It's a beautiful fall day.

October 19, 2021 Elizabeth Ackerman

How do you say that phrase?

beautiful

It's a fall

day.

Take your time, and linger on each stressed vowel (beau, all, ay)

Let your intonation be higher on 'beautiful', then let it gradually go down a little more on 'fall', and then land on 'day'. Give some tone and time to the last word 'day', so we really feel the end of the phrase there.

Listen to 4 different people say it:

It's almost HalloWEEN!

October 27, 2020 Elizabeth Ackerman

Halloween, like many other words ending with 'ee', has the stress on the last syllable:

haa·luh·'ween

🕸🕸🕸🕸🕸🕸

Fun Halloween Events

(special pandemic edition)

Socially Distant
Pumpkin Patch Picking

ˈsoʊʃəli ˈdɪstənt
pʌmpkɪn pætʃ ˈpɪkɪŋ

Horror Movie
Drive-ins

'hɔːrər muːvi 'draɪv-ɪns

Screen Shot 2020-10-24 at 9.41.47 PM.png — Haunted Car Wash

hɔntɪd 'kɑr wɑʃ

Outdoor Victorian
Mourning Faire

ˌaʊtˈdɔr vɪkˈtɔriən ˈmɔrnɪŋ fer

🕸🕸🕸🕸🕸🕸

Taught, caught, bought...

June 16, 2019 Elizabeth Ackerman

b42ZpD1HSkO8FaIn95h7_amVzaG9vdHMtY29tLTQzNjc4Ny11bnNwbGFzaC5qcGc=.jpg

In words spelled with aught and ought, the letters u & gh are silent, and the vowel is pronounced with the open ɑ/ɔ sound.

(The sounds /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ are pronounced the same in the West Coast variety of American English).

taught = tot

bought = bot

caught = cot

More examples

**thought**
**/thɔt/**
**He thought about it all afternoon.**

**brought**
**/brɔt/**
**She brought watermelon to the picnic.**