All About English

What's your favorite subject? Why?

2021-06-23T10:34:00.000-03:00

Used to vs Would

2013-08-03T09:47:00.001-03:00

Verb Tense Exercise

2013-07-31T18:01:00.000-03:00

Verb Tense Exercise 1

Simple Present / Present Continuous

Using the words in parentheses, complete the text below with the appropriate tenses, then click the "Check" button to check your answers.

1. Every Monday, Sally (drive) her kids to football practice.

2. Usually, I (work) as a secretary at ABT, but this summer I (study) French at a language school in Paris. That is why I am in Paris.

3. Shhhhh! Be quiet! John (sleep) .

4. Don't forget to take your umbrella. It (rain) .

5. I hate living in Seattle because it (rain, always) .

6. I'm sorry I can't hear what you (say) because everybody (talk) so loudly.

7. Justin (write, currently) a book about his adventures in Tibet. I hope he can find a good publisher when he is finished.

8. Jim: Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?
Denise: Oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I (go) to a movie tonight with some friends.

9. The business cards (be, normally ) printed by a company in New York. Their prices (be) inexpensive, yet the quality of their work is quite good.

10. This delicious chocolate (be) made by a small chocolatier in Zurich, Switzerland.

Verb Tense Overview with Examples

2013-07-31T17:27:00.002-03:00

Simple Present	Simple Past	Simple Future
I study English every day.	Two years ago, I studied English in England.	If you are having problems, I will help you study English. I am going to study English next year.
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
I am studying English now.	I was studying English when you called yesterday.	I will be studying English when you arrive tonight. I am going to be studying English when you arrive tonight.
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
I have studied English in several different countries.	I had studied a little English before I moved to the U.S.	I will have studied every tense by the time I finish this course. I am going to have studied every tense by the time I finish this course.
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous
I have been studying English for five years.	I had been studying English for five years before I moved to the U.S.	I will have been studying English for over two hours by the time you arrive. I am going to have been studying English for over two hours by the time you arrive.

Extracted from: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html

Videos lessons about GERUND and INFINITIVE

2013-07-25T22:29:00.000-03:00

Grammar Advanced Topics - Gerund

2013-07-25T17:26:00.000-03:00

Introduction to English Gerunds
The English gerund form of the verb is the 'ing' form of the verb. Gerunds are verbs that are used as nouns. In other words, by adding 'ing' to any verb you can change that verb into a noun. Gerunds are often used at the beginning of sentences when focusing on activity as the subject of conversation.

Examples:
Playing tennis is good for your health, and good fun!
Listening 10 minutes a day to English will help you improve your understanding of the language.
It's also possible to use gerunds in any other position in a sentence. As a direct object of a verb:
Examples:
Hanna enjoys listening to classical music.
Jason admits spending too much money on toys.

Prepositions + English GerundsEnglish Gerunds are also objects of prepositions. This means that whenever a verb follows a preposition, use the gerund or 'ing' form of the verb. This is especially important for adjective + preposition combinations and phrasal verbs (see below) which generally end in prepositions.
Examples:
I looked into buying a new computer.
Sally was afraid of walking alone in the dark.

Verbs + Gerunds
There are many verbs that are always followed by the gerund form. Here are some of the most important:
admit
advise
avoid
consider
delay
deny
discuss
enjoy
finish
keep
postpone
recommend
regret
risk
suggest
tolerate
Examples:
He avoided paying late fees on the account.
She denied knowing anything about the crime.
I postponed making a decision until Monday.
She regrets not studying French in college.
NOTE: Notice that the negative gerund form is 'not + verb + ing'

Adjective Combinations + Gerunds
Gerunds also follow common adjective + preposition combinations. Remember that prepositions are always followed by the gerund form. In other words, any adjective + preposition form you learn will always be followed by the gerund if used in combination with a verb. Here are some of the most common adjective + preposition combinations:
accustomed to
afraid of
bored with
concerned about
convinced of
dedicated to
disappointed in
exposed to
filled with
guilty of
innocent of
interested in
known for
proud of
remembered for
scared of
tired of
upset with
worried about
Examples:
She's interested in taking French lessons.
The man was found guilty of committing the crime.
Tom is proud of donating his free time to the charity.
Phrasal Verbs + Gerunds
Gerunds are used with phrasal verbs that end in prepositions. Phrasal verbs are verb phrases which are made up of two or more words, generally the verb plus one or two prepositions. Not all phrasal verbs combine with other verbs. Here are some of the most common phrasal verbs that do combine with other verbs in the gerund form:
bring about
call off
check into
cut out
figure out
get over
look into
put off
take over
Examples:
The coach called off practicing for the day.
Tom looked into finding a new job.
She took a long time to get over losing her dog.

EXTRACTED FROM: http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/English-Gerund_4.htm

Giving Advice

2013-04-05T18:19:00.000-03:00

Giving advice refers to when we tell other people what we think could help them. The most common way to give advice is by using the modal verb 'should'. There are also other forms including, 'ought to' and 'had better' which are more formal. You can also use the second conditional to give advice.
There are a number of formulas used when giving advice in English. Here are some of the most common:

You should see a doctor.
I don't think you should work so hard.
You ought to work less.
You ought not to work so hard.
If I were you, I'd work less.
If I were in your position, I'd work less.
If I were in your shoes, I'd work less.
You had better work less.
You shouldn't work so hard.
Whatever you do, don't work so hard.

After you study these constructions, take the giving advice quiz to check your understanding.

Construction

Formula	Verb Form
I don't think you should work so hard.	Use 'I don't think you should' the base form of the verb in a statement.
You ought to work less.	Use 'You ought to' the base form of the verb in a statement.
You ought not to work so hard.	Use 'You ought not to' the base form of the verb in a statement.
If I were you, If I were in your position, If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't work so hard.	Use 'If I were' 'you' OR 'in your position' OR 'your shoes' 'I wouldn't' OR 'I would' base form of the verb in a statement (A form of the conditional 2).
You had better work less.	Use 'You had better' (you'd better) the base form of the verb in a statement.
You shouldn't OR You should work less.	Use 'You should' OR 'You shouldn't' the base form of the verb in a statement.
Whatever you do, don't work so hard.	Use 'Whatever you do' the imperative.

Extracted from: http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/f_advice.htm

Game about Kind of Sentences

2013-02-03T17:57:00.000-03:00

Hey, guys!!

Here it is a link to a very nice game about kind of sentences. you'll try to help a fox finding its house by choosing the right kind of sentence. Play it! It´s awesome. So, the link is this one: http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/sensort/index_pre.html

Kind of Sentences

2013-02-03T17:42:00.001-03:00

A sentence may be one of four kinds, depending upon the number and type(s) of clauses it contains.

Review:

An independent clause contains a subject, a verb, and a complete thought.

A dependent clause contains a subject and a verb, but no complete thought.

1. A SIMPLE SENTENCE has one independent clause.

Punctuation note: NO commas separate two compound elements (subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, subjective complement, etc.) in a simple sentence.

2. A COMPOUND SENTENCE has two independent clauses joined by

A. a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so),

B. a conjunctive adverb (e.g. however, therefore), or

C. a semicolon alone.

Punctuation patterns (to match A, B, and C above):

A. Independent clause, coordinating conjunction independent clause.

B. Independent clause; conjunctive adverb, independent clause.

C. Independent clause; independent clause.

3. A COMPLEX SENTENCE has one dependent clause (headed by a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun ) joined to an independent clause.

