Search results for 'tag:Accents tag:Nouns' matching tags 'Accents' and 'Nouns'

Re: Is it compulsory to use articles, a, an, and the, with only countable nouns?

Ant_222 — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:01:56 GMT

Yes, the definite article can be used with nouns of both types, "Pour the water onto the tea" â "water" and "tea" are pure uncountable nouns.

Jackson6612
I have been told that the accent of Russian is such that Russians have to struggle a lot in order to speak good English. Is it true?

I don't think so. Maybe we have to struggle a bit to learn toÂ pronounceÂ some sounds, but once grasped, it is not difficult at all.

Re: Is it compulsory to use articles, a, an, and the, with only countable nouns?

Jackson6612 — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:44:11 GMT

Ant_222
Jackson6612
Let me rephrase it again, even indefinite article the is used with countable nouns or the nouns which are acting as counting nouns.

What's "indefinite article the"?
Sorry, I meant to say definite article. As the meaning of my question stands corrected now, what is your answer?

I have been told that the accent of Russian is such that Russians have to struggle a lot in order to speak good English. Is it true?

American accent

mubrik88 — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:17:56 GMT

I have a question please

How do you pronouns this word in the American accent

WATER

it seem's like this When I hear it

WARER

Is that correct

Re: The difference between progress and to progress

Grammar Geek — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:48:09 GMT

The noun, in the first sentence, has the accent on the first syllable. PRAW-gress. (American pronunciation)

The verb, in the second sentence, has the accent on the second syllable. pruh-GRESS. (Also American)

Did you mean pronunciation, or did you mean something else?

Re: Some grammar questions

Hoa Thai — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:36:27 GMT

Hoa Thai
Hi,

#1. Since accent is a countable noun, we need 'a' for both heavy accent and heavier accent.
#2. I prefer 'hesitancy in responding'.

Besides the above comments, both sentences have a run-on problem. There are more than one way to reword them; and here is my suggestion:

Student1 had a heavy accent. S/he showed much more hesitancy in responding to the question, and expressed with less confidence than student2.
Student1 had a heavier accent than student2. S/he also showed much more hesitancy in responding to the given question, and expressed with less confidence in speaking English.

Re: Some grammar questions

Hoa Thai — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:17:08 GMT

Hi,

#1. Since accent is a countable noun, we need 'a' for both heavy accent and heavier accent.
#2. I prefer 'hesitancy in responding'.

Besides the above comments, both sentences have a run-on problem. There are more than one way to reword them; and here is my suggestion:

Student1 had a heavy accent. S/he showed much more hesitancy in responding to the question, and expressed less confidence than student2.
Student1 had a heavier accent than student2. S/he also showed muchmore hesitancy in responding to the given question, and expressed lessconfidence in speaking English.

Re: compounds and its main stress

Kooyeen — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:28:33 GMT

Hi Jim,
I noticed this, and remembered something I read on that book, "American Accent Training". I didn't pay much attention to that part, because I then found out that there were a lot of exceptions, so many that it made no sense to consider any rules.

CalifJim wrote:

a palm-planted COURTyard ('palm-planted' is an adjective)
a glass-enclosed LOBby (as with previous example)
apricot-tinted HAIR (as with previous example)

She says:
"An adjective and noun combination is called a descriptive phrase, and in the absence of contrast or other secondary changes, the stress will always fall naturally on the noun."
And then there's this exercise:
"There is a little girl. Her name is Goldilocks. She is in a sunny forest. She sees a small house. She knocks on the door, but no one answer. She goes inside. In the large room, there are three chairs. [...]"

Ok. So, the stress in on the noun. A red car, not a red car. Really? Hmm... All of a sudden, there it is, "review of chapters 1-6". And as an exercise, this thing comes up, "sentence balance". She says:
"Certain shifts will be dictated for the sake of sentence balance. Set phrases and contrast don't change, but the intonation of a descriptive phrase will move from the second word to the first, without changing the meaning. The stress change indicates that it's not the end of the sentence, but rather, there is more to come. [...] When we practiced Goldilocks the first time, we had very short sentences so we didn't need sentence balance. All of the descriptive phrases in blue would otherwise be stressed on the second word, if the shift weren't needed."

There is a little girl called Goldilocks. She is walking through a sunny forest and sees a small house. She knocks on the door, but no one answers. She goes inside to see what's there. There are three chairs in the large room. [...]

At that point, I thought: "What's the point in spending time on this?" I feel those kinds of stress shifts are really common, and they depend on a lot of things, not only to say "Hey, this is not the end of the sentence". Native speakers don't usually have prearranged sentences in mind when they talk. Then not everyone has the same intonation... take valley girls: would they stress the same words as everyone else?

So I decided not to focus on that, and just "go by ear". That's why I often have trouble with stress and intonation... I don't have a clue, LOL. It would be too complicated to find out and remember rules for that, and it wouldn't be worth it, I think.

Opinions? Thanks

My car - stress

Kooyeen — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:38:00 GMT

Hi,
I remeber I once read (in Amercan Accent Training) that when you say what your name is, like "My name is Earl", you should stress "my", not "name". I'd never heard that... and I was surprised, since here in Italy every teacher makes you say "My name ease Earl", stress on name and Earl, lol.
I have to say I've never read the part about sentence stress very carefully... it was a mess. I prefer to pick up "the rules" while listening. So I never know where to put the stress in a sentence... I just hope it sounds good and say it the way it sounds best to me.
But now I'd like to ask about this: in sentences like...

-My name is Earl, and I live in Santa Monica
-My car is over there
-Your dog is so ugly
-Our sister just sold our old car

...is the stess on the possessive adjective or on the following word?

