S01 - E17 - Rafaela Part 2 - Life in Texas and minimal pair pronunciation practice

Hey, in today's episode Rich speaks again with his student Rafaela from Brazil. She has recently passed the TOEFL test after classes with Rich and is now living the American dream in Texas. We talk about what life is like in the USA and at the end, we review a minimal pair for some pronunciation practice.

S01 - E17 - Rafaela Part 2 - Life in Texas and minimal pair pronunciation practice

Full intermediate level ESL podcast transcript

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Richard: Hey Rafaela, how are you?

Rafaela: Hi Richard. I'm good. And about you. 

Richard: I'm very good too. So welcome back to the podcast. 

Rafaela: Thank you 

Richard: I'm glad that you liked it so much. You decided to come back to that again. 

Rafaela: Yeah. 

Richard: Another one…

Rafaela: Yeah. You don't let me finish my whole story. 

Richard: Yes. Oh, I didn't let you finish. Let's say I didn't, so you're back for more. 

Rafaela: Ahh no kidding. Yeah, again. 

Vocab: kidding - noun - playfulness or teasing.

Richard: And we’re gonna talk about some very interesting things today. So first of all, there's something that I thought was really funny, you told me recently about moving to America, to Texas, and hearing the expression or the word y'all for the first time. 

Vocab: y’all- contraction - you-all.

Rafaela: Yeah…

Richard: So for those people who don't know what, what is y'all, and please tell us your story. 

Rafaela: Yeah. So y'all is a very common expression here. And it means like everybody ??? 1.55 your old whole friends. The word is ‘you all’,  but they said y'all together. 

Richard: Yeah

Rafaela: And I didn't know that when I came here, and I was in the supermarket with my husband. I know you were talking like (about) silly stuff in the cashier queue and the guy in the cashier he said, “Oh, where are you guys from?” Like, what language are you talking? 

Richard: Are you speaking… 

Rafaela: Are you speaking, exactly. And I said Portuguese. And he said, Oh, I know some, some words in Portuguese, like obrigado and Ola. And I said, Oh, very nice. It's good, you're good. And I...ah, can I ask you something? How can I say y'all in Portuguese? And I said, Oh...I thought it was weird. 

Richard: Mhmmm

Rafaela: He wanna know like....you are, it's a bit weird but okay. I would say, and I said, ???? 3.00 very slow for him to understand. 

Richard: Mhmmm. What does that mean in Portuguese?

Rafaela: ???? 3.06. it means...you are.

Richard: You are...okay. Perfect.

Rafaela: It's nothing. Nothing related to y'all.

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: And he said, “Oh, okay, thank you, and Oh bye, bye, bye”. And I, when I looked back, my husband was laughing...laughing and I (said) what happened and he said, “Oh my goodness, you got everything wrong”. You said everything wrong to the guy. And I’m like what I said wrong, I don't know. And he (said) Y'all in that is an expression in English in that it means you all or everybody. And I said…

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: Oh, no. I was embarrassed at that time. 

Richard: I think that it is a strange expression as well. Y'all. But…

Rafaela: Yeah. For me now it's not strange. 

Richard: It’s not obvious. 

Rafaela:  because everybody says this, like everybody…

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: like, neh in San Paolo, for example. 

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: Expression that people say, but yeah. 

Richard: So, yeah…in the UK, like so the equivalent of Neh in the UK would maybe be, isn't it? If you're very posh, fancy, or maybe innit if you're not, if you're not so fancy, it's kind of like what people say at the end of sentences just to fill space, right? So someone might be talking and say, you know, I think this football team's really good innit. And they just put it at the end of the sentence in it, just to innit. 

Note: innit -an abbreviation of "isn't it" most commonly used amongst teenagers and young people. This phrase is used to confirm or agree with something that another person has just said. "It's really cold today."

Rafaela: Yeah…

Richard: Just to add....just to add something at the end.

Rafaela: Yeah…

Richard: It doesn't really mean anything. It's just like a habit. 

Rafaela: Exactly. Exactly. 

