Rap music is very similar to speech. In fact, you can hear all the flow techniques--reductions, contractions, linking, and the American flap sound--being used when you analyze rap. That's why I'm going to do another rap for you in today's post. Read on if you are hoping to sound more American when you speak.

Video Transcript:

Jill: Hello, my YouTube fans, how are you? It's Jill Diamond. And I have been meaning to do another rap poem for you for quite some time. I know I've had some requests I have done in the past, the twinkle twinkle little star, which is a nursery rhyme, and I do it in a rap form. And the reason I do that is because I want to help you get the flow and the connection, the reductions, the contractions, the American flap sounds.

All of the things that we do naturally in our speech. I wanted to help you with that. So I did get a request, "Hey, could you please do another one of your poems, your nursery rhymes and, uh, in a rap format?"

So here it is. And I wanted to put it on the screen for you so you could see it. Okay?

And I'm going to read it first and then I'll talk to you about what's going on here. Listen to this: little miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey, along came a spider and sat down beside, her and frightened miss Muffet away.

Now I am not a rap singer by any means. And I'm sure there's people out there is going to want to make fun of me, but that's okay. You can do that. Uh, what am I doing?

Listen to this. Little, little, little miss Muffet.

So I'm reducing that T to an American flap sound. Little miss Muffet, and then I'm not really pronouncing the endings really strongly. I'm not saying little Miss Muffet, right? I'm saying little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet.

And then I get another linking sound between the T and the O. I link it, right? So I, let me grab a pen here. So first I can connect that and then I can flap it.

So let's just put a little bit more space here. So I say sat on, I connect that sat on and I get the flaps sound, sat on a tuffet, and then I'm also going to link the N to the A, right? Sat on a, sat on a, sat on a tuffet, sat on a tuffet. And then I do that thing here with the T the same thing I did here, I just stopped the T sound. I don't release the T sound listen to these two lines, little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet.

And then I remember to make Muffet tuffet, long syllables. And then let's go to the next one.

Listen to how I'm going to say this: eating her curds and whey. Eating her eating her eating her eating her curds and whey. So I'm doing this, I'm dropping the H, right? Eating_her, eating_her, eating_her.

And then I'm linking here connecting, eating_her curds and whey. And I'm holding onto curds. And then I'm going to link that here. But what I'm really going to do is I'm going to kind of say eating_her curds 'n'. So I'm going to drop the A I'm going to drop the D.

Eating_her curds and whey. And then I hold on to that word whey. Okay. Little miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey. And then let's keep going. Along came a spider. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm laughing at myself, came a, right, along came a spider.

And then it's kind of when I, if you're rap singing, you're probably going to say spida instead of spider.

And then you'll see that the same thing's going to happen down here. I'm probably just going to say, besid-a and sat down beside her, you see some changing the, her two, A, spida besid-a.

I get a rhyme and I get that "uh" sound and sat down beside her.

So let me, let me read that for you: little miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey. Along, came a spida and sat down besid-a and frightened miss Muffet away. And here's our last link. And you're going to get that flap sound Muffet away, Muffet "A". So that, that remember that slap sound is that dah, dah, dah, that's out little miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey. Along, came a spidA and sat down besid-A and frightened miss Muffet away.

All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed that, that you don't make fun of me, but, uh, yeah, that is another wrap (RAP).

See you next time. Remember to like, to share, to subscribe to the channel.

Oh, and listen, if you are looking for a place where you can communicate with other like- minded people, international folks from around the world who speak English as a foreign language, just like you?

I want you to check out my Membership Site and Sessions. You can find the link in the description of today's video, because maybe we can meet, you can join those sessions.

And you could really kind of, I don't know, kind of, uh, put a, put a rocket under your English and fly into space and really a skyrocket, is what I'm trying to say, your English. All right.

So see you next time. Thanks. Bye.