DELILAH- SIMPLE PAST

PLOSIVE STORY /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract.

• Use the consonant chart on the right to hear and repeat each one of these plosive consonant phonemes /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ in isolation as many times as you need to. To help you produce the sounds correctly, place a sheet of paper in front of you, you will probably notice that the paper moves (if you do it properly) as the air streem is released in the manner of a mini-explosion. Keep trying until the paper moves, it should move more with the voiceless consonants /p/ /t/ /k/ than with the voiced equivalents /b/ /d/ /g/.
  

• You can now listen to the song The story composed by Brandi Carlile.Pay special attention to the pronunciation of plosive consonants. Once you have finished listening, you can do the matching activity just underneath the video. If you want to see the lyrics as you listen, click on this link: version with the lyrics superimposed on the video.

• Do this matching puzzle activity for more practice of -ed form.
• For more listening practice on pronunciation of -ed  regular past verbs, click here.

VIVA LA VI DA. VOWELS /iː/ /ɪ/ /ʊ/ /uː/ /e/ /ɜː/ /ɔː/ /æ/ /ʌ/ /ɑː/ /ɒ/

This post has been designed principally for Spanish speakers, but it can also be useful for other nationalities by skipping the first activity and doing the rest.

 There are 46 sounds in the English sound system, 22 of which are vowel sounds. Compare this with Spanish, which has 5 vowel sounds, none of which are equivalent to any vowel sound in English. English vowels are difficult to identify and produce in most latin based languages.

• First of all, note where the vowel chart is placed in the mouth cavity (Fig B) and then observe where each vowel is produced (Fig A) . Click on the chart on the right to hear and repeat the following vowel sounds /iː/ /ɪ/ /ʊ/ /uː/ /e/ /ɜː/ /ɔː/ /æ/ /ʌ/ /ɑː/ /ɒ/ as many times as you need to.

The British band Cold Play will help to introduce some of the most confusing vowels /iː/ /ɪ/ /ʊ/ /uː/ /e/ /ɜː/ /ɔː/ /æ/ /ʌ/ /ɑː/ /ɒ/ with their song Viva la vida.

• Listen to the song and do the matching exercise by dragging the words taken from the song on the right to the corresponding vowel sound they contain, on the left. Only one answer can be correct.

• For more practice with vowel sounds.

MORNING SUN. LONG VOWELS /ɑ:/ /ɜ:/ /ɪ:/ /ɔ:/ /u:/

• Listen to British singer Robbie William's song Morning sun. As you are listening, try to locate the words containing long vowel sounds /ɑ:/ /ɜ:/ /i:/ /ɔ:/ /u:/

• Then do the crossword exercise with the transcribed words given. The words are taken from the song lyrics. To see the words, scroll down the crossword bar.
  

• Listen now to this version with lyrics.
  

• More on long vowel sounds.
  

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. 

CHASING PIRATES. DIPHTHONGS /eɪ/ /aɪ/ /əʊ/ /aʊ/

Norah Jones' swirling singing will, this time, take us into the slippery world of some diphthongs /eɪ/ /aɪ/ /əʊ/ /aʊ/ (phonemically analyzed as a sequence of a semivowel and a monophthong) with her song Chasing pirates.
WARNING: don’t confuse /əʊ/ and /aʊ/ (they are often mixed up!). Click first on the phonetic chart on the right to hear the difference.

I have to admit I chose this song because I like it, nevertheless, it does serve the purpose of showing the difference between these very diphthongs. American English is commonly described as having wide diphthongs, made with less oral tension. This is quite evident in the song where the singer (born in New York) makes little distinction between /əʊ/ /aʊ/, but she does make it.

Native-Burmese speakers find it almost impossible to pronounce diphthongs and triphthongs. The same is true of native-Caribbean speakers.

Listen to the song and fill in the gaps (using ordinary spelling, not phonetics) as you listen to it. 