Punctuation patterns (to match A, B, C and D above):

A. Dependent clause, independent clause

B. Independent clause dependent clause

C. Independent, nonessential dependent clause, clause.

D. Independent essential dependent clause clause.

4. A COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCE has two independent clauses joined to one or more dependent clauses.

Punctuation patterns:

Follow the rules given above for compound and complex sentences.

A compound-complex sentence is merely a combination of the two.

CONNECTORS--COMPOUND AND COMPLEX SENTENCES

Two independent clauses may be joined by

1. Coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) Ic, and ic

2. Conjunctive adverbs Ic; therefore, ic.

A dependent (subordinate) clause may be introduced by

1. Subordinating conjunctions (ADVERB CLAUSE) Dc, ic. or Ic dc.

2. Relative pronouns (ADJECTIVE CLAUSE) I, dc, c. or I dc c.

3. Relative pronoun, subordinating conjunctions, or adverbs (NOUN CLAUSE)

Extracted From: http://www.towson.edu/ows/sentences.htm

Intonation

2012-11-09T19:03:00.001-03:00

Intonation:

Intonation

Intonation contours in English

Not all rises and falls in pitch that occur in the course of an English phrase can be attributed to stress. The same set of segments and word stresses can occur with a number of pitch patterns.Consider the difference between:

You're going. (statement)
You're going? (question)

The rise and fall of pitch throughout is called its intonation contour.English has a number of intonation patterns which add conventionalized meanings to the utterance: question, statement, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm, teasing.
An important feature of English intonation is the use of an intonational accent (and extra stress) to mark the focus of a sentence. Normally this focus accent goes on the last major word of the sentence, but it can come earlier in order to emphasize one of the earlier words or to contrast it with something else.

Cross-linguistic differences

People have a tendency to think of intonation as being directly linked to the speaker's emotions. In fact, the meaning of intonation contours is as conventionalized as any other aspect of language. Different languages can use different conventions, giving rise to the potential for cross-cultural misunderstandings.Two examples of cross-linguistic differences in intonation patterns:

Contrastive emphasis

Many languages mark contrastive emphasis like English, using an intonational accent and additional stress.Many other languages use only syntactic devices for contrastive emphasis, for example, moving the emphasized phrase to the beginning of the sentence.

Instead of
- I want a car for my birthday. (as opposed to a bike)
you would have to say something like:
- A car I want for my birthday.
- It's a car that I want for my birthday.

Listeners who speak the second type of language will not necessarily interpret extra pitch and volume as marking emphasis. Listeners who don't speak the second type of language will not necessarily interpret a different word order as marking emphasis (as opposed to assuming that the speaker doesn't know basic grammar).

Questions

The normal intonation contours for questions in English use:

final rising pitch for a Yes/No question
- Are you coming today?
final falling pitch for a Wh-question
- When are you coming? Where are you going?

Using a different pattern typically adds something extra to the question. E.g., falling intonation on a Yes/No question can be interpreted as abruptness. Rising intonation on a Wh-question can imply surprise or that you didn't hear the answer the first time and are asking to have it repeated.These patterns too can be different across languages. Even small differences can be important:

reading the one language with the intonation pattern appropriate to the other can give rise to entirely unintentional effects: English with Russian intonation sounds unfriendly, rude or threatening, to the native speaker of English; Russian with an English intonation sounds affected or hypocritical to the native speaker of Russian.
Comrie (1984); "Interrogativity in Russian"

Reference: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/138/sec3/inton.htm

Intonation and Stress - Key to Understanding and Being Understood

2012-11-09T18:56:00.009-03:00

Intonation and Stress - Key to Understanding and Being Understood

By Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide

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Correct intonation and stress are the key to speaking English fluently with good pronunciation. Intonation and stress refers to the music of the English language. Words that are stressed are key to understanding and using the correct intonation brings out the meaning. After students have learned basic consonant and vowel sounds, they should move on to learning to differentiate between individual sounds by using minimal pairs. Once they are comfortable with individual words, they should move on to intonation and stress exercises such as sentence markup. The following exercise can be used by students and teachers to further help with pronunciation by focusing on the stressing content words rather than function words in the exercise below.

Intonation and Stress - Exercise Introduction

Say this sentence aloud and count how many seconds it takes.

The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance.
Time required? Probably about 5 seconds. Now, try speaking this sentence aloud.

He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening.
Time required? Probably about 5 seconds.

Wait a minute the first sentence is much shorter than the second sentence!

The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance
He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening
You are only partially right!

This simple exercise makes a very important point about how we speak and use English. Namely, English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered syllabic. What does that mean? It means that, in English, we give stress to certain words while other words are quickly spoken (some students say eaten!). In other languages, such as French or Italian, each syllable receives equal importance (there is stress, but each syllable has its own length).

Many speakers of syllabic languages don't understand why we quickly speak, or swallow, a number of words in a sentence. In syllabic languages each syllable has equal importance, and therefore equal time is needed. English however, spends more time on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, less important, words.

Let's look at a simple example: the modal verb "can". When we use the positive form of "can" we quickly glide over the can and it is hardly pronounced.

They can come on Friday . (stressed words underlined)

On the other hand, when we use the negative form "can't" we tend to stress the fact that it is the negative form by also stressing "can't".

They can't come on Friday .

As you can see from the above example the sentence, "They can't come on Friday" is longer than "They can come on Friday" because both the modal "can't" and the verb "come" are stressed.

So, what does this mean for my speaking skills?

Well, first of all, you need to understand which words we generally stress and which we do not stress. Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as

Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter
(most) principal verbs e.g. visit, construct
Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few
Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were
Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
Pronouns e.g. they, she, us

Let's return to the beginning example to demonstrate how this affects speech.

The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance . (14 syllables)

He can come on Sunday s as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening . (22 syllables)

Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words in each sentence. From this example, you can see that you needn't worry about pronouncing every word clearly to be understood (we native speakers certainly don't). You should however, concentrate on pronouncing the stressed words clearly.

Now, do some listening comprehension or go speak to your native English speaking friends and listen to how we concentrate on the stressed words rather than giving importance to each syllable. You will soon find that you can understand and communicate more because you begin to listen for (and use in speaking) stressed words. All those words that you thought you didn't understand are really not crucial for understanding the sense or making yourself understood. Stressed words are the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English.

I hope this short introduction to the importance of stress in English will help you to improve your understanding and speaking skills.

Reference: http://esl.about.com/od/speakingadvanced/a/timestress.htm

Intonation and Stress - Key to Understanding and Being Understood

2012-11-09T18:56:00.007-03:00

Intonation and Stress - Key to Understanding and Being Understood

By Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide

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Intonation and Stress - Exercise Introduction

Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter
(most) principal verbs e.g. visit, construct
Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few
Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were
Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
Pronouns e.g. they, she, us

Reference: http://esl.about.com/od/speakingadvanced/a/timestress.htm

Intonation and Stress - Key to Understanding and Being Understood

2012-11-09T18:56:00.005-03:00

Intonation and Stress - Key to Understanding and Being Understood

By Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide

See More About:

Lições de Inglês Grátis Englishtown.com/Licoes_GratisReceba Lições de Inglês 100% Grátis e Comece a Falar como um Nativo!

