COLLEAGUE or COLLEGE - do you need help saying the words properly?

It's easy to think of vocabulary mistakes just being a problem of what words mean. Sound, however, can also give us trouble when we're learning vocabulary. For many learners, this is the problem they face with saying the difference between colleague or college - they mean to say the first word but end up saying the second. 

The difference is in the final sound. When you're saying colleague, be sure to say the "g" sound at the back of your throat, not at the teeth. Otherwise, it comes out sounding like "college", which has the same "g" sound as George or edge. 

If you'd like more help working with and practising individual sounds in English, be sure to check out the Pronunciation page on the BBC Learning English website.  

Pronunciation help: -ED endings

A couple of students had problems yesterday with pronouncing the -ED ending (for either regular past simple or participle adjectives), so I've created a video that explains the rule.

Here's how you do it: the first time you watch the video, just watch. Don't do anything. The second time you watch the video, try pronouncing the words after I say them. If you don't say it correctly, no worries. You can watch the video as many times as you want to practice.

This video goes a little more slowly (to help lower-level students) - but don't be fooled. There are 45 videos on there: are you sure that you could pronounce all of these ED words correctly?

Sound...NOT Spelling!

When students learn English pronunciation, it's sometimes hard for them to understand that sometimes there's no direct relationship between the way you pronounce a word and the way you spell it. This joke, which is currently circulating around Facebook, illustrates that problem perfectly: sometimes, it's easier to think of the sounds you need to create a word, rather than the letters.

Some doctor on TV this morning said that the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started. So I looked around my house to see things I'd started and hadn't finished.
Then...I finished off a bottle of Vodka, a botle of Baileys, a bodle of wum, a pock of Prungles, an a boc a choclez. Yu haf no idr how bludy fablus I feeel now.
Plaese sned dhis orn to dem yu fee ar in ned ov iennr pisss lol lol

Cheers! Happy Friday, and if you drink, don't type.

Need extra help with pronunciation? A gem from MIT

Pronunciation is one of those skills that a lot of teachers know that they should do, but they don't. Sometimes it's because they're not sure themselves of how it works; sometimes, pronunciation doesn't fall in neatly with a subject; and, unfortunately, there are teachers who just don't think it's important.

Those of you who have had class with me have probably suffered...er, studied...pronunciation. For those of you who don't have a lot of experience with pronunciation, or who would like to practice on your own, check out Isaiah Woo's Listening, Speaking and Pronunciation class. While MIT hasn't put the complete course online, you'll get a lot from the video exercises (which are also available through YouTube.)

http://tinyurl.com/36c9svk

"Norwegians in Brooklyn"

If you decide to get a private English teacher this fall, I strongly suggest that you ask the person if she or he has ever tried to learn another language. It's not because you should have someone who speaks perfect Spanish (although it certainly helps.) Language teachers who have experience learning a language can often understand those strange little situations that happen to language students - such as what it's like to develop an accent that people don't expect you to have.

James Fallows, a writer for "The Atlantic Monthly", lived in Beijing for a number of years, and understands what it's like to learn a language, since he speaks fairly fluent Chinese. He's also been tracking and organizing stories about how different English accents can happen in the places where you least expect them. The story about the Chinese guy who talks like Deer Hunter actor Christopher Walken is priceless....

http://tinyurl.com/37ay65a

Thursday's Word Challenge

Here's one to test your memory and your vocabulary: How many words can you think of that have four or more syllables? Do you know where the stress goes in each word?

Matthew WHO?

Have you ever wondered why English has those double letters (like double "T") in the middle, or at the ends, of words?

I was watching the Giro d'Italia today on VEO7, and one of the announcers kept mispronouncing the name of Matthew Lloyd, the Australian cyclist. "Lloyd" is one of several last names which begin with double "L" (almost all of them are from Wales), and one of the only cases when you would see a double consonant at the beginning of words in English. This is different from Spanish, where "LL" and "RR" aren't really common at the beginning of words, but you can see them in some words (like Lleida).

So why do we have double consonants in English, if they don't represent a different sound?

Double consonants that are in the middle of words are where you separate syllables. Think of these two-syllable adjectives: fun·ny, sil·ly, hap·py, Fin·nish, com·mon: In each case, you would break the word in between the double consonants.

The same is true if the word has more than two syllables. This is especially true of words that are formed with suffixes: hap·pi·ness, in·suf·fer·able, bar·ris·ter, con·som·mé (meat broth), cor·res·pon·dence.

Double consonants (especially -ss) also happen frequently at the ends of words: kiss, miss, bliss. They're also extremely common at the ends of surnames: Pratt, Raitt, Schnurr, Flynn, Dunn.

And don't forget that if you need to put a suffix on the end of a verb that ends in a noun/consonant combination, you need to double the final consonant, too:
stop: stopped, stopping
counsel: counselled, counselling
travel: travelled, travelling
kid (=joke with someone): kidded, kidding
(**Note that the double -l only happens in British spelling, not American spelling.)

So if you're pronouncing a name like "Lloyd" or "Llewellyn, it's pronounced "loid", not "zloid."

BBC Words in the News

Hi everyone...

Sorry to make this a short, quick message, but I'm just checking in between classes. I'll have more information for you tonight (including a quick lesson on past simple and present perfect by talking about the life of actress Lynn Redgrave, who has died today at the age of 67.)

In the meantime, I wanted to share a very useful and informative website with you.

Three times a week, the BBC World Service has a new Words in the News story, which allows you to listen and read to a BBC news story while learning new vocabulary. It doesn't take much time to do - you can listen and read two or three times in five minutes. Plus, if you'd like extra practice with your pronunciation (especially with stressed and unstressed syllables), try reading the words out loud at the same time you listen to them. You'll be amazed at how your listening comprehension improves after two or three weeks!

This week's Words in the News story is about racism in Tintin comics:

http://tinyurl.com/crklkh

Enjoy!

THIS WEEKEND'S PRACTICE

Have you ever had a word (or more than one word) that you can't remember, no matter how hard you try? When I was learning Spanish, I swear it took me at least a year to remember the difference between suelo and techo. No kidding. (You can imagine how embarrassing that is when you're in a hotel.)

What do you do if there's a word you just can't remember?

1. Go to your desk and get a Post-It note and a big red pen.
2. Write down the word and its definition in English (NO TRANSLATIONS!!).
3. Put that Post-It note in a place where you have to look at it all the time. Put it on the screen of your laptop computer or on your phone. Stick it on your bathroom mirror or on the door of your refrigerator.
4. Every time you see the word, repeat it three times.
5. Do NOT remove the Post-It note until you are absolutely sure you know the word, what it means and how to pronounce it.

A typical person needs to see and use a word eight to ten times before he or she can remember what it means. The more times you see and use a word you have trouble remembering, the easier it is to use the word in the future.

Try it!