Search results for 'tag:Verbs tag:Phonetics' matching tags 'Verbs' and 'Phonetics'

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:30:34 GMT

As a native English speaker (well perhaps not entirely native, I was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S. at the tender age of 7) I would have to say that apart from the obviously difficult aspects of the English language such as tenses, an unorthodox phonetic system employed in the language and infuriating exceptions for just about every single rule, the two most puzzling features are the Verb+Participle+Preposition combinations and the sheer vastness of the vocabulary. Observe the former...

come+up+with

come+down+with

come+foward+with

come+out+for

come+down+to

Five different constructions which would be clear as day to any native speaker, are nevertheless mind-boggling to someone who is learning the language. Notice how they all start with "come", and then imagine that sort of illogical word-scrambling applied to every verb. Daunting, isn't it? Don't know how to break it to you folks, but I haven't even scratched the surface.

Now as to the latter, I am more than happy to have dictionary.com present proof of this phenomenon in my stead. Let's take a look at the word "jump". I mean, how many possible synonyms could there be for this word? Well, one simple search can help us find out. Here's the link:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/jump

40 entries for the first definition alone. FORTY. Forty different ways to say jump. But when you break it down, do all 40 words have the same meaning? Of course not! Nosedive means to jump into something headfirst, as in a pool of water or (if you're very unfortunate) onto a hardwood floor. To spring is to jump up energetically, with an almost almighty "lurch" (another word for jump right there :P) whereas to "bob" means to make jumping motions without every actually taking your feet off the ground. The list goes on and on. No other language I'm familiar with has such variety when it comes to synonyms, be it for seemingly uncomplicated actions or deep philosophical concepts.

Although English is my native language, I am also a nearly native speaker of Russian (I give credit to my parents for preserving the language of the "motherland" and passing it on to me) and fluent in German. I find Russian to be an incredibly expressive language with just as many (if not more) nuances as English, and its ability to convey feelings of dislike, anger or downright hateful fervor (i.e. swearing) is, in my experience, unmatched. German is an incredibly logical language, and once grammar constructs are mastered, relatively straightforward in its application. Mastering German grammar is a challenge however, and word order is an utter nuisance in some situations.

Just my two cents.

Re: Teaching pronunciation of regular verbs in past simple

Titithi — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:46:58 GMT

I don't think it's necessary to explain what is a voiceless and voiced sound in past simple ( pronunciation of regular verbs). Imitating is the best way to use for teaching Elementary students. Imagine that a ten-year child should memorize a lot of vocabulary,irregular verbs for distinguishing regular verbs (at least 120 verbs) voiceless sounds and voiced sounds at the same time. It's not wise to stuff a lot into children's brain.If you use flashcards to teach children, they will learn by heart how to pronounce these regular verbs when using them to speak instead of wondering voiced or voiceless sound. After teaching about 20 verbs,you could tell them 3 cases of ending /ed/: 1) verbs finishing with the letters /t/ and /d/pronounce "ed" as /id/.

2)verbs finishing with the letters :k,x,p,s,c,ch,sh,f.pronounce "ed' as /t/.

3) the othersronounce "ed" as /d/

Children are required to memorize only two simple cases of pronunciation instead of three.They can guess the third case: If it is not in the first case and in the second case, it is in the third case. It's not easy to remember the letters that make the verbs finishing on a voiceless sound. You should give them a sentence or a phrase to have words beginning with these letters in order your students could learn by heart.For example: khi xuong phia song coi chung she falls are pronounced /t/; baked, fixed stopped,missed,forced,watched, washed,staffed. Pay attention to" raised "is pronounced /reizd/ and laughed /la:ft/.( tell them a little about sound and letter or teach them The apple song: A for apple /a/ /a/ /a/. /a/ is the sound of A.).Some verbs are not used in Elementary level.(It doesn't need to remember these verbs).In my country, phonetic is taugh only in university.

Re: Analysing grammer structures

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:38:15 GMT

She used to have long hair.

