Read the sentences aloud, paying particular attention to the pronunciation of the foreign words.



 

Poetry

Sonnet XVIII

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate;

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;  

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Transcribe, mark the intonation, read and learn Sonnet XVIII by heart.

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Conversational style (Colloquial speech)

Pronunciation in slow and fast speech

In different contexts we change the speed at which we speak.

We are likely to speak more slowly, for example,... ... when we are carefully explaining to someone what we want them to do, when we are talking to a large audience, or when we are talking about an unfamiliar or difficult topic.
We are likely to speak more quickly, for example,... ... in conversation, when we are talking to friends or relatives, or when we are talking about routine or familiar topics.

 

 

Speech is broken up into units, often with a pause between them. Within these speech units, words are linked together smoothly. In fast speech in particular, these units may be quite long and the words spoken quickly.

In fast speech, sounds that are found in words spoken slowly may be missed out. Listen and notice how the highlighted sounds are missed out in this conversation extract:

 

/d/ is missed out  the two /t/sounds merge

                                  into one

 

It occurred to me that Terry hadn't been in touch for ages, so I thought I ought to phone him. Well, just then there was a ring on the front door and there he was.

/h/ is missed out     /t/ is missed out                                      /h/ is missed out

As well as sounds, syllables or whole words that we would expect to hear in slow speech may be reduced or missed out In fast speech. Listen and notice how the highlighted parts are reduced or missed out in this conversation:

                        

                              it's' is reduced to /s/            'are' is missed out

 

A: Come on, it's time to go. What are you looking for?

B: I don't suppose you've seen my glasses?

A: Have you lost them again?

B: You'd better carry on. I can't go without my glasses.

 

‘I’ is missed out             'd' is missed out   ‘I’ is missed out

           ‘Have’ is reduced to /v/

 

 

the vowel / ə /  
is missed out and
the word is said with
one syllable

 

 

Sounds in words may also change in fast speech compared with how they are said in slow speech or how they are represented in dictionaries. Listen and notice how the sound /t/ changes in the highlighted parts of this conversation:

/n/ is missed out

                                             and /t/ is said like    

/t/ + /j/ is said / ʧ /         /p/ before /m/

 

A: I want you to paint my kitchen.

B: What colour?                                                                   

A: A light green.

B: Right.

 

/t/ is said like /k/ before /ɡ/                 /t/ is said as a ‘glottal stop' (a sound made by stopping the flow of air by closing the vocal cords)

‘Throw away’ words

Listen to this conversation. Note that the underlined expressions don’t really have any meaning; you could easily understand the text without them.

A: Ugh! This coffee is really horrible!

B: Yeah, I know. Machine coffee, I mean, why do we drink the stuff?

A: It’s sort of like… someone puts the contents of an ashtray in water and ehm… like, heats it up or something, you know

B: Yeah, that’s what it tastes like, … and… I mean, have you tried the ehm… the tea?

A: Oh yeah, the tea! That’s even worse!

B: I mean the plastic cups don’t help, do they?

A: No, I know, … plastic cups! … We like even have champagne in plastic cups, you know, at what’s-her-name’s leaving party…

B: Jenny. Jenny Glen. Yeah, I remember that, last January it was… I kind of liked Jenny. I wonder what she’s doing now…  

The same expressions which people use as ‘throw away’ words have meaning in other contexts. Listen and notice: the ‘throw away’ words are said faster than the expressions that have meaning and in a low voice. 

 

Expressions

Tell me everything you know.

‘Blue Mountain’ is a kind of coffee.

We like to go away at weekends.

I mean the one on the right.

‘Throw away’ words

She tells me everything, you know.

‘Blue Mountain’ coffee is kind of nice.

We like go to the beach or whatever.

I mean, what’s the point of buying one shoe?!

Exercises

Listen to a person speaking about the weather in Montana (in the USA). Write what the person says, but miss out the ‘throw away’ words.

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Listen to four people. Write their favourite ‘throw away’ words.

Speaker 1      ________________

Speaker 2      ________________

Speaker 3      ________________

Speaker 4      ________________

Underline the ‘throw away’ words in the text. Read the text aloud, saying the underlined expressions fast and in a low voice. Record yourself.

 

We don’t like have coffee breaks, I mean we just like get a coffee or tea and sort of like take it back to our desks, you know, but it’s kind of dangerous ‘cause, I mean, people sometimes like knock the drink over the computer, you know.

 

Listen to these sentences. Underline ‘throw away’ words.

• I don’t think these are the men you know

• I’ve taught you everything you know

• Do you know the place I mean it’s just over there

• She’s not the one I mean she’s too tall

• They’re like wild animals

• This is like Arctic weather

 

 

Telling a story

Listen to the conversation below and notice that A uses anyway to show that she is moving on to the next part of the story. In this context, it is usually pronounced in a high voice. Notice that before the word anyway, the speaker is not moving the story on, she is just giving some background information. Anyway shows she is returning to the story.

A uses well to show she is responding to B’s questions. In this context it is usually pronounced in a high voice.

Notice that the listener, B, is not silent. He asks questions and encourages A to continue, pronouncing uh huh, mmm in a low-pitched voice, which means he wants A to continue speaking.

 

A: I nearly got arrested, you know, the other day.

B: You what… arrested? What do you mean?

A: Well, I’m doing this project on graffiti, m you know, at college, and ehm… so I have to take lots of photos of graffiti and…

B: Uh huh.

A: So anyway, I saw this train with some amazing graffiti on the side, so I went there to ehm… take a photo of it. The thing is, it was a bit far from the platform…

B: So what happened?

A: Well, I walked along next to the lines, and then these two ehm… station police came along and said I shouldn’t be there, so ehm… they took me to the office, and then they asked for my ID card, you know, my identity card…

B: Mmm?

A: Well, I didn’t have it. I left it at home that day.

B: Oh no!

A: Yeah, so anyway, then they didn’t know what to do with me, so ehm… I said, ‘Look, I’ll leave my camera here and I go home to get my ID card. In the end, they agreed, so I did that, and they ehm… wrote my ID number, and then just let me go…

 

Exercises

Fill the gaps with the words well or anyway. Then listen and check.

A: I wonder what happens if you lose your passport.

B: I lost mine once.

A: So what happened?

B: ______________________ (1), I was abroad, just travelling around, you know, and _______________________ (2), somebody stole my bag on the last day.

A: So what did you do?

B: _______________________ (3), I reported it to the police, which took absolutely ages – so many forms to fill in, and _____________________ (4), they gave me a special travel document and then when I arrived home…

 


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