Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English

Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on how different vowel lengths are used to differentiate words ending in voiced and voiceless consonants.Let’s take an example. There’s something in my eyes. There’s something in my ice. The last words in the examples, eyes and ice differ in 2 ways. One difference is the word eyes end with the sound “z”, and ice end with the sound “s”. The other difference in the pronunciation of “eyes” and “ice” is how the vowel sound “ai” is pronounced. In the wo rd “eyes”, it is longer. In the word “ice”, it is very short.Listen to the examples again, and note that the final consonant sound is not as clear as the difference in the length of the vowel. There’s something in my eyes. There’s something in my ice. Li sten again. There’s something in my eyes. There’s something in my ice. Listen to some other examples of words that are identical except for the final consonants and the vowel length. Cap, cab, plate, played, seat, seed. Today’s tip is to pay more attention to the length of vowels, as this difference is very important in distinguishing some words. Till then, tomorrow, to another tip on learning English.美语听力与发音技巧第4期（连音）Welcome to daily tips on learning English. Today’s tip is on sound linking.Although i n written English, there’re spaces between every word, in spoken English there’re always never (1)pauses between words. In order to understand spoken English, it is (2)essential to understand how this linking is done. Today let’s (3)concentrate on the most common sound linking situation. Whenever a word ending in a consonant sound is followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound, the consonant sound is linked to the vowel sound as if they were part of the same word.Let’s look at some examples. I’d like a nother bowl of rice, please. First, note that although there’re six words in the sentence, all the words are linked together without pause. Listen again. I’d like another bowl of rice, please. Now listen to how the words “like” and “another” are linked. “Like another”, “like-another”. “Like” ends in a consonant sound, and “another” begins with a vowel sound. So the “k” from “like” is linked to the “a” from “another” to produce “kanother”. Listen to the example sentence again. I’d like anotherbowl of rice, please. In the sentence there is another example of a consonant being linked to a vowel. A bowl of, a bowl-of. It sounds like that you’re saying the word “love”. Here’s another example. I’d love a bowl of rice. I’d love a bowl of rice. This sound linking i s probably the biggest problem for learners of English when they try to understand native speaker’s talking. We’ll talk more about sound linking in future daily tips, as this is an extremely import feature of spoken English. Today’s tip is to link consonan ts to vowels which come after them. Till then, tomorrow, for another daily tip.美语听力与发音技巧第5期（“h”音的略读）Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on sound linking. Remember that although written English has spaces between every word, spoken English doesn’t have pauses after every word. As a matter of fact, long strings of words are all linked together. And it is this linking, which often makes it difficult for learners of English to understand native speaker’s talking. Today’s tip is to notice how the “h” sound is often dropped in personal pronouns such as “he”, “him”, “his” and “her”. And when it is dropped, what is left is a vowel sound, and the vowel sound is always linked to the preceding word. Let’s look at an example. Give her a book. Gi v-er a book. Notice how the “h” is dropped and how “give her” become “giv-er”. Look at another example. Tell him to ask her. Tell-im to ask-er. Did you notice that “tell him” became “tell-im” and “ask her” became “ask-er”? This happens very frequently in s poken English, especially when “he” follows an auxiliary verb. For example, “what will he do?” becomes “What will-i do?” “Where will he go?” becomes “Where will-i go?” “When will he come?” becomes “When will-i come?” “Who will he meet?” becomes “Who will-i meet?” “How will he know?” becomes “How will-i know?” “Has he gone?” becomes “Has-i gone?” “Had he done it before?” becomes “Had-i done it before?” “Must he go?” becomes “Must-i go?” “Can he do it?” becomes “Can-i do it?” “Should he leave?” becomes “Shoul d-I leave?” it’s important to accustom yourself to the dropped “h” sound in sound linking. This has been today’s daily tip. Tune in tomorrow foranother tip on learning English.