right. You know that anyway, right? She. It's a sh sound and an e. She's. She's, She's. No reductions here. However, when we say her, that's when we drop the h. So if you want to say I called her on the phone, you can drop the H and it becomes I called her on the phone. I called her, called her, called her. I called her on the phone. Or can you let her in? Let her, Let her, let her. Yeah, just like the letter you write. Can you let her in? Can you let her in? Or her car broke down. Her car broke down. If you say it quickly and the her is not pronounced, you can drop the h. But again, when it's at the beginning of the sentence. Sometimes you might want to pronounce the H for clarity. So it's easier to drop the h when you connect words together, but you can choose herself. Same thing. She did it herself. Herself. Herself. She did it erself. So here the T again, connected speech becomes the beginning of the next word. Because the next word herself starts with a er sound. It's a. It's a vowel. So this is what it sounds like. She did it herself. The T sounds like a light D. She did it herself. She did it herself. She needs to be honest with herself. With herself, with herself. Everything's connected. She needs to be honest with herself. She's not always taking care of herself. She's not always taking care of herself. Care of herself. So the V of the word of, yes, it's a V, not an f, becomes the beginning of the word herself when you drop the h. Car over. Self. Care. Of herself. Care of herself. Now, even if it might be hard right now to follow all the sounds and to pronounce it correctly. Don't worry. The idea here is to say these phrases again and again, focus on the actual sounds and the sequence without thinking about how you're going to do it out there when you speak. Don't think about it just yet. Okay? What we're doing now is Building pronunciation confidence is allowing you to understand what to do is training your mouth to pronounce it differently in a new way. And you're doing it again and again, again, building pronunciation confidence. And then you'll start noticing that you're using it without even thinking about it. That is the idea of pronunciation work. That you don't have to think about it, that you're actually able to use it spontaneously. By the way, this is why I created for you a PDF with drills use for pronouns with an audio practice so you can just listen to it and repeat it with me again and again and again. Because I really want you to be able to implement it and to see how it impacts your day to day speech. Next up, we have the word hour. The word our is rarely pronounced as our. It's usually pronounced as just the letter R. R. R R. This is our place. This is our place. Welcome. This is our place. Now, this is how you pronounce it when it's unstressed. If it's stressed, it's going to be pronounced as our. This is our place, not yours. Our versus yours. When these words are stressed, full pronunciation, no reductions whatsoever. When it's reduced, in this case the place and this are stressed, then our is pronounced as are. This is our place. I think this is our room. I think this is our room. Our room. Our room. Our room. Let's plan our weekend getaway. Let's plan our weekend getaway. So excited. Now the word ourselves is pronounced as ourselves. Ourselves. Ourselves. Honestly, even when this word is stressed, I hear it as ourselves. So when it's reduced, when it's stressed, ourselves. We need to push ourselves harder. We need to push ourselves harder. Ourselves harder. This is a little tricky, right? I feel it. Our. Ourselves harder. Ourselves harder. So we need. My friend, we need to push ourselves harder to pronounce this phrase. Let's remind ourselves of the goal. Let's remind ourselves of the goal. Speaking English with clarity, confidence and freedom. Let's remind ourselves of the goal. We're doing this for ourselves, not for anyone else. We're doing this for ourselves. For ourselves. For ourselves. Good. Next up, we have your. Your. And how is it pronounced? Yer. Yer. Yer. Is this your bag? Is this your bag? Is this Y? Er. Yr. Yer. Yer. Not a lot is happening here. Yer. Some of you will tell me, no, there's a lot happening in my mouth right now. Pronouncing both a Y sound and an R sound. Hadara, what are you talking about? Your, but no vowels. Really. Your. Is this your bag? Keep it small. Effortless. Effortless is the secret here. I like your style. I like your. Your style. Around your lips a little bit. What's your plan for the weekend? What's your plan for the weekend? Your plan. Your plan. Your plan. Yourself. Yourself. Yourself, yourself. Think like there is an e maybe between the Y and the R. Did you do that yourself? Did you do that yourself? Did you do that? Did you do that? Did you do that yourself? You should treat yourself