Hello!  And welcome to Chat Eng – a podcast where people chat about how they learn and use English.  My name is Sam, I’m a CELTA teacher and a performer, and I have a particular interest in pronunciation and expression.   

 In each episode, non-native and native speakers will chat about their experiences with English, share their advice and, at the end, I’ll give some pronunciation tips for you to take away and practice.  

So – ready?  Let’s get Chat ENG! 

This episode I’m chatting with Anna.   As we were online, you might hear a few glitches or gremlins … which we’ve all had to deal with!   We chatted about learning English at school, ‘small talk’ and words that don’t look like they sound… but I started by asking Anna to tell me a little about herself… 

INTERVIEW


Good advice from Anna – try and immerse yourself in an English environment.  Getting to an English-speaking country might be even more difficult in 2021 than usual, so think about other ways to immerse yourself … you could put an English-language radio station on when you’re at home, follow English recipes when cooking or you could organise video chats with other English learners … regular contact with English content will definitely help you improve!

 
So, this episode’s Pronunciation tip is about the number of syllables in a word.   When we see vocabulary we don’t know, or we’re not sure about, we try to pronounce all the sounds we see – the consonants and the vowels – but not every vowel sound is necessary! Anna’s excellent example was ‘Worcester” which looks like it should be pronounced – Wor – ces – ter – but, in fact it’s “wors – ter”.   I have 3 more examples of similar words and, to help, let’s think about syllables like beats in music. 

1.  First – a food we eat to be healthy = vegetable!  Looking at the word, many people try to pronounce 4 beats = / ve – ge – ta – bel / (BA - be - be - be)

In fact, we only need to pronounce 3 beats with the stress on beat 1 = / veg – te – bel / (Ba - be - be)  

Also notice that the ‘ta’ of ‘ta-ble’ is a weak sound – what is called the ‘Schwa’ sound. For learners familiar with the phonetic alphabet, this is the upside down ‘e’ – for learners who are not familiar, this means the vowel is a weak ‘eh’ sound, as in ‘mother’.

 Practice with this sentence:  “what vegetable is this?”

2.  Next – when you’re lying in bed with nice socks and pyjamas… comfortable!  Again, we see 4 beats = / com – for – ta – ble /

 But, like vegetable, we only need 3 beats with the stress on beat 1 = / COMF – te – ble /.  Again, the ‘ta’ of ‘table’ is the ‘Schwa’ sound ‘eh’. 

Practice with this sentence:  “My bed is very comfortable!” 

3.  Finally – a person who works in an office and sends emails and letters for the boss – a secretary! Many people say / se – cre – ta – ry / with 4 beats, and this is ok – but try saying the word with 3 beats = / se – cre – try / 

Practice with this sentence: “The new secretary starts today!” 

Final practice – try this sentence:  “Is the secretary comfortable with buying vegetables?”

Over to you to practice! 

  
So there we are!  The transcript of this episode is available to read on the podcast’s website.  

 Join me next time for more pronunciation tips, more advice and, most importantly, more chatting!

My thanks again to Anna and, for her music, a massive thanks to the wonderful Mara Carlyle.   Bye for now!