A short tutorial (YouTube transcript) by Hadar Shemesh teaching how to pronounce the word "congratulations" in American English. The speaker breaks the word into syllables, explains weak vs. stressed syllables and phonemes (e.g., initial k-schwa-n, gra with A as in "cat", d + schwa for the 't' spelling), demonstrates primary stress on the "lay" syllable, and highlights the word's rhythm and pitch. Ends with a brief call-to-action to visit the creator's website.
Chapters
Hi guys, it's Hadar. And this is the accent's way, your way to finding clarity, confidence and freedom in English. Let's say that your friend is celebrating something and you want to congratulate them on that event. And you're coming up to them and you say, hey, congratulations. And you get stuck. Why? Because it's a long word and the spelling does not correspond with pronunciation. Exactly. And you get frustrated and then you get in your head and then you know, why feel that way? So let's practice the word congratulations so you can go ahead and congratulate everyone around you. So let's begin with the beginning. It's a k sound, a schwa and an n, a weak syllable. Then you have a secondary stressed syllable, gra. It's a g sound, an r. Round your lips and open your mouth to the A as in cat, gra as in the word gratitude or graduate gra. Then it's a weak syllable again, congra jo. Alright. Although it's spelled with a T, it's actually pronounced as a. A d and a j together, D and a schwa. Of course, a weak syllable, congrad. Then the primary stress of the word l and then a as in day, lay as in late lay, and then another weak syllable, shunz, a sh, a schwa and an N, a z at the end. Congratulations. Congratulations. Now, another interesting thing about this word is the rhythm. Okay? Not every syllable receives the same beat. So it's not congratulations, congratulations, but it's congratulations. Short, longer, short, longer, short. Da da da da da. Congratulations. While the lay is the primary stress, it's also higher in pitch. Congratulations. Congratulations on your anniversary. Congratulations for saying congratulations. Alright, that's it. I think we had enough for today. Have a great week and come on over to my website to check it out and get more great content every single week. Have a great, great week and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