I think I always stress the following word, unless there's a good reason to emphasize the possessive adjective, and unless the possessive adjective is at the beginning of a sentence.
If it's at the beginning, I think I stress either the adjective or the noun, without following any apparent rules. Maybe I tend to stress the adjective more often, but I'm not sure.

Any comments? Thanks in advance

Re: Words that are spelled the same but have different meanings

Hoa Thai — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:16:50 GMT

Dear all,

All passages below are from âCrazy Englishâ â by Richard Lederer, POCKET BOOKS. (I tried to find an Internet link, but failed. So please pardon me for the length of the text, which I believe would be very informative).

âHETERONYMS â words with same spelling as other words but with different pronunciations and meanings.

Listen, readers, toward me bow.
Be friendly; do not draw the bow.
Please donât try to start a row.
Sit peacefully, all in a row.
Donât squeal like a big, fat sow.
Do not the seeds of discord sow.

Membership in the exclusive club of heteronyms is strict, and tandems such as resume and rÃ©sumÃ© and pate and pÃ¢tÃ© are not admitted because the accent constitutes a change in spelling. Pseudo-heteronymic pairs like insult (noun) and insult (verb), â¦, read (present-tense verb) and read (past-tense verb), and primer (beginnerâs book) and primer (base coat of paint) are fairly common in English language, but they are not true heteronyms because their etymologies are so closely related. True heteronymic pairs that are not closely related in word formation are among the rarest occurrences.â

Richard gives these sentences:

After the slaver had sold his slaves, he could slaver over the money he made.
The unionized stockroom workers stacked bottles of ionized and unionized solutions.
The storm began to buffet the outdoor buffet.
The steam-driven tower pulled the disabled boat to the lighthouse tower.
The sewer threw her sewing into the sewer.
She is now resorting to resorting the mail.
He became resigned to the fact that he had resigned an unfair contract.

And he shares with us this poem:

Please go through the entrance of this little poem.
I guarantee it will entrance you.
The content will certainly make you content.
And the knowledge gained sure will enhance you.

A boy moped around when his parents refused.
For him a new moped to buy.
The incense he burned did incense him to go.
On a tear with a tear in his eye.

He ragged on his parents, felt they ran him ragged.
He just deserts they never gave.
He imagined them out on some deserts so dry.
Where for water theyâd search and theyâd rave.

At present he just wonât present or converse
On the converse of each high-flown theory
Or circles and axes in math class; he has
Many axes to grind, isnât cheery

He tries to play basketball, but often skied out,
So when the snows came, he just skied.
But he then broke a leg putting on his ski boots,
And his putting in golf was in need.

He once held the lead in a cross-country race,
âTil his legs started feeling like lead.
And when the pain peaked, he looked kind of peaked.
His liver felt liver, then dead.

A number of times he felt number, all wound
Up, like one with a wound, not a wand.
His new TV console just couldnât console
Or slough off a slough of despond.

The rugged boy paced âround his shaggy rugged room,
And he spent the whole evening till dawn
Evening out the cross-winds of his hate.
Now my anecdote winds on and on.

He thought: âDoes the prancing of so many does
Explain why down dove the white dove,
Or why a p ussy cat has a p ussy old sore
And bass sing in bass notes of their loves?â

Do they always sing, âDo re miâ and stare, apage,
At eros, apage, each minute?
Their loveâs not minute; thereâs an overage of love.
Even overage fish are quite in it.

These bass fish have never been in short supply
As they supply spawn without waiting.
With their love fluids bubbling, abundant, secretive,
Thereâs many a secretive mating.

Hope you would enjoy,
Hoa Thai

Re: accents

Cvilla — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:04:44 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

Ok, I see you didn't get it. I will repeat it again. Accents and intonation aren't the same things. You can emphasize something without speaking a perfect accent, let's say American one. Just rise a pitch of your voice at the right place. This doesn't depend on a concrete accent, it is more matter of communication. Perhaps, you learnt these "tricks" at a pronunciation class, therefore you associate them only with an accent. Most learners are unaware about these topics, so most likely they will not understand you.

You're right, intonation and accent aren't the same thing. But that's because intonation is part of the accent. Like I said, other accents don't use a "trick" like the one given in the example I posted before. Additional, if you do not know how to raise your pitch, and where to raise it, you may be communicating something totally different from what you originally intented. For instance, people who often emphasize the pronoun "I" are seen as arrogant snotty people... Believe it or not. And maybe the foreigner does not know about it, and makes this "little" mistake, thus been seen by others in a bad way.

Anonymous wrote:

Believe me that international English exists, but of course not in the USA. Italians, Spaniards, Russians all have their own version of English. I'M NOT OBSESSED with fighting of accents. I just want to show that their sdudying by foreign learners are totally useless. It is because: it is extremely HARD (if you succeeded it doesn't mean that everyone will be able to do that) to tune your pronunciation to the correct one, there are not so many native speakers in the international environment; you are surrounded by various foreign accents, which you need to understand somehow, these people have various levels of English skills, they simply will not understand you if you say something like "I wanna", but you desperately need to communicate with them. Of course if you live in the terrarium like the USA then it is a different story. So, I just want to remove all obstacles in communication with everyone.

Please guide to any reliable good documentation on this "international" English you're talking about... I have never heard of it.

Now I think I get your point; however, a "common" accent is better for everybody in cases like the one you mention. If people get used to a "common" accent ~~be it American, British, or any other~~ they will have better chances of undestanding each other; instead of having portuguese, german, greek, japanese, thai, indian, arabian, and other bunch of people from many nationalities trying to undestand so many different accents (which, by the way, make their English way harder to undestand than trying to understand a native accent).