So many pivotal scenes in both shows happened in these coffee shops.

So today, we'll take a scene from Friends and we'll do a full analysis to help us understand the American accent better in order to improve listening comprehension.

By the way, I said so many pivotal scenes in both shows happened in these coffee shops.

Do you know what pivotal means?

The definition is being of vital or central importance, crucial.

In other words, really important to the storyline, the development of the characters and so on.

Pivotal scenes.

First, this is the scene we'll study today.

If I were omnipotent for a day, I would want world peace, no more hunger, good things for the rainforest, and bigger boobs.

So you took mine.

Chandler, what about you?

If I were omnipotent for a day, I'd make myself omnipotent forever.

See, there's always one guy.

If I had a wish, I'd wish for three more wishes.

Now let's do an in-depth analysis.

If I were omnipotent for a day, I would want, um...

When you're omnipotent, it means you're all-powerful.

We use this word with God, for example.

God is omnipotent.

So now they're discussing, what if I was?

If I were omnipotent for a day...

This is the subjunctive mood that is not reality, and that's why we're conjugating to be with were.

I were.

If I were, I would do this.

Not reality, but if Phoebe happened to be so lucky as to be omnipotent for a day, this is what she would do.

If I were.

If it's something that happened in the past, we would use was.

For example, I was there.

But if we were going to talk about something that didn't happen, then we would say, if

I were there, I would have said something.

So that's the difference between was and were.

Were is subjunctive, so they're all using the subjunctive mood here.

If I were omnipotent for a day...

I didn't introduce myself.

How rude.

Hi, I'm Rachel, and I've been teaching English and the American accent on YouTube for over 15 years.

Check out rachelsenglish.com slash free to get my free course, The Top Three Ways to

Master the American Accent.

You'll start hearing the difference immediately with this method.

Back to the analysis.

If I were omnipotent for a day...

If I were omnipotent for a day, so we have three stress words there.

We have if I, I were omnipotent, ne-, and in these cases, all of our stress syllables are going down than up.

This is to show that this is the first half of the phrase, and she's going to add more to it.

If I were omnipotent for a day...

If I were omnipotent for a day...

If I were omnipotent for a day...

If I were omnipotent for a day...

She's saying om, om, like with the AH as in FATHER vowel.

Omnipotent.

If I were omnipotent...

Omni-, our stressed syllable has the IH as in SIT vowel, then forget the OH, forget the

EE.

They're both schwa.

Potent.

Potent.

Potent.

Potent.

Potent.

You want those to be said quickly.

The way that you can help yourself pronounce a long, multi-syllable word more easily is to really focus on stress.

So break it up like this, om, that's unstressed, low in pitch, fast, om, ne-.

This one is stressed.

In this case, ne-, it has a change in pitch, down and then up, longer, louder, om, ne-.

And then two unstressed syllables, potent, potent.

And when you're practicing unstressed syllables, see how much you can simplify your mouth movement.

Omnipotent.

If I were omnipotent for a day, omnipotent-tent, and she's doing a stop T here, not releasing

T, the T at the end.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent.

You know what?

It almost sounds like omnipotent, omnipotent, doesn't it?

She's making this more of a flap T. Omnipotent, da-da-da-da-da-da, the tongue bouncing against the roof of the mouth.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent.

Omnipotent for a day.

For a day.

For a day.

So we have two unstressed words in a row, and four is really reduced.

That's going to sound like fur, fur, really just FR, but in phonetics, in the International

Phonetic Alphabet, we would write it F-schwa-R, fur, fur, fur.

But there's pretty much no vowel.

The R takes over the schwa, fur, fur, fur, fur-a, fur-a.

And the letter A, the article here, is also just a schwa.

So it links together really smoothly, fur-a, fur-a, for a day.

For a day.

For a day.

No breaks between our words here.

For a day.

For a day.

For a day.

I would want.

I would want.

So two more stressed words here, and again, they have the down-up shape.

I would want.

And just like the NT ending here, she's not releasing the T, but it's want, want, want, with this sort of abrupt stop at the end.

That's the stop T.

I would want.

I would want.

I would want.

I would want.

The word would, very fast.

I would, would want, when we compare it to the length of I and want.

I would want.

I would write that phonetically, W, schwa, D. There's no L sound in this word.

And it's fast.

It's would, would, would, would, would, would.

And it's not very loud.

I would want, would, would.

I would want.

I would want.

I would want, um, world peace, no more hunger, good things for the rainforest.

She's listing things, so her stress is going up.

Our stress goes up for everything in a list until the last item, rainforest.

Then we'll see here if our intonation goes down.

World peace.

And it's this change in pitch along with the length that shows us that this is a stressed syllable.

It's more clear.

Now, I know world is one of the hardest words to pronounce.

