WEEKLY SCHEDULE: 31 May

Weekly Schedule 31 May

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LISTENING NO. 14: Earthquakes

PREPARATION Let's do some prep work before actually listening to the video. Below you will find some definitions for some words that you might not be familiar with. Once you think you have understood all of the meanings, proceed with the listening.

snap verb (BREAK)

/snæp/ (-pp-)

•

[I or T] to cause something which is thin to break suddenly and quickly with a cracking sound

You'll snap that ruler if you bend it too far.

Some vandal's gone and snapped off my car aerial again.

•

[I] to suddenly become unable to control a strong feeling, especially anger

When she asked me to postpone my trip to help her move house, I just snapped (= got angry).

grind verb (RUB)

/graɪnd/ [T] (ground, ground)

to rub something against a hard surface, in order to make it sharper or smoother

She has a set of chef's knives which she grinds every week.

He ground down the sharp metal edges to make them smooth.

The car engine was making a strange grinding noise.

See also: grindstone

grind your teeth

to make a noise by rubbing your teeth together

She grinds her teeth in her sleep

rumble verb (SOUND)

/ˈrʌm.bl ̩/

[I] to make a continuous low sound

Please excuse my stomach rumbling - I haven't eaten all day.

The tanks rumbled (= moved slowly, making a continuous noise)across the battlefield.

rumble noun

[C]

We could hear the rumble of distant guns/thunder.

drain (draining) verb (REMOVE LIQUID)

/dreɪn/

•

[I or T] If you drain something, you remove the liquid from it, usually by pouring it away or allowing it to flow away, and if something drains, liquid flows away or out of it

Drain the pasta thoroughly.

We drained the pond and filled it with fresh water.

Drain (off) any liquid that is left in the rice.

Don't bother drying the pans - just leave them to drain.

•

[T] If you drain a glass or cup, you drink all the liquid in it.

chasm noun

/ˈkæz.əm/

•

a very deep narrow opening in rock, ice or the ground

They leaned over the rails and peered down into the dizzying chasm below.

•

formal a very large difference between two opinions or groups of people

There is still a vast economic chasm between developed and developing countries.

PRONUNCIATION NO. 14: Connected Speech

English is characterized by an alternation of STRONG and WEAK syllables, making up a rhythmical pattern which, ideally, inserts 1-2 weak syllables between strong ones. This, of course, is not always possible. We have already learned about stress shift and how some words change their original stress position to accommodate to English rhythm.

Another effect weak syllables have is that they, many times, are not even pronounced: they become so weak, they just disappear from the speech. We have already seen this in words such as: ret(i)na, moun(t)ain, int(e)resting, p(o)lice, sim(i)lar, etc.

The reason why these syllables drop is to allow for a more fluent speech, especially because the speaker "does not have time to pronounce everything": strong syllables require a considerable amount of time and energy, and that can only be possible if weak syllables get reduced and compensate for the strong ones.

So it seems obvious that if we want to achieve a good fluency in English, we should remember to stress strong syllables and keep some weak syllables in between. But there are other things we can do to improve our fluency.

Blending

When 2 consonants appear across word-boundaries (as in "went to"), only the second consonant is pronounced. This blending process can even happen with different (yet, similar) consonants, such as p-g, t-d, and k-g. Read the following sentences:

Sickness kept Tom home the third week

I have uploaded dozens of files into the server

Keep calm and don't get obsessed about that job

They showed a new implementation of a previous speech system

This can be used to build different systems

He introduced us to his German niece while in Berlin

Are you coming out tonight?

You must tell him the truth

The pharmacist tried to stop the argument

Please, place some of those books on top of the shelf

He has several cars and five yachts

They save very fine jewelry for their children

Very few people like to be alone

Mike couldn't convince Sarah of the opposite

Why don't you help me find a solution for this mess?

They went to the cinema last Tuesday

When did you decide to come here?


Deletion 

1) Many English words end with 2 or 3 consonants. When these words are followed by others which also begin with a consonant, the last consonant of the former word is not pronounced. For example: firs(t) three, las(t) plane, can'(t) think, fron(t) building, etc.

Read the following sentences paying attention to those consonants which can get deleted:

It must be 3 o'clock already

He asked you and me to spend a weekend in the mountains

His interest for Shannon disappeared when he met Susan

The Nile is the longest river in the world

The Vatican is the smallest country in the world

The last person to leave can lock the door

IMPORTANT: The last consonant cannot drop if it is a suffix: plural, past, comparative, etc. otherwise the entire sense of the sentence would be truncanted.

