What you suggest seems to be what smart people already know or do intuitively. So does that advice boil down to how to become smart?

- Perhaps someone had just said " not as simple" (i.e. context related) and he was contracting/clarifying; I had thought of that one, but I hadn't thought of someone poking him in the ribs, LOL. Thanks!

Kooyeen, I'm African American and being black has NOTHING to do with pronouncing the word "sword" nor does it have anything to do with Ebonics. That is an ignorant, stereotypical

The intonation seems OK to me. It seems to me he stresses the word "in" simply to highlight the difference ( from vs in ). Is that what you were wondering about, Kooyeen? No, I

Yeah, I was able to hear it, but the intonation pattern made the last syllable sound like whispered to me. By the way, was the intonation pattern in that sentence... natural?

I see that native speakers "just guess" very often. Thank God! Because in some cases I am pretty sure you can't hear some sounds, or they are different than expected for some reason... But native speakers know what might make sense

Yeah, that's the point. If you look at his mouth you'll hear dada (or some might hear gaga), but if you close your eyes you'll hear baba. It is supposed to show how much visual clues can affect auditory perception.

What do you mean? There are allophones of /t/, yes... At the end of a word (if nothing follows), /t/ can be pronounced in three different ways, as far as I know: 1) Released: you can hear the /t/, which is sometimes aspirated to some extent 2)

How could you hear 'Can I'? I really don't. But I hear a please... please madam? Anyway, another interesting thing here. See your receipt. See a receipt. I think if you pronounce "your" as "yur" and non-rhotically,

I heard "flooring". Maybe pine flooring?