Aprenda inglês com Música www.voxy.comApenas 3 minutos por dia. É fácil e divertido.

Lerne Deutsch online www.Busuu.comGratis Deutsch lernen, einfach flexibel und vollkommen kostenlos!

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English Speaking EffortlessEnglishClub.com7 Rules To Help You Speak English Faster. Sign Up Now.

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Intonation and Stress - Exercise Introduction

Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter
(most) principal verbs e.g. visit, construct
Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few
Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were
Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
Pronouns e.g. they, she, us

Reference: http://esl.about.com/od/speakingadvanced/a/timestress.htm

English Pronunciation Practice Exercises 1

2012-11-09T18:49:00.005-03:00

Content or Function?

First, you need to be able to immediately distinguish between content and function words. Write down 'C' for content and 'F' for function. When you have finished click on the arrow to see if you have answered correctly.

Example: magazine (C) as (F) many (F)

went
with
just
quickly
the
hard
next to
CD ROM
open
had

Which Words?

Next, take a look at the sentences and mark the words that should be stressed. Once you have decided, click on the arrow to see if you have chosen the correct words.

Example: Jack (yes) went (yes) to the shop (yes) to grab (yes) some coke (yes).

He had finished breakfast before I arrived.
Phillip ordered a huge steak for dinner.
They will have to stay up late if they are going to finish their homework.
It must have been something in the air that caused Jack to shout.
Could you please be more quiet?

Notice how some of the shorter sentences actually have more stressed words than the longer ones (2 compared to 3). These shorter sentences can often take longer to speak than longer sentences with many function words!!!

The Music of English

English is a very rhythmic language because of this tendency to accent only certain words. For this reason, you should practice using your ear as much as possible. Often repeating spoken English without looking at the written sentence can also help you learn this 'music' of the language. Click on the audio symbol below to listen to five sentences. Each sentence will be repeated three times with gaps in-between so that you can try repeating the sentences yourself. If you need some help, here are the sentences which you can listen to and read while working on this exercise.

Helping Yourself at Home

Finally, practice speaking through the sentences below. First speak the sentence trying to carefully pronounce EVERY word. Notice how unnatural this sounds (as in the listening exercise above showing the contrast between this unnatural pronunciation and the natural way of speaking). Next, focus on speaking the sentences only working on stressing the content words. Tape yourself doing this and you will be surprised at how quickly your pronunciation improves!

He drove to work after he had finished working in the garden.
You'll find the apples next to the oranges on the shelf over there.
Maggie must have been visiting her aunt in Springtown last weekend.
Could you pass me the mustard, please?
They have been considering buying a new car as soon as they have saved enough money.

REFERENCE: http://esl.about.com/library/speaking/blpronounce_stress_words1.htm

Subject Verb Agreement

2012-10-19T12:32:00.000-03:00

The subject and verb must agree in number: both must be singular, or both must be plural. Problems occur in the present tense because one must add an -s or -es at the end of the verb when the subjects or the entity performing the action is a singular third person: he, she, it, or words for which these pronouns could substitute.
Notice the difference between singular and plural forms in the following examples:

Singular	Plural
The student sings. (He or she sings)	Your children sing. (They sing)
The bird does migrate. (It does)	Those birds do migrate. (They do)

In order to find out if your subject and verb agree, you need to be able to identify the subject of your sentence. Here are some helpful hints that will help you to decipher where your subject is and where it is not.

Where is my subject?

Most likely, your verb will agree with the first noun to the left of the verb:

The Supreme Court judge decides the appropriate penalty.

Subject: judge Verb: decides

The committee members were satisfied with the resolution.

Subject: members Verb: were
Occasionally, a sentence has the subject after the verb instead of before it. This strategy is often used for poetic effect.

Over the ripples glides a small canoe.

Subject: a small canoe Verb: glides

There was a well-known writer at the meeting.

Subject: a well-known writer Verb: was
You will not find the subject in a modifying phrase (MP), a phrase that starts with a preposition, a gerund, or a relative pronoun and that modifies the meaning of the noun or subject under discussion.

The group of students is going on a field trip.

Subject: the group MP: of students Verb: is

The survey covering seven colleges reveals a growth in enrollment.

Subject: the survey MP: covering seven colleges Verb: reveals

The speaker whom you saw at the lecture is one of the state senators from Minnesota.

Subject: the speaker MP: whom you saw at the lecture Verb: is
If subjects are joined by and, they are considered plural.

The quarterback and the coach are having a conference.

Subject: the quarterback and the coach Verb: are having
If subjects are joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the closer subject.

Either the actors or the director is at fault.

Subjects: actors, director Verb: is

Either the director or the actors are at fault.

Subjects: director, actors Verb: are
The relative pronouns (who, whom, which, and that) are either singular or plural, depending on the words they refer to.

The sales manager is a good researcher who spends a great amount of time surfing the Web for information.

Subject: the sales manager Verbs: is, spends

Sales managers are good researchers who spend a great amount of time surfing the Web for information.

Subject: sales managers Verbs: are, spend
Indefinite pronouns (someone, somebody, each, either one, everyone, or anyone) are considered singular and need singular verbs although they convey plural meaning.

Anyone who wants to pursue higher education has to pass entrance exams.

Subject: anyone Verbs: wants, has

Everyone on the committee is welcome to express his/her ideas.

Subject: everyone Verb: is
A few nouns can be either plural or singular, depending on whether they mean a group or separate individuals. These words are rarely used as plurals in modern writing.

The jury is sequestered.

Subject: jury Verb: is

The jury are having an argument.

Subject: jury Verb: are having
A few subjects look plural but are really singular or vice versa.

The news of the discovery is spreading.

Subject: news Verb: is

The mass media have publicized the facts.

Subject: mass media Verb: have publicized

The data amaze everyone.

Subject: data Verb: amaze

Resource: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/subverag.html

Subject-Verb Agreement

2012-10-02T19:42:00.002-03:00

Basic Principle: Singular subjects need singular verbs; plural subjects need plural verbs. My brother is a nutritionist. My sisters are mathematicians.
See the section on Plurals for additional help with subject-verb agreement.

The indefinite pronouns anyone, everyone, someone, no one, nobody are always singular and, therefore, require singular verbs.

Everyone has done his or her homework.
Somebody has left her purse.

Some indefinite pronouns — such as all, some — are singular or plural depending on what they're referring to. (Is the thing referred to countable or not?) Be careful choosing a verb to accompany such pronouns.

Some of the beads are missing.
Some of the water is gone.

On the other hand, there is one indefinite pronoun, none, that can be either singular or plural; it often doesn't matter whether you use a singular or a plural verb — unless something else in the sentence determines its number. (Writers generally think of none as meaning not any and will choose a plural verb, as in "None of the engines are working," but when something else makes us regard none as meaning not one, we want a singular verb, as in "None of the food is fresh.")

None of you claims responsibility for this incident?
None of you claim responsibility for this incident?
None of the students have done their homework. (In this last example, the word their precludes the use of the singular verb.

