Enunciation

http://giftarist.expertscolumn.com/article/speech-delivery-importance-enunciation-and-pronunciation

TED Talk

Listen to Susan Cain's talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts

Effortless...

http://effortlessenglishclub.com/english-pronunciation-public-speaking

Learning Pronunciation

www.cje.ids.czest.pl/biblioteka/2497061-How-to-learn-English-pronunciation.pdf

Pronunciation Challenges

I'm giving you the link to an entire book.  I want you to look at the parts that interest you and read them. Then I want you to find your language in section 7 and read it carefully.

To access the book, click on the following link.

http://web.utk.edu/~wiley/SETESOL2007_CK_Specific_American_English_Pronunciation_Challenges_for_ELLs.pdf

Accent

What Is Accent?
Accent is a combination of three main components: intonation (speech music), liaisons (word connections), and pronunciation (the spoken sounds of vowels, consonants, and combinations). As you go along, you'll notice that you're being asked to look at accent in a different way. You'll also realize that the grammar you studied before and this accent you're studying now are completely different. Part of the difference is that grammar and vocabulary are systematic and structured— the letter of the language. Accent, on the other hand, is free form, intuitive, and creative— more the spirit of the language. So, thinking of music, feeling, and flow, let your mouth relax into the American accent.

Can I Learn a New Accent?
Can a person actually learn a new accent? Many people feel that after a certain age, it's just not
possible. Can classical musicians play jazz? If they practice, of course they can! How well you do depends mainly on how open and willing you are to sounding different from the way you have sounded all your life. A very important thing you need to remember is that you can use your accent to say what you mean and how you mean it.
Although America has many regional pronunciation differences, the accent you will learn is that of standard American English as spoken and understood by the majority of educated native speakers in the United States. Don't worry that you will sound slangy or too casual because you most definitely won't. This is the way a professor lectures to a class, the way a national newscaster broadcasts, the way that is most comfortable and familiar to the majority of native speakers.

REVIEW

Please review every assignment you have had this past week.

See you all tonight.

I'M FINE!

https://youtu.be/msyQN0PK510

Intonation

Intonation:
https://youtu.be/GPcBJfBTlNo


1.
https://youtu.be/p8DJFNjZiIM


2.
https://youtu.be/qLGJb63mkyA


3.
https://youtu.be/Aoj4HZlLQBY

Rachel - Intonation

http://rachelsenglish.com/intonation/

Video Text:

Today I’m going to talk about intonation. I’ve touched on this subject in various other videos without ever explicitly defining it. And today, that’s what we’re going to do. But I’m also going to reference these other videos, and I really encourage you to go watch those as well.

If you’ve seen my videos on word stress, then you’ve already heard me talk a little about pitch. Stressed syllables will be higher in pitch, and often a little longer and a little louder than unstressed syllables. And there are certain words that will have a stress within a sentence, content words. And certain words that will generally be unstressed, and those are function words. For information on that, I invite you to watch those videos.

Intonation is the idea that these different pitches across a phrase form a pattern, and that those patterns characterize speech. In American English, statements tend to start higher in pitch and end lower in pitch. You know this if you’ve seen my video questions vs. statements. In that video, we learned that statements, me, go down in pitch. And questions, me?, go up in pitch at the end. So these pitch patterns across a phrase that characterize a language are little melodies. that characterize a language are little melodies. for example, the melodies of Chinese. If you haven’t already seen the blog I did on the podcast Musical Language, I encourage you to take a look at that. It talks about the melody of speech.

Understanding and using correct intonation is a very important part to sounding natural. Even if you’re making the correct sounds of American English, but you’re speaking in the speech patterns, or intonation of another language, it will still sound very foreign.