Richard: Okay. So we're also gonna talk about some interesting differences. Between Brazil and the US. What things are better. What things are worse? So maybe we can start with culture. So how is the culture different? Maybe it's not better or worse, but how?

How is it different? What do you notice?

Rafaela: Yeah. One thing (which is) quite interesting here, I'll tell you a few things. I've witnessed. Americans have a good community sense. You can see all kinds of...

Richard: A good sense of community. 

Sense of community. 

Rafaela: Yeah, yeah. Sorry. It's THE opposite. A good sense of community. You can see all kinds of sports supporting organizations, institutions, uh, people that really need help.

Richard: Mhmmm…

Rafaela: ...and I worked as a volunteer in a hospital here for….a lot of times I saw Astros that is the baseball team here. Texans, the American football team’s players. And they spend time with the kids. They give them gifts, take pictures, play with them. It's very, very nice. How they are engaged with the community and the problems that they have. And besides that, in 2017 in Houston had a very hard, hard time because of A tornado...Harvey. I don't know if you remember that. 

Pictured: Houston during Tornado Harvey

Richard: Just explain that quickly. For people who don't know..

Rafaela: A tornado. 

Richard: No no...What is a tornado actually? Okay. Yeah. So a tornado is, maybe we should explain that as well. Right? So a tornado is a type of weather where wind cycles very quickly and it causes a lot of destruction. Right? 

Pictured: A generic tornado

Rafaela: Yeah…

Richard: But specifically, this was Tornado Harvey, you said.

Rafaela: Harvey, yeah. 

Richard: And what were the consequences of that? 

Rafaela: The worst consequences from a tornado in the United States. They said on the news that was worse than Katrina. 

Richard: Right yeah. Everybody knows Katrina right so it’s even...Okay. 

Rafaela: Yeah. So they have, they have rankings of each one of these.

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: And Harvey was very, very hard. Many people lost everything like houses, cars, lives.

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: So (it) was very, very bad. Houston experienced Harvey, not as with the tornado, but with all the weather, all the water from this tornado came to Houston and Houston was floating.

Richard: Flooded. 

Rafaela: Flooded...Exactly. And they call Houston like a spread out city. A very large city, but everything, it's flat. So the city was under water. 

Vocab: Flooding - noun - the covering or submerging of normally dry land with a large amount of water.

Richard: Yeah.

Rafaela: It was very bad, but after the water went away, you could see. Like many, many companies, institution organizations, gathering to help people All the time you were like advertise with THESE advertisements. Like, Oh,  if you can help call, like, call this number, if you want to give money go this way. Like. It was very, very nice to see how they rebuilt the city together.

Richard: Rebuilt…? 

Rafaela: Rebuid...so this one thing, like speaking generally, I don't see back home. I know that we have also people help supporting each other, but it's not like a massive way. It is...it is not like this. 

Richard: Yeah the institutions in Brazil are not as strong. 

Vocab: Institutions - noun - an organization founded for a religious, educational, professional, or social purpose.

Rafaela: No. 

Richard: I think 

Rafaela: Not at all. Yeah.

Richard: Yeah...

Rafaela: Here it's very different. But I mean, on the other hand, Americans in general also they don't care about what is happening in the world for example.

Richard: Yeah. Well, I guess..okay...

Rafaela: Yeah. I mean, I have some friends...American friends that sometimes we talked like a lot of things. And the perception of them, it's that America, like THE United States is the world. I mean…

Richard: Yeah...

Rafaela: Everything that you, you can have it’s here. 

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: Like just one example for you know….my husband….my husband's bosses. 

Richard: My husband's boss. One or two? Boss of bosses.

Rafaela: He has two, but I'm talking about one. 

Richard: Alright yeah. One boss. 

Rafaela: Yeah. She went to Barcelona for a conference in the Marcel Lou ???10.31 really likes Barcelona. And he said, Oh yeah, how long there? How do you like it? And she said well I mean, it's nice, but it's pretty much like New York. And he (said) what? I mean, completely different city.

Richard: That’s strange.

Rafaela: It’s very strange. I mean, I don't know how they got this feeling like I can have everything in America and we know that.