Some indefinite pronouns are particularly troublesome Everyone and everybody (listed above, also) certainly feel like more than one person and, therefore, students are sometimes tempted to use a plural verb with them. They are always singular, though. Each is often followed by a prepositional phrase ending in a plural word (Each of the cars), thus confusing the verb choice. Each, too, is always singular and requires a singular verb.

has

You would always say, "Everybody is here." This means that the word is singular and nothing will change that.

Each

Don't let the word "students" confuse you; the subject is each and each is always singular — Each is responsible.

Phrases such as together with, as well as, and along with are not the same as and. The phrase introduced by as well as or along with will modify the earlier word (mayor in this case), but it does not compound the subjects (as the word and would do).

The mayor as well as his brothers is going to prison.
The mayor and his brothers are going to jail.

The pronouns neither and either are singular and require singular verbs even though they seem to be referring, in a sense, to two things.

Neither of the two traffic lights is working.
Which shirt do you want for Christmas?
Either is fine with me.

In informal writing, neither and either sometimes take a plural verb when these pronouns are followed by a prepositional phrase beginning with of. This is particularly true of interrogative constructions: "Have either of you two clowns read the assignment?" "Are either of you taking this seriously?" Burchfield calls this "a clash between notional and actual agreement."*

The conjunction or does not conjoin (as and does): when nor or or is used the subject closer to the verb determines the number of the verb. Whether the subject comes before or after the verb doesn't matter; the proximity determines the number.

Either my father or my brothers are going to sell the house.
Neither my brothers nor my father is going to sell the house.
Are either my brothers or my father responsible?
Is either my father or my brothers responsible?

Because a sentence like "Neither my brothers nor my father is going to sell the house" sounds peculiar, it is probably a good idea to put the plural subject closer to the verb whenever that is possible.

The words there and here are never subjects.

There are two reasons [plural subject] for this.
There is no reason for this.
Here are two apples.

With these constructions (called expletive constructions), the subject follows the verb but still determines the number of the verb.

Verbs in the present tense for third-person, singular subjects (he, she, it and anything those words can stand for) have s-endings. Other verbs do not add s-endings.

Sometimes modifiers will get betwen a subject and its verb, but these modifiers must not confuse the agreement between the subject and its verb.

mayor

Sometimes nouns take weird forms and can fool us into thinking they're plural when they're really singular and vice-versa. Consult the section on the Plural Forms of Nouns and the section on Collective Nouns for additional help. Words such as glasses, pants, pliers, and scissors are regarded as plural (and require plural verbs) unless they're preceded the phrase pair of (in which case the word pair becomes the subject).

My glasses were on the bed.
My pants were torn.
A pair of plaid trousers is in the closet.

Some words end in -s and appear to be plural but are really singular and require singular verbs.

The news from the front is bad.
Measles is a dangerous disease for pregnant women.

On the other hand, some words ending in -s refer to a single thing but are nonetheless plural and require a plural verb.

My assets were wiped out in the depression.
The average worker's earnings have gone up dramatically.
Our thanks go to the workers who supported the union.

The names of sports teams that do not end in "s" will take a plural verb: the Miami Heat have been looking … , The Connecticut Sun are hoping that new talent … . See the section on plurals for help with this problem.

Fractional expressions such as half of, a part of, a percentage of, a majority of are sometimes singular and sometimes plural, depending on the meaning. (The same is true, of course, when all, any, more, most and some act as subjects.) Sums and products of mathematical processes are expressed as singular and require singular verbs. The expression "more than one" (oddly enough) takes a singular verb: "More than one student has tried this."

Some of the voters are still angry.
A large percentage of the older population is voting against her.
Two-fifths of the troops were lost in the battle.
Two-fifths of the vineyard was destroyed by fire.
Forty percent of the students are in favor of changing the policy.
Forty percent of the student body is in favor of changing the policy.
Two and two is four.
Four times four divided by two is eight.

If your sentence compounds a positive and a negative subject and one is plural, the other singular, the verb should agree with the positive subject.

The department members but not the chair have decided not to teach on Valentine's Day.
It is not the faculty members but the president who decides this issue.
It was the speaker, not his ideas, that has provoked the students to riot.

Source: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/sv_agr.htm

Resources for English learners and teachers

2012-10-01T21:25:00.003-03:00

Correct English Search

This custom Google search engine includes only sites which are known to use good English. You can use it to find English example sentences or to check your grammar.
Shaggy Dog Stories and other mp3 recordings for English learners

Twelve free mp3’s with short stories in clear American English to practice your pronunciation and listening skills.
Type IPA-based phonetic transcriptions online

Online editor with buttons and keyboard shortcuts for typing the pronunciations of English words with the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Test your English pronunciation

Do you pronounce basic English words correctly?
The sounds of English and their IPA symbols

A list of all the sounds of the English language, their IPA symbols, and audio examples.
Printable phonetic alphabets reference

PDF cheat-sheet with IPA and ASCII symbols for writing phonetic transcriptions.
Demonstration of phonetic transcription

Listen to 108 English words and read their phonetic transcriptions to get the hang of the system.
English vowel chart

See how the vowels of English are pronounced relative to each other and relative to the vowels of other languages.
Antimoon’s ASCII Phonetic Alphabet

A system for typing English phonetic transcriptions using standard keyboard characters.
Definitions of linguistic terms

A few definitions of technical linguistic terms used in our articles.
Definitions of English words

Definitions of some of the more difficult English words used in our articles, with lots of example sentences.

The sounds of English and the International Phonetic Alphabet

2012-10-01T21:17:00.005-03:00

This chart contains all the sounds (phonemes) used in the English language. For each sound, it gives:

The symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as used in phonetic transcriptions in modern dictionaries for English learners — that is, in A. C. Gimson’s phonemic system with a few additional symbols.
The chart represents British and American phonemes with one symbol. One symbol can mean two different phonemes in American and British English. See the footnotes for British-only and American-only symbols.
Two English words which use the sound. The underline shows where the sound is heard.
The links labeled Amer and Brit play sound recordings (Flash is required) where the words are pronounced in American and British English. The British version is given only where it is very different from the American version.

To print the chart, use the printable PDF version.

vowels
IPA	examples	listen
`ʌ`	cup, luck	Amer
`ɑ:`	arm, father	Amer / Brit
`æ`	cat, black	Amer
`e`	met, bed	Amer	1
`ə`	away, cinema	Amer	2
`ɜ:ʳ`	turn, learn	Amer / Brit	2
`ɪ`	hit, sitting	Amer
`i:`	see, heat	Amer
`ɒ`	hot, rock	Amer / Brit	3
`ɔ:`	call, four	Amer / Brit	4 5
`ʊ`	put, could	Amer
`u:`	blue, food	Amer
`aɪ`	five, eye	Amer
`aʊ`	now, out	Amer
`eɪ`	say, eight	Amer
`oʊ`	go, home	Amer	6
`ɔɪ`	boy, join	Amer
`eəʳ`	where, air	Amer / Brit	1 7
`ɪəʳ`	near, here	Amer / Brit	7
`ʊəʳ`	pure, tourist	Amer / Brit	7

consonants
IPA	examples	listen
`b`	bad, lab	Amer
`d`	did, lady	Amer
`f`	find, if	Amer
`g`	give, flag	Amer
`h`	how, hello	Amer
`j`	yes, yellow	Amer
`k`	cat, back	Amer
`l`	leg, little	Amer
`m`	man, lemon	Amer
`n`	no, ten	Amer
`ŋ`	sing, finger	Amer
`p`	pet, map	Amer
`r`	red, try	Amer	8
`s`	sun, miss	Amer
`ʃ`	she, crash	Amer
`t`	tea, getting	Amer	9
`tʃ`	check, church	Amer
`θ`	think, both	Amer
`ð`	this, mother	Amer
`v`	voice, five	Amer
`w`	wet, window	Amer
`z`	zoo, lazy	Amer
`ʒ`	pleasure, vision	Amer
`dʒ`	just, large	Amer

