How to understand native English speakers: "Whaddya...?"

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Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

What am I going to make for dinner tonight?

Hey. James from engVid.

Whaddya want to learn today?

"Whaddya mean?"

Oh, sorry, he's saying: "What do you mean?"

What do you want to learn?

We're doing two quick pronunciation tricks.

When I'm saying that it's a little bit different, when I say two different pronunciation tricks,

I'm going to teach you what's called relaxed speech in English or when we make...

We blur words together.

Sometimes we blur words, we make words, two words into one, sometimes three words become

one, so when you hear it you think you're hearing one word, when in reality what you're

hearing is three words and sometimes we drop the sound.

Today I'm going to give you two very common phrases, that if you learn to say it properly,

you'll sound like a native speaker, which is really cool.

So let's go to the board and take a look.

To start off with, Mr. E...

Hey, say: "Hi", E. Okay?

Mr. E is saying: "Whaddya mean?"

Try it. If you look in your Google Translator or your phone, you'll notice this word doesn't exist,

but it does for us English people, and in fact it's for two different things that are

I'll show you a trick so you know what it is you're saying; or when someone's speaking

to you, what it is they mean.

First things first, this is real English, relaxed speech.

I have two statements.

The first statement is: "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?"

Pretty clear and understandable.

And the second statement is: "What do you want?"

They're not the same at all, you can see with your eyes.

But when I say it, actually it's going to come out like this:

"Wad-da-ya doing? Wad-da-ya doing?" or

"Wad-da-ya want? Wad-da-ya want?"

This is phonetic spelling, so I'm just trying to show you the: "Wad-da-ya", "Wad-da-ya",

basically sounds like this: "Whaddya", okay?

And it's when we've cut sounds, and there's reasons we do it and I'll explain here why.

When we speak very fast, especially when there's a "t" or a "d" involved in English, we tend

to either change the "t" to a "d"-okay?-or we actually just get rid of it.

An example is "often".

In English you'll sometimes hear people say: "Often", "I often do this", but more casual

is to say: "I ofen", the "t" is just dropped.

It's understood to be there.

"Often", but it's just dropped.

And a lot of times people have trouble saying the word: "Bottle", you saw my face, like:

"I want a bottle of Coke", it's difficult to say, even for us, so we say:

"I want a bodle", "bodle", and that double "t" actually becomes almost a "d" sound, so: "bodle".

"I want a bottle of Coke or a bottle of beer."

We tell you to say "t", but we don't even do it ourselves because we're lazy.

And speaking about lazy, I want to talk about the second reason this funny thing occurs

here where we have: "Whaddya" instead of the words that are supposed to be there.

When we have lazy vowels...

Lazy vowels we call the schwa, schwa.

I'm exaggerating because I open my mouth too much.

When you do the schwa, it's like an "uh", you barely move your mouth.

In fact, later on I'm going to show you a test you can do to see the schwa for yourself. Okay?

Here's two examples for you because we barely say them, like the word: "problem".

It's not "probl-e-m", you don't say the "e" really, you just kind of, like, make it fall

with the "m" so it becomes "um": "problum".

And when you say: "family", do you say: "fam-i-ly"?

No. You say: "Famly".

It's "fam-ly", it just blends right in there.

So now we've taken a look at this and "whaddya", and I just want to explain something, how it happened.

Remember we said the "t"?

The "t" gets dropped here.

Okay? We just take it out.

And the "r" we don't even say.

It goes from here-you see?-there goes the "t" becomes a "d" there.

"What are", "What are ya", and we just drop it right off.

Here it's even more obvious you can see it because we take the "t", and make that an

"a" over here. We do that a lot in English with "o", we change o's to "a".

Okay, so here are we.

We drop that, we put the "t" to a "d" here, once again that drops off, and we have: "whaddya".

Okay? So we have from: "What are you doing?" to "Whaddya doing?"

And: "What do you want?" to "Whaddya want?"

Now, there's a trick because I'm sure you're saying, and I would understand: "I don't see

the difference here.

It's the same."

I actually put it up on the board, but when we come back I'm going to show you exactly

what the trick is.

Okay, are you ready?

So, I want to go back to something I mentioned earlier on, which was the "uh" sound, that

There's a test to see if a word has a schwa or not, or something you can help to help

you practice the schwa because it's in a lot of English words.

