BBC Learning English - Talk about English

July 4, 2005

About this script
Please note that this is not a word for word transcript of the programme as broadcast. In the
recording and editing process changes may have been made which may not be reflected here.




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Callum: Hello and welcome to Talk about English. Im Callum Robertson.

In todays programme were going to be looking at the topic of pronunciation.
What makes good pronunciation and what is it that native speakers do when
they are talking that you can do to make your spoken English more fluent and
natural.

To discuss these topics Ive been joined today by teacher, teacher trainer and
materials writer, Alan Stanton. Hello Alan

Alan: (brief hello)


Callum: When learning a language there are many things to study and practice such as
vocabulary and grammar; skills such as reading, writing and speaking. A key to
good speaking is good pronunciation. Alan, first, how important do you think
pronunciation is as a language skill and what do we mean by good
pronunciation?

NB: The following are notes that we were used for the discussion when it was recorded. This
is not a transcript

Alan: People want to be understood when they speak to others. They dont want their
words to be mistaken for other words because they havent pronounced them



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very well. (Possible story of student who wanted to buy a train ticket to Turkey
and was sold one to Torquay)

Good pronunciation clear and comprehensible, not placing a strain on the
listener, not necessarily a perfect imitation of a particular native-speaker accent

Where to start with pronunciation because it's not the same as spelling.

Sometimes difficult to know the pronunciation from the spelling. 26 letters but
44 sounds. Can use phonemic symbols to represent these sounds. Possible to
find out the pronunciation by using a dictionary, if you know these symbols

Should students aim to sound like a native speaker?

Not essential to sound like native speaker lots of acceptable native speaker
accents. Important to understand native speakers- speech will be fast and fluent
may cause difficulties. Important to know what native speakers do when they
speak. Useful for listening to the radio, TV, films even if you dont meet many
native speakers

What are some of these things?

Weak forms
One important feature is the weak pronunciation of vowel sounds. For example
and sounds like n, of sounds like
To sounds like ..
Schwa most common weak form very prevalent in fluent speech common
in grammar words / prepositions etc

Sounds not letters



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As mentioned before there are the phonemes, sounds, which can be used to
spell the pronunciation of individual words

There are some words like cat where we can hear every sound that appears in
the spelling. Three letters, three sounds. In contrast, fought, past of fight, six
letters, three sounds. catch five letters, three sounds, caught six letters, three
sounds. through, seven letters, three sounds.


Final consonant initial vowel linking
So far weve looked at individual words but we dont usually speak in
individual words.

In writing you can see the gaps between words, but when speaking fluently it
can become difficult to hear those gaps because usually they arent there at all
and often, when two words come together we naturally do things to make them
flow easily and these things quite often mean that the sound spelling of a word
will change. If we take the phrase 'a cup of tea'

'a' 'cup' ' of' 'tea'

but when we say them together as part of sentence, different things happen -
We could say cup of tea very slowly but usually we join the words together


'cupevtea'

So what is happening here?




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A number of things, one to look at today - linking where we join two words
together. Happens in different ways.

When a word ending in a consonant sound is followed by a word beginning in
a vowel sound, there is a smooth transition from one to the other. Cup of
becomes cupev
This is very common and can be found in just about any example of speech.
Here are a few sentences from a BBC News report about traffic problems in a
small Russian town.

INSERT NEWS insert
By Russian standards Tashtagol is a tiny little town - just twenty-thousand people, a few
streets and a handful of roads. So you may be surprised to learn that traffic problems here
have been causing chaos - not because of cars but because of cows.

Highlight examples from text and comment as necessary

INSERTS (Can be played in as short clips)
..is a tiny little town
a few streets and a handful of roads
not because of cars but because of cows

These examples (above) show linking to a weak form which is very common
but not just with weak forms, all consonant vowel combinations -

We have an example of that here

INSERT switch off



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"Don't forget to switch off the light before you go out"

Comment on 'switch off' - linking to a strong vowel

And that can sometimes lead to misunderstandings can't it?

Eg fry degg instead of fried egg I scream/ice cream. Switch off the light
may sound, because of linking as if there is a word choff

Consonant to vowel linking the most common, but not the only form of linking.

If we listen to the end of the switch off the light sentence, we can hear another
kind of linking

INSERT switch off
"Don't forget to switch off the light before you go out"

When a word ending in a vowel sound is followed by a word beginning in a
vowel sound, we need to add another sound to make the transition between the
words smooth we add either a /w/ as in 'win' or a /j/ as in yes.

So, for example, do it sounds like dowit
and I am is pronounced like Iyam.
In this example we had 'go out' 'gowout'

Outline when /w/ and when /j/

When a word ends in o or u, we can hear a w sound. When it ends in I or ee or i,
we can hear j (Strictly speaking it is rounded and spread lip position but it is



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best to keep it simple. It is not possible to get these wrong only not to do
them at all because it is a purely physiological reaction)

Some examples

Contrast: three eggs (j sound) two eggs (w sound)
Go up, go in, go out, no entry (all w)
See it (j)


Callum: Thats just about all we have time for today. Before we go a quick recap, Alan,
what are the main points we talked about today?

Alan: Number of letters not the same as the number of sounds
Weak forms very common a, to, of
Final consonant linking to following vowel (sit up_)
Final vowel linking to following vowel as w or j (two eggs. Three eggs)

Callum: Remember you can listen to our programmes online and do a range of
exercises including pronunciation practice on our website at
bbclearningenglish.com

Hope you can join us next time for more Talk about English. Goodbye