hello everyone in this video we're going
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to take a look at 10 of the craziest
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english pronunciations
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english is often considered one of the
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easiest languages out there but
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is it really you know its difficulty is
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subjective but it does have one of the
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most irregular pronunciations and by
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irregular i mean there are plenty of
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words that don't follow the basic rules
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of english pronunciation and i find that
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so interesting and i love learning about
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them so without further ado let's take a
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look at some of them
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all right so this word looks like it
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should be pronounced
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and some dictionaries do include this
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pronunciation but it's not the preferred
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one the correct and most used
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key street kitchen is the key
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now what is a key a key is a long
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structure where boats can be tied up why
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is it pronounced like that
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well that's because this word comes from
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became an e and well there you go ki
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i talked about this word already in
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another video of mine it was a video
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about commonly mispronounced words i'll
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um so this is kernel
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kernel as if there were an r in there
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kernel this is colonel picard colonel or
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ss colonel a high rank of lieutenant
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colonel colonel in the us army a colonel
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is an army officer of high rank and the
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reason why it's pronounced like that is
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again because of french this word comes
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middle french not modern french middle
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and that's why it kept the r
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pronunciation although the spelling was
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changed in english so
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ah then we have this one
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this is a county in the west midlands of
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england um the pronunciation is
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worcestershire worcestershire
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don't worry we'll break it down
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there's also a sauce that's called like
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this worcestershire sauce worcestershire
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infamous for its irregular pronunciation
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which again is not worse cester shire
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but worcestershire worcestershire a shot
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of worcestershire sauce a little bit of
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worcestershire sauce from worcestershire
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worcestershire sauce where's the shirt
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now the first thing you got to keep in
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mind is that the word shire on its own
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is pronounced shire shire like in lord
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but when this word is found at the end
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of a longer word like hampshire
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yorkshire as you can hear
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it's pronounced sure sure not shire now
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i am using american english so you can
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really hear the r in there in standard
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the r is silent in this case so you will
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sha or sometimes even shia like
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yorkshire going back to
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the first part war is pronounced
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pretend the r isn't in there then we
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stir so when you see
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cester in english it's actually read
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stir like in gloucester
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lester and worcester so by putting it
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all together worcestershire
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this word is not the most common but you
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um the pronunciation is not
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but arai awry gone awry awry and cry
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something is awry if something is or
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goes awry it means that it goes wrong
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it's off the correct or expected course
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like our plans went awry
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they went wrong this comes from an old
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english verb meaning to turn again it's
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not a very common word like it would be
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more common to say that something went
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but it's still used so try and memorize
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it it'll come in handy
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now this is a very common word with a
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very irregular pronunciation
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so basically it's just the first letter
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the letter q you're q
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q up q q q up here again french is the
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reason why this word um sounds like this
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if you haven't studied french it has a
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lot of silent letters um but anyway just
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try and remember that it's the first
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letter just the first letter q and
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that's it q speaking of pronunciation if
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you're having trouble with it if you
05:09
need something that will help you
05:10
practice and improve it on a daily basis
05:12
i really recommend you try elsa speak
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i've been collaborating with them for a
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while and i have to say it's a really
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well done app that allows you to learn
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and practice everything there is to know
05:27
about pronunciation as well as
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intonation conversation
05:32
idioms and vocabulary too but the thing
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that i like the most about this app is
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the fact that in each exercise you can
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record yourself and the app will give
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you an instant feedback and it's very
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accurate so for example let's try one of
05:47
the words that we were talking about
05:49
it says it's wrong and it also says
05:59
which letters are wrong
06:01
perfect score if you want to try elsa
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speak i have a huge discount for you a
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seven day trial and an eighty percent
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recommend you try the premium version
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because there's so much to learn from it
06:24
this is another very common word the
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irregularity here is actually very
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the h is silent so it's not vehicle but
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vehicle vehicle if you're driving a
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larger class vehicle such as a bus you
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remotely operated vehicles this vehicle
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a vehicle is simply a thing used to
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transport people or goods a car for
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example is a vehicle so you know how in
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english the h is an aspirated sound like
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house and there are some exceptions like
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honor our air and so on where the h is
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silent uh but they're always at the
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beginning well here it's in the middle
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so it might be a little trickier for
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english learners i guess you're just
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gonna have to memorize it
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this word is a nautical term it's the
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forward part of the upper deck of a ship
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and it's pronounced
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foxy foxel in the foxhole the foxhole
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the foxel of an immigrant ship so as you
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can hear it's not for castle actually
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upon further research i found out that
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forecastle is indeed one of the accepted
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pronunciations as you can see on
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merriam-webster dictionary though not
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the standard one um and i've looked up
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some explanations and apparently it
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originally was pronounced for castle but
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because it was being said very fast and
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the r uh was dropped
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it was then contracted to
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folk soul i remember i learned this word
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because i was listening to an audiobook
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and i was also reading it off the the
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actual book and this word was very
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frequent of course and i didn't see a
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correspondence with the way it was
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spelled um and now i always remember
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it's folk soul now that i use this word
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all the time but it's still good to know
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here's another nautical term for you
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it's the last one i swear um this is not
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both swain but bosun boson and a boson
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is a ship's officer in charge of
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equipment and crew boson hi i'm boss
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swain part of this word is actually an
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arcade term for boy so again because of
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a contraction the pronunciation became
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boson boson now before you come for me i
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know these terms are not part of your
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everyday reality at least not for most
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people but if you read a book
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if you watch a movie or i don't know if
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you like boats um you work on one maybe
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this could still be useful so it's still
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but now back to some more useful terms
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this looks like it should be pronounced
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victuals right victuals but it's not
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it comes from latin uh it went through
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french and you know that means irregular
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pronunciation this word is pronounced
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fiddles said our vittles were running
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low and that vittles consumed a place
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native vittles inch with viddles and
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clothing biddles are very simply
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food you might hear this word when
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someone's talking about like provisions
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of food you might hear it in the news or
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in some formal situations but remember
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it just means food and it's biddles
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this is a word with a silent letter can
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you guess which one it is
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if you said p you're correct so it's not
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but cupboard cupboard the p is silent
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you can slam it in the cupboard door
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cupboard cupboard in my office and the
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cupboard of policy ideas on back to my
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linen cupboard do you guys know what a
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this is a cupboard it's like a cabinet
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or closet where things are stored um
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usually in the kitchen so like cups
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dishes stuff like that the reason why
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the p is silent is probably because the
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two bilabial sounds
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merged together um if you think about it
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it would sound really weird if you said
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something like cupboard cup board
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bird in this case not bored so it's
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cupboard cupboard all right that's it
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for today you guys i hope you liked this
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video i hope you learned something new
10:59
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