Form:		used to + base form of verb
Function:		Expresses past habits and states that are no longer true in the present
Phonology:		The final 'd' in 'used' is elided. The 'o' in 'to' is often pronounced in its weak form and can sound like 'ta'. This is represented with the phonetic symbol which is called a schwa.

I was having a bath when the phone rang.

Form:		past of âbeâ + present participle form of verb
Function:		A past event that was in process when it was interrupted by another past event.
Phonology:		Word stress falls on the verb âhavingâ and the auxiliary verb âwasâ is unstressed. Point out as well to students that the âsâ in âwasâ is pronounced as /z/. In rapid and informal speech, The âhâ in âhavingâ is elided (not pronounced). End result: or

I wish I had worked harder.

Form:		wish + subject + past perfect
Function:		To express regret about something that was or was not done in the past
Phonology:		'I had' is usually contracted to 'Iâd'.

crinkled

User_gary — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:35:22 GMT

crinkle Show phonetics
verb [I or T]
to become covered in many little lines and folds, or to cause something to do this:
She crinkled (up) her nose in distaste.

Could you explain the bold sentence?
I have no idea what this sentence could mean.

Re: The department store will be open on Jan. 1 next year.

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 20:08:24 GMT

Hi Goodman, since you seem to have skipped my post, I'll quote it below:

Anonymous wrote:

From: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=89707&dict=CALD

"welcome Show phonetics adjective
If someone is welcome, you are pleased when they visit you:
Come and see us whenever you're in town - you're always welcome/you'll always be welcome.
Out in the desert the traveller is a welcome guest."

1. They were cordially welcome.   => CORRECT; welcome = adjective

2. They were cordially welcomed by the waiter.  => CORRECT; welcome = verb, welcomed = past participle

3. They were cordially welcome by the waiter.  => INCORRECT!!!

As I rule of thumb, I'd say:

- you should always use 'welcomed' when there is an agent, because this way the sentence is clearly passive;
- when the agent is not specified, you can use both, but they are grammatically different.

I really cannot see any passive meaning in 'they were cordially welcome' (unless you specify the agent) or in 'He is always a welcome visitor.'

As for your quotes, did you notice that (except for the first one -- surely be a typo) they are from Thailand, Taiwan, Romania etc.?

Regards,

Re: The department store will be open on Jan. 1 next year.

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:16:47 GMT

Goodman wrote:

I am so convinced the tone of these examples is passive and âwelcomeâ is a past participle. I really donât mind if someone offers me a convincing answer to tell me otherwise.

Sorry, but I can't understand your point. Just check your dictionary ... welcome, welcomed, welcomed.

This does not mean that "they were welcome" is wrong!!! This is because "welcome" is also an adjective.

From: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=89707&dict=CALD

"welcome Show phonetics adjective
If someone is welcome, you are pleased when they visit you:
Come and see us whenever you're in town - you're always welcome/you'll always be welcome.
Out in the desert the traveller is a welcome guest."

1. They were cordially welcome. => CORRECT; welcome = adjective

2. They were cordially welcomed by the waiter. => CORRECT; welcome = verb, welcomed = past participle

3. They were cordially welcome by the waiter. => INCORRECT!!!

ummm almos newbe student

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:42:42 GMT

The thing is that my student has some knowledge about tences and other. But it seems to be buried deep in his subcousciosness. Actually I as a teacher has a lot of questions to you.

What should be the plan of a single lesson. In what proportion should I give grammar, vocab and phonetics.
What aspects of the grammar i should concentrate first. The studetnt has basic knowledge but he often mixes verbs and makes silly mistakes.

I'd put it like that - by the knowledge he has - he is an internediate, however by the way he uses this knowledge he's a pre-intermediate

Another global questions - do you know any online free sources with english tongue-twisters or simple dialogues.

thanx a lot guys if you can help me to build a strategy

Re: four-letter man

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:29:58 GMT

Anonymous answer to your question.