1. Almost all dictionaries use the e symbol for the vowel in bed. The problem with this convention is that e in the IPA does not stand for the vowel in bed; it stands for a different vowel that is heard, for example, in the German word Seele, or at the beginning of the eɪ sound in English. The “proper” symbol for the bed vowel is ɛ (do not confuse with ɜ:). The same goes for eə vs. ɛə.
2. In əʳ and ɜ:ʳ, the ʳ is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before a vowel (as in answering, answer it). In AmE, the ʳ is always pronounced, and the sounds are sometimes written as ɚ and ɝ.
3. In AmE, ɑ: and ɒ are one vowel, so calm and cot have the same vowel. In American transcriptions, hot is written as hɑ:t.
4. About 40% of Americans pronounce ɔ: the same way as ɑ:, so that caught and cot have the same vowel. See cot-caught merger.
5. In American transcriptions, ɔ: is often written as ɒ: (e.g. law = lɒ:), unless it is followed by r, in which case it remains an ɔ:.
6. In British transcriptions, oʊ is usually represented as əʊ. For some BrE speakers, oʊ is more appropriate (they use a rounded vowel) — for others, the proper symbol is əʊ. For American speakers, oʊ is usually more accurate.
7. In eəʳ ɪəʳ ʊəʳ, the r is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before a vowel (as in dearest, dear Ann). In AmE, the r is always pronounced, and the sounds are often written as er ɪr ʊr.
8. All dictionaries use the r symbol for the first sound in red. The problem with this convention is that r in the IPA does not stand for the British or American r; it stands for the “hard” r that is heard, for example, in the Spanish word rey or Italian vero. The “proper” symbol for the red consonant is ɹ.
9. In American English, t is often pronounced as a flap t, which sounds like d or (more accurately) like the quick, hard r heard e.g. in the Spanish word pero. For example: letter. Some dictionaries use the t ̬ symbol for the flap t.

Source: http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm#chart

Connected speech and coarticulation

2012-10-01T21:03:00.000-03:00

We normally speak by producing a continuous, connected stream of sounds, except when we pause. In most languages we can find occasional cases where a speaker makes a single segment in isolation with no sound preceding or following it (in English, for example, we can say “ah” /Aù/ if we make an interesting discovery, or “sh” /S/ if we want to call for quiet), but such cases are rare. The usual situation is for segments to fit closely together with each other. We have seen that phonetics tends to look on speech as a sequence of segments. However, to imagine these segments as discrete and independent of each other would be quite wrong. In every language we find that segments have a strong effect on other segments which are close to them. The process by which a segment is modified by its neighbours is called assimilation, and the description of assimilation has been a part of phonetic description for a long time. As we will see later, much recent phonetic research in this area refers to coarticulation instead, and we will have to discuss whether there is any significant difference between these terms. Another phenomenon of connected speech is elision, the process by which sounds that would be pronounced in slow, careful speech seem to disappear.

Assimilation

Let us look at some examples of assimilation. In French, a word-final voiceless consonant will often become voiced if followed by a voiced segment. For example, the word ‘avec’ on its own is pronounced /avek/, but when it is followed by a word beginning with a voiced consonant such as /v/ in ‘vous’ /vu/, we usually hear /aveg/. So the phrase ‘avec vous’ is often pronounced /aveg vu/. In English, we also find assimilations of voice, but it is more common to find them in the form of loss of voice, or devoicing. If the word ‘have’ occurs in final position, its final consonant /v/ will usually have some voicing, but when that /v/ is followed by a voiceless consonant it normally becomes completely voiceless; thus ‘I have to’ is likely to have the pronunciation /aI hQf tu/.

Assimilation, then, is concerned with one sound becoming phonetically similar to an adjacent sound. The examples given so far are of anticipation, where a sound is influenced by the sound which follows it; another term frequently used for this type is regressive assimilation. We also find cases where the assimilation can be called progressive: here, not surprisingly, the process is for a sound to take on characteristics from a sound which precedes it. In general, this effect is less frequently found, though it is difficult to explain why this should be so. Historically, it must have been effective in English in order to produce the different pronunciations of the ‘-s’ ending: the plural of ‘cat’ /kQt/ is ‘cats’ /kQts/ with a final /s/; the plural of ‘dog’ /dg/ is ‘dogs’ /dgz/ with /z/. The voicing of the suffix is conditioned by the voicing of the preceding final consonant.

Assimilations are traditionally classified into three main types, though as we shall see this classification is not completely adequate.

(1) One type is assimilation of voice (we have seen examples of this taken from French and English); this may take the form of a voiced segment becoming voiceless as a consequence of being adjacent to a voiceless segment; alternatively, a voiceless segment may become voiced.

(2) Another type is assimilation of place: this refers to changes in the place of articulation of a segment (usually a consonant). A well-known case is that of English word-final alveolar consonants such as /t,d,n/: if a word ending in one of these consonants is followed by a word whose initial consonant has a different place of articulation, the word-final alveolar consonant is likely to change so that it has the same place of articulation. Thus the word ‘that’ /DQt/ may be followed by ‘boy’ /bI/ and become /DQp/ (thus ‘that boy’ /DQp bI/), or it may be followed by ‘girl’ and become /DQk/ (thus ‘that girl’ /DQk gÎùl/).

(3) A third type is assimilation of manner: here one sound changes the manner of its articulation to become similar in manner to a neighbouring sound. Clear examples of this type are not easy to find; generally, they involve a change from a “stronger” consonant (one making a more substantial obstruction to the flow of air) to a “weaker” one, and are typical of rapid speech. An English example could be a rapid pronunciation of “Get some of that soap”, where instead of the expected /get sÃm «v DQt s«Up/ the speaker says /ges sÃm « DQs s«Up/, with /s/ replacing /t/ in two words.

We should now consider what the reason is for these processes. We must remember that in most cases several articulators are involved in making a speech sound, and that they are not capable of moving instantaneously. In the example of French consonant voicing, the final consonant is intrinsically voiceless, but in the example given, it is preceded by a fully voiced vowel, and is followed by a voiced consonant. To produce a voiceless consonant usually requires the opening of the vocal folds to prevent voicing from happening. If the vocal folds are instead left in the position appropriate for the voicing of the vowel context, the result is likely to be that the consonant is produced with voicing, and we can suppose that this is why the consonant becomes voiced. This argument suggests that when we find assimilation, we can usually find an explanation based on what we know about how the relevant sounds are produced.

