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Vowels make a lot of the difference between British and American pronunciations of CAN and CAN'T. Want to see how I teach English vowels? Check out my TESOL Training Course on Udemy. Here's a link to a 50% off coupon, just to get you in the mood...
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In this Can/Can't video, veteran pronunciation teacher discusses how to understand Brits and Americans when they say CAN and CAN't. It's a bit confusing to people learning English, so here's the explanation of how the two accents differ, with some examples. Cheers!
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transcript:
Hi There! Peggy here. I'm going to talk about 'can' and 'can't' , or can and can't, or can and can't, and I'm going to talk about the difference between American can and can't and the British can and can't.
Right! it's a battle...and it leaves everybody else on the outside confused so here's how it goes.
First, the American.
So in America, in America, if it's an affirmation that we're going to do something, but it's no big deal, we say 'can'. I can do it. Umm, you need somebody to go to the store, Ok I can do it.
It's a very short word; we hear the /k/ and the /n/--there's no vowel in there. If you want to call it a 'schwa', fine, but it's really just connective tissue; it's extremely short.
I can do it.
But we save the accentuation for the negative in the United States, so the people clearly hear the negative part of the message. I can't do it. You want somebody to go to the store? Not me, I can't do it.
So that way we're sure our listener heard that it was IMpossible. So this is in the States.
"Yeah I can do it." "No I can't do it."
This is longer, the vowel is stronger and there's
a /t/ or the suggestion of a /t/ at the end, right?
That's how we do it! But sometimes we have to repeat ourselves, or affirm or we have to make sure that the person understands 'Yes, definitely, definitely, yes yes yes I can I can."
But we save that /ae/ sound usually for that strong affirmation, to say definitely, definitely, I can!"
Otherwise, we just say "I can do it and I'll do it tonight."
"I can't do it; find somebody else."
"No, I said I can do it and I will."
That's in the United States.
So next, the British version. So I've been listening to my British
friends for a while now and this is the only thing I hear them do.
If it's a positive, they say /ae/, and it might be a stronger or weaker /ae/ depending I think on which part of
England there from but it's an /ae/, nevertheless, "I can."
But the negative is completely the opposite from the United States, they say can't.
they take away the /ae/ sound, and they
use an /ah/ sound. So if you want to sound British, you say,
No dear, I can't do it today. I can do it tomorrow but I can't do it today for you.
British uses system. Sorry...the United States...we work it. So here's a little quiz. If somebody says they can't, Where are they from?
If you guessed, British...Great Britain, you are right.
If somebody says they "can't" where are they from? They're from United States.
And what about the positive? If somebody says they can do it, probably from the United States.
And if somebody says they can do it, then you're not sure.
I wanted to show you that we don't all say can and can't and can and can't and can't and can...
we don't all say it the same. And I wanted to tell you why.
Well, actually I can't tell you why but I can tell you how. I wanted to tell you how Americans and Brits differed in can versus can't.
Негізгі бет English Accents: CAN & CAN'T-- British vs American
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