four O.E. feower, from P.Gmc. *petwor- (cf. O.S. fiwar, O.Fris. fiuwer, Frank. fitter-, Du. and Ger. vier, O.N. fjorir, Dan. fire, Sw. fyra), from PIE *qwetwor (cf. Skt. catvarah, Avestan cathwaro, Pers. catvar, Gk. tessares, L. quattuor, Oscan petora, O.C.S. cetyre, Lith. keturi, O.Ir. cethir, Welsh petguar).The phonetic evolution of the Gmc. forms has not been fully explained. Fourteen is O.E. feowertyne. Slang four-eyes "person who wears glasses" first recorded 1874. Four-flusher is 1904, from verb four-flush "to bluff a poker hand, claim a flush with only four cards in the suit" (1896). Four-letter word first attested 1934; four-letter man, however, is recorded from 1923 (as a euphemism for a ***). A four-in-hand (1793) was a carriage with four horses driven by one person; in the sense of "loosely tied necktie" it is attested from 1892. To study The History of the Four Kings (1760, cf. Fr. Livres des Quatre Rois) contains euphemistic slang phrase for "a pack of cards" from the time when card-playing was considered a wicked pastime for students. Slang 4-1-1 is from the telephone number called to get customer information.Anonymous! Don't reply.

Felipe Alonso

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:48:28 GMT

Mmm... I truly think that all this "languages' difficulties" deppend mainly about three things:

- First; your mother language. Mine is Spanish, and I'm fluent in French, Italian and Portuguese (and also English... at least, I do my best...), and all of them belong to the same family, so, the similatiry between these languages is clear.

- Second; your social and educational environment. If you have access to internet resources, books, teachers, etc will make your learning far more accurate than if yo're living in poor neighbourhoods without having the proper linguistic frames and tools;

- Third; your own motivation and decission. I'm presently learning Russian, and this is a quite hard language for me!!

And finally, to all the people who have said than English is really easy to learn and to teach... be careful! There are things about English that are far more difficult than in other languages, and one of them is pronunciation. The English pronunciation is very irregular, with almost no exactly rules for it... for instead, why EA is pronounced like "I" (using international phonetics) in words like Beat, Meat, etc; and then pronounced like "E" (the same) in Pear, Bear,? or even worse!! In the same written word, sometimes is pronounced in two different ways!!

Take "I usually read the newspaper" and "I read the newspaper yesterday morning"... the same READ get to different ways!! The same with Tear (as a noun) and Tear (as a verb), or Wound (as a noun) and Wound (as a verb)... this is something absolutely impossible in other languages... Have you native English speakers ever thought about that?

Anyway, English grammar is pretty easy, compared with other ones.

Re: I'm desperate! I need help :(

Tartan — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:39:28 GMT

8. Why do you say âShe is a one-eyed teacherâ and not âSheâs an one eyed teacherâ? (Focus on a phonetic explanation) The article an is used before vowel sounds, not vowel letters. The word one is pronounced wun. The w is not a vowel sound even though the o in o-n-e is a vowel. So a must be used before one.

9. Miss Justine Fair listened to the two Chilean students read their passages. One of them had a strong accent. The second student had no accent at all. Who got the best mark? Why? (Focus on a Phonetic explanation) Accent is a form of mispronunciation, of giving vowels and consonants different values from their standards. Mastery of a language requires control over the sounds of the language.

10. One of the teachers said âMy children need much exercise to improve their performance.â The other one said: âMy children need many exercises to improve their performance.â What kind of courses are they in charge of? Teacher One teaches a course with non-countable exercise, that is, exercise that cannot be identified as separate pieces and counted. This is probably physical exertion, as the earlier post suggested. Teacher Two teaches a course with countable exercise. This work can be counted. Perhaps these are separately numbered problems in an exercise book. Maybe this is a teacher of mathematics.

13. What is the difference between these two sentences?

Sheâs worked as a teacher for five yearsâ ...for the past five years up to now

âShe worked as a teacher for five yearsâ ...for five years, sometime in the past (maybe the past five years--we don't know)

14. Can the auxiliary âdoâ and the verb âbeâ ever be combined in a sentence? Don't be surprised.

15. Is it ever possible to say âfruitsâ or âfoodsâ? Yes, if you are talking about different varieties. At the party they served fruits and foods from all over the world. Or: Two foods I really like are pizza and chocolate chip cookies.