to something nice. You should treat yourself to something nice. Take care of yourself, okay? Take care of yourself. Okay, now we have the word them, them. And I really like this word, but it can get a little tricky. When it's stressed, it's pronounced with a voiced th tongue out, then as in red and an m, them, them, them. When it's unstressed, you can either pronounce it as them, them, them. No vowel. It's a schwa. It's reduced. The e is reduced to a schwa, them. But I like to think of it as if there is no vowel and you're transitioning between the th and the m them. And sometimes you even drop the th and then it sounds like, I'll send them the details. I'll send them. Send them. Or send em. Send em. Send em the details. I'll send em the details. Or I saw them at the store. I saw them at the store. I saw them. Them at the store. But you can also say, I saw him at the store. I saw him at the store. Now, if you drop the th, it really has to be pronounced quickly. You don't want to say I saw at the store, right? Because then it's going to be unclear. It's weird, but it's only clear to reduce when it's said fast and quickly. Otherwise, just pronounce the full word. I saw them at the store. If you want to slow down, if you want to take your time, if you want to enunciate every word to be clear, that is fine. Especially if you don't have a lot of experience with connected speech. Especially if you feel like you're still struggling to speak out full sentences, that is okay. It depends on your stage. And then just pronounce the full word. Don't use reductions. And use this exercise to improve your listening so you understand what people say. But as you gain more experience and practice connected speech more, you can definitely try it. And then you want to make sure that you say it quickly. Quickly. I saw him at the store earlier. Now tell them. When I say tell them could be Perceived as two things. It could be tell them, just like we learned because we dropped the th. But it could also be perceived as what? Tell him. Because him is reduced to im and sometimes even to okay, so sometimes we don't even pronounce the e sound. But just like. So him can be pronounced as and them can be pronounced as. So when you hear tell em without any other context, you won't be able to know if it's tell him or tell them. So. Just something to be mindful of, especially when you listen to other people. Last but not least, we have so the. It doesn't change much, but often it can be reduced to a schwa. A schwa is a very neutral vowel sound. And instead of you'll hear. And more than the quality of the sound, it's just going to be very, very short. Takes up a lot of space. And schwa is really short. Okay? And this is what we usually hear when we have the word it in the middle of a sentence. Is it, Is it? Is it, Is it cold outside? Is it, Is it? Is it right? You don't hear it? Is it cold outside? Zit. Zit. Sometimes it's just zit. Is it cold outside? Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it. Yeah, it sucks. Now, don't get me wrong, you can still hear people say, yeah, it sucks. So here, it really depends on your speed and the speaker and the dialect they're using, but it's just something for you to be mindful of. It's going to rain later. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to rain later, right? It's not. It's going to rain later. It's going to rain later. It's great. It's your fault. It is. Okay. That was it, huh? Do you get it? Do you get it? That was it. Anyway, I hope you found this lesson helpful. And if you did, make sure to first of all, like and subscribe and all the things that you do when you watch a YouTube video or when you listen to a podcast, you can subscribe to the podcast, but most importantly, in the show notes, in the description, you will see a PDF link that you can download for free, free with audio. And you can practice these sentences that I just practiced with you and more. So you can turn it into kind of like a repeated practice so that it can get into your system. You'll build pronunciation confidence and you will feel like you're able to use it spontaneously without always thinking about it, which is what we want. And if not, it's just going to help us understand others better. Because to help you improve your listening, a lot of times, especially when it comes to connected speech and reductions, it has to go through your mouth. And this is a great way to do that. All right, my friends, thank you so, so much for being here. I really appreciate you. And like I said, if you want to find out more about me and my work and practice with all the resources that I have for you for free on my website, go to hadar Shemish. Com. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day, and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.