Poem-Shaped Pronunciation Challenge

"The Chaos", by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), is a poem that reached me a few days ago via facebook. I have to admit that it was an interesting activity although too long a task to fulfill! If you are able to complete the reading until the very end and without a mistake, consider yourself a champion in phonectics!!!! I'll leave you with your task, which has the incredible and challenging statistics of not being correctly pronounced by 90% of native speakers!!!

Click to read the Pronunciation Challenge Poem

So....How was that??? Now you can listen to the correct pronunciation and double check your performance by clicking HERE. I didn't embed the link to avoid the temptation of easy cheating ;)

TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING SKILLS

-ED pronunciation

More often that not, we struggle to get the pronunciation of regular verbs in the past right. Tricks to it? We need to focus a bit on phonetics to master this area.
If the chart on the left means little to you in terms of actual help, try listening to this -ED pronunciation tutorial. 

Lie or Lay?

In my opinion, with the learning of Lay vs Lie comes one of the biggest challenges in the irregular verb list!!!
This generous teacher gives us a lesson (click here )on how to distinguish between:

• LAY LAID LAID (irr. transitive verb meaning to put something down)

• LIE LAY LAIN    (irr. intransititive verb meaning to recline)                                                      

• LIE LIED LIED (regular verb meaning to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive) also gets by to make things a little bit more complicated...

Watch and learn...

London Places

Here you are a very useful list of London Places you may be shy to say in case you get the name wrong. Let me help you on this one ;)

Silent Sounds in English

We are often unsure of whether some consonants should be pronounced or not. Here is a list of words containing silent sounds to make your speaking easier :D
If pronounciation is your thing, here is an article to improve your accent.

The Ides of March

On this day like this, On March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators hoping to restore the Roman republic.Watch this Shakespeare Animated tale to get to know both the story and the play.

Pronunciation Dictionary

It is very common to come across words we do not know how to pronounce so that we have to go to our dictionaries to see if we can make it with the phonetic transcription. Not easy!!!
Here is an online dictionary that does the hard work for you www.howjsay.com

However, here is some help for those lovers of phonetics. Believe me! They exist!

LONDON, LONDON

If there is a popular destination in Europe or the world!, that is definitely LONDON.
Here is a BBC link to pratise: Reading, Listening and Pronunciation ;)
Click HERE
Unit 1: Transport
Unit 2: Hotel
Unit 3: Cinema
Unit 4: Shopping
Unit 5: Work
Unit 6: Eating out