Speaking English How to count syllables

Welcome to this lesson. My name is Ronnie. Today, I'm going to teach you something that's important. Is it? For doing something with adjectives, it is called counting syllables. Now, why would you want to count syllable? Do you like math? hate math. Counting syllables are important to make superlatives and comparatives in adjectives. So, will teach you that in another lesson. So, don't worry. Hold on tight. But, the first thing that you have to know when you're making superlative or comparative adjectives is how to actually count syllable. How to actually count syllable. What is syllable? Basically, syllable is how long the word is. Not by how many letters it is, but how long you hold the sounds for. So, when you have to count syllables, it's very important that you count the vowel sounds. Not the vowels themselves, but the vowel sounds in English. Who knows what the vowels are in English? Who can say the vowels in English? Me, me. yes. The vowel sounds in English are and Me, you. So, and Our friends from Latin America and people who speak Spanish and Portuguese, you will always mix up the and the because it's opposite. To help you remember this, you can put an above to help you remember the sound as an So, are the vowels, but each vowel and vowel combination has different sound. So, to count syllables, you have to count the vowel sounds. The shorter words are the easiest because one vowel, one syllable. Cat. So, in this very short word, there is one vowel and one vowel sound. So, this, cat, has one syllable. In this word, dog, there is, again, one vowel, the so there's one vowel sound. This gets easier. In this word, how many vowels do you see? One. Uh-oh. Sometimes is considered vowel. There's tricky rule in sometimes So, if you look at this word, we have "hungry". The sounds like an sound, so "hungry". There's your vowel there and your vowel there. This has two vowel sounds and two vowels, "hungry". no. The next word is "busy". Because it ends in the makes an sound, and this makes an So, "busy", again, is two vowels. If you look down at this word, "beautiful", how many vowels do we have? One, two, three, four, five. Now, remember, don't count the vowels. Count the vowel sounds. You do not want to say "beautiful". That would be strange. "Beautiful". Because this word, all of these vowels together make one sound. It sounds like "you". "Beautiful". This one actually only has three vowels, three vowel sounds, but five vowels. So, this contains three syllables. This one, how many vowels do you see? One, two, three, four. Let's try this. "Adorable". it worked. There are four vowels, and therefore four syllables. One thing to be very, very careful about when you speak English is that most of the time, the at the end of the word is silent. But when it's an L-E sound, it sounds like "ul". So, because it's L-E, it's going to be an extra vowel sound. In contrast to this, if you look at this word, "college", this does not end in L-E. It ends in G-E. So, this, the is actually silent. So, let's look at this word. How many vowels? One, two, three. But remember, the at the end of the word is usually silent, so it's "college". Two syllables. want you to try and do these by yourself. will give you couple of minutes to try. I'll be right back with the answers. Count the vowel sounds and tell me what you think the answers are. Be back soon. Have you finished? Are you counting? Okay. Let's go through. This word, first of all, say the word "employ". We have how many vowels? One, two. There's But this word is "employ". We don't say "employee". We actually use one, two vowels. The "oy" at the end of the word, the and the together is one vowel sound. So, you have to think about if it's two vowels together, most of the time they'll be one vowel sound. Next one. "Employee". There's special trick in English. If there are two E's together, they will make an sound at the end of the word. So, we have one, two, three, four, five. Five vowels but "employee", only three vowel sounds because the and the again make one vowel sound and the double makes an sound. So, we have "employee". This has three syllables. This has two. This is long word. Are you ready? Count the vowels. One, two, three, four, five. "University". Five amazing vowels. Five amazing vowel sounds. This word is very long. The longer the word, most of the time, the more syllables you want to use. We have done this one. "College" has two. And the last one. We have two syllables. "Power". We have two vowels. Now, you might be curious and may want to study superlative adjectives and comparatives. If you'd like to do this, stay tuned for my next video. Goodbye.