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Business English Power, Episode 55. Aloha

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and welcome to another episode of

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Business English Power, the show for

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ambitious English students who want to

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level up their business English skills,

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become global communicators and international business

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leaders. My name is

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Al, thank you so much for joining me today.

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You might have known me online

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on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, maybe

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not, but other platforms out there

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as Al Sensei. I did teach

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in Japan for 18 years

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and online now since 2010. So

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thanks so much for listening today and

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downloading and streaming. We're

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going to get into pronunciation practice

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today. Now if you

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go back to episode 49, we

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did our first episode for

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pronunciation practice with the

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topic of investing. So this is going to be

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part two of that first

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episode. So go back and listen to

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49 if you haven't already and

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then come back to this one to complete

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this little mini series of pronunciation

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practice with our investing

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topic. All right, so

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today we're going to get into more

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investing, some of the deeper stuff

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and how to pronounce these things that

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you probably will hear on the news

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and among your colleagues and

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so that you can also say them

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properly as well in conversations with

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colleagues and business partners and

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contacts from around the world. All

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right, so before we get started, I'd just like

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to kindly ask you to please share this

1:36

episode with a friend, a

1:39

classmate, a colleague. You can share

1:41

it out on social media, Facebook, Twitter,

1:44

whatever the case may be, email, you

1:47

can always do the old fashioned

1:49

thing and email someone the link and

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I definitely would appreciate that. So we

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can spread the message of business English

1:55

power. All right,

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so today let's get into investing. we

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did the basics. So go back and check that one out. We

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did stocks, we did

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bonds, we did mutual funds,

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ETFs. Today we're going to get

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into more of the stuff that you're going to hear

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on the news, more of

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the specifics. So that was more

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of the general stuff

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last week. So today

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we're going to talk more about the stock market.

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Now when you think of the

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stock market, for example, when you're watching business

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news channels or news stations,

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maybe it could be

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CNBC in America or Bloomberg, one of these

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kind of stations, you're going to see that

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little thing on the bottom of

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the screen that's called the ticker, or

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the stock market ticker. It's always showing you

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the current updates on the

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current stock prices. Now

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they always show these other

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things that we need to know what they mean, of

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course, and then how to pronounce them. So

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the first thing that we want to go over are

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what's called indexes. Now

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what is an index?

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So examples, there's kind of, I want

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to say three major indexes that are

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used in America.

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And you may have heard of them, that's the S&P 500,

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the Dow Jones, and the NASDAQ

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composite. Now let's go

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over them one by one and talk

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about what they mean. So the

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S&P 500, let's start

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with that. So what does that

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mean? What does that come from? So it

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comes from standard and poor, and there

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were, I guess, some of the

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first ones to start measuring and

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grouping these stocks together. And so

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what they did is

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take 500 companies and they put

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them all into one basket. So

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these are 500 of the largest companies

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in the US. And so this is considered a very,

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very, very, very, very, very, very, one of the greatest

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measurements of how the

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investing world and stocks and just

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the economy in general are doing.

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And so they've taken the 500 of

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the top companies that

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have stocks in the US and

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they kind of put them all

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together and they have an aggregate

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of how it's moving up or down. So that's

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called an index. And you group a bunch of

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stocks together and you look out, you kind

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of chart its progress of how it goes

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up and down and the trends and

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that gives us an indication of how the stock

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market is doing in general and

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also the overall economy. So

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that is the S&P 500. So

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if you see that, now you know what it means. Now

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to pronounce it, of course you can say the

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full thing, Standard and Poor's 500. But

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I don't think anybody ever says that today so all

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you need to do is practice the

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letter S and

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then the word and and

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then the letter P. Very simple. So

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practice and repeat after me. S&P.

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Okay, very good. So if you notice, I'm not saying

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each individual S&P. We're

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putting it all together. So because you

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have this kind of a vowel beginning with

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the S sound, moving

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right into the and and then

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the P. So S&P. So

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one more time, repeat after me. S&P.

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Okay, very good. Now

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just add the 500 at the end. So

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one more time. S&P 500. All

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right, excellent. Let's move on

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to our next term. So

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this one you've probably heard a lot.

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This is called the Dow Jones Industrial

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Average. So what is

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the Dow Jones Industrial Average? So

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this index was created in 1896 and it measures 30

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of the top companies in the US.

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A lot of them are industrial as you can imagine,

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but not all of them. And so

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this is widely considered another

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very good measurement of the stock

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market. And so some

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people just call it the Dow. So you

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might just hear that term as well. The

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Dow or the Dow

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Jones. Now

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to say Dow Jones.

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Well, it's actually not terribly hard. So we

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of course we start with the first one.

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We have our D sound

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with our tall A. So

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the DA and then add a kind

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of a U. So it's like a DAO. DAO.

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So please pronounce after me DAO. Okay,

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so that is how to say the first part

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and the second one is Jones. Just like we

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say the name Jones. But just

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for practice again, we'll use our

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J sound with the true

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O or the regular

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O sound. Joe with

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the N sound and then followed

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by the S which in this case

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is gonna be more of a Z sound. Okay, so we

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say Jones. Okay,

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so please repeat after me Jones. All

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right, very good. Let's put together DAO Jones.

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Okay, very good. Or you can say the DAO.

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Alright, so that is the DAO Jones. Now the

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last one of the three is

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called the NASDAQ composite.

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Now, this is actually a separate stock market.

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Just like you would see the New York

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Stock Exchange, for example. And

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so the NASDAQ really

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is heavily including

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or heavily includes, excuse

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me, tech industries.

