Unit 37. A Piece of Cheese.
Pronouncing Short Words (a, of, or)
Unit 37; Part A
Short words like articles (a, the), conjunctions (and, or) and prepositions (to, of) are usually unstressed. Listen to this chant. Every line has the stress pattern oOoO. They have this rhythm because the first and third words are all unstressed. These words are: some, and, a, of, for, the, to, or, as. |
Unit 37; Part B
Important for listening! Listen again to the chant in A. Notice that the vowels in all theunstressed syllables are pronounced the same. This sound is written as /∂/ in the phonemic alphabet (see Unit 7). Also, in fast speech, the consonant sounds after the vowel in these words may not be pronounced. In this case, and sounds like an, and of sounds like a. Listen to these examples. and sounds like an: an apple and an orange and an onion of sounds like a: a bit of this and a bit of that You don't need to copy the fast speech pronunciation. People will understand you if you use careful speech. But you need to be able to understand fast speech. Note: The consonant sound in of is not dropped when the following word begins with a vowel, for example some of each. |
Unit 37; Part C
The vowel sound in to and the is different if the following word begins with a vowel. In this case, to changes from /t∂/ to /tu/, and the changes from /ð∂/ to /ði/. Listen to the difference. We need water to drink and food tо eat I'll have the fish, and the apple pie for dessert. |
Exercises
| Unit 36 Unit 37 Unit 38 | |