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SweetFreedom Posted 11 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

"Oxford and Cambridge", your comment will be appreciated

Now I pronounce "Oxford and Cambridge", your comment will be appreciated.

  

Top answer

n/ A good way to imitate a passage is to follow the following process: - make sure you understand the meaning of the passage first - listen to the passage 2-3 times paying attention to the rhythm of what is being said - you want to aim to be able to drum out the rhythm of the utterance - listen to the passage 2-3 times paying attention to the melody of what is being said so that you can hum the tune of the utterance or play the tune on a musical instrument - then have a go at imitating the recording. You obviously have a good understanding of phonetics of individual words. I think now it would be good for you to also focus on the suprasegmental aspects of connected speech such as word linking and weak forms.

— Pronunciationkaren

  • n/ A good way to imitate a passage is to follow the following process: - make sure you understand the meaning of the passage first - listen to the passage 2-3 times paying attention to the rhythm of what is being said - you want to aim to be able to drum out the rhythm of the utterance - listen to the passage 2-3 times paying attention to the melody of what is being said so that you can hum the tune of the utterance or play the tune on a musical instrument - then have a go at imitating the recording.
  • You obviously have a good understanding of phonetics of individual words.
  • I think now it would be good for you to also focus on the suprasegmental aspects of connected speech such as word linking and weak forms.
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8 Answers
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It's not too bad SweetFreedom, but I suggest you listen to the recording below and pay particular attention to:

- how the unstressed syllables 'ford' and 'bridge' are said quite quickly and at a lower pitch
- how the d/ at the end of Oxford links to the weak form of 'and' /?n/

A good way to imitate a passage is to follow the following process:
- make sure you understand t
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English has many words of two or more syllables, one of which will be stressed more than the others. In your examples, the stress should fall on the first syllable. So, the second syllable will be less stressed; in the case of Oxford, the second vowel reduces to schwa (as in the in rapid speech). Another point: we don't trill the r in most English-speaking regions.
[ Edit: c
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Excellent, Karen, Happy Christmas.

After reading carefully your reply and then listening to your recording 2-3 times, now lemme have a go:



Any improvement? (It sounds to me that I got the word linking done but left "cam" less stressed. The rhythm improved a bit but the melody still needs much time to polish)
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Whoa! The recording is lost in transmission.
Try it again:
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Yes, that's a lot better but as you said yourself, you need to put more stress on 'Cam'.
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Thanks.
About word linking. Is my word linking correct in pronouncing "Ladies and Gentlemen"?
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It may just be the recording, but I hear /d/ instead of /z/ between ladies_and.
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