Short instructional YouTube lesson by Hadar Shemesh teaching learners how to ask for the time in American English using the phrase “What time is it?”. The speaker demonstrates polite and informal variants, gives a step-by-step pronunciation breakdown (schwa in "what", aspiration of initial /t/ in "time", primary stress on "time", reduction of "is it"), and models full-sentence examples and conversational usage.
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Hey, guys, it's hadar. And this is the accent's way. And today I'm going to teach you how to ask for the time, basically using the phrase what time is it? What time is it? Now, this is the basic phrase. You could make it more polite by adding excuse me and please at the end. Or make it more informal asking your friend, hey, what time is it? What time is it? So let's break it down. The first word has a schwa in it. So. So it's a W sound and then a reduced vowel, the schwa w, W. And then a T, W. But then since you connect it to the next word, then the T is held. And then you release it when you're already saying the word time. Time. Now, when the t appears at the beginning of a word, it is aspirated, so it feels like there is a little H after it. Listen, time. And then it's the I as in my vowel sound. What time? The time is the primary stress of the phrase. Therefore, it is going to be longer, louder, and higher in pitch. Listen. What time is it? Is it? And then the two other words is and it reduce into two schwas. They're connected and I just say them together along with the entire phrase. What time is it? All right. The T, as you can hear at the end, is held. So I'm not saying is it? Right. I don't pop the T. I just bring the tongue up and stop the air abruptly. Is it? What time is it? What time is it? Hey, can you tell me what time is it, please? What time is it? All right, good. So now I hope you'd never be late again because you'll know how to ask for the time. That's it. I hope this was helpful. Please share this video with your friends if you liked it and come over to my website to check it out and get more great content. Like a list of the 50 most commonly mispronounced words. English. Interesting, right? So check it out, have a great week and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
