Hi everyone.

I came across this newsletter on clarity, Louder & Clear (October 2002). On the second page, two professionals expose their position on speech recognition technology. Then I began to wonder what I think about this...

First, my experience with these computer programs...
As a student of the English language since 1995, and more intensively since 2006, I've been using some English learning software for a long time. But only in these past months, when I've been taking classes on English pronunciation, I've been using accent reduction softwares. These softwares are based on Speech Recognition Technology.

Well, I do believe that the speech recognition technology is a great tool to improve pronunciation and clarity, but I also believe that it cannot be taken as the only student's tool to improve speech clarity. In my opinion, it will never substitute the teacher's role. The presence of a teacher is of most importance; the teacher can give personal feedback and pinpoint some of the main flaws the student needs to improve. Otherwise, the student would have to go through the software altogether until he finally notices where his main flaws lie. Moreover, the teacher can evaluate better what could be a potential problem in the student's speech. These softwares have so many features sometimes that the student may not know exactly on which feature his concerns should lie (pitch, intonation, rhythm, vowels, etc).

Speech recognition technology is, in my opinion, a great addition to students and can be very useful if used continuously, but it will never substitute a personal feedback from a teacher.

What's your opinion on this?

... I am posting this hilarious song by Sean Morey...

Each day I find odd things at the Internet, such as this poem, "The Chaos." I would never ever guess that something like this would exist...

So, wanna practice your English pronunciation? Try this poem!

The Chaos

Gerard Nolst Trenité.

This version is essentially the author's own final text, as also published by New River Project in 1993. A few minor corrections have however been made, and occasional words from earlier editions have been preferred. Following earlier practice, words with clashing spellings or pronunciations are here printed in italics.

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! 10

Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).

Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak, 20

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;

Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining, 30

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable - admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,

Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.

Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind, 40

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,

Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. 50

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.

Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live. 60

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.

Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;

Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy? 70

Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,

You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.

To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache. 80

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label. 90

Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",

But it is not hard to tell
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor, 100

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.

Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.

Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor", 110

Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.

Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose. 120

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.

Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,

Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring? 130

Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.

Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;

Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn. 140

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.

Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,

Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did, 150

Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.

No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,

Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme. 160

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,

But you're not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,

How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty, 170

Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,

Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,

Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan. 180

The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.

Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,

There are more but I forget 'em -

Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight - you see it; 190

With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does [1]. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,

Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath. 200

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners

Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,

Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer. 210

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;

Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it

Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry. 220

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,

Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver. 230

Never guess - it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,

Face, but preface, then grimace,

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;

Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir. 240

Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,With the sound of saw and sauce;

Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?

Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.

Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen, 250

Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),

G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.

Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll. 260

Pronunciation - think of Psyche! -
Is a paling, stout and spiky.

Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying 'grits'?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father? 270

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

[1] No, you're wrong. This is the plural of doe.

Somehow I found the video below at YouTube; three Brazilian girls (try to) talk about good health. Two things were the funniest for me: the "three SNAKES intermediaries" and at the very end when they wrote "based in real FATS"!

You see how proper pronunciation is ESSENTIAL?!  Spelling as well!

I don't know how long these girls have been studying English, but it is a good example of how the majority of Brazilians speak English when they have absolutely no live experience with the language... I wonder if I spoke like that when I came to Canada almost two years ago...

One week without posting! Not because I chose not to post, but because of a series of events since last Monday!

On May 12th they shut off the water in our building to do some work on the pipes...
My pronunciation class had been moved from Thursday to Monday to accommodate the teacher's needs. I went to the school a little early, around 6:15pm, to practice a bit at the computer. Everything was fine until the end of the class, when my husband suddenly showed up... That was not common so I began to wonder what he was doing there...

He told me that, short after he got home, a pipe blew up and flooded the entire main floor, where we used to live...

Well... The end of the story is that we had to move ALL our stuff in two days! At least the University hired a specialized company to do some of the hard work.
Another good thing is that now we are living in a six bedroom apartment! The apartment is intended for sharing bathroom and kitchen. But grated the special situation, they let my husband and me stay alone in this huge apartment!
And it is furnished, so we will be able to sell whatever we want before we move again in mid-July, God willing.

Well, God knows best!
The event made me delay the correction of my thesis, but this might be how God wanted it to be...

Now I hope to go back to my frequent posting, God willing...

Bye for now.

Laura

And I think I am beginning to love them! Really!

I bought "The Ultimate Phrasal Verb Book" by Carl H. Hart a couple of days ago and have been studying it since. There are so many phrasal verbs that just fit! And many are not considered as informal as I thought.
But because they are so many, I, as an ESL student, need time to practice and use them.


Another reason for me to love phrasal verbs is that they are an essential part of everyday speech! Natives use them all the time! Maybe it is exactly because phrasal verbs can express precisely what you want to mean.

Speaking of that, I can't forget when I took grammar classes at the beginning of this year, and I asked the professor if the preposition of a phrasal verb was considered part of the verb or just a mere preposition... She perfectly knew what I was talking about, for sure! But she had to explain to the other students -- all native English speakers -- what phrasal verbs are! I found that so funny! Then I started to wonder whether I know more aspects of English grammar than a native! Isn't that hilarious? Natives use phrasal verbs all the time but don't even know how these grammar structures are called!

You can check out this website from BBC to figure out some phrasal verbs with Fred and Betty's help...  ;)
BBC - Face up to Phrasal Verbs

See ya.