For further practice with diphthongs, try this game

FRICATIVE LOVE. SHE /f/ /v/ /θ/ /ð/ /s/ /z/ /ʃ/ /ʒ/ /h/ /r/

Fricative consonants are produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together which produces friction, this air flow is called frication. Click on each of these fricative consonants /f/ /v/ /θ/ /ð/ /s/ /z/ /ʃ/ /ʒ/ /h/ /r/ in the chart on the right and repeat these sounds as many times as you need to.The fricative song She, well-known thanks to the film Notting Hill, starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, sung by Elvis Costello, was, however, composed by the Armenian Charles Aznavour, who made it number one in England in 1974.

1. Listen to the song on this video and do the gap-fill activity just underneath by typing the missing words as you listen.

1. Once finished you can do the following crossword activity with words taken from the lyrics.

1. Compare Elvis Costello's She from the film Notting Hill to Charles Aznavour's original version. Which version do you prefer?
2. Try to imagine the story of the two people featured in the video posted on this page.

DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS (FEED THE WORLD)

This song was written  by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in reaction to television reports of the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded in 1984 by Band Aid , a group of British and Irish  singers who got together to raise money for Ethiopia. Diphthong sounds are exploited this time in this song /aɪ/  /eɪ/  /əʊ/  /ɪə/  /ɒɪ/. 

-  Watch and listen to Do they Know it's Christmas and fill in the         gaps with  the missing words.

-  Can you guess who the singers are?

PAST OR PRESENT? /s/, /d/ or /t/? RUN BABY RUN

Here's a song, Run Baby Run, by Sheryl Crow to  help you identify present and past verb forms from the pronunciation of final consonants /s/,  /z/,   /d/  or  /t/.  Also to homage a good friend.

Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the correct verb form, present or  past, according to what you hear. Click first on the clue, the infinitive of the verb written phonetically.


To practice with -ed form of regular past verbs, click here

SING A SONG

VIRTUAL VISIT TO DUBLIN

Are you one of those enjoying a bit of peace and quiet at home while others burn kilometres on the road?
Not to worry, imagination can take you further if you start walking over the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin, in the photo, not a penny spent!.
Here's a TREASURE HUNT activity about Dublin for you. Click here and follow the instructions proposed in the activity. Send your answers to the link 'comments' at the end of this article.
Enjoy your visit and HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!

PURE AND SIMPLE

Listen to Pure by Liverpool band, The Lightning Seeds,  to help you identify some vowel and diphthong sounds  /ɑː/  /e/  /ɪː/  /ɪ/  /əʊ/   /aɪ/  and /uː/ and  also to celebrate the birth of a new pure and growing webpage  Habla Idiomas EOI intended to gather and share information and material for teachers and students at the State  School of Languages in Spain, EOIs (Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas).


As you listen to the song,  fill in the gaps by clicking on the clue buttons which help you identify the vowel or diphthong sounds the missing words contain.

VOWELS - SPLITTER

Hi there. Be ready to sooth your ears and read some phonetic transcription to identify the vowel sounds   /ɑː/  /æ/  /ʌ/  /e/  /ɜː/  /ɪ/  /iː/  /ɒ/  /ɔː/ /ʊ/  /uː/   through the lyrics of the song Splitter by Calexico   transcribed phonetically with the programme PhoTransEdit.

Listen to the song  and do the gap-fill exercise while listening and reading the phonetically transcribed lyrics. Click on the clue button to get a vowel phoneme  /ɑː/  /æ/  /ʌ/  /e/  /ɜː/  /ɪ/  /iː/  /ɒ/  /ɔː/ /ʊ/  /uː/ the missing word contains. Write the word in ordinary English spelling.

GLOTTAL STOP /ʔ/ AND LITTLEST THINGS

(By Rosa Maté Ibáñez and Ana López Pozo)

It's the little things that make the difference.


