Episode Transcript

89. Practice Your Christmas Vocabulary + Pronunciation! – Transcript

Welcome to the InFluency Podcast. I’m Hadar, and this is episode number 89. And today – and because it’s very suitable for the season – we are going to talk about holiday vocabulary and how to pronounce it.

Hey, hey, welcome back to the InFluency Podcast. Thank you so much for being here and for tuning in. I hope you are well. And this episode is going to be festive and all about pronunciation. First, because I love pronunciation. And second, because I love the holiday season, even though I do not celebrate it. I mean, I celebrate Hanukkah, but I don’t really celebrate it. I mean, I celebrate it, but I don’t celebrate it. I don’t make a big deal out of it.

But when I used to live in New York, I loved Christmas. Loved. First, because I was a server working right by Rockefeller Center. And if you’ve ever been to New York around Christmas time, you know that there’s this gigantic tree that they bring in every single year. And that tree attracts a lot of tourists. Less now, since there are no tourists in New York city, because there’s a global pandemic.

But when I used to work there, it used to be insane. Like, I remember me getting off the subway stop. And it took me forever to get to the restaurant, even though it was like 60 seconds away because I had to go through so many people. And I would be like all pissy and like just, you know, “Get out of my way!” in my head. Of course, I was very polite and all “I’m sorry”, “Excuse me”. “I’m sorry”, “Excuse me.” But I was generally late and I had to get there on time. And that’s it, this is why I was angry with the sea of people. Gosh, I miss those times!

Anyway, I used to love Christmas because it was like the busiest time of the year. We would make a lot of money working in the restaurant. So I would work like double shifts every single day for like a week, you know. And I used to love it. Like I used to love working hard because, you know, the days would fly by, go by really quickly. And you have that holiday spirit, and everyone’s excited buying gifts, excited about the tree. So, I used to really love seeing all those people coming in, having their pasta, and continuing on with our lives as I was cleaning up all the empty plates. Really, I do miss it. I loved waiting tables. So, it was a really great time.

And of course, like everything’s festive and the lights and the smells. And I really miss it. So this is why I’m very excited about the holiday season, even though I’ve been living in Israel for the past forever. And we don’t celebrate it here. That did not stop me from creating this podcast about holiday vocabulary.

So, the first word I want to talk about is the word ‘Christmas’. Christmas. Now, to say the word ‘Christmas’, we start with a K sound and then there is an R – ‘kris-‘. For those of you who struggle with the R you might pronounce something like ‘kwis’, ‘kwi’ – with a W, or maybe a different R sound.

So, just a quick reminder of the R sound. You do want to round your lips, like a W sound, but you want to bring the tongue to the middle of the mouth. And the sides of the tongue should touch the sides of the teeth – ‘kr-‘, until you hear that tense, rough sound of the R: ‘kris’. And then it’s a relaxed ‘i’ sound – ‘kris’. And then it’s an M, a schwa, and an S – ‘krismuhs’, ‘krismuhs’. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Next stop, we have the word ‘holidays’, ‘holidays’. There is nothing interesting about this word. It’s usually not a hard work. There’s nothing too difficult about the pronunciation of this word. And most people really do get it right. But there are two fun nuances that I want to talk about here.

So, first is the first syllable – ‘haa’, even though it’s spelled with an O. When you listen to me, saying it right now – ‘haa’, notice it sounds more like an ‘aa’ sound than an ‘oh’. ‘haa’, ‘haa’. Then, the LI is actually ‘luh’ and not ‘lee’. A lot of people just say ‘holeedays’, put an ‘ee’ sound. But in fact, this vowel is reduced to a schwa. If you don’t know what a schwa is, I’m going to link to my all-time favorite episode about the schwa sound in the description.

‘haaluh-, luh, luh’, right, it’s just like a very neutral sound. ‘haaluh-day’, or days. Holidays. Holidays. And the rhythm plays a significant part here because it’s not ‘ho-li-days’, but one syllable is longer than the rest: ‘haa’, the ‘li’ is super short, and ‘days’ is somewhere in the middle. So every syllable here receives a different beat. Holidays. Holidays.

Then we have New Year. New year. Happy New Year. Now, if you struggle with the word ‘year’, you need to listen to episode number 88, where I answered a question about how to pronounce the word ‘year’. Some people may pronounce it as ‘ear’. If that’s you, go back and listen to episode number 88, where I answered questions.

In general, that’s a ‘j’ sound as in ‘yes’. And then it’s the ‘ee’ as in ‘see’ sound. ‘Year’. And you want to transition smoothly from one sound to another. Year. Year. And by the way, notice the R sound at the end – ‘year’ – that it doesn’t start too soon – ‘yer’. You want to make sure that you pronounce the ‘ee’ sound clearly before you bring the tongue up for the R. That’s what happens when you pronounce the R: the tongue goes up – ‘year’ – and you want to make sure you stretch the word before you get to the R – ‘year’. The beauty of R vowels.

