How to Pronounce: Take First, Second, Third

From the creator

Hello! I’m John Russell. Today, we continue our exploration of common words, phrases, and expressions in English. In recent lessons, we explored how to give directions. We paid special attention to the words “left” and “right.” If you haven’t seen those videos, you might want to watch them first. When Americans give directions, they often use ordinal numbers – numbers that show a position in a series. Important ordinal numbers to know include first, second and third. We often use these ordinal numbers in combination with the words “left” and “right,” as we will see. Consider this example. Imagine you want to find the information office. You might ask this: Where is the information office? The person you ask might say this: Walk that way. It will be the second door on the right. Or the person might say: Walk that way. Take the first left. In both examples, note that the ordinal number is of central importance. So, how can we improve our pronunciation of ordinal numbers? Let’s start by developing a clear understanding of the vowel sounds. We have first, second and third. You might notice that both first and third have the same vowel sound. First Third Second has two vowel sounds: Second (say slowly) Future lesson will explore directions in even more detail. That’s all for today! Keep up the good work. --------- Learning English is Voice of America’s multimedia source of news and information for millions of English learners worldwide. We help you build

Published 2024-06-02 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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