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: You know that…

Richard: I mean, I disagree. I went to Barcelona recently and I thought it was an amazing place, but I have a lot of American family. I spent time in America. And I think, it's also, I think because Americans don't travel that much. But America is so big and there is so much there, they have almost every type of weather. 

Rafaela: Yeah that’s true. 

Richard: They have every geographical thing you could want, every type of city you could want. 

Rafaela: Yeah. 

Richard: So I do feel that if you are an American. Maybe you don't need to leave.  Cause you kind of have the choice of everything. It's so much. 

Rafaela: This is the way they think. 

Richard: Yeah. But I think that you know, traveling, definitely, I would recommend to anyone.

I think it really does change your viewpoints. So if there’s any Americans listening, I don't think there are many, but please get a passport. Come and see us see how things are different. 

Rafaela: We're talking about differences, so

Richard: Yeah. Well yeah, it's, I think I had the same observation. You know, most people don't have passports. They think mostly about internal issues, not so much about external issues. I'm generalizing here, of course, but in general, I think compared to Europeans, which …who generally look to the outside world. And I think even with Brazil, Brazilians do think about the outside world quite a lot, even if it's just America, right? It's still nothing like a lot of Brazilians follow American news, but it's still another culture. 

Vocab: verb  - generalizing - make a general or broad statement by inferring from specific cases.

Rafaela: Yeah… 

Richard: So at the risk of becoming controversial, I want to talk to you about some of the big issues in America today. 

Vocab:  controversial - adjective - giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement.

Rafaela: Mhmmm

Richard: Okay. So the first issue I want to talk to you about is immigration. 

Rafaela: Ohhhh yeah. 

Richard: So as an immigrant, what do you think about America's immigration visa policies…? About the whole system? What do you think about the illegal immigration situation? 

Pictured: Visa being stamped at immigration

Rafaela: I don't have like, you know, a strong opinion about this. 

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: I mean, it is not easy to live here...to get a visa. My process and my husband's process were like difficult to get. 

Richard: Mhmm

Rafaela: It is expensive also. We don't...our citizens or we don't have green cards with just like a regular visa just working in and studying here. But I know, and I saw a lot of people that are not a right to the law.

Richard: Mhmm 

Rafaela: I don't know how to explain this, but. Anyway, in my perception, in the everything that I’ve heard here... is that sometimes I agree with them...to get that immigration needs to be a difficult process because.. because it's not easy. You open your country for everybody, and after you got some problems with that…

Richard: Mhmm 

Rafaela: Even with very strict, immigration law…

Richard: Mhmm 

Rafaela: You see a lot of people that doesn't have permission to be here. 

Richard: That don't have...yeah. 

Rafaela: They don’t have...yes. Don't have permission to be here. So, I think for the right people that wants (want) to be here, like even for work or study,  it's a little difficult. Could be a little better…

Richard: Yeah

Rafaela: Easy process, I would say. Because we don't know, like live here forever. Some people came here just for a while to learn to get...improve, whatever. But others came to really live here. I think I agree with some politics right now that the regulation needs to be very restricted…

Richard: Mhmm 

Rafaela: But it is not just about the regulation, but the fiscalization also. 

Richard: Just explain that word cause some people might not know that. So you said fiscal….Oh, why can't I say fiscalization…

Rafaela: Fiscalization.. 

Richard: So what does that mean?

Rafaela: It is not related to what you have in law. It's the practice of the law. 

Richard: Okay…

Rafaela: So you have to have people looking for the right things,  and not just like come up with law and said that “Okay, now it's like this way, but you don't have...how to do that inappropriately…”

Richard: In a proper way… 

Rafaela: In a proper way… So I think fiscalization it's not so good. So it is not...in my opinion, the government is not doing the right thing to get more with strict with the immigration law. But otherwise, like in the other way, there needs to be more effective with the fiscalization. 

Richard: Okay. So now that we have got… (over Rafaela)

Richard: Sorry, go ahead. 

Rafaela: Sorry. Sorry. Just one comment. The majority of people that live here and serve the country. I mean, work as in the service….waitress, carpenters, builders, there's people that clean. Everybody is from abroad. 