美语听力与发音技巧第6期（辅音连续）Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on sound linking. When 2 identical or similar consonants are in a row, most sounds are not pronounced. For example, stop Peter. “stop” ends in the sound “p”, and “Peter” begins in the same sound. Together the words are linked as “sto-peter”. The words aren’t pronounced stop Peter. To pronounce two identical sounds one after another, would sound like someone stuttering. English words are always linked smoothly. Similar but not identical sounds such as voiced and voiceless pairs of consonants are also linked in this way. For example, it’s a big cake. “big” begins in the sound “g”, cake begins with the sound “k”. “k” and “g” differ only in that “k” is voiceless and “g” is voiced. When they are next to each other in a phrase they’re linked smoothly by not aspirating or pronouncing fully the first of the 2 sounds. Listen carefully as I read the example again. It’s a big cake. Notice how the first sound “g” is not released. If the pair o f sounds is reversed, like in “I like goats.” it is the “k” sound which is not pronounced. Listen closely. I like goats. I like goats.There’re 8 pairs of consonants that differ only in the presence or lack of vocal cord vibration. Listen as I give one example of sound linking for each pair.v, f : I love France.δ,θ: Let’s bathe three times.z, s : She is Susan.з,∫: The garage should be cleaned.dз,t∫: He has a huge chin.b, p : Put the cap back on.d, t : Dad told me.k, g : I like Gavin. (? )It is important to include this type of sound linking in your speech if you want to achieve fluency. It is also important to be aware of how this linking affects how spoken English sounds. Otherwise you may not understand native speaker’s speech. This has been today’s daily tip. Tune in tomorrow for another on learning English.美语听力与发音技巧第7期（冠词“a”）Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on using or omitting the Englisharticle “a” correctly.There’s no single rule that explains how to choose whether you should use “a”, use “the” or not use any article at all. S ometimes there’s only one correct choice, and in other cases, different choices change the meaning of the sentence. Today let’s discuss the most frequently occurring differences between using the article “a” and using no article. All English nouns can be divided into 2 classes: those that are countable and those that areuncountable.It is the meaning of a noun as it is used in a sentence which determines whether it is countable or uncountable. For instance, in the sentence “She has long hair.”, “hair” is u ncountable. But in the sentence “There’s a hair in my soup.”,” hair” is countable. This can create some interesting mistakes. For example, “I like a dog” does not mean 我喜欢狗, that should be “I like dogs.” If you say “I like dog”, that means you like to eat dog meat. If you say “I ate a hamburger”, that means 我吃了一个汉堡, but if you say “I ate hamburger”, that means you ate raw ground beef. If you say “I ate a cake’, that means you ate a whole cake, which is very unlikely. You should have said, “I ate cake”, then itmeans you ate some cake.Notice how the use of the article “a” means that the noun it precedes is countable, and therefore you’re talking about a whole one, an entire one. If you omit the article “a”, then it means that you can’t count the noun it prec edes, and therefore you are talking about a piece or a quantity or something. So remember to pay careful attention to whether nouns are being used to a countable or uncountable meaning, and be sure to use or omit the article “a” accordingly. This has been today’s daily tip. Tune in tomorrow for another tip onlearning English.美语听力与发音技巧第8期（冠词的用法与读音）Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on using the articles “a”, “an” and“the” correctly.Every student of English has my sympathy in his struggles with the English articles. Theyare one of the most difficult parts of learning English. First of all, I urge you to do this. Listen to native speakers. When you listen, listen carefully, since the articles “the” and “a” are almost never emphasiz ed, they do not stand out prominently in speech, but they’re pronounced. You will have to train your ears so that you will recognize that the little sounds before certain words are articles, and not meaningless noises. Also, get in the habit of pronouncing the articles in the way native speakers do. As little sounds that are part of the word they precede. For instance, think of and say “the boy”as one word. Listen to this short sentence. The boy likes the girl. Say it naturally, the boy likes the girl. Did you notice how the articles are just small sounds linked to the nouns? Listen to another example. There is a pen on a desk in the classroom. Say it naturally, there is a pen on a desk in the classroom. Did you notice how all the sounds, especially articles are linked together? The article “an” is used before nouns beginning with a vowel sound, such as “an apple”. Notice how the “n” sound is linked to the word which follows it. Also notice that words that spelled with the letter “h” in the beginning such as “hour” also use the article “an” because the “h” isn’t pronounced. So we say, “an-our”, not “a hour”. And