The word ‘new’. You can pronounce it as ‘njuw’, with a ‘j’ sound – ‘njuw’. So it’s an N sound, a ‘j’ – as in ‘yes’ – ‘njuw’, and then ‘uw’ as in ‘food’. Round your lips, push them forward and bring the tongue back up, think as if you’re adding a W at the end – ‘njuw’. Or, if you want to use more contemporary American pronunciation – ‘nuw’, ‘nuw’. You drop the ‘j’ sound – ‘nuw’.

So it’s just an N and then ‘uw’, and make sure you round your lips and pretend like there is an extra W at the end. That’s a long vowel, or a longer vowel. ‘nuw yeer’. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. And here are the stress falls on ‘new’, even though if you were to say, “Oh, it’s a new year“, you would put the emphasis on ‘year’. But when it’s a set phrase, you put it together – ‘New Year’. “It’s the New Year”. New Year’s Eve. New Year.

Then we have the word ‘Santa Claus’. Santa Claus. I have a separate video about Santa Claus, I’m going to link to it. But for now, the quick lesson is going to be – ‘Sana’ or ‘SanTa’. Both are correct. The T can drop after an N in an unstressed syllable. This is why you will hear people saying ‘SanTa’ or ‘Sana’. If you say ‘Sana’ and drop the T, you want to say it rather fast. Not too fast, but faster. ‘Sana Claus’. ‘sa’- that’s the A as in ‘cat’ – ‘sa-‘, but before an N it’s modified – ‘a’, ‘a’. ‘sa’, ‘sana’, ‘sana’. ‘santa’, ‘santa’. Choose whatever’s easier for you.

And then ‘klaaz’. It’s not ‘klaauws’, it’s ‘klaaz’, ‘klaaz’ – a ‘k’ sound, an L, an ‘aa’ – round your lips a bit, drop your jaw, the mouth is open here – ‘klaaz’. And with a Z – ‘klaaz’.

Speaking of Santa Claus, we want to talk about his reindeer. ‘rein’, ‘rein’, just like the word ‘rain’, and then ‘deer’ – that’s, again, a high E sound – ‘deer’, and then an R. Reindeer. Reindeer.

Now, when you go to a Christmas party, you might stand right under a mistletoe. Mistletoe. Mistletoe. For those of you who you haven’t ever been to a Christmas party, because you don’t celebrate it and you’re like, “What’s a mistletoe?” – it’s this plant that if you happen to stand beneath it, you need to give someone a kiss, or something like that. I’m sure you’ve seen it in movies before.

So that’s mistletoe. ‘mi-suhl-tow’. So it’s an S sound, there is a schwa there, and then the O as in ‘go’ at the end. Mistletoe.

And on Christmas you also drink eggnog. Eggnog. I’m not a fan of eggnog, but I’m a fan of pronouncing it. ‘eg’, just like an egg, and then ‘naag’ – it’s an N sound, the A as in father. You want to open your mouth for this one: ‘egnaag’. Eggnog.

And also, another word that you might come across during Christmas is mitten. Mitten or mittens, mittens. And I want to talk about it because it has the nasal T, which means a T sound that goes into an N right away. Mitten.

A mitten is a glove that only has two sections, you know, just like one for the thumb and one for the rest of the fingers. So it’s not a real glove, you can’t do much with it, you can’t play piano with a mitten. So, mitten or mittens. So, you bring the tongue up for the… T – took me a second to remember what I wanted to say – you bring the tongue up for the T, you keep it there, and then you release air through the nose: ‘mit’n’, or you just block your breath – ‘mit’n’.

And I’m going to post the link to a video about the T’s. So maybe if you struggle with it, that could be helpful. Actually, the video is going to be on my Instagram account cause I did a really good one not so recently. And if you haven’t been following me on Instagram, I add bonus lessons once a week, like practice drills of things that people really struggle with. So make sure you follow me on Instagram at @hadar.accentsway if you want those extra bonus lessons, and they’re fun.

On Christmas, we sing Christmas carols. Carols. What’s interesting here is that even though there is an O, there is no ‘O’. So it’s ‘ka-‘, ‘ka-‘ – again, it’s the A as in cat, but before an R the A changes a bit, so it’s not ‘cArols’, but ‘ka-‘, ‘ka-ruhlz’ – an R sound, a schwa, and a dark L. Carols. Carols.

And one more word that might be confusing is ‘sleigh’. It’s confusing because in the spelling you have L E I G H after an S, and it’s just ‘slei’, ‘slei’.

