When speaking English as a second language, repetition is always a great way to practice the connections between words--to get the flow. And so in this post, we'll look at a song we all know in America: She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes. The repetition is perfect for this.  

Video Transcript:

Hello. How are you, YouTube Fans? Woo-hoo.

Um, I'm bringin' you a song that we all learned growin' up in America: "She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes." And you know, I know you really liked those rap videos that I do, and music is a really great way to practice flow, right? The connection between words.

And so I'm going to do a little song for you. I'm going to sing the first verse.

Okay. So I'm going to sing this for you. And then I want to show you how you can speak/sing it. All right? And then you should learn the whole song. I'll put the link to the lyrics in today's description, all right?

But listen to this. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes.

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. Running out of breath there at the end. But listen, the repetition is perfect. That's what also makes this song a really good one to practice.

And you can just see verse after verse. It just repeats itself. She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes. She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes. She'll be ridin' six white horses. She'll be ridin' six white horses, She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes.

Now, let me put on my glasses. All right. So what you want to keep in mind. So look at this, the word around becomes round. And then when you hear me sing, I'm not saying coming I'm saying comin', right? So instead of she will, I'm saying she'll. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes.

And then again, you just keep repeating. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. And you can also start to hear how that we're coming, right? She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes.

And you could hear when I say mountain. Mountain. That I also do some strange sound with the word mountain, right? I'm saying moun-ain.

So I'm kind of cutting the /t/ in the word mountain and kind of doing the glottal stop in my throat. Moun-ain. It's very American. She'll be coming around the moun-ain. She'll be coming round the moun-ain when he comes. And then notice how I also hold that vowel. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain  when she cooomes.

I talk a lot about holding the vowel sounds, really important when you emphasize words. So you can practice singing really, really great. But now I want you to listen to me speak this, okay? And I'm going to be like, Hey John, did you know that she'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes?

Hey Mary, did you know that she'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes? Do you see what I'm doing?

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. There's the song. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. And now here's the speech. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes, get it?

So practice just this first verse singing and then speaking. So here we go. I'm going to sing the first two verses for you.

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes. She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes. She'll be ridin' six white horses. She'll be ridin' six white horses. She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes. And then let me speak it for you.

The other thing I want you to notice is that I also sometimes change the rhythm a little bit, and we do that in our speech as well, right? So if I said, she'll be comin' 'round the mountains when she comes. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes and I'm pausing. She'll be comin' 'round the mountain.

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain…

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes.

There's the speech. Now listen to the next verse.

She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes.

She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes. She'll be ridin' six white horses. She'll be ridin' six white horses.

She'll be ridin' six white horses when she comes.

So try that. Have fun. If you want, you could look up the, the, the melody somewhere. If you want to sing along or just enjoy my video, I hope you do. And remember to like to share, please subscribe to my channel, please and tell people to, I am so close to 100,000 subscribers, and I'm really trying to get there this year.

And also in the link you'll find, if you want to check out my, Find Your Stage Membership Site And Sessions, it's a great place for you to be amongst international people who want to speak English, practice English with me, we get together every other Friday.

We get together also on Mondays or Tuesdays to do meditations and visualizations to really help your English get to the level of confidence and effectiveness that you're looking for. So good luck with the She'll Be Comin' 'Round The Mountain and I'll see you around.

Bye!