Let's look at the pronunciation W, and then forget the vowel.

It's the R vowel-consonant combination, er.

It's just one sound, wer.

Think of this word, wer, wer.

It's the same kind of sounds you want down here in the beginning of the word, wer, wer, wer, wer, wer, wer.

Now, the tricky part also, it's not just the R, but it's that dark L, worl.

This dark sound is made with the back of the tongue, ul, so you don't actually lift your tongue tip, worl.

Your tongue presses down and back in the back, but the tip touches behind the bottom front teeth, worl.

So I'm moving the tongue tip down, it was up for the R, I'm moving it down, worl.

Then I'm bringing it down and pressing the back of the tongue, down and back.

Now, it might be confusing to think about that.

You might just want to focus on the sound and on imitating it, worl.

Try that, worl, world peace, and then a little light D on the end, not release, linking right into the peace sound, worl.

That's the D, world peace, world peace, world peace, world peace, peace, peace.

If you want to adjust that word in slow motion, you can really hear the shape of stress and how the pitch is going up at the end.

Peace, peace, peace, no more hunger.

No more hunger, hunger.

Again, she's making a list, it's not the last thing in the list, so it goes hunger, it goes down up, no more hunger, no and more, these are less stress, they're kind of flatter, no more hung, no more hung, no more hunger.

No more hunger.

No more hunger.

No more hunger.

Now, the N here is actually part of the NG sound, hung.

So it's not pronounced like an N, it's pronounced ng with the back of the tongue, and then we do get a hard G. Hunger, ger, ger, ger, ger, that G releases into the schwa R ending, hunger.

I just might as well write out the whole IPA for this.

It's the UH vowel, very neutral, very relaxed in American English, huh, hunger, hunger.

Hunger, hunger, hunger, good things for the rainforest.

Good things, so she's going up here, good, this is the UH vowel like in push, it's not ooh like in shoo, but UH, UH, push, sugar, good things for the rainforest.

And then yes, it's her last item in the list, she's put a period, and it does go down, rainforest.

Rainforest, rainforest, rainforest.

So we've got good things for the, things for the, pronounced more quickly, those are not stressed and we do have that reduction where for becomes for, for, for, for the, for the, for the, for the.

Not very clear, not very loud, pretty flat in pitch, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the rainforest.

For the rainforest, for the rainforest, for the rainforest, and bigger boobs.

So three things for the world, one thing for herself that she throws in at the end.

And bigger boobs, and bigger boobs, and bigger boobs.

And this is also a statement, and bi-, we have stress on our adjective, and bigger boobs, and stress on our noun.

The word and, the D is dropped, and the an-, an-, an- is just connecting up into that stress syllable.

And bi-, bigger boobs.

Here double O is the OO vowel like in shoe, here it's the UH vowel like in push.

So double O can have a couple different pronunciations, the OO vowel, and the UH vowel, we see both of those examples here.

And bigger boobs, and bigger boobs, and bigger boobs.

Boob here, she's using the slang verb, the chest of a female, but it also means a stupid person, a fool, a dunce, or a mistake that someone has made.

So let's use it in a sentence.

What do you think of Professor Smith?

I think he's a total boob, and his classes are boring.

And bigger boobs, and bigger boobs, and bigger boobs.

Well.

Well.

Well.

Well is one of these filler words that isn't very clearly pronounced sometimes.

Here I'm really just hearing L, I'm not hearing the W at all.

L, L.

L.

L.

L.

L.

So you took mine.

See you took mine.

So we have two stressed words in that phrase.

See and you are just going up towards our first stressed syllable.

See you took mine.

The word you is not fully pronounced, it's reduced.

I would write that with the Y consonant and the schwa vowel.

A lot of our words in English, a lot of our common words like you, like for, the vowel gets replaced with the schwa.

See ya, see ya, see ya.

See ya took mine.

So you took mine.

So you took mine.

So you took mine.

Took mine.

These both have more length and an up-down shape of stress, a pitch change.

See ya, see ya, see ya.

That is fast.

We have another double O here, took.

Which pronunciation is that?

Took.

It's the UH vowel that we had in good.

That's the same vowel we have in push and sugar.

Took.

Took mine.

Took mine.

Took mine.

Took mine.

Took mine.

Chandler, what about you?

Chandler.

Chandler.

Questioning intonation, first syllable stress, Chandler.

Chandler.

Chandler.

Chandler.

What about you?

What about you?

What about you?

What about you?

What about you?

What about you?

What about you?

What about you?

So we have one stress word then after Chandler and it's you.

What and about said very quickly.

Let's listen to just those two words.

What about you?

What about you?

So they're flat and they're fast and they're quieter compared to you which has more volume and that up-down shape of stress.

What about you?

Question words like what, when, where, how, why, usually in questions like this one, they're not stressed.