An important question arises at this point, which concerns the role of the phoneme in assimilation processes. Much of the earlier writing on assimilation has suggested that assimilatory changes generally involve a change from one phoneme to another; for example, the example ‘I have to’ is expressed as showing a change from /v/ to /f/; ‘that girl’ is supposed to show final /t/ changing to /k/ in /DQk gÎùl/. Does this mean that all assimilations involve phonemic change of this sort? The answer must be ‘no’ – we can observe many cases in which there is a clear assimilation that does not involve phonemic change. An easy process to observe is the position of the lips. In a vowel such as English /iù/ (as in ‘see’), the lips are spread, as for a smile. In a vowel such as English /ù/ (as in ‘saw’), the lips are rounded and pushed forward. This spreading and rounding of the lips is quite a slow process, and it often happens that preceding and following sounds are also affected by it, even when they belong to a different word. Thus, the /s/ at the end of ‘this’ will tend to have spread lips in the phrase ‘this evening’ (where is precedes /iù/) and rounded lips in the phrase ‘this autumn’ (where it precedes /ù/). The effect is even more noticeable within a word: for example, the two /s/ sounds in ‘see-saw’, which precede /iù/ and /ù/ respectively, usually have very different lip-shapes. You can easily observe this effect in a mirror. The difference between rounded and non-rounded /s/ is not phonemic in English.

Can we always find an articulatory explanation for assimilation? These explanations seem to assume that we are basically lazy, and do as little work as possible – this is sometimes called the “principle of least effort”, and it does seem to explain a lot of human activity (or lack of it) in a very simple way. A good example is nasalization, particularly of vowels, and to understand this process we need to look at the activity of the soft palate or velum. When we produce a nasal consonant such as [m] or [n], the soft palate must be lowered to allow air to escape through the nasal cavity; however, for most vowels the velum is raised, preventing the escape of air by this route. In the English sentence “I know” /aI n«U/ we would expect that if each segment were produced independently of its neighbours the soft palate would first rise for /aI/, then be lowered for /n/, then raised again for /È«U/. But speech research has shown that the soft palate moves slowly and begins to make its movement some time before the completion of that movement is needed – in other words, we can see anticipation in its activity. As a result, the diphthong preceding [n] will be nasalized. We can see a more extreme example in a word like ‘morning’ /mùnIN/ where all the vowels are next to nasal consonants, and the soft palate is often left in the lowered position for the whole word, producing nasalisation of each of the vowels. In some languages, the difference between nasalized and non-nasalized vowels is phonemic, but this is not the case in English.

We have seen, then, that the picture of assimilation as a process which causes phonemic change is not adequate. The next point to make is that the simple idea of one sound influencing one neighbour is also unsatisfactory. Let us begin with an example where there is a regular process of a sound being changed only when it is both preceded and followed by an appropriate neighbour. In Tokyo Japanese, the vowels /i/ and /u/ regularly change into voiceless segments if they occur between voiceless consonants. Thus in the word ‘futon’ (the word for a type of bed), the /u/ vowel of the first syllable becomes a voiceless vowel, or simply a short burst of fricative noise, since the /u/ is preceded by the voiceless consonant /f/ and followed by the voiceless consonant /t/.

Coarticulation

The more deeply we look into the complexity of assimilatory processes, the more we need to move away from simple ideas like phoneme change and a single influencing neighbouring segment. This subject is of the most profound importance for understanding how speech is produced. If we want to follow recent experimental and theoretical work in this area that might help us to understand these processes, we must move on to the area of study known as coarticulation. In this field, the terms used in assimilation studies that were introduced above (regressive and progressive) are not usually used; it is more common to encounter the terms anticipatory and perseverative used (respectively) instead. Alternatively, terms which are easier to use but show a bias towards alphabetic writing are right-to-left and left-to-right, respectively.

The name and the concept of coarticulation have been around since the 1930’s, but it remains difficult to explain or define what coarticulation is. We have seen that traditional descriptions of assimilation appear to have concentrated on cases where a change of phoneme results from the assimilation process, or at least on cases where a clearly detectable change takes place which could be represented in phonetic transcription with a different symbol. We find a number of differences from this point of view when we study coarticulation, and I will begin by summarising these briefly. Firstly, the most important point is that we are interested in all aspects of the working together of different articulators, even if the result is difficult or impossible to detect by ear; this is because our primary interest in coarticulation phenomena is in finding a way to explain how the brain and the central nervous system control the muscles which move the articulators (the neuromuscular control of the articulators), rather than in describing the pronunciation of a particular language. Secondly, it has been demonstrated by many experimental studies that coarticulation has effects which extend much further than just from one segment to another, so coarticulation studies have to assume a more widely spread effect of segments on each other. Thirdly, we take it to be a basic principle that coarticulation is something that can be explained in physical terms, and is not arbitrary. We will now look at these three characteristics of coarticulation in more detail.

When we talk about the brain controlling the production of speech, we make the assumption that there has to be a conversion from an abstract form of the utterance we are going to produce to a physical form that can be observed and measured. Part of the theoretical study of speech consists of making theories about what the abstract form might be like. In a very simple view, the brain would have the task of deciding what is to be said, and then assembling something resembling a phonemic transcription of it which would be stored somewhere in the brain. We know that the brain has a specific area which has the job of sending commands to the many muscles in the body, including those of the vocal tract, and it is therefore assumed that the instructions to produce each phoneme are passed to this area and converted into signals which cause the articulators to move and produce speech. While the instructions are being executed, various processes cause a partial merging together of the phonemes with the result that assimilation or coarticulation takes place. This view of the process has been likened by one writer to having a conveyer belt carrying eggs (the phonemes) passing between rollers which break the eggs and mixes them together. The task of the brain is then to “unscramble” the eggs and recognise each phoneme so that understanding of the message by the listener is possible. This picture of the speech production process is a very simple one, but while it is probably true to the facts to some extent, it is inadequate in so many ways that it must be drastically modified or rejected. The most important problem is that of time and timing: when we speak, our control of the time taken by each sound we make is very accurate. Yet we know that the task of synchronising the movements of articulators is very complex: one problem is that the tracts of nerve fibres which carry the commands are of different lengths and work at different speeds. In the case of a consonant which involves a movement of the tongue tip and at the same time a movement of the vocal folds in the larynx to produce voicing, the impulses will reach the articulators in the mouth some time before they reach the larynx, yet the brain manages to arrange things in such a way that the commands all take effect at the right time. Another problem for the brain to deal with is the different mass of the various articulators: some articulators (e.g. the tip of the tongue; the vocal folds) are light and mobile, while others (the tongue body, the soft palate) are relatively heavy and difficult to move quickly. Thus the problem of inertia has an effect on the timing and overlapping found in connected speech.

Coarticulatory effects often extend further than just from one sound to its neighbour. For example, in the word “screws” /skruùz/, lip-rounding is often found extending over the whole word; it is actually required for the pronunciation of /uù/ and, for most English speakers, for the /r/ too, but it seems that the command to round the lips is sent to the articulators in time for the initial /s/ to be rounded, and this command will remain in effect after the end of the /uù/ so as to produce lip-rounding in the final /z/. This is not just an English characteristic: similar sound-sequences in French have been observed to behave in the same way. The French word “structural” contains two rounded /y/ vowels, and the lip-rounding may, again, be seen on the initial /s/ and through the word up to the beginning of the a vowel. We have already seen how the vowels in the English word ‘morning’ /mùnIN/ will tend to be nasalized as a result of the lowering of the soft palate for the nasal consonants. All languages appear to exhibit some degree of coarticulatory nasalisation of vowels adjacent to nasal consonants.