And, what else, we have ‘wreath’. Wreath. That’s, it’s a beautiful word, I have to say. It’s like the arrangement of flowers, right, like that you put on a door, it’s like a decoration. Wreath. I don’t know why. I think maybe because I used to read a lot of Shakespeare, and this word appeared quite often – wreath – and I loved it.

But it has an R, and a high E, and a TH. So it might be challenging for some. It has a W at the beginning in the spelling. But remember that every time you have a W and then an R, the W is pretty much silent, you don’t pronounce it really: ‘reeth’, ‘reeth’. Round your lips both for the W and the R – wreath.

And lastly, I want to go over a few greetings. Just, you know, if you don’t know what to say or what to write at the end of an email, then I’m just gonna review some of them. And I asked my content developer to help me with that because I’m really not in shape when it comes to holiday greetings. So, if you feel that one of them is really outdated, let me know. But we’re going to practice them anyway. I think all of them are pretty legit. Legit. ‘Legit’ is a good word too.

Okay. So we talked about ‘happy holidays’. ‘Happy holidays!’ Speaking of tone of voice, you want to do that with that pitch, right, like friendly pitch – ‘Happy holidays!’. Cause if you say it with this low – ‘Happy holidays’, ‘Happy holidays’, could sound a little creepy. Not that it means that you shouldn’t do it, just know that that’s what might happen. And maybe that’s exactly what you want – to sound a little creepy and eerie. Holidays. Happy holidays.

Oh, by the way, not related, but I just came across the word ‘facetious’, ‘facetious’. And I said, “I have to share it with my audience”. Because I love that word, it’s such a good word. It has nothing to do with the holidays, so you can just skip the audio like 30 seconds down the road, if you don’t want to talk about that word ‘facetious’.

But it’s such a good word. And I feel that not a lot of people use it as they should. So, to be facetious is to say something, but without meaning it. So it’s not sarcastic, as sarcasm has this really negative sense to it and sometimes mean, but ‘facetious’ is like to tease someone and to say it despite someone, but to not really mean what they’re saying. And sometimes when you’re being facetious, people may misunderstand you because they don’t get that you’re being facetious.

So for example, if I were to say, “Oh, I really love the holidays.” “Really?” “No, I’m being facetious.” Right? So, usually it also has this different tone to how we say things. Anyway, that was not related to Christmas or the New Year, but I just wanted to share it with you.

Another good word is resolution, right, what we set out to do or to change in our lives. And these are decisions that we’re making. So for example, I can say, “My new year’s resolution is to really focus on my health and to eat healthy”. Right? So that could be a resolution. Or to practice English every day, or to work out more. Resolution. ‘re-zuh-‘, it’s a Z sound and a schwa, ‘re-zuh-luw’, ‘uw’ as in ‘food’, ‘shuhn’. Resolution.

Okay. Back to greetings, my friends. ‘Best wishes for a wonderful year ahead’. That’s a little formal, I would say, but you can use it in writing. ‘Best wishes for a wonderful year ahead’. ‘Best wishes for a wonderful year ahead’. God knows we need this – a wonderful and healthy year ahead.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season’. ‘Wishing you a wonderful holiday season’. I like this one. ‘Wishing you a wonderful holiday season’.

And there’s the greeting ‘Good tidings to you’. ‘Good tidings to you’. Tidings is like news or recent news, so ‘Good tidings’ is like, “I hope you get good news.” And that’s kind of kind and nice too.

‘May you have a great year’. ‘May you have a great year’. ‘May you’ – that’s a polite way of saying have a great year. ‘May you have a great year’. And of course, you can go a little more informal and say something like ‘Have a great year’, or just ‘Happy New Year’.

Speaking of the new year, very soon, I’m going to release a podcast episode with some motivation for the coming year when it comes to learning English. And also an episode about my year. So I always sum up my year at the end of the year, and prepare for the next year. And this year is not going to be different and, oh my God, it is different than the way I envisioned it at the end of 2019.

Because 2020 was not a very typical year, as you all know. So everything that I had planned had to change. And I’m not saying right now if it was for better or for worse, probably both, you know, depending on what I’m talking about. But I’m going to share my end of the year and my kind of like plans for the coming year, here on the pod.

And I hope that inspires you to also take a moment to sum up your year and to think about all your wins and achievements, and great stuff that has happened to you even though this year was challenging. And also, you know, to set intentions for what’s coming next.

Okay. So, happy holidays, my friends, whether you celebrate the holidays or not. Sometime, somewhere, there is a holiday somewhere. And since this podcast is evergreen, whenever you’re listening to it, there might be a holiday somewhere out there.

Okay. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day. And I will speak to you on the next episode. Bye.