Speaking and pronunciation

There's a lot to be said on this subject! So, after a gap of 3 years (gulp) here am I, conscious of my silence and eager to make up for it. Speaking and pronunciation is the weak point that many students struggle with. I know, it's scary! "People will not understand me, they will not even try to. They will laugh at me!" Well, if they laugh at you, they are not worth your time. Imagine how they would manage speaking your language. (They could not do it – and if the person laughing is a 'friend' from your own country, they are not helpful, and not a good friend.) If you can, that is if they are not a customer in your job, just move on. Remember, they are not worth your time! Two important phrases to remember are: 1. Could you please speak more slowly? 2. Could you please repeat that? (Or – could you please repeat what you said?) (Can you think of any other phrases that are useful?) Word stress. Syllabification Syllabification means dividing a word into syllables. For example – donkey has two syllables – don- key Rule 1. every syllable has one vowel sound. Rule 2 . the number of vowel sounds in a word equals the number of syllables. In English, the following general tendencies apply. Two syllable nouns and adjectives Stress on the first syllable - examples are apple, table, happy Oo Exceptions are: Hotel lagoon Words which can be used both as nouns and as verbs The noun has stress on the first syllable. Oo "You are the suspect!" The verb has a stress on the second syllable oO "I suspect you!" Compound nouns Fairly equally balanced but with a stronger stress on the first part. Examples are Hairbrush football Words with more than 2 syllables are another matter and generally differ between British English and American English. Examples: Caribbean Aluminium ooOo (British English) Caribbean Aluminum oOoo American English. The general tendency in British English is to stress the 3rd syllable, although there are many exceptions! Three syllable words: usually we stress the first syllable, but that depends on the last syllable. For example, words ending in 'er' or 'ly' stress the first syllable. For words ending in 'ial' the stress can vary – social, financial, differential. Words ending in 'cian' generally stress the second syllable – musician, physician A general rule piece of advice, is that when you come across a new word and put it into your vocabulary notebook, make a note of the pronunciation. This is where the IPA chart comes in handy! Exercises. Put these words above into the right box according to stress: one example for each box has been done for you. Oo oO Ooo oOo ooOo business afford Olympics information Wonderful Believe Computer Japan Breakfast Penicillin President The best thing to do is LISTEN as much as you can to native speakers, if you are in an English speaking country.

A Warning

Hello, greetings and salutations - I see it has been a very long time! It has just come to my attention that this blog is being read by an unknown number of numbskulls, trolls and bullies who found it somewhere and are sadly, not learning anything but are on the attack - so genuine readers/learners - be careful! It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that that these freaks (think Gamergate, if you know what that is) might try to track down followers and scam, spam or otherwise cause chaos! The mad men should know, I hope, that comments are subject to moderation, and hack they ever so diligently, they can't get past that!

