Name: Conversation Lesson: Speaking English in REAL LIFE | Let’s Bake Bread Together!
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T16:35:29.000Z
Duration: 28 min 21 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Today, you're going to join my family at the dinner table, and we're going to study some real English conversation while we make bread.

This bread takes time to make, so we need to go back in time two days.

To start, it's a super simple, quick step.

I have a background in opera singing, and I've been teaching the American accent to non-native speakers for over 20 years.

Scan this QR code or go to rachelsenglish.com slash free to get my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent.

It will give you totally new ideas on how to get the sound you've always wanted.

Take your sourdough starter, which is all bubbly.

I just pulled it from my refrigerator, and I'm putting in, shoot, I can never remember if it's 20 or 25. 20.

You're going to hear a lot of numbers in this video, but especially 20.

Notice how I don't pronounce that second T in 20.

It's very common to drop the second T in this word, so it's not 20, but it's 20 or 25.

Whenever you have a number like 25, 43, or 64, it should always follow this musical pattern.

Ah, so gliding up and down, and then up and down.

You might even want to exaggerate that up-down shape of stress to make your speaking even more clear.

I can never remember if it's 20 or 25. 20.

I put in 20 grams, and then I can use this to make more bread later, or other things I like to make with my starter.

Okay, this is probably going to be too much.

Okay, that is too much, but we're calling it close enough.

I could have also said gluey, having a consistency like glue.

All of these mean something that's sticky, and the consistency is part liquidy, part solid, just really sticky.

I had a crappy one first that I got rid of.

Crappy is a slang way to say not very good.

I didn't like it, so I bought a nicer one.

I'm going to press the tear button, which zeroes it out.

And now I'm adding 100 grams of warm water.

I never go over when I'm doing it by myself.

I'm going to scoop some out, because I feel like being more precise.

If you're being precise, you're being very exact, very careful.

For example, I'm not going to put in 101 grams or 99 grams.

I'm being very precise, because I feel like being more precise.

And then finally, I'm going to tear it again.

Like I said before, I press this button and it zeroes out my scale.

So if I put a bowl on it, but I only want to know the weight of what's inside the bowl, I put the bowl on the scale and then I press tear.

This word is pronounced just like the word T-E-A-R.

This is a verb that means, for example, to divide.

I think of tearing a piece of paper in half.

But what's weird is T-E-A-R, tear, is also pronounced tear, which would be what comes out of your eyes when you're crying.

So tear a scale, tear a piece of paper, and a tear that you cry.

I'm going to tear it again and add 100 grams of flour.

Remember how I was trying to be so precise?

If you nailed it, that means you did it so well.

Let's say David, my husband, is making a new recipe and everybody loves the meal.

I can say, wow, David, you really nailed it.

And now I am going to mix this up and I'm going to cover it and I'm going to let it just sit on my counter for 12 hours.

Going to becomes gonna in spoken English.

But also, did you notice how I said counter instead of counter?

It's pretty common to drop the T after an N in American English.

And I'm going to cover it and I'm going to let it just sit on my counter for 12 hours.

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Conversation Lesson: Speaking English in REAL LIFE | Let’s Bake Bread Together!

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