The third point is that, while studies of assimilation have tended to concentrate on clearly observable aspects of the pronunciation of a particular language, studies of coarticulatory processes are more likely to be looking for effects which are found (not necessarily in exactly the same form) in all languages because they are due to mechanical and biological limits on what the articulators can do in a given amount of time. To return to assimilation for a moment, we can observe in most accents of British English a rather surprising limit on regressive voicing assimilation. In the example “I have to”, given above, I said that the /v/ is likely to lose any voicing it might have had, if it is followed by the voiceless consonant /t/. However, it is very unusual to find an English accent which permits regressive assimilation of voicing of the opposite type, that is, a final voiceless consonant becoming voiced as a result of being followed by a voiced consonant. Although this type of assimilation is common in many languages (see for example the French example given above of “avec vous”), it is not found in English. The phrase “nice voice” /naIs vIs/ will therefore not be pronounced with the /s/ changed to /z/, though French learners of English quite commonly do make this change and say /naIz vIs/, which sounds foreign to English ears. This effect is difficult to explain in terms of coarticulation. If we explain the French change of voiceless to voiced consonant in “avec vous” as the result of the /k/ being influenced by the vocal fold activity of the neighbouring voiced consonants, how can we account for the fact that this does not happen in the case of English speakers, who are physically the same as the French speakers? The usual answer is said to lie in the difference between the phonetics and the phonology of a language: phonetically speaking, we are all built in much the same way and are subject to the same restrictions on what we can do in producing speech sounds. Phonologically speaking, however, each language has its own private set of rules, which makes it possible for each language to permit or prevent particular coarticulatory processes from taking place. In Spanish, the phonemes /b/, /d/, /g/ are normally pronounced as voiced plosives at the beginning of a word, but as voiced fricatives [B], [D], [Ä] between vowels. To Spanish speakers this seems a perfectly natural process which makes the phonemes in question more similar to vowels. In many other languages, this change from plosive to fricative does not happen at all. In others, it can be observed, but it is much less easy to detect. An example from English (BBC) would be the phrase “getting better” /getIN bet«/, which in rapid speech is often pronounced with incomplete closure for the /t/ consonants. This results in weak fricatives being produced instead of plosives, though English speakers and listeners usually do not notice this; in the English spoken in southern Ireland, the effect is much more noticeable and is often detected by English people who know nothing about phonetics. There are thus language-specific, phonological constraints on how much coarticulation, and what type of coarticulation, will be found in a particular language.

Elision

To conclude this account of connected speech and coarticulation, we should look briefly at elision. Like assimilation, this is a topic which has had its place in the description of the pronunciation of languages for a very long time. The name refers to the disappearance of one or more sounds in connected speech which would be present in a word pronounced in isolation; the effect is also found when we compare rapid speech with slow, careful speech. If we take as an example the English sentence “She looked particularly interesting”, we could expect the pronunciation in slow, careful speech to be /Si lUkt p«tIkj«l«li Int«r«stIN/ (which contains 27 phonemes); in rapid conversational speech, however, I might say /Si lUk p«tIkli IntrstIN/ (which contains 20). Where have the seven missing segments gone? The /t/ at the end of “looked” has been left out because, we may assume, producing three voiceless plosives is hard work, and in English the middle one would not be pronounced audibly in any case. The other elisions are of syllables containing the “schwa” vowel /«/, which is so weak that it is usually one of the first items to disappear when speech is produced at higher speed. So the two syllables /j«l«/ in “particularly” are left out, as are the two schwa vowels before and after the /r/ in “interesting”. As with assimilation, languages differ in which elisions, and how many, they allow, but all languages show some tendency in this direction. From the point of view of coarticulation studies, elision is not a separate process from assimilation. It is simply an extreme result of coarticulation whereby two sounds are articulated so closely in time to each other that a sound or sounds between them are completely obscured. I transcribed the rapid speech version of “looked particularly” in the above example with no /t/ at the end of “looked”; however, if we use laboratory instruments to observe what the tongue is doing, we often find that where it sounds as though a /t/ has disappeared, the tongue still makes a partial attempt to articulate a /t/, even though this is impossible to hear. Similarly, in the case of Japanese vowel devoicing, in rapid speech the vowel sometimes seems to disappear altogether; again, however, if we observe the contact between the tongue and the palate carefully, using laboratory instruments, we can see that the shape of the contact is different according to whether the missing vowel is (or was) /i/ or /u/. It would not be correct, therefore, to say that this is a case of a vowel phoneme being completely lost or deleted; it is more accurate to say that as a result of coarticulation, the neighbouring consonants have occupied all the time available and have overlapped on to the vowel.

There is a lot that we still do not understand about the changes that take place when we change from slow, careful speech to rapid, conversational speech. So much research is being carried out on this subject at the present time, however, that our knowledge is growing rapidly

Source: http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~llsroach/phon2/asscoareli-into.htm

Linking in English

2012-09-21T12:47:00.001-03:00

When we say a sentence in English, we join or "link" words to each other. Because of this linking, the words in a sentence do not always sound the same as when we say them individually. Linking is very important in English. If you recognize and use linking, two things will happen:

you will understand other people more easily
other people will understand you more easily

There are basically two types of linking:

consonant > vowel
We link words ending with a consonant sound to words beginning with a vowel sound
vowel > vowel
We link words ending with a vowel sound to words beginning with a vowel sound

In this lesson we look at:

Extracted from: http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/linking.htm

Simple, Compound and Complex Sentence Structure

2012-09-10T18:57:00.001-03:00

The Structure of a Sentence

Remember that every clause is, in a sense, a miniature sentence. A simple sentences contains only a single clause, while a compound sentence, a complex sentence, or a compound-complex sentence contains at least two clauses.

The Simple Sentence

The most basic type of sentence is the simple sentence, which contains only one clause. A simple sentence can be as short as one word:

Run!

Usually, however, the sentence has a subject as well as a predicate and both the subject and the predicate may have modifiers. All of the following are simple sentences, because each contains only one clause:

Melt!

Ice melts.

The ice melts quickly.

The ice on the river melts quickly under the warm March sun.

Lying exposed without its blanket of snow, the ice on the river melts quickly under the warm March sun.

As you can see, a simple sentence can be quite long -- it is a mistake to think that you can tell a simple sentence from a compound sentence or a complex sentence simply by its length.

The most natural sentence structure is the simple sentence: it is the first kind which children learn to speak, and it remains by far the most common sentence in the spoken language of people of all ages. In written work, simple sentences can be very effective for grabbing a reader's attention or for summing up an argument, but you have to use them with care: too many simple sentences can make your writing seem childish.

When you do use simple sentences, you should add transitional phrases to connect them to the surrounding sentences.

The Compound Sentence

A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses (or simple sentences) joined by co-ordinating conjunctions like "and," "but," and "or":

Simple: Canada is a rich country.
Simple: Still, it has many poor people.
Compound: Canada is a rich country, but still it has many poor people.

