Making your speech more natural and more fluent (2) Continuing with more exercises on how to make your speech more fluent and sound more natural, and therefore, minimize the chances for experiencing communication breakdowns, here are some more mini-dialogues to practice both specific pronunciations of contracted forms as well as to practice overall features of pronunciation in the English language. Match part A of these mini-dialogues to their correspondent part B. In each of both parts, identify their corresponding content words or more prominent words by circling/underlining them. Then start practicing by reading them aloud. A: He’s leaving now ___ B: Let’s ask that farmer. A: We’re arriving at ten. B: I thought he’d gone already. A: I haven’t got any money on me. (UK) A: I don’t have any money on me. (Am) B: Yes, I think it’s ridiculous. A: Do you think it’d be okay to camp here? B: It’ll be good to see you. A: You should’ve taken the job. ___ B: Well, let’s eat now. A: I suppose you’ve heard Tom’s idea? ___ B: Don’t worry. I’ve got my credit card. A: I’m starving. B: You’re right. I should. As explained before, contracted forms are spoken forms of written format or organized lexical units in grammatical configurations. So when speaking, it’s absolutely normal, and further recommendable, to use contracted forms even if written forms are in long ones. For example, you might find the following sentence: “Those are too big, but these will fit”. The underlined lexical units are the ones that in normal and fluent speech should be uttered in their contracted forms. The production of such sentence should be something like: Can you utter such sentence following the IPA symbols and especially, giving the intonation contour indicated in the above transcription? In normal speech, these two ideas, utterances, should be clearly pronounce in, say, ONE SECOND and, maybe, with one or three milliseconds more extra. Like in the following exercises, with which you’re supposed to so the same practice, identify content words, practice pronunciation, fluency, intonation and contracted forms. Nº SENTENCES / UTTERANCES 1 My feet will get wet because my shoes have got holes in them. 2 There is no butter, but this will do instead. 3 I am sure David would help you if he could. 4 How did they know we would be there? 5 Diego has phoned to say he is not ready to go yet, but he will call again when he is. (no more that 4 sec’s) 6 There have been four parcels delivered for you while you have been away. (no more than 2 sec’s) 7 What will you do if Freddy has already gone?

Making Speech More Fluent 2

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Making your speech more natural and more fluent (2)

Continuing with more exercises on how to make your speech more fluent and sound more

natural, and therefore, minimize the chances for experiencing communication breakdowns, here

are some more mini-dialogues to practice both specific pronunciations of contracted forms as well

as to practice overall features of pronunciation in the English language. Match part A of these

mini-dialogues to their correspondent part B. In each of both parts, identify their corresponding

content words or more prominent words by circling/underlining them. Then start practicing by

reading them aloud.

A: He’s leaving now ___ B: Let’s ask that farmer.A: We’re arriving at ten. ___ B: I thought he’d gone already.A: I haven’t got any money on me. (UK)

A: I don’t have any money on me. (Am)

___ B: Yes, I think it’s ridiculous.

A: Do you think it’d be okay to camp here? ___ B: It’ll be good to see you.A: You should’ve taken the job. ___ B: Well, let’s eat now.A: I suppose you’ve heard Tom’s idea? ___ B: Don’t worry. I’ve got my credit card.A: I’m starving. ___ B: You’re right. I should.

As explained before, contracted forms are spoken forms of written format or organized lexical

units in grammatical configurations. So when speaking, it’s absolutely normal, and further

recommendable, to use contracted forms even if written forms are in long ones. For example, you

might find the following sentence: “Those are too big, but these will fit”. The underlined lexicalunits are the ones that in normal and fluent speech should be uttered in their contracted forms.

The production of such sentence should be something like:

Can you utter such sentence following the IPA symbols and especially, giving the intonation

contour indicated in the above transcription? In normal speech, these two ideas, utterances,

should be clearly pronounce in, say, ONE SECOND and, maybe, with one or three milliseconds

more extra. Like in the following exercises, with which you’re supposed to so the same practice,

identify content words, practice pronunciation, fluency, intonation and contracted forms.

Nº SENTENCES / UTTERANCES

1 My feet will get wet because my shoes have got holes in them.2 There is no butter, but this will do instead.3 I am sure David would help you if he could.4 How did they know we would be there?5 Diego has phoned to say he is not ready to go yet, but he will call again when he is.

(no more that 4 sec’s) 6 There have been four parcels delivered for you while you have been away.

(no more than 2 sec’s)

7 What will you do if Freddy has already gone?