Richard: Yeah… 

Rafaela: You don't...I mean, the majority of people, it is not Americans. Americans don't want to trash your garbage. Don't want to clean your house. 

Richard: Yeah. Yeah

Rafaela: So it needs to be, it needs to have a balance between what is good, what is not, and it is not that because I'm abroad that I'm not good for the country…

Richard: ….because I'm foreign. Sorry. 

Rafaela: Yeah, you got it. 

Richard: Okay. So I just want to finally introduce some minimal pairs, which is...that are a common problem for Brazilian speakers, for Portuguese speakers when speaking in English.

So I have two sounds today that I want to cover. 

Note: Minimal pairs are a pair of words, as pin and bin, or bet and bed, differing only by one sound in the same position

Rafaela: Mhmmm

Richard: The first sound is an “I” vowel.  You can hear this in the word ‘It’, ‘Hit’, ‘Bit’. 

Rafaela: Mhmmm

Richard: But the second one is an ‘E’ vowel. You can hear this in the word ‘She’, ‘We’ ‘Be’. Now, these two sounds are very commonly confused by Portuguese speakers, by many speakers of many different languages actually.

Rafaela: Mhmmm

Richard: So we're going to take a look at these very quickly, and I'm going to just explain the difference. 

Rafaela: Yeah

Richard: So firstly, if we start with sound one, ‘I’ you'll notice that it's very quick. If we compare that with sound two, ‘E’ you'll notice that it's a little bit longer, right? 

Rafaela: Mhmmm

Richard: So you have I, E. So that's the first difference in how long they are pronounced. Secondly, when you make an I sound, your jaw lowers just a little bit. So it's i. The jaw comes down just a small amount.  When you make the E sound the side of your mouth will form a smile. So it's almost like you're smiling, E E. Actually in English, it's quite common when people are posing for photos that someone will say, ‘Hey, say cheese’ and the whole group will go say cheese because it makes them smile for the photo. So when you make that E sound, you need your mouth actually to make a smile shape. So that's the other difference. So with an I, you just open the mouth and relax the jaw just a little bit. And with the E you need to make a full smile.

So let's just try a few of these and see how you do… 

Rafaela: Okay…

Richard: ...and let's see how it goes. So we have sound one...ship

Rafaela: ...ship 

Richard: Sound two sheep....

Rafaela: ...sheep.

Richard: Perfect. Can you hear the difference?

Rafaela: Yeah. 

Richard: Ship…. Sheep. 

Rafaela: The same as shit and sheet.  

Richard: Shit and sheet. Yes. Don't ask for a shit of paper when you're in the office…

Rafaela: Yeah. I did that once…

Richard: You did that once... Okay. Everyone makes these mistakes. It's the same difference that you see with a bitch and beach. 

Rafaela: Mhmm..

Richard: Right. So yeah, a very common...life is a beach is a common joke. 

Rafaela: When you say it alone, this word, it's easy. You understand? 

Richard: Yeah…

Rafaela: But in the middle of the phrase…

Richard: …. it's tough.

Rafaela: ...it's tough. Yeah.

Richard: We're going to try two more words. I'm going to get you to copy me. Okay. Just to try this out. So we have sound one fit. 

Rafaela: Fit…

Richard: Sound two feet. 

Rafaela: Feet…

Richard: New word... Sound one bit. 

Rafaela: Bit…

Richard: Sound two beats. 

Rafaela: Beats.

Richard: Okay. And we're going to have a sentence just to finish today. 

Rafaela: Alright. 

Richard: There is a sheep on the ship. 

Rafaela: A sheep on a ship. 

Richard: Hmm. Try that first one again. 

Richard: Sheep on the ship. 

Rafaela: Sheep on the ship. 

Richard: Perfect. All right, so thank you so much again for joining me Rafaela…

Rafaela: Thank you

Richard:  ...for another episode and I look forward to seeing you soon. 

Rafaela: Thank you. 

Richard: Bye-bye now. Cheers.

Vocab: Cheers - expressing good wishes on parting or ending a conversation.

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