And English speakers complain about Spanish tenses......;-)
Thread poster: Aurora Humarán (X)
Aurora Humarán (X)
Aurora Humarán (X)  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 09:34
English to Spanish
+ ...
Apr 17, 2002

Enjoy it!

Aurora





English Pronunciation



I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble, but not you

On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,

To learn of less familiar traps?



Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead: it´s
... See more
Enjoy it!

Aurora





English Pronunciation



I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble, but not you

On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,

To learn of less familiar traps?



Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead: it´s said like bed, not bead,

For goodness sake don´t call it “deed”!

Watch out for meat and great and threat

(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).



A moth is not a moth in mother,

Not both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.

And then there´s dose and rose and lose,

Just look them up, and goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward

And font and front and word and sword,

And to and go and thwart and cart:

Come, come, I´ve hardly made a start!



A dreadful language? Man alive,

I´d mastered it when I was five!



T.S.W.

[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-04-17 17:19 ]
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Evert DELOOF-SYS
Evert DELOOF-SYS  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 13:35
Member
English to Dutch
+ ...
So true Apr 17, 2002

And what about the pronunciation?



Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he\'d prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.



Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.
... See more
And what about the pronunciation?



Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he\'d prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.



Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.



Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it\'s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.



Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.



Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation\'s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.



Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.



Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.



Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.



Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.



Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.



Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.



Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won\'t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It\'s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.



Finally, which rhymes with enough --

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!



Author Unknown








[addsig]
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Margaret Lagoyianni
Margaret Lagoyianni
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:35
English to Greek
+ ...
Pronunciation Apr 17, 2002

Excellent!



I shall use this in my English class tomorrow.


 
Joeri Van Liefferinge
Joeri Van Liefferinge  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 13:35
English to Dutch
+ ...
Great stuff - and the author is known Apr 17, 2002

Hi Evert



I learned this poem when I was in school, in our English pronunciation classes.

It was first published in \"Drop Your Foreign Accent. Engelsche Uitspraakoefeningen\". The title of the poem is \"De Chaos\", aka \"English Is Tough Stuff\" and it was written by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), a Dutch teacher, who wrote under the pen name of \"Charivarius\".


 
Evert DELOOF-SYS
Evert DELOOF-SYS  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 13:35
Member
English to Dutch
+ ...
Great Apr 17, 2002

Quote:


On 2002-04-17 19:33, King Darling wrote:

Hi Evert



I learned this poem when I was in school, in our English pronunciation classes.

It was first published in \"Drop Your Foreign Accent. Engelsche Uitspraakoefeningen\". The title of the poem is \"De Chaos\", aka \"English Is Tough Stuff\" and it was written by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), a Dutch teacher, who wrote under the pen name of \"Ch... See more
Quote:


On 2002-04-17 19:33, King Darling wrote:

Hi Evert



I learned this poem when I was in school, in our English pronunciation classes.

It was first published in \"Drop Your Foreign Accent. Engelsche Uitspraakoefeningen\". The title of the poem is \"De Chaos\", aka \"English Is Tough Stuff\" and it was written by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), a Dutch teacher, who wrote under the pen name of \"Charivarius\".





Another mystery solved - thanks!
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Elena Vazquez Fernandez
Elena Vazquez Fernandez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:35
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Thanx a lot Apr 18, 2002

Me he entretenido un rato practicando pronunciación, pero me parece que mi alumna no lo va a pasar tan bien cuando lo tenga que leer mañana



Saludos.


 
two2tango
two2tango  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 09:35
Member
English to Spanish
+ ...
Phrenzied Fonetics Apr 18, 2002




Y termina.... por lo menos en mi versión que rescaté del diccionario de Fonética..



And yet to write it, the more I tried,

I hand\'t learnt it at fifty-five.

Haydée
[addsig]


 


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And English speakers complain about Spanish tenses......;-)







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