Intonation can also convey meaning or an opinion, an attitude. Let’s take for example the statement ‘I’m dropping out of school and the response ‘Are you serious?’ Are you serious? A question going up in pitch conveys, perhaps, an open attitude, concern for the person. Are you serious? But, are you serious? Down in pitch, more what you would expect of a statement, are you serious? The same words, but when it is intoned this way, it is conveying a judgement. Are you serious, a negative one. I don’t agree that you should be dropping out of school. I’m dropping out of school. Are you serious? I’m dropping out of school. Are you serious? With the same words, very different meanings can be conveyed. So intonation is the stress pattern, the pitch pattern, of speech. The melody of speech. If you’ve read my bio on my website, you know melody is something I’m especially keen on, as I studied music through the master’s level. Yes, that was yours truly, thinking a lot about melody. Now, you know that in American English, statements will tend to go down in pitch.

Let’s look at some examples. Here we see two short sentences. Today it’s sunny. I wish I’d been there. And you can see for both of them, that the pitch goes down throughout the sentence. Here we have two longer sentences, and though there is some up and down throughout the sentences, for both sentences, the lowest point is at the end. I’m going to France next month to visit a friend who’s studying there. It’s finally starting to feel like spring in New York.

The software I used to look at the pitch of those sentences is called Pratt, and there’s a link in the footer of my website. So it’s at the very bottom of every page. I hope you’re getting a feel for how important intonation is to sounding natural and native in American English. I hope you’ll listen for this as you listen to native speakers, and that if you haven’t already done so, that you’ll go to my website and do that you’ll go to my website and do so you hear them several times to get the melody. That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Top Ten Syllable Rules

Top Ten Syllable Rules

1. Every syllable has only one vowel sound. Some syllables have just one vowel; others have two. But even when there are two vowels, there can be only one vowel sound in each syllable, so the two vowels say one sound.

For example, out-side.

2. When the vowel’s at the end of a syllable, it has a long sound. Reading specialists call the Consonant-Vowel (CV) pattern an open syllable.

For example, be-low.

3. When the vowel is not at the end of a syllable, it has a short sound. Reading specialists call the Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) pattern a closed syllable.

For example, bas-ket.

4. Divide syllables between doubled consonants, unless the doubled consonant is part of a syllable that is a base word.

For example, din-ner and tell-er.

5. Usually keep vowel teams together in the same syllable.

For example, boat-ing.

6. Keep the silent final “e” and the vowel before in the same syllable. The silent final “e” makes the vowel before a long sound if there is only one consonant in between the vowel and the “e”.

For example, basement.

7. Keep the r-controlled vowels (ar, er, ir, or, and ur) in the same syllable.

For example, or-al-ly.

8. Keep the consonant-“le” sounds (ble, cle, dle, fle, gle, and ple) in the same syllable. These syllables have the schwa sound between the consonant and the “le”. The schwa sound sounds like a nasal short u.

For example, cra-dle.

9. All words have one syllable that has a primary accent. The vowel in the accented syllable receives the stress. Words may also have secondary accents. The primary accent is usually found on the vowel in the root, not the prefix or suffix. Also, the syllable before a double consonant is usually accented.

For example, slów-ly and swím-ming.

10. Unaccented vowel sounds frequently have the schwa sound, especially when there is only one letter in the syllable. All vowels can have the schwa sound.

For example, a-boút.

(http://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/the-top-ten-syllable-rules/)

Digital Recording

Just a reminder...

All digital recordings are due by 11:59pm on Sunday, January 22nd.

TED TALKS

Check out this website:
http://www.ted.com/

Find a topic that interests you; then listen to a full talk.

INTRODUCTIONS

My first name is ________________________.

You can call me _______________________. (nickname)

My last name is _________________________.

I was born in __________________________. (country)

My first language is _______________________. (native language)

I am ____________ years old. (age)

I live in ______________, California. (city)

I speak __________ languages. (number of languages)

My favorite color is ________________________.

My country’s flag has ________ colors.  (number of colors)

The colors of my flag are ________________________. (colors)

My hobbies are _____________________________________________.

In 2017, I want to ______________________________________. (goals)

I want to improve my pronunciation mainly because ________________.

WELCOME TO ESL 333 - PRONUNCIATION!