Pronunciation Practice

Tricky words: Practice saying these sentence:

1. When I hurt my leg it was tought for me to walk throught the park.
2. Bob made a thorough investigation, though Dan did not.
3. It's hard to find water in his desert.
4. I cannot find a pint of water in this desert for the dessert recipe.
5. The architect says that a good photographer would never desert you.
6. I like cake for dessert.
7. We need to examine the legal issues more closely.
8. You should determine the insuance law about building damage.
9. This TV show is live every Tuesday.
10. She plans to live in Los Angeles.
11. Every day I read. Last year I read100 books.
12. According to this label, the parts in this radio are not typical.

Say these sentences and watch the "-ed" endings:

1. I washed the car and then walked to her house and waited for her.
2. The thief kicked the door open and stuffed his bag full of the money he robbed.
3. While he used the ladder she pushed it down and it crashed.
4. When we were married, I watched her write the book before it was published.

Practice these sentences. Remember, "-it" not "-ate"!

1. It's more appropriate to be accurate than approximate!
2. The warm climate has melted my delicate chocolate.
3. I am desperate to get adequate drinks for my elaborate party!
4. How fortunate that you and she are so intimate!
5. We need an immediate solution to this private matter.

(Intonation) Make sure it is rising and falling where it needs to:

1. Are you coming with us?
2. Is this really the book you wanted?
3. Where is the nearest library?
4. How did you know that Sara and John were also coming?
5. I plan to go to New York, travel around the U.S., and come back home next month.
6. You should buy fruit, vegetables, and chicken sometime today.

Make sure the vowel sounds are different in the bold words:

1. That ship is carrying ten sheep.
2. Marry is the woman with the green dress and the big grin.
3. There's no heat coming out of that heater - can you hit it?
4. Please sit down in your seat!
5. If I can reach the gold in that pit I'll be rich.
6. She cut her heel walking up the hill.
7. Please leave me alone to live in peace!

SILENT LETTERS - Practice these words and be careful of the silent letter:

doubt - debt - subtle - comb - dumb - lamb - plumber - half - talk - February - island -

walk - salmon - chalk - herb - honest - honor - hour - castle - whistle - fasten - soften -

Christmas - receipt - cupboard - sword - answer - column -listen - knee- wrap - psychology

There are three ways to pronounce the "oo" sound in English - practice:

1. The rain flooded the pool!
2. Why did you choose that book?
3. That's good amount of blood.
4. Let me put the boot on my foot.
5. Look at that cool hood!
6. She shook the food of the spoon.

Practice the "L" and "R" sounds here:

1. Larry is collecting the papers, and Tom is correcting them.
2. The children are playing in the yard; their parents are praying in church.
3. Bill is in the police and his brother is a priest.
4. My former boss was very formal.
5. Tel the truth - did you hurt his feeling?
6. How did he arrive - dead or alive?
7. Your present was very pleasant!

Pronunciation Pairs

English pronunciation is so crazy that it sometimes even trips up native-speakers. Two words can have the same spelling but different pronunciation depending on the meaning.

1. We polish the Polish furniture every day.
2. I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
3. A farm can produce very fresh produce.
4. The dump was so full it had to refuse the refuse.
5. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
6. The present is a good time to present the present.
7. At the Arm base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
8. Scared by the gunshot, the dove dove into the bushes.
9. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
10. The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
11. The bandage was wound around the wound.
12. They were too close to the door to close it.
13. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
14. After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
15. I spent all evening evening out a pile of dirt.
16. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
17. I did not object to the object.
18. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
19. The buck does funny thins when the does are present.
20. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
21. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
22. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Check pronunciation of contrasting sounds. Repeat each pair as often as necessary.

1. sheep/ship
2. tin/ten
3. bet/bat
4. bet/bait
5. bat/bad
6. cat/cut
7. cat/cart
8. cart/curt
9. cut/curt
10. look/loop
11. cart/caught
12. caught/coat
13. caught/curt
14. coat/cot
15. air/"A"
16. darling/dialing
17. tail/toil
18. tail/tell
19. tail/tile
20. hour/are

NEVER FORGET

KN- When a K is before an N, the K is always silent (know, knee, knife, etc.)