Advertising and business language 20th June 2013 This too, is by request. I had a student, a while ago, ask me about the meaning of an advertising slogan he had heard recently. It said : “'We make the people who make it “ (UNITEC Institute of Technology, Auckland) What does this mean? I had someone ask me about this some time ago, and it's a good question! It uses the verb 'make' in two senses – the literal, and the idiomatic. We make (or form, teach and develop students who achieve things.) This is what their advertising agency said about the spot. “The campaign, created by Special Group with media strategy from Naked Communications, focuses on 'heroing' the Unitec graduates who helped build Auckland into the city it is today. The TVC, with a distinctly urban feel, shot by director Andy Morton of 8com, (who also directed last year's 'Change Starts Here' documentary campaign for Unitec) marks the cornerstone of the campaign and establishes the feel for a host of other elements that will roll out over the coming months” and “The directive of the campaign is to drive awareness and interest in Unitec's Faculty of Technology and Built Environment with a creative approach which continues to break the tertiary education marketing sector norm. This faculty encompasses courses including the traditional 'trades' such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical engineering, drain laying, automotive mechanics and boat building as well as civil engineering, construction management, surveying and property development” Here we can see that the verb 'make', makes another appearance – in the literal sense again, because it's about people who make things. What do you think of the noun hero being made into a verb? Does that happen in your language? Is it right, or does it, to use another idiom, 'set your teeth on edge'? Another advertising campaign to confuse, was this: "it will have your tongue and belly dancing". (McDonalds burger advertisement, seen on the back of a bus. But what does it mean? Not what I thought it meant! Put a comma in the logical place, and you get “It will have your tongue and belly, dancing” ) yes, that's what it means. But as Belly Dancing is a particular type of dancing, when I first saw it, I was very confused. I did not realise that 'dancing' as used in this slogan, is actually a verb, and not an adjectival noun! Both of these advertisements bring up something you will have noticed in your reading of English. You will find it in advertisements, news bulletins and signs if you live in an English-speaking country. I am talking about 'verbing' nouns (turning nouns into verbs) and 'nouning' verbs. Some examples I have seen recently are: Rebuild. (A verb now a noun). For example, 'led by the Canterbury rebuild'. (News item, Radio New Zealand, 20 June 2013) Heroing (noun to verb) as in the text above. Disconnect (verb to noun). Example: 'There is a disconnect between our ambitions and our actual profit'. Spend. (Verb to noun). 'Save $100 on your weekly grocery spend!' This one has been in use for at least 15 years. Access. (Noun to verb). Example: 'This lift does not access Level 2'. in fact recent dictionaries have bowed to the inevitable and now have the verb as a secondary meaning of access. The problem for learners of course, is ambiguity. The parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc, are important cues for when you encounter new vocabulary. The next part of this article covers business jargon. All professions have their own language (or jargon, as it is called) and business – a very new profession, is no exception. These phrases have become idioms in many cases – and in many cases, are widely hated! Every year, lists of common phrases that people hate, are published, and every year, one of the following will appear in one list or another. 1.At this point in time. (Meaning, now.) 2.At the end of the day. (Finally, when we finish) 3.Going forward – (meaning, in the future) 4.Roll out – (meaning, begin and continue a new project - (although in the field of car sales, 'roll out' has another meaning – which I don't understand) 5.Take on board - (meaning, listen to and take into account) All professional jargon is specialised but business jargon is the only one to have entered general use and further, to expect to be understood! The purpose would seem to be to make what it being stated seem more complicated than it is. After all, why use on word when you can use 15? Advertisements have been responsible for some common mis-spellings and neologisms. Many of these have entered the general language. The earliest that I remember my parents being upset about, is 'lite'. Perhaps this word ought to be reserved for discussion of weight, or fat content, as opposed to illumination? Then it might make a useful distinction. Finally - a few infelicities that puzzle me. Here in New Zealand, we use New Zealand English. We also use SI units - metres, kilometres, kilograms, and temperatures in Celsius. However, I have recently seen TV advertisements, made in New Zealand, that talk about weight loss in pounds and give distances in miles, and temperatures in Fahrenheit! The advertiser is being somewhat foolish, unless it is true that the market - the New Zealand population have absorbed to much American TV that they attach more meaning to pounds and miles than they do to the units they would have learned at school. Lastly, two emails from a business organisation informed me that they came from the New Zealand Post Contact Center. Being your expert, I had to email back and point out the error to both senders. It truly hurt me to type 'center' but it had to be done.

Punctuation - finally!

Punctuation This entry, too, is by request, because last year, a student asked me about punctuation. Well, it's really very simple! First, and most important, comes this: . It is called a full stop, because that's what it does. A full stop comes at the end of a sentence, to signal that the sentence has finished. A sentence must have a verb, but it can be as short as “I ate apples” or as long as 'The woman I met, the one who lives across town, and who is a doctor, told me that my hat had gone'. The second sentence brings me to the , The comma signals a pause. (Try reading your sentence aloud to yourself if you are unsure, and you will hear where a comma should go, if it is required.) Commas also separate clauses, as you can see above in the second sentence. There are two different types of clauses, those which can stand on their own (in the sentence above, “The woman I met .. told me that my hat had gone” , and those that can't stand alone, which are called subordinate clauses. ('the one who lives across town', 'and who is a doctor') Next, comes the apostrophe: ' This is perhaps the most abused punctuation mark inn the English language. It's used (as I did just there) to indicate that something has been omitted (in this case, the 'I' in “it is”, and apostrophes are also used to indicate possession – as in 'This is Leon's bag'. Apostrophes should NEVER be used in plurals, although this is an increasingly common error amongst native speakers. Brackets ( and ) are used like commas, to separate clauses and thoughts. They are also used in mathematics., but we won't cover that here! Which brings us the exclamation mark: ! (as used above) – for emphasis and to show shock and surprise. Example – 'Rachael won the song contest? I don't believe it!' in the sentence above, you will also have seen the question mark : ? It's very simple in speech to show that something is a question, just by intonation, but in writing a signal is needed. For example 'where did you buy your dress? It's lovely'. Speech marks, or as I was taught at school to call them, 'quotation marks', distinguish direct reported speech from indirect reported speech. Single inverted commas are usually used in British English, 'What is your name?' she inquired. but double inverted commas are also acceptable, and used in New Zealand and in American English. "What is your name?" she inquired. Inverted commas is another name for speech marks, and it is easy to see why! The colon: : is also a pause, a longer one and can be used to separate clauses, and the semi-colon is a shorter pause than a colon, but longer than a comma. The hyphen – is used to connect compound words such as 'bath-towel', and the dash, shorter than the hyphen, is used as a comma, in hand-writing. Well, that's all for now, but as always, readers with questions are invited to comment, or to email me. You will be most welcome!

