Lo Stai Pronunciando Male! | Miriam Romeo English Coach

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Are you sure you're pronouncing the title of this Pink Floyd song correctly?

[00:00:04]Today I want to talk about how to correctly say the title of this famous Pink Floyd song. Even radio presenters mispronounce this title all the time, and it's all about rhythm. So, keep watching. Welcome to my channel.

[00:00:23]Then I would love to be your English coach. Make the sound of your English smoother and more convincing with the five tips I share in my free pronunciation class. Click on the link in the description box below to watch it.

[00:00:33]Okay, so I've been thinking about making this video for a while now, because I always hear the title of this Pink Floyd song, which I love, pronounced in the wrong way all the time. Even when I'm listening to the radio, the presenters pronounce this title the wrong way. The way most Italians pronounce this title is shine on you crazy diamond, or something like that. This is not the correct pronunciation. This is not the correct sound of this title. And as I told you in the intro, it's all about rhythm. If you pronounce it shine on you crazy diamond, it sounds wrong. It means nothing. The meaning of this title, if we rephrase it, is keep shining, you crazy diamond. Go on shining. Continue shining, you crazy diamond. So, shine on, you crazy diamond. On is stressed, is important. Shine on stays together.

[00:01:33]Consider this title being split into shine on, you crazy diamond. So, on belongs with shine, not with you. On is not weak, is not just a preposition in this sentence, in this title. It's very, very important.

[00:01:52]On is the emotional push of of expression. So, the correct rhythm, the correct sound, and the correct pronunciation of this title is Shine On You Crazy Diamond. This makes a huge difference because if you don't stress on and you think that it goes with you and not with shine, you are parsing the sentence wrong and changes the meaning.

[00:02:17]Well, it has no meaning actually. The two rhythmic units are Shine On You Crazy Diamond. And that makes sense. Cuz again, shine on means keep shining, keep on shining, go on shining, continue shining. So, on stays with shine. Shine On is one rhythmic unit, one chunk. And then you have the second unit, You Crazy Diamond. By the way, the correct pronunciation of the last word is diamond, diamond. So, die and then the last vowel, the O that you see in the spelling is just a schwa. So, diamond, -mond. So, don't open your mouth. It's not aw, diamond, -mond. Okay? Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Rhythm is everything, especially in a rhythm-based language like English. So, what you stress, what you don't stress, changes the meaning.

[00:03:12]Changes the perception of what you're saying. English rhythm tells you which words go together.

[00:03:18]I'm going to give you these other two examples. When you pronounce these two titles, this Aerosmith song, you say Dream On.

[00:03:26]On is strong. Dream On. Do you hear it?

[00:03:30]And the same applies to the title of this Angra song, Carry On.

[00:03:35]So, in the Pink Floyd song, you have the exact same pattern, the exact same thing. Shine On You Crazy Diamond. I wanted to talk about the title of this song because it's a song that I love and I always hear this title pronounced the wrong way. And in this case, it's not about the single sounds. It's about rhythm, about stress. It's about knowing which words go together. And please let me know if this helped you in any way, but I thought that this was just a perfect example to show you how English really works and how sometimes it's not about knowing English, not knowing the single words, but practicing English rhythm, English prosody. Because English has a completely different phonetic mechanism if you compare it to how Italian works. So you stress or unstressed a preposition, for instance like in this case, and everything changes. I hope this makes you a little bit more curious about the musical side of the English language because that's often what really changes the way you sound. And that's also what really helps you understand better. I'm very curious to read in the comments the way you've been pronouncing the title of this song because I'm sure that you know this song. And if you don't, where have you been? Just kidding, kind of. Now don't forget to click on the link in the description box below to watch your free pronunciation class. And if you want to work with me and you would like to have me as your personal English coach, you can contact me at this email address right here. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.