some words spelled with the letter “u” in the beginning such as “unicycle” use the article “a” because the first sound is the “y” sound “j”. So we say, a unicycle, not an unicycle.It’s also important to note that the pronunciation of the article “the” changes to “δi :” before words beginning with a vowel sound. So we say “δi :” elevator, not “δэ”elevator. Another tip is, do not be misled by newspaper headlines, advertisements and titles of book and so forth. They frequently omit articles which are necessary in complete sentences in both spoken and written English. Knowing when to use “a”, when to use “the”, and when not to use any article at all is undoubtably one of the most difficult aspects of learning English. We will talk about this topic more in an upcoming daily tip. Tune in tomorrow foranother tip on learning English.美语听力与发音技巧第9期（句子中的重音）Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip i s on word stress on sentences. In general, it is true that content words are stressed whereas function words are notstressed. Content words usually convey the meaning of the sentence. Function words make the sentence grammatically correct. Content words are: nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, this, that, these, those, and “wh-“ words, who, what, when, why, how, which. Function words are: articles, such as “a” and “the”; possessive adjectives, such as “his”, “my”, “your”; prepositions, such as “in”, “on”, “of”; conjunctions, such as “and”, “but”; personal pronouns, such as “ I”, “he”, “she”; the “be” verb, “am”, “is”, “are”, “was”, “were”; and auxiliaries, such as “do”, “does”, “did”.Take for example the sentence “Andrew brushes his teeth every morning.” The content word alone can c onvey the meaning of the sentence, namely “Andrew brushes teeth every morning.” The functional word “his” only makes the sentence grammatically correct. So “his” is unstressed, the other words are stressed. Why isn’t “his” stressed? Because of course he brushes his teeth, not your teeth, or my teeth. This we would naturally assume. If, however, Andrew brushes someone else’s teeth beside his own, then it would be very important to let your listener know that by stressing whose teeth he brushes.So, what words should be stressed? The simple answer is whatever words are important to the meaning you are trying to convey. if someone write the sentence on the board out of context and asks, “Which words are important? Which words should you stress?” You should answ er, “That depends on the context.” Stress is used to let your listener know what is important to your message. If you stress words properly, your listener will have an easy time understanding your message. If you stress every word equally, then your listener will have to listen very carefully and try to guess the main point of your message. If your stress the wrong words, the listener will misunderstand your message or just feel very confused. So remember to stress the important words to your massage.This has been today’s daily tip. Tune in tomorrow for another tip on learning English.美语听力与发音技巧第10期（断句）Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on the use of pauses in Englishspeech.Although written English has spaces between every word, spoken English doesn’t havepauses between each word, rather words are linked together. However, people do not normally speak without pausing at all. We do pause in speech. While in written English, there are periods, commas, semicolons and question marks. But we also pause in long sentences without punctuation marks. Let’s look at some examples. My mother listens to the radio in the evening. This sentence can be said without pausing, because it isn’t very long. But if I were to pause, I would say, “My mother/ listens to the radio/ in the evening.” Why? Because pauses come between thought groups----groups of words that express onethought.For example, “in the evening” is a thought group. Let’s make the sentence longer. My mother listens to the radio in the evening, plays tennis in the afternoon, and cleans the house in the morning. Now it is necessary to pause because the sentence is very long. Pauses come between thought groups, and help the listeners organize the information they hear. Listen to sentence again. My mother listens to the radio in the evening, plays tennis in the afternoon, and cleans the house in the morning. If you pause in the wrong places, listeners will have a harder time organizing the information. Listen to the sentence read again with improper pausing. My mother listens to the radio in/ the evening, plays tennis in /the afternoon, and cleans the/ house in the morning. Now the sentence is almost impossible to understand, so remember to pause between thought groups, to help yourlisteners easily organize what they hear.This has been today's tip on learning English. Tune in tomorrow for another tip on learningEnglish.。