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Pronunciation

These exercises will help you to produce English sounding sentences, and to be able to control the rhythm and stress of what is said.

Stress and the Schwa Sound

Stressed syllabes

The rhythm of English The Schwa sound The General Rule 1 The General Rule 2 Words with Latin or Greek suffixes 1 Words with Latin or Greek suffixes 2 Words in -ion

Limericks

Limericks are short poems. They are funny – if you like that type of humour!

They are used here because they have good examples of the contractions and weak forms typical of spoken English.

There once was a lady from Niger

Schwa exercise Stress exercise

There once was a lady from Ryde

Schwa exercise Stress exercise

There once was a fellow from Lyme

Schwa exercise Stress exercise

There once was a fellow from Ryde

Schwa exercise Stress exercise

There was an old man from Darjeeling

Schwa exercise Stress exercise

There was a young lady from Tottenham

Schwa exercise Stress exercise

Pronunciation of the -ed ending

To understand why there are different pronunciations to the verb ending written -ed (opened, laughed, wanted) first read the resource before doing the exercices :

Vibration and no vibration

Pronunciation of the -ed ending 1 Pronunciation of the -ed ending 2

The magic “e”

The objective of the exercises is to understand how to pronounce words which are written with a final, silent “e”.

The meaning of the words is not important. Some words are very uncommon.

Here is a question to ask yourself : What is the function of the silent letter “e” at the end of some words ? Try and find the answer for yourself as you do the exercises. You can check your hypothesis at the end in the final Magic “e” rule exercise.

Set 1

Letter A exercise Letter E exercise Letter I exercise Letter O exercise Letter U exercise

Set 2

Letter A exercise Letter E exercise Letter I exercise Letter O exercise Letter U exercise Magic “e” rule

Minimal pairs

For the moment, there’s just one exercise :

not – nut

Overview

  • Stress and the Schwa Sound
    • Stressed syllabes
    • Limericks
      • There once was a lady from Niger
      • There once was a lady from Ryde
      • There once was a fellow from Lyme
      • There once was a fellow from Ryde
      • There was an old man from Darjeeling
      • There was a young lady from Tottenham
  • Pronunciation of the -ed ending
  • The magic “e”
    • Set 1
    • Set 2
  • Minimal pairs
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Ce site a été conçu afin de promouvoir l'apprentissage de la langue anglaise sur l'internet.

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