We tend to be very lazy and just slur-our-words, just slur them, don't say them properly.

And here's the test: If you put your hand under your chin like so, and you say...

Let's say the following words, like: "freedom", "freedom", you can notice my mouth barely moves.

If I say: "free-dom", "I want my free-dom", my jaw drops down more.

There's very little effort when I say it normally.

"Can I have some sugar with my coffee?"

See? With "coffee", you see this movement?

"Sugar", almost no movement.

That's a schwa test.

This symbol is the schwa, and it's from the IAP system. Okay?

This indicates to us that the vowel is not to be pushed or said a lot; it's barely said.

And you'll see this in a lot of dictionaries or things that are translating from one word...

A language to another, if they use IPA.

Now, we know what the schwa is, let's go back to the board and see how we can work on our

practice for pronunciation.

Now, if you recall rightly, I said this is for pronunciation, two pronunciation tricks,

but I also lied, it's for listening as well.

And I'm going to teach you the listening part in about two seconds.

Because when you hear: "Whaddya", if you don't really know what it means because I told you

there are two meanings, you're going to be confused and I want you to be like a native

speaker, understand how to use it and pronounce it like we do, but also to understand it like

And there's a little trick I told you earlier, and I'm going to show you on the board now.

Let's see if you can catch it.

And even if after I'm finished if you're a little confused, go back to the beginning

of the video and you'll see I put it right on the board.

You'll go: "He showed me."

Of course I did.

All right, E's not here, but he's going to help me with a little dialogue for you so

we can practice our pronunciation.

First part of the practice, Mr. E: "James, what are you doing with that chicken?"

James: "What do you mean?

Can't you see we are crossing the road?"

If we change it to how English people actually speak in the real relaxed speech patterns

we have, it comes off as this: "James, whaddya doing with the chicken?"

Notice how it just flowed: "Whaddya doing with the chicken?"

Oh, sorry, that was Mr. E, not me.

Let's try it again.

Mr. E: "James, whaddya doing with the chicken?"

Me: "Whaddya mean?

Can't you see we are crossing the road?"

That's the first one.

Now, let's look at the second one.

I'm showing you the difference with: "What are you", stressing the appropriate vowels,

saying the "t" as I was supposed to, and when we blend them together to go through quick speech.

Let's see later on in the evening what happens when E and James meet back up. Okay?

E again: "James, what are you cooking for dinner?"

James: "Chicken."

E: "What do you mean?"

James: "Chicken, he never made it to the other side."

[Fake cries and laughs] Sorry, it's also funny.

Let's try down here, let's go down here and move it over here. Okay?

So, E: "James, whaddya cooking for dinner?

Whaddya cooking?"

Pay attention to the end of that verb, it's an "ing" verb.

Remember, "are" is the verb "to be" and we're using a continuous form.

So if you want to identify what the person means, look for the continuous form.

If you see that, that is a: "What are you" statement.

James again: "Chicken."

E: "Whaddya mean?"

Notice there's just an "n" here, there's nothing?

You go: "What's the deal?"

Well, this is in the base form, it's not "meaning" or "meant", it's the base form of the verb.

When you have the base verb, it is: "What do you", it's the "What do you" statement.

So, to differentiate or to tell the difference, see the difference, when we say:

"What are you" it will end in "ing": "Whaddya".

And when we say it with just the base form, it could be: "Whaddya want", it doesn't have

to be "mean": "Whaddya want?"

Still, it will still have the base form of the verb and that's how you can tell the difference

between the two.

So here we said: "Whaddya mean?"

And I said: "The chicken didn't make it to the other side."

Wanh-wanh-wanh.

That's funny in many countries.

If it's not in yours, find an English person, they'll explain the chicken and the road joke.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the lesson, and if you practice this, go by, practice-okay?-a

couple more times.

Listen for it, you'll start noticing it and you'll start noticing you understand more,

and when you speak to us we understand you faster, and that's the whole point of engVid. Right?

We want to help you learn English.

Now, I want you to...

Don't forget to subscribe, of course, and it's...

"Subscribe" button is somewhere here, here, here, here, and here.

And, of course, I want to say thank you from E and I.

And there's one little thing I want to add: If this video was helpful to you, tell a friend,

get a friend to watch. Okay?

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That's what we're here for.

Anyway, have a good one and we'll see you again.

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