In this song, Littlest Things by Lilly Allen (made popular by the viral power of the net), you can learn to identify and practice glottal stop, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʔ/. This is produced by obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract. In certain positions  it may be used as an allophone of the phoneme / t/; This is known as glottalling or glottal replacement of 't'. See tutorial on glottal stop .
  
T Glottalisation is one of the features of Cockney English. See Cockney rhyming slang. The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End. Linguistically, it refers to the form of English spoken by this group. It used to be looked down on by some people but today it is becoming more common and accepted. Due to the influence of  television series and some presenters, Cokney has spread. This has led to the adoption of a mock Cockney (Mockney) accent by some celebrities  looking for street credibility.

• Listen to the song and do the gap-fill exercise while listening. Click on the clue button to get a phonetic transcription of the missing words. The clues in the gap-fill exercise for this song, Littlest Things, focus on the t glottlalisation. 

• Can you find any more words containing glottal stop in the song apart from the gapped ones?

COMMUNICATION. Linking consonants to vowels

 

 

Not understanding can be  a good reason to disconnect, both in daily communication and in life.

The clues in the gap- fill exercise for this song, Communication by the Cardigans, can help you  recognise linking features of connecting consonants to vowels and identify flap or tap t, /ɾ/, in order to understand  speech better, so that you don't have to disconnect!

• In General American, International English and colloquial British English,  /t/ can be pronounced as the so-called flap or tap t, /ɾ/,  which sounds like a short d or, more precisely, like the quick, hard r sound heard  in Spanish pero. So letter  can be heard as /leɾə/.

Within words,  /ɾ/ must be followed by a weak unstressed vowel, i.e.  /ə, i /. The /t/ is tapped    in átom  /ˈæɾəm/ ,  but not in atómic /əˈtɒmɪk/.

In connected speech, across words, this stress-sensitivity ceases to exist, and  /t/ followed by any vowel undergoes this t- to- r process; not only do we find tapping in get alóng  /ˈɡeɾəˈlɒŋ/ , where the next vowel is unstressed, but in get úp /ˈgeɾʌp/ too.

• Listen to the song and do the gap-fill exercise while listening. Click on the clue button to get a phonetic transcription of the missing letters. Be aware that in the gap you have to write the ending of a word, a space and the  next word or beginning of  it.

THE LOGICAL SONG FOR SYLLABIC CONSONANTS

This post is dedicated to all those Spanish State Teachers, colleagues of mine, who  are suffering the consequences of the regional governments  education cutbacks  in various Spanish Communities and to all those thousands of now unemployed teachers who have not been contracted by these regional governments in order to transfer the public money, thus saved,  to Private Education.  A tough situation for the teaching community  only sustainable thanks to the teachers' professionality and generosity. My  support  for their patience and excellence of their work in such difficult times.

• The Logical Song by Supertramp, a British rock band with major hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s,  can serve as  food for thought this time on the subject of State Education. The song was inspired by the experience of Roger Hodgson, the singer and composer of this song, who was sent to a private boarding school as a boy.

• Before listening to the song, read the quotations by Spanish poet Antonio Machado and philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno translated into English.

"Regarding culture and knowledge, you only lose what you save; you only gain what you give" Antonio Machado.

"True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant". Miguel de Unamuno.

 This is also a perfect song to practise Syllabic Consonants,  a phonetic element that normally patterns as a consonant, but may fill a vowel slot in a syllable. A weak, unstressed syllable often has a schwa /ə / in it. But if the schwa is omitted, we are left with a syllabic consonant,  a syllable where the vowel and the consonant have merged into one.

The syllabic consonants  n, l,  r, m  are phonetically represented  as  / n̩ /   / l̩/  /m̩/   /r̩ / 

Here are some examples:
button     /ˈbʌtn̩/
widen    /ˈwaɪdn̩/
able        /ˈeɪbl̩ /
bottle      /ˈbɒtl̩ /

blossom   /ˈblɒsm̩/ 

Syllabic r occurs in words like

history      /ˈhɪstr̩i/
Hungary   /ˈhʌŋɡr̩i/ 

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

• What's the song about? Can you find a connection  between the quotations and the song. 
• Discuss the subject of Private vs State Education in your country.