This morning I went to the Language Centre to study a bit of pronunciation. It's so cool to discover the proper pronunciation of words! I just love it! Sometimes I think I am in the wrong area... Maybe I should have done something in linguistics! But God knows best... Maybe, if this were to be my work, I wouldn't like it as much!

 
At the Language Centre there is a software for pronunciation practice that I found pretty good! I think it was developed by a working group in New Zealand. It is called "EyeSpeak." It has plenty of exercises and lessons. I enjoy a lot the exercise in which the software analyzes your speech by comparing to the standard. The program separates each sound of the word and rates it. It's awesome for self-studying! It is quite expensive though -- the premium version is about US$150.00.

I have also been looking at one particular book called The American Accent Guide, Second Edition: A Complete and Comprehensive Course on the Pronunciation and Speaking Style of American English for Individuals of All Language Backgrounds. It comes with eight (!!) CDs! I assume it might be a good tool for self-studying. Besides, it received excellent reviews at Amazon. It's a little expensive but might be as well worth it.

Just to end this post... Monday and Tuesday I helped evaluating the "test of critical skills" written by students willing to enter the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition. Many of the candidates are high school students in their 17's, 18's. I was amazed with the tests! No, they were not good... In fact, they were hideous!!!! The theme was the Kyoto Protocol; many went way off the task and had delirious propositions! But that's not the point I want to make here...

In the evaluation process, they instructed us to decrease the rating in the criterion "Technical Proficiency with the Language" if we notice that the writer was an ESL (English as Second Language) student. I found this so UNFAIR! Why decrease rating? We struggle to learn their language well and properly. Since I got in Canada I never stopped studying! Nonetheless, many natives cannot even speak French, which should be at least their second language! They don't have the smallest idea of how it is to live in a country whose language is absolutely different from their own! At least I came from a Latin language background, thus grammar and many words are very close -- if not the same. But imagine a Chinese or Arabic! And when I questioned this unfairness to another evaluator, she agreed that "ESLs do have language problems." PROBLEMS?????

I wish they tried at least to speak ONE more language than their own... Then they would know how it is like.

Later!

Very often, certain TV programs interview people whose first language is not English, but their English is quite good actually! Even though, they insert subtitles! I get so mad! If they were to insert subtitles for me, I would really go nuts!

Hi there!

Let's talk about pronunciation today...
Every Thursday I have pronunciation classes at the University's Language Centre. I just L-O-V-E! I thought I had a good pronunciation but I've found out how much I shall improve! Especially vowels. I always thought that my vowels were OK, and the consonants were the issue...  Well, just a couple of days ago I found out that bed and bad are pronounced differently!! When I studied in Brazil, they always sounded alike! Or how about pen and pan? Big trouble for me!

Surely people perfectly understand me. At least I am not aware of someone who had a hard time in figuring out what I was saying (except once or twice when I was teaching Portuguese for some Canadian students). I do have an accent, but it is not as strong as a Chinese, for example. I know many who have big issues in certain pronunciations.
But I am picky and demanding on myself. If I can improve, why not? We will never get rid of the accent, it is us! My father-in-law was from Quebec and, even living in Brazil for over 40 years, he NEVER lost his French accent. But we can improve how we pronounce certain words. It's much easier to communicate when people don't have to guess what you are saying. Although the context helps, some tricky pronunciations may let you express differently from what you want to say. A very well pronounced and clear English is so beautiful!
In that grammar course I took last term, the professor had such a beautiful English! She pronounced every single sound in a such clear way that I began to love spoken English! Weird eh? But that's true! I even began to like North-American English better than British English. The first sounds so more natural, whereas the second seems that they are coughing all the time! Maybe I am biased by my background. Brazilian Portuguese tends to be more natural and loose than the European Portuguese.

After I came to Canada I learned sooo much--I am totally convinced that you just fully learn a language when you LIVE it!
Here are some examples of things I was taught in Brazil that they don't actually say like that:

• Bed and bad, men and man, pen and pan... ARE in fact pronounced differently.
• The th in mother, father, the, and they  differs from the th in think, mouth, bathroom, and thousand : the first vibrates in a mixture of z and "blew" th, whereas the second is just "blew", without any vibration. And, yes, they DO pronounce all the th's when they speak!
• To leave and to live, to eat and it are also pronounced (absolutely) differently.
  
• 1200 is rarely one-thousand and two hundred: most common is twelve hundred!! Alike for all similar figures: 2500 (twenty-five hundred), 3100 (thirty-one hundred), etc.
• "Hi there!" --> new stuff! I've never heard this before in Brazil.
• They do use many words that are not very well stressed or emphasized in the English taught in Brazil: e.g. rather, should, might...
• They rarely use the subjunctive  (e.g. If I were you...), but it does exist, and I insist in using correctly the subjunctive, which is indeed much easier than the Portuguese or French subjunctives. And I can't remember the subjunctive being taught when I studied.
  
• Phrasal verbs are used all the time--although they don't actually know the name "phrasal verb"! And if you don't know these tricky guys, you might be lost in a conversation.
  

There are so many other examples! But right now these are what I can recall.

BTW*, I found an animation that shows a "Brazilian lion" (as if we had lions!) complaining about the zoo in England (I think). And the accents is pretty characteristic! Notice that he never says the th's!! He changes it ford's instead, e.g. that becomes "dat". Even though the accent is pretty distinguishable, his English is quite good!!

See ya.

-----------------------
*BTW = by the way