Saturday, December 12, 2009

Chalking it up, Part 2

Under the Language Evaluation segment, John shared with us about his personal experience to scale the skyscraper of English pronunication.

He found that it was not King's English or Queen's English but Clear English which was the highest standard of English.

Do practise saying the following words. If you are in doubt, you can also check out the pronunciation at www.dictionary.com.

Long/short "E"
==============
Beat/Bit
Feet/Feat/Fit (note "Feet" and "Feat" have the same pronunication)
Heat/Hit
Sleep/Slip
Peat/Pit
Deep/Dip
Food/Foot (* Special - food - long, foot - short)

Next, he shared with us that there was a difference between pronunciation and enunication. The first one referred to the sound of word, the latter was the syllabus stress.

Noun/Verb
=========
'contest/con'test
'convict/con'vict
'project/pro'ject
'programme/pro'gramme
'subject/sub'ject

"Th" sound. To say this sound correctly, your tongue has to be in between your teeth and you blow when you say the word. Some words for practise.

Th
===
Tree/Three
Taught/Thought
True/Through
There/Their (can be the same or pronounce "Their" sounding like "Air" behind)
Thorough
Length
Truth
Fourth
Fifth
Nothing
Breathe
Breath
Athlete
Athletic

The "s" in the centre
=====================
Firsts
Contests
Guests
Twists
Tasks
Risks
Heists

Word Ending
===========
Twelve/elf
love/laugh
abrupt/erupt
back/bad/bag/beg/bake
hook/hood/hoot/hoop

Enunciation
===========
ass'ess
'access
ad'vertisement
chute ("sh" sound)
com'pete
'competition
de'velopment
grasp (pronounce "grass" with "p" sound ending)
'ideology
ideological
itinerary (remember this is a 5 syllabus word, there is one "r" sound in the middle. I-ti-ner-a-ry)
library (li-bra-ry)
liaise (it is leeyas, not liar)
opport'unity
'photograph
pho'tography
pho'tographer
'politics
po'litical
politi'cian
pat'rol
'petrol
tuition (tu'i'tion)
rendezvous
won/worn (first word is pronounced as "one")
regardless/ with regard (there is no irregardless)

John ended this segment by telling that "practice makes .... better". And for those who are interested to improve further look out for a course on phonetics conducted by Mr Norman Lim at CC. I have done a google his full name is Norman Lim Thye Kee. If he is conducting one near my place, I will definitely sign up.

1 comment:

grace said...

Hi Aileen,

Would you be willing to be interviewed for an article about SAHM vs Working Moms? I found your blog on the Internet and I find that you are a strong yet maternal mom, and hope that you are willing to share your views.

It would be an email interview mainly about the challenges of being a working mom and the reasons why you choose to work. I will send you more detailed questions by email.

Kindly respond to gracechia@gmail.com.

Thanks!