DECEMBER /ɪ/ /iː/ /ʌ/ /əʊ/

Inspiring month for a rainy song, December by Norah Jones. The front vowels /ɪ/ /iː/and central vowel and diphthong /ʌ/ /əʊ/ mix harmonically in this almost syllabic song sung with nearly every syllable distinctly pronounced.

• Listen to the song and complete the gap fill activity using the words in the box and the clues given in the ? buttons.

• Here's a version with lyrics and a live version. Can you spot any differences between the lyrics of the two versions?

THINK OF ME /θɪŋkˈəvˌmi:/

• A long awaited post for those who asked for a song rich in the contrasting front-close vowels /i:/ and /ɪ/ and the diphthong /aɪ/. Andrew LLoyd Webber's Think of me can serve as an example.

• Listen to the song and complete the gap fill activity using the clues given in the '?' buttons.

• Here's an amateur version and a version with lyrics.
• For more practice with minimal pairs /i:/ and /ɪ/.

THAT DAY. /S/ INITIAL POSITION

Some latin based languages tend to add an intrusive 'e' sound before the /s/ sound when it is followed by a consonant in initial position.

eg: 'e'Steve 'e'speaks 'e'Spanish.

The song That Day by Natalie Imbruglia will help in the practice of the sound /s/ in initial position as well as the practice of this sound in connected speech. Try to hear the language as chunks of speech rather than individual words. In this way you will soon be able to hear (and then hopefully produce) language as it is really spoken rather than as you think it is spoken.

• Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the missing words, most of them are adjectives connected by commas. As you fill in the gaps remember to write the commas when needed or your answer will be seen as incorrect. If you need help click on the ? button and you will get the words transcribed phonetically.

• Further practice in phonetic transcription for advanced students. Try the following matching exercise:

These two activities have been made with the help of PhoTransEdit, a programme for transcribing ordinary English into phonetics

WISH YOU WERE HERE. APPROXIMANTS (LIQUID AND GLIDE CONSONANTS) /l/ /r/ /j/ /w/

Liquid consonants /l/ /r/ are sounds where the airstream is obstructed, but not so much as to either stop it or create friction. Pronounce all or are very slowly and hear the difference between the vowel and the liquid consonants. Some languages trill r's, of course. In American English the /r/ is considered a retroflex because of how the tongue flexes back toward the alveolar ridge (in most dialects). /l/ is considered a lateral liquid because it is made by putting the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, then letting the airstream flow around the sides of the tongue - laterally.

Glide consonants, also known as semivowels /j/ /w/. Sounds with little or no obstruction to the airstream in the mouth.
Glides and Liquids are the closest things to vowels among the consonants - in fact, in some languages they function almost as vowels; Sanskrit, for example, has syllabic 'l' and 'r' .

1) Click on the phonemes /l/ /r/ /j/ /w/ in the consonant chart on the right before you listen to the song.

Take into account that the graphemes that stand for /j/ are:

• 'y' in initial position as in yellow, yes, you.

• 'u' and 'eu' + consonant in initial position as in university, united, Europe.
• Compression in connected speech as in tell me a story /ˈtelmjəˈstɒri/

The graphemes that stand for /w/ are:

• 'wh' as in white, where, whiskey.
• 'w' as in win, wet, wish.
• Compression in connected speech as in about to arrive /əˈbəʊtwəˈraɪv/

2) Do the gap- fill activity as you listen to the song by the legendary English rock band Pink Floyd. Use the clues (the liquid and glide consonants /l/ /r/ /j/ /w/ the words contain) as you need them, but remember you will lose points. You can repeat the activity as many times as you need to. Use the scroller on the right to move up or down.

3) Do the matching activity. Read the instructions before you do it.