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So for example, Amazon, Apple,

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Microsoft are in the NASDAQ. composite.

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And so the NASDAQ index

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is designed to cover really

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an indication of the whole thing. There's actually

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over 3,000 companies that are listed in the

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NASDAQ and it always kind of changes,

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but it is considered a

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very good measurement of

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the economy and the stock market because

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it does have those big tech companies

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in it. So

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the NASDAQ, let's practice that

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one. So the

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first part, and again you

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don't necessarily need to say composite all the time,

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but that's the technical term for it, but

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we need to say the NASDAQ. You need to be able

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to hear it as well as say it. And

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so of course we have our N sound in this. Again

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we're going to use our short A

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sound or what I call the flat A sound.

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Na, okay so not

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NA, okay and

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not NA but of course NA.

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Your mouth wants to be flat.

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NAS. And this S again

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is more like a Z sound. It's not a

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NAS but more of a NAS. Okay

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so one more time. NAS. Okay

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and then we say DAC. It's

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spelled DAQ. However again the Q is going

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to be more of like a CK sound.

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And then we're going to use our short

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A again. So with the D, DAC. Okay

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remember not DOC and

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not DUC but DAC.

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Okay very good. Let's put it together. Please repeat. NASDAQ.

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Okay very good. One more time. NASDAQ.

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Alright excellent. Very good. Let's review

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those indexes. Okay

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the first one. We have the S&P

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500. Then we have

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the Dow Jones. And

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third we have the NASDAQ. Alright

9:56

very good. Now let's

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move on to something that is something

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that has become very interesting in my

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opinion and that is the realm of

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cryptocurrencies. That's

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another thing that people are starting

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to invest in more and more these days. And

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so it is now a category that we need

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to practice. So the

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first thing is to pronounce, of

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course, the term cryptocurrency. Well

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of course I think you are all okay with

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the word currency. So

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let's practice crypto. And you

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can just often say crypto without

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using currency if it's in

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context. Okay so

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of course we have our CR at the beginning,

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so the CR sound. And here

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we are going to use a short I

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sound, CR. Okay,

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CR. And remember

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when we use that short I, we

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want our throat to be loosened. We

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don't want the tense E because when

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you tense, when you add

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that tension to your throat, it's going to be more

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of an E sound. We don't want that. We

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want the I. We want to loosen our throat a little bit so we say CR. Okay,

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and then we are going to add the

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P, the Crip. Crip

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and then TOE. Okay, so again TOE is

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like on your foot, your TOE. T-O

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with a true O sound. So TOE, crypto.

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Okay, please repeat after me. Crypto.

11:27

Okay, very good. Let's put it together. Cryptocurrency.

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Okay, then we can make it plural as well. So let's try

11:35

it. Cryptocurrencies.

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Okay, excellent. Now of course

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there are many, many different types of cryptocurrencies

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out there. We're just practice some of the

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major ones. Of course the king

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of all the cryptocurrencies of course is

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Bitcoin. And so let's practice that one.

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So again we have our B sound. Remember when

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we say B, we definitely want to have our...

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top and bottom lip coming

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together and using

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pressure to push that out some sound

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and again we're going to add it with our short

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i b with

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our t bit okay

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bit and then coin of

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course coin is there c sound with

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our o followed by an i

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which is more of a i sound true i

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sound so it's a coin right coin

12:28

okay let's

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practice together bitcoin bitcoin

12:38

excellent and we'll do one

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more today so the other one that's becoming very

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popular is called ethereum so

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that's another one of the major cryptocurrencies out

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there there's a lot of others but let's

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practice ethereum okay so the first part of

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course is e you can say e and

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then the thc so we

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want the th with c e e c

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and then we're going to add our r sound

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okay remember the r we definitely want to

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pressurize our the sides of our mouth to

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make that true r sound re we're

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going to make the re so

13:15

the r with the e the true e sound and

13:18

then the last part is um okay so

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that is our flat or

13:23

the sorry short u which is

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a schwa sound followed with

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the m at the end um so

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just like you're thinking um okay so

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we put all together

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we have ethereum okay

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very good so you can start slowly and then build

13:38

it up as you go let's try it all together

13:41

ethereum okay

13:46

very good ethereum excellent

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so let's put it in a sentence

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example sentence so let's

13:55

practice please repeat after me I'm

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invested. The thing in Bitcoin and

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Assyrian. Game.

14:07

Or that I'm investing in

14:09

bitcoin and Assyrian. right?

14:14

Excellent! So that is our example

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for today. So we've got a

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lot of good things. You get

14:21

crypto currencies, Bitcoin is Syrian, and

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then we talked about the stock

14:25

market index is as well. That's

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gonna do it for part two: Investing men.

14:31

Maybe if gather instead we can do a

14:33

part three add on some topics, but that's

14:35

gonna wrap it up for part two. I

14:37

hope you enjoyed it. Please practice your pronunciation

14:40

as it is really important to get across

14:42

his ideas, but also it. Helps you're

14:44

listening as well. So want to thank

14:46

you for joining me today on episode

14:48

fifty five. Go back and she got

14:51

forty nine for per one and will

14:53

see you again next time. For Business

14:55

English Power Please subscribe to Business English

14:58

Power and or follow if you are

15:00

in a different platform than Apple and

15:02

I really would appreciate that Vegas much.

15:04

Still miss another episode and I will

15:07

see you again next time. And Business

15:09

Things Power! Until then, remember to always

15:11

level up your learning and level. Up

15:14

your nice.