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 Jane.  Jane is an English Language Teacher who currently lives in France!  We met online, as we’re in different countries, so there were some slight delays and overlaps … but we’re all used to this now! We chatted about growing up bilingual, accents, and favourite words, but I started by asking Jane to tell me a little about herself… 

 INTERVIEW

Passion and discipline is needed to learn a language.  Jane’s right, so make sure you find fun stuff, and this helps you to work hard!   Learning words like ‘mmm…yummy!’ or expressions like ‘easy, peasy, lemon squeezy’ are a great way to play with the sounds of English, and you’ll remember them for ever!

So – this episode’s pronunciation tip is that tricky change from the ‘th’ = / ð / to / z / in plurals as Jane described with the word /clothes/.

 We really want the tip of the tongue to do the work, and we want 1 transition – 1 move - and 1 continuous sound!  This is a difficult one, so a little bit of practice!  Start with the / ð / sound (which we practiced in episode 7!) – tip of the tongue between the teeth and a gentle buzz.

Next - try the /z/ sound… Zebra.. Zoo.  Notice – where is your tongue now?  It should be just behind your bottom teeth.  Now, what we want is the tongue to move a little bit from between the teeth to behind the teeth – so let’s go slowly = ð – z   Don’t release too much air, and try not to open your mouth too much or your teeth – it’s just movement with the tongue!  Clothes!

 To practice , I have 3 more examples of words with this ending in the plural.

 First = 1 mouth, 2 mouths

 Try this sentence = “How many mouths are we feeding today?” 

 
Next = I bathe, he or she bathes 

 Try this sentence = “”He bathes in milk, she bathes in water!”

 
Finally = You breathe, he or she breathes

Try this sentence = “When she breathes in, he breathes out!”

 
Final practice = let’s put the 3 words together in one sentence:

 “He breathes, she bathes, our mouths are open.”

 
Over to you to practice!

 So there we are!  The transcript of this episode is available to read on the podcast’s webpage, so take a look!  

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

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