IF YOU WERE A SAILBOAT. CONDITIONAL SONG. Vowels and diphthongs

The song If you were a sailboat composed and interpreted by the  Georgian-British singer, songwriter and musician  Katie Melua, will help us this time to sail through vowels /ɪ/  /ɪː/  /ʌ/  /ɑː/  /ɒ/  /ɔ:/  /ʊ/  /uː/, diphthongs  /aɪ/  /eɪ/  /aʊ/ and conditional sentences.

This post has been inspired by the work of the English teacher  José Álvaro Álvaro, who participated in the course  Phonetics Through Songs and the programme PhoTransEdit, used for the transcriptions in the matching activity.

 

There are two activities. Elementary and intermediate students should only do the first one, the gap-fill activity.  Upper-intermediate and advanced students can do both activities:

• A gap-fill activity designed for elementary and intermediate students. Listen to the song and fill in the gaps using the "Clue" button, where the missing word is transcribed.  

• A matching activity directed at upper-intermediate and advanced students. Once you've listened to the song and completed the gap-fill activity, try to remember the lyrics and  match the transcribed main clauses on the left with the conditional clauses on the right.

• Listen now to the official version of he same song and an alternative version with different lyrics. Can you spot the differences?
• For practice on conditional sentences, click here.