2) An important (and very unknown) case of deletion happens with some specific pronouns that begin with /h/: him, her, and also with "have". When these words are preceded by another word that ends with a consonant, native speakers tend to omit the /h/. For example:

I told (h)er about it = tolder
Please, ask (h)im to arrive early today = askim
You shouldn't (h)ave done that horrible thing = shouldn'tav

Read the following sentences:

She bought him a ticket before the concert began

I would have known he was coming

Please, let her go, she is innocent

Tomorrow we'll ask him to tell us about it

You could have warned me!

I like her very much

LISTENING NO. 14: Adrenaline Rush

PRONUNCIATION NO. 14: Long Words

English is typically a monosyllabic language. That is, the majority of the words in the lexicon have 1 syllable. This accommodates well to the English rhythm, with strong and weak words. Strong words are those words that bear stress, as the words "boy", "there", "when", "sun", and "rose" in the sentence:

The boy was there when the sun rose

So, when we read this sentence, we emphasize the words in boldface.

Primary and Secondary Stress

When polysyllabic occurs, it may be difficult to know where to place the stress. An important reason for this is that English long words may have 2 stresses: primary and secondary. For example, the word "international" has 2 stresses:

- Primary stress on "na"

- Secondary stress on "in"

Below you will find more examples of stress on English words:

abo'lition

po'lice

se'mester

ma'lignancy

'theater

fan'tastic

These aforementioned words have only one stress. When that happens, that stress is always the "primary stress". The words below have 2 stresses: primary (') and secondary (,)

i,nocu'lation

,engi'neer

,fore'knowledge

par,tici'pation

'passion,flower

par,ticu'larity

Suffixes may attract stress

Sometimes, the stress can be predicted. For example, words ending with suffixes such as -tion, -ic, -ical, -ically, -tial, -atory, -city, -ese, -ee have primary stress on the syllable immediately before the suffix:

abo'lition

po'litically

la'boratory (vs. 'lavatory)

coa'lition

po'lemically

in'formative

fan'tastic

i'nitial

su'perlative

po'lemic

po'tential

,elas'ticity

po'litical

,influ'ential

,elec'tricity

po'lemical

pre'paretory

Chi'nese

,emplo'yee

Notice that when the primary is at the end, preceded by 2 syllables (as in "electricity" and "elasticity") the secondary stress is placed 2 syllables before.

So, suffixes can help us choose primary stress, because this primary stress goes precisely before the suffix. However, suffixes are not always there to help. See:

com'ponent

'category

,trans'parent

'secondary

'enterprise

pa'rameter

Stress in compound words

A compound word is a word made up of 2 words that come together to create a new meaning.

An important thing to remember is that compound words usually have the stress on the first part of the compound. But there may exist exceptions to this rule.

'nut,cracker

'news,paper

'flowerpot

'ladybug

'eyebrow

'bedtime

'handbag

'lipstick

'birthday

'scarecrow

'butterfly

'New York

Adjective + Noun

When we have an adjective and a noun, we stress the noun with the primary stress, the adjective with the secondary stress:

,nice'man

,clean'stress

,black'board

,green'house

This is, in fact, how we distinguish between:

'black,board (in a classroom) from a ,black'board (in a box)

'green,house (to grow flowers in cold wheather) from ,green'house (the house is painted in green)

Stress shift

English is so strict about strong and weak forms, that sometimes, the original stress of a words shifts. Remember the sentence:

The boy was there when the sun rose

We have 5 strong words, more or less distributed across the sentence.

WEAK-STRONG-WEAK-STRONG-STRONG-WEAK-STRONG-STRONG.

This distribution is almost perfect: the sentence sounds slightly like an accordion, with ups and downs. It is usually impossible to have the perfect rhythmical sentence in English, with at least one weak syllable in between strong syllables. However, the language tries hard to respect its rhythm. In fact, when too many strong words go together, stress can be shifted to avoid not having weak syllables in between strong syllables. For example, the word Chinese has 2 different stress positions depending on the context (and the contact with a strong, stressed syllable):

The waiters were all Chinese

We went to the Chinese restaurant

While "Chinese" is stressed on the second syllable in the first sentence (this is the usual position), it is stressed on the first syllable in the second sentence. The reason is that "restaurant" is also stressed on the first syllable, and keeping the last syllable of "Chinese" stressed would break English rhythm.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE: 24-27 May

Weekly Schedule 24-27 May

View more presentations from TeresaLSoto.

LISTENING NO. 13: Nose bleed