Tongue Twister No 2

SUNDAY'S TONGUE TWISTER

When a doctor doctors a doctor,
does the doctor doing the doctoring
doctor as the doctor being doctored wants to be doctored or
does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor as he wants to doctor?

Tongue Twister No 1

Let's start a new habit, shall we?

 
I suggest we practise fun Tongue Twisters at weekends from now on. Practise till you get them right.. or till you have your tongue twisted! :P Well, either way, tongue twisters are a great activity because you'll be practising to improve your pronunciation while having fun and good laughs at the same time.

Tongue Twister Saturdays and Sundays, it is then! 



Here is the first-ever Saturday's Tongue Twister..

Yellow butter, purple jelly, red jam, black bread.
Spread it thick, say it quick!

 Yellow butter, purple jelly, red jam, black bread.
Spread it thicker, say it quicker!
Yellow butter, purple jelly, red jam, black bread.
Don't eat with your mouth full!

Lesson 07: Punctuation

Teach Me how to pronounce punctuation

What is Punctuation?

Punctuation is a system of symbols (.,?!-:; etc) we use to separate sentences, clauses and phrases in order to make the meaning clear. The symbols are called punctuation marks.

Punctuation in Writing 

Using punctuation marks whenever necessary is vital, in any piece of writing - be it an academic essay or a status on facebook! 

The correct use of punctuation shows where sentences start and finish, clarifies their meaning and makes it easier for the reader to go through and understand your piece of writing.

Pronounce Punctuation 

Punctuation plays an equally important role in reading and speech too, as it indicates aspects of the intonation* and meaning. 

*We will go into intonation in more depth later on, but for you to get an idea, intonation is simply defined as the rise and fall of the voice in connected speech.

Now start reading a text. Aloud. Seriously. Just do this. Good. Go on. A bit more. Okay.

Did you notice? Hopefully, you paused whenever you encountered a punctuation mark in the text.

Pronouncing punctuation helps with the intonation, rhythm and flow of your speech while at the same time making it easier for the listener to understand, process and take in the information you're sharing.



Remembering things is one of my weaknesses I guess. No matter how hard I try to prevent it from happening, I always forget things in the end. I've tried many things: having a personal organiser, making to-do lists, setting reminders on my phone all the time.. but there's always that detail that will slip my mind at the very last moment. Most of the time, I forget small things like birthdays or, say, my scarf on the bus; but sometimes I forget important ones, too, like paying the bills or work-related stuff. Last week, after making some chips, I forgot to turn off the stove burner and the frying pan was still on it! If it weren't for my roommate, I'd be in a very dire position right now.

Different Punctuation, Different Meaning

Below are pairs of sentences whose only difference is their punctuation. The use of different punctuation typically conveys different meaning.

-What I love the most in life is cooking, my family, and my dog.
-What I love the most in life is cooking my family and my dog.


-"Was that the question?" he asked.
-"Was that the question he asked?"


-Woman, without her man, is nothing.
-Woman: without her, man is nothing.


-The chicken wandered outside of the coop. Half an hour after, its head was cut off.
-The chicken wandered outside of the coop half an hour after its head was cut off.

Lesson 06: Word Stress - Introduction

Teach Me the basics of word stress

What is Word Stress?

As we said in Lesson 03, words are made of syllables. One of the syllables constituting a word is stressed, and the rest of them are unstressed. The relative emphasis that is given to a certain syllable in a word is called word stress.

How do I Stress a Syllable?

There are quite a few ways to stress a syllable; you can pronounce the stressed syllable longer, louder or higher pitched. Take the word Germany as an example:

• Longer: Geeer-many
• Louder: GER-many
• Higher pitched: Ger^many

Circles

All these circles you see all over the post are neither bubbles nor emoticons. They are circles representing the syllables of a word. A big circle represents a stressed syllable and a small circle represents an unstressed syllable.

The stress pattern of Germany is Ooo (i.e. three syllables with the stress falling on the first syllable).

Stress Patterns

The number and order of the stressed and unstressed syllables in a word makes its stress pattern. Listen carefully to the stress patterns of the words in the table.

Word	Stress Pattern	Word	Stress Pattern
teacher	Oo	holiday	Ooo
classroom	Oo	September	oOo
exam	oO	revision	oOo
today	oO	seventeen	ooO
principal	Ooo	afternoon	ooO

Stress Patterns Aren't Always Fixed

The stress pattern of a given word may not always be the same. 
A good example to illustrate this is the numbers ending in -teen (i.e. thirteen to nineteen). For instance, the original stress pattern of seventeen is ooO with the stress falling on the ending (also helps distinguishing it from seventy). However, when the number seventeen is used in a sentence and it's followed by a noun, its pattern changes to Ooo.

So we would say: My son is seventeen. 
                                        ooO
BUT: I have seventeen pounds. I've lost seventeen kilos. He died in seventeen seventy.
                  Ooo                                   Ooo                                   Ooo


Now listen to this dialogue between a customer (C) and a shop assistant (S). Make sure you pay attention to the stress patterns.



C: How much is it?

S: It's eighteen pounds and fifty.
         Oo                         Oo
C: Eighty pounds, you say?
    Oo 
S: No, it's eighteen.. and fifty pence.
               oO                  Oo
C: Oh, okay. Here you are.
                      
S: Is it for a gift?

C: Yes, it's for my son's birthday.
                                  Oo
S: I'll wrap it up for you then. How old is your son going to be?
                                                                          Oo
C: It's his thirteenth birthday next week.
              Oo             Oo
S: Thirtieth?
    Oo
C: No, thirteenth!
          oO

Camera finally arrived!

