English Banana.com Website: iTunes: Podcast: Facebook: Talk a Lot: Please leave feedback and a rating if you enjoyed the lesson, and add me to your friends! Thank you :o)

Before we start: Please don’t take my speech during these lessons as a model of good pronunciation! I’m deliberately speaking more slowly than my normal speed, so that you can understand me more easily.

English Pronunciation Practice Let’s Write English How We Speak It! English Pronunciation Method - Instructions English Pronunciation Method - Practice Page New English Alphabet Talk a Lot Handbook (Free Download) html?tag=mncol

Main Principles:  English spelling is broken. It’s supposed to represent sounds, but it doesn’t.  When I write words I hear them in my head. What I hear is different from what I have to write. Why does it have to be?  Spelling impedes communication.  We write word by word, but we speak syllable by syllable.  We use vowel to consonant (vc) sound connections between syllables. Friendly consonant sounds: n, m, ng  The old phonetic alphabet cannot be typed on a keyboard.  The new phonetic alphabet shows: individual syllables | stressed syllables | schwas | glottal stops  Each sound has one character or cluster, which always looks the same, e.g. /{/ of “bag” is represented by “a”.  Learn about how English native speakers actually speak.  Practise listening skills.  You hear the authentic voice of the writer as you read their text.

Practical Tips: The vowel sounds on the stressed syllables are the most important sounds. A capital letter at the start of a syllable indicates that it is stressed. Use the same punctuation marks, e.g. comma, full stop, question mark, etc. Apostrophes are needed for possession, but not for contractions. Use the instructions and grid for practical hands-on study of the principles and techniques of connected speech. There is an initial outlay of time in learning the written form of each sound, but learning is intuitive, because the sounds always look the same.

Each sound has one character or cluster, which always looks the same, e.g. cakeei bete parkarbigi bikeaicheeseee thethhouseau catashopsh Let’s Write English How We Speak It!

What is a Phoneme?  “A phoneme is a basic unit of sound used to build a language. All spoken words are made up of one or more individual phonemes. Few languages use all the sounds available to human speech. Instead, most pull from a selection of standard phonemes to create many thousands of words. Alphabets, including that of English, do not always have a one-to-one correspondence between phoneme and letter.” For example: red = 1 syllable, 3 letters, 3 phonemes (individual sounds) apple = 2 syllables, 5 letters, 3 phonemes (individual sounds)

Put these things in order from smallest to biggest: paragraph chapter page phoneme sentence letter phrase book word syllable

Put these things in order from smallest to biggest: Answer: letter (smallest) phoneme syllable word phrase sentence paragraph page chapter book (largest)

Let’s practise! If it looks strange and unfamiliar, try reading each syllable slowly, pronouncing all of the sounds fully, then getting faster, and paying attention to the stress.

shi Zheul ding uh Re Da pl.

She’s holding a red apple.

i Zcha_ ing on th Feun wi thi Zmei_. He’s chatting on the phone to his mate.

i Zcha_ ing on th Feun wi thi Zmei_. He’s chatting on the phone to his mate.

th r sm Kee Zniy r Bloo Mug.

There are some keys near a blue mug.

sm wn Sang ing Au_ their Wo shing.

Someone’s hanging out their washing.

thi Sbloo Wai_ Bei bii Luu Ksung grii!

This blue-eyed baby looks hungry!

ai Dlu vt bii r La ksing on thi speech!

I’d love to be relaxing on this beach!

100 Commonly Misspelled Words

a Ksept

accept

b Lee v bl

believable

Di s plin

discipline

Ei_tt

eighth