PN- When a P is before an N, the P is always silent (pneumonia, pneumatic)

WR- When a W is before an R, the W is always silent (write, wrong, wrap, etc.)

PS- When a P is before an S, the P is always silent (psyshology, pseudo, psychicatrist, etc.)

E - When an English word has an "e" at the end, it is almost a silent "e" (ate, compare, magazine, indusrialize etc.)

There is a much smaller group of English words where the final "e" is pronounced:

recipe, posse, acne, catastrophe, apostrophe, aborigine, simile, epitome, psyche

Also some words which are borrowed from French, Italian and Spanish:

café, olé, sauté, soufflé

Dictionary

Reading 1 - No Speak English

Mamacita is the big mama of the man across the street, third-floor front. Rachel says her name ought to be Mamasota, but I thingk that's mean.

The man saved his money to bring her here. He saved and saved because she was alone with the baby boy in that country. He worked two jobs. He came home late and he left early every. Every day.

Then one day Mamacita and the baby boy arrived in yellow taxi. The tax door opened like a waiter's arm. Out stepped a tiny pink shoe, a foot soft as a rabbit's ear, then the thick ankle, a flutter of hips, fuchsia roses and green perfume. The man had to pull her, the taxi driver had to push. Push, pull. Push, pull. Poof!

All at once she bloomed. Huge, enormous, beautiful to look at, from the salmon-pink feather on the tip of her hat down to the little rosebuds of her toes. I couldn't take my eyes off her tiny shoes.

Up, up, up the stairs she went with the baby boy in a blue blanket, the man carrying her suitcases, her lavender hatboxes, a dozen of satin high heels. Then we didn't see her.

Somebody said it's becaues she's too fat, somebody because of the three flights of stairs, but I believe she doesn't come out because she is afraid to speak English, and maybe this is so since she only knows eight words. She knows to say: He not here for when the landlord comes. No speak English if anybody else comes, and Holy smokes. I don't know where she learned this, but I heard her say it one time and it surprised me.

My father says wen he came to this country he ate hamandeggs for three months. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hamandeggs. That was the only word he knew. He doesn't eat hamandeggs anymore.

Whatever her reasons, whether she is fat, or can't climb the stairs, or is afraid of English, she won't come down. She sits all day by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull.

Home. Home. Home is a house in a photograph, a pink house, pink as hollyhocks with lots of startled light. The man paints the walls of the apartment pink, but it's not the same you know. She still sighs for her pink house, and then I think she cries. I would.

Sometimes the man gets disgusted. He starts screaming and you can hear it all the way down the street.

Ay, she says, she is sad.

Oh, he says, not again.

Cuando, Cuando, cuando? she asks.

Ay, Caray! We are home. This is home. Here I am and here I stay. Speak English. Speak English. Christ!

Ay! Mamacita, who does not belong, every once in a while lets out a cry, hysterical, high, as if he had torn the only skinny thread that kept her alive, the only road out to that country.

And then to break her heart forever, the baby boy who has begun to talk, starts to sing the Pepsi commercial he heard on TV.

No speak English, she says, to the child who is singing in the language that sounds like tin. No speak English, no speak English, and bubbles into tears. No, no, no as if she can't believe her ears.

Vocabulary Exercise 2

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Tags : vocabulary

Ow! That Smarts!

At one time or another, most of us have been hurt. Maybe we fell off a bike, walked into a wall, had surgery, got beat up by a bully or had a car accident.

Let's get with a partmer and share some of those painful memories.

Have you ever.....

• been bitten by an animal?
• been stung or bitten by an insect?
• fallen down a flight of stairs?
• tripped while going up the stairs?
• been in a car accident?
• been hit by a falling object?
• almost drowned?
• burned yourself by accident?
• had food poisoning?
• gotten a paper cut?
• gotten lost in the woods?
• slammed your finger in a door?
• twisted your ankle?
• gotten shocked by an electrical appliance?
• locked yourself in or out of something?
• had surgery?
• fallen off a bicycle or a motorcycle?
• dropped something on your foot?
• gotten stitches?
• smacked your head on a door?
• beat someone up?
• been beaten up by a bully?
• knocked a tooth out?
• gotten a splinter?
• fallen out of a tree or from a high place?
• stepped on a rusty nail or a piece of glass?

psych exam 3

psych exam 3 » Create Flashcards