Words in Advertising

Advertising language Often, the words of an advertising slogan can be confusing, even for native speakers. Consider this, for instance: It will have your tongue and belly dancing. (McDonalds burger advertisement, seen on the back of a bus ). But what does it mean? Not what I thought it meant! Put a comma in the logical place, and you get “It will have your tongue and belly, dancing” ) yes, that's what it means. But as Belly Dancing is a particular type of dancing, when I first saw it, I was very confused. I did not realise that 'dancing' as used in this slogan, is actually a verb, and not an adjectival noun! “'We make the people who make it “ (UNITEC Institute of Technology, Auckland) What does this mean? I had a student ask me about this some time ago, and it's a good question! It uses the verb 'make' in two senses – the literal, and the idiomatic. We make (or form, teach and develop) students who achieve things. This is what their advertising agency said about the spot. “The campaign, created by Special Group with media strategy from Naked Communications, focuses on 'heroing' the Unitec graduates who helped build Auckland into the city it is today. The TVC, with a distinctly urban feel, shot by director Andy Morton of 8com, (who also directed last year's 'Change Starts Here' documentary campaign for Unitec)marks the cornerstone of the campaign and establishes the feel for a host of other elements that will roll out over the coming months” and “The directive of the campaign is to drive awareness and interest in Unitec's Faculty of Technology and Built Environment with a creative approach which continues to break the tertiary education marketing sector norm. This faculty encompasses courses including the traditional 'trades' such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical engineering, drainlaying, automotive mechanics and boatbuilding as well as civil engineering,construction management, surveying and property development” Here we can see that the verb 'make', makes another appearance – in the literal sense again, because it's about people who make things. What do you think of the noun hero being made into a verb? Does that happen in your language? Is it right, or does it, to use another idiom, 'set your teeth on edge'? There is a story, (one of many), that I believe, sadly, is not true, about General Motors, who had an advertisement for their Chevrolet Nova cars, which was spectacularly unsuccessful in Spanish speaking countries – because of the meaning of Nova, which was thought to be No va. Can you think of any spectacularly unsuccessful advertisements from your own countries?

Serious advice

I want to add some advice about schools in New Zealand where you should (or should not) study. I strongly advise students wanting to come to New Zealand to study to avoid the school now known as Sheffield Canterbury. When it was Sheffield, it was a great school (although a small one), with caring teachers, and a great atmosphere! But unfortunately a new owner has destroyed all of that. Teachers have left, and are leaving, because the new owner has no care or concern for the needs of students, and the new teachers he has employed are very young and inexperienced. However, I am glad to say that I can recommend Taylors College, Whitireia and heaps of others in Auckland. Enjoy!

Irregular Verbs (at last!)

Irregular Verbs
Verbs come in two flavours, regular and irregular. If a verb is regular the past simple and the past
participle end in 'ed' - for example:
Infinitive: Clean finish use paint stop carry
Past simple: Cleaned finished used painted stopped carried
Past participle: Cleaned finished used painted stopped carried
we use the past participle to make the perfect tenses and for all passive forms.
Perfect tenses: (have/has/had cleaned)
I have cleaned the windows (pres perfect.)
They were still working. They hadn't finished. (past perfect).
Passive: (is cleaned/was cleaned etc.)
He was carried out of the room (past simple passive)
This gate has just been painted. (pres perfect passive.)
Irregular verbs.
When the past simple/past part do not end in 'ed', (for example: I saw/I have seen) then the verb is
irregular.
With some irregular verbs all three forms - infinitive, past simple and past participle are the same - example, hit
With others the past simple is the same as the past participle but different from the infinitive: example, tell/told.
Last, with some others, all three forms are different: example, wake/woke, woken.
Some verbs can be both regular and irregular. There are 8 of them: burn, dream, lean, learn, smell, spell, spill and spoil. They can be stated thus: burn: burned or burnt. In British English, the irregular form is more usual.
Do not be afraid of irregular verbs. There are far fewer of them than you might think, given the enormous number of words in the English language. In fact I have a list, and there are only 116 of them. That means they are easy to learn - at first you will have to consult a reference book, after that, you will find that you have learned them. There are some native speakers who get them wrong, sadly, so reading cannot always be your guide. Also as usual, there are differences
between American English (Am. E) and British English (B.E). An example is lighted/lit. Americans don't use lit as “Daria lit the lamp” but always say lighted. “She lighted the lamp”. If you want to learn British English, and I presume that you do, or you would not be reading my blog, then be aware of what you read. Otherwise, my advice is as usual - read and listen, every chance you get.