Compound sentences are very natural for English speakers -- small children learn to use them early on to connect their ideas and to avoid pausing (and allowing an adult to interrupt):

Today at school Mr. Moore brought in his pet rabbit, and he showed it to the class, and I got to pet it, and Kate held it, and we coloured pictures of it, and it ate part of my carrot at lunch, and ...

Of course, this is an extreme example, but if you over-use compound sentences in written work, your writing might seem immature.

A compound sentence is most effective when you use it to create a sense of balance or contrast between two (or more) equally-important pieces of information:

Montéal has better clubs, but Toronto has better cinemas.

Special Cases of Compound Sentences

There are two special types of compound sentences which you might want to note. First, rather than joining two simple sentences together, a co-ordinating conjunction sometimes joins two complex sentences, or one simple sentence and one complex sentence. In this case, the sentence is called a compound-complex sentence:

compound-complex: The package arrived in the morning, but the courier left before I could check the contents.

The second special case involves punctuation. It is possible to join two originally separate sentences into a compound sentence using a semicolon instead of a co-ordinating conjunction:

Sir John A. Macdonald had a serious drinking problem; when sober, however, he could be a formidable foe in the House of Commons.

Usually, a conjunctive adverb like "however" or "consequently" will appear near the beginning of the second part, but it is not required:

The sun rises in the east; it sets in the west.

The Complex Sentence

A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. Unlike a compound sentence, however, a complex sentence contains clauses which are not equal. Consider the following examples:

Simple: My friend invited me to a party. I do not want to go.
Compound: My friend invited me to a party, but I do not want to go.
Complex: Although my friend invited me to a party, I do not want to go.

In the first example, there are two separate simple sentences: "My friend invited me to a party" and "I do not want to go." The second example joins them together into a single sentence with the co-ordinating conjunction "but," but both parts could still stand as independent sentences -- they are entirely equal, and the reader cannot tell which is most important. In the third example, however, the sentence has changed quite a bit: the first clause, "Although my friend invited me to a party," has become incomplete, or a dependent clause.

A complex sentence is very different from a simple sentence or a compound sentence because it makes clear which ideas are most important. When you write

My friend invited me to a party. I do not want to go.

or even

My friend invited me to a party, but I do not want to go.

The reader will have trouble knowing which piece of information is most important to you. When you write the subordinating conjunction "although" at the beginning of the first clause, however, you make it clear that the fact that your friend invited you is less important than, or subordinate, to the fact that you do not want to go.

Written by David Megginson

http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/sntstrct.html

Video Classes about Direct and Indirect speech

2012-09-08T16:21:00.002-03:00

Word Stress in English

2012-08-25T16:17:00.000-03:00

Word Stress in English

Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English. Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Non-native speakers who speak English to native speakers without using word stress, encounter two problems:

They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast.
The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

In this lesson we look at the most important aspects of word stress, followed by a short quiz to check your understanding:

Font: http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress.htm

Rules for Sentence Stress in English

2012-08-25T16:14:00.002-03:00

Rules for Sentence Stress in English

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

content words are stressed
structure words are unstressed
the time between stressed words is always the same

The following tables can help you decide which words are content words and which words are structure words:

Content words - stressed

Words carrying the meaning	Example
main verbs	SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY
nouns	CAR, MUSIC, MARY
adjectives	RED, BIG, INTERESTING
adverbs	QUICKLY, LOUDLY, NEVER
negative auxiliaries	DON'T, AREN'T, CAN'T

Structure words - unstressed

Words for correct grammar	Example
pronouns	he, we, they
prepositions	on, at, into
articles	a, an, the
conjunctions	and, but, because
auxiliary verbs	do, be, have, can, must

Exceptions

The above rules are for for what is called "neutral" or normal stress. But sometimes we can stress a word that would normally be only a structure word, for example to correct information. Look at the following dialogue:

"They've been to Mongolia, haven't they?"
"No, THEY haven't, but WE have.

Note also that when "be" is used as a main verb, it is usually unstressed (even though in this case it is a content word).

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/sentence-stress-rules.htm

Sentence Stress

2012-08-25T16:09:00.001-03:00

Sentence Stress in English

Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast.
Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". You remember that word stress is accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.
Most sentences have two types of word:

content words
structure words

Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense.
Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence its correct form or "structure".
If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.
If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand the sentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.
Imagine that you receive this telegram message:

Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE
Click here to hear

This sentence is not complete. It is not a "grammatically correct" sentence. But you probably understand it. These 4 words communicate very well. Somebody wants you to sell their car for them because they have gone to France. We can add a few words:

Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE
Click here to hear

The new words do not really add any more information. But they make the message more correct grammatically. We can add even more words to make one complete, grammatically correct sentence. But the information is basically the same:

Content Words
Will	you	SELL	my	CAR	because	I've	GONE	to	FRANCE.
Structure Words
Click here to hear

In our sentence, the 4 key words (sell, car, gone, France) are accentuated or stressed.
Why is this important for pronunciation? It is important because it adds "music" to the language. It is the rhythm of the English language. It changes the speed at which we speak (and listen to) the language. The time between each stressed word is the same.
In our sentence, there is 1 syllable between SELL and CAR and 3 syllables between CAR and GONE. But the time (t) between SELL and CAR and between CAR and GONE is the same. We maintain a constant beat on the stressed words. To do this, we say "my" more slowly, and "because I've" more quickly. We change the speed of the small structure words so that the rhythm of the key content words stays the same.
Extracted from: http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/sentence-stress.htm

syllables

Will

you

SELL

CAR

because

I've

GONE

FRANCE.

The Supreme Court judge decides the appropriate penalty.
Subject: judge	Verb: decides

The committee members were satisfied with the resolution.
Subject: members	Verb: were

Over the ripples glides a small canoe.
Subject: a small canoe	Verb: glides

There was a well-known writer at the meeting.
Subject: a well-known writer	Verb: was

The group of students is going on a field trip.
Subject: the group	MP: of students	Verb: is

The survey covering seven colleges reveals a growth in enrollment.
Subject: the survey	MP: covering seven colleges	Verb: reveals

The speaker whom you saw at the lecture is one of the state senators from Minnesota.
Subject: the speaker	MP: whom you saw at the lecture	Verb: is

The quarterback and the coach are having a conference.
Subject: the quarterback and the coach	Verb: are having

Either the actors or the director is at fault.
Subjects: actors, director	Verb: is

Either the director or the actors are at fault.
Subjects: director, actors	Verb: are

Sales managers are good researchers who spend a great amount of time surfing the Web for information.
Subject: sales managers	Verbs: are, spend

Anyone who wants to pursue higher education has to pass entrance exams.
Subject: anyone	Verbs: wants, has

Everyone on the committee is welcome to express his/her ideas.
Subject: everyone	Verb: is

The jury is sequestered.
Subject: jury	Verb: is

The sales manager is a good researcher who spends a great amount of time surfing the Web for information.
Subject: the sales manager	Verbs: is, spends

The jury are having an argument.
Subject: jury	Verb: are having

The news of the discovery is spreading.
Subject: news	Verb: is

The mass media have publicized the facts.
Subject: mass media	Verb: have publicized