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  • hi it's Jennifer from Tarle speech with your pronunciation question today's

  • words are how do I pronounce the words meadow a grassy area or medal and award

  • let's take a look at these words lots of letters here for the first word and keep

  • in mind we have a silent letter here we have a W at the end of the word we are

  • not going to say that letter at all and then typically when we see the e a we do

  • pronounce that as a long e with the first vowel doing the talking and the

  • second one being silent however in this case we are not going to pronounce it

  • with the long e we're going to pronounce it with a short e and then we have the

  • word medal which is very similar to how it's spelled

  • the problem that I hear from my students is that the endings really confuse them

  • and it's mainly because of that L sound so let's kind of dive in and fix this

  • pronunciation both words are going to start with med so to do this lips are

  • together for the M air is moving through your nose add that short E which is

  • relaxed and it's very short and then end with that D sound by touching the tip of

  • your tongue to the back of your front tooth top front teeth med easy-breezy

  • right here's the difference when we say medal you must pull your tongue down

  • away from the top teeth where you had it for the D and then quickly put it back

  • up there and hold it behind the back of your top front teeth this is the key

  • hold it there yes hold it a little bit longer than you think you should to make

  • sure that you get that really good L sound so let's try that medal medal

  • medal you might say you hear a little bit of a schwa sound in there you

  • probably do and that's okay I'm not going to teach

  • to add that in because often when I do people will say things like med all and

  • kind of make it a different syllable and it's not it's just kind of all together

  • medal medal medal okay so yes there are two syllables but I don't want them to

  • be super distinct they should be nice and connected okay medal medal medal now

  • the mistake that people make when they say medal is that they don't touch the

  • tip of their tongue to the back of their top front teeth and then it sounds like

  • meadow meadow meadow meadow so again if you don't touch your teeth for that L

  • medal it's going to sound like meadow so let's give those both a try meadow

  • meadow meadow medal medal medal meadow medal give it a try I know people are

  • going to notice the difference as always we'd love a like a share to subscribe if

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  • you again next week

hi it's Jennifer from Tarle speech with your pronunciation question today's

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