kylepounds.com (09)973-4436 621-7950
Pronunciation

Tongue-Twisters

A tongue-twister is a sequence of words that is difficult to pronounce quickly and correctly. Even native English speakers find the tongue-twisters on this page difficult to say quickly. Try them yourself. Try to say them as fast as possible, but correctly!

A proper copper coffee pot.
Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran.
Long legged ladies last longer.
Mixed biscuits, mixed biscuits.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled pepper?
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper
Where's the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?
Pink lorry, yellow lorry.
Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather.
She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.
The sixth sick Sheik's sixth sheep is sick.
Swan swam over the pond
Swim swan swim!
Swan swam back again
Well swum swan!
Three grey geese in green fields grazing.
We surely shall see the sun shine soon.

Always remember that English is not "phonetic". That means that we do not always say a word the same way it is spelled. Some words can have the same spelling but different pronunciation, for example:

· I like to read
· I have read that book

Some words have different spelling but the same pronunciation, for example:

I have read

My favorite color is red.

Vowels: a, e, i, o, u

Consonants: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z

For example, the following two words have the same sound, but different meanings and spelling:

hour, our

In the next example, the two words have the same sound and spelling, but different meanings:

bear (animal)
bear (carry)

Usually homophones are in groups of two (our, hour), but very occasionally they can be in groups of three (to, too, two) or even four. If we take our "bear" example, we can add another word to the group".

bare (naked)
bear (the animal)
bear (to tolerate)

(PHOto...graph, phoTO...grapher, photoGRAPHing

There are 2 syllables. Syllable #1 is stressed.

One word has only one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. If you hear two stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses cannot be one word. It is true that there can be a "secondary" stress in some words. But a secondary stress is much smaller than the main [primary] stress, and is only used in long words.)

We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

Stress on the first syllable:

Most 2-syllable nouns CHIna, TAble, EXport

Most 2-syllable adjectives SLENder, CLEVer, HAPpy.

stress on the last syllable:

Most 2-syllableverbs to exPORT, to deCIDE, to beGIN

Stress on penultimate syllable (penultimate = second from end)

Words ending in -ic GRAPHic, geoGRAPHic, geoLOGic Words ending in -sion and -tion teleVIsion, reveLAtion

Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end)

rule example Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy deMOcracy, dependaBIlity, phoTOgraphy, geOLogy

Words ending in -al CRItical, geoLOGical

Compound words (words with two parts)

-For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part: BLACKbird, GREENhouse.

-For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part: bad-TEMpered, old- FASHioned.

-For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part:

to underSTAND, to overFLOW Notice that (with a few rare exceptions)

* Every syllable contains at least one vowel (a, e, i, o or u) or vowel sound.