My brand-new webcam still in its box, but not for long!

Lesson 04: I Beg your Pardon?

Teach Me how to avoid misunderstandings in conversation

Part I: Sometimes Misunderstandings just Happen

Listen to this dialogue between a doctor and his wife. What led to the misunderstanding?




W: You look upset, what's wrong? How was your day at work?

D: Awful. I lost my patience today all because of an absent-minded nurse.

W: Oh my God. What happened exactly?

D: Well, Jessica, this newcomer nurse, mixed the files of the medical records of three of my patients. That almost drove me mad.. I can't stop thinking about it.

W: My goodness! This is dreadful. What is going to happen now? Is the hospital going to fire her or sue her?

D: No, that's the most irritating bit of the story. They decided to just give her a written warning and let her get away with it this time.

W: That's unheard of! Her mistake cost the lives of three patients, caused irreparable damage to the reputation of the hospital.. and she will not face any consequences?

D: Huh? Cost the lives..? I can't follow you. What do you mean?

W: Well, three people died, didn't they? You said you lost your patients because of her.

D: Oh no, you got it all wrong. The patients are very much alive, thankfully I picked up on her mistake relatively early but that was when I lost my patience.. you know, I had steam coming out of my ears and started shouting at her and lecturing her in front of everybody.. I completely lost my temper.

Answer

Although both the doctor and his wife talk in error-free English, a misunderstanding still takes place and that's because the words patience and patients are homophones (i.e. are pronounced the same, Lesson 01). 

When the doctor's wife says "her mistake cost the lives of the patients", he begins to suspect that at some point the communication went wrong and that she understood patients, rather than patience, so he corrects the misunderstanding.

Comic illustrated by Pablo Stanley

Part II: Clarifying questions

One way to avoid misunderstandings is by asking the other speaker questions. Check out the following questions and use them whenever you are unsure about something and need help or clarification.

1) Sorry, I don't understand.

By using this little phrase you make it clear to your speaker that you find yourself unsure as to what the speaker says or means. By the way, I should stress that there is absolutely no shame in saying directly that you don't understand something (meanings, instructions, pronunciation, accent, etc).

2) Could you speak more slowly, please? 

Case 1: You need to take down some notes.
Case 2: The other speaker just talks very fast making it hard for you to follow them.

Whatever the case, you kindly request them to slow down so as to ease your communication.

3) Could you repeat that, please? 

You politely ask them to say something again.

4) How do you spell that?

You ask the other speaker to name in order the letters constituting a word or name. 

e.g. -How do you spell your name, Richard? 
       -It's R-I-C-H-A-R-D.

5) How do you pronounce that?

You ask the other speaker to say a word or name correctly.

e.g. - How do you pronounce the doctor's name?
       -It's Waysworth, Dr. /weɪswɜːθ/.
   
 

Lesson 05: Beach and Peach, /b/ and /p/

Teach Me the consonant sounds /b/ and /p/

In words, the letters B and P have the sounds /b/ and /p/ respectively. They are similar sounds, but also very different.


Similarity: How do I start?

For both sounds you start with the same mouth position. Lips gently pressed together and teeth slightly parted. This way you stop the air from coming out and build pressure in your mouth. You basically trap the sound in your mouth before letting go.

Difference: What do I do next?

Now you have to release that air by opening your lips in a sudden explosive manner.

The sound /b/ is voiced, meaning that there is voice coming up from the throat as you pronounce it. So, along with the release of the air there should be voice too. You should feel a small vibration in your throat (vocal cords). 

The sound /p/ is unvoiced, meaning that only air passes through your mouth (no voice whatsoever). So you don't have to use your vocal cords to make this sound.  

Part I

Listen to the sound /b/ carefully.


Okay? Now time for practice. Listen again and repeat the sound yourself as many times as necessary for it to sound the same as the one in the recording.

Below you can see three columns with groups of words which may at first glance look similar but are pronounced completely differently. The column in the middle consists of words with the target sound /b/. Listen and compare with the words on each side. Repeat.

peach - beach - peach
vet - bet - vet
pear - bear - pear
covered - cupboard - covered


Tongue Twister

Betty bought a better bit of butter.

B as a Silent Letter

In some words, we don't pronounce the letter B at all. Listen to the following examples of words where the letter B is silent.

Spelling	Pronunciation
lamb	læm
climb	klaɪm
debt	det

 

Beach vs Bitch

It's worth mentioning that many non-natives think the words beach and bitch are homophones (i.e. pronounced the same way), but that is not true.

Beach /biːtʃ/ is pronounced as the word peach, the only difference being the /b/ sound instead of a /p/ sound at the beginning.


Bitch /bɪtʃ/ has the sound /ɪ/ in it and also the /b/ sound is bit more stressed in this word, a bit more aggressively pronounced.

 
Part II

Listen to the sound /p/ carefully.


Ready? Now time for practice. Listen again and repeat the sound yourself as many times as necessary for it to sound the same as the one in the recording.

The column in the middle consists of words with the target sound /p/. Listen and compare with the words on each side. Then repeat.

big - pig - big
fool - pool - fool 
cab - cap - cab
often - open - often


Tongue Twister

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

P as a Silent Letter

In some words, we don't pronounce the letter P at all. Listen to the following examples of words where the letter P is silent.

Spelling	Pronunciation
receipt	rɪˈsiːt
psychology	saɪˈkɒlədʒi
raspberry	ˈrɑːzbəri

 

Words with PH

PH is pronounced /f/, as in photo or pheasant.