Pronunciation Lessons

Center for Language Education HKUST

Introduction

These pronunciation lessons have been developed to help you:

	understand the systematic differences between English and Cantonese pronunciation;
	monitor your own speech and become aware of ways in which you can improve the intelligibility of your own spoken English;
	become aware of the rhythm of English in contrast to that of Chinese;
	use stress (strong and weak syllables) appropriately in both words and sentences;
	make use of transcription in dictionaries.

Each lesson introduces an aspect of English pronunciation and many include short tasks for practice. You can expect to finish a lesson in 15 minutes.

Lesson 1	A guide to English pronunciation
Lesson 2	Syllables and wordstress
Lesson 3	Weak syllables
Lesson 4	Rhythm
Lesson 5	Syllable structure in English and Chinese
Lesson 6	Consonants and consonant clusters
Lesson 7	Linking words
Lesson 8	Sentence stress
Lesson 9	Intonation: showing feelings
Lesson 10	Intonation: as punctation
Lesson 11	Sound symbols
Lesson 12	Linking words: more ways
Lesson 13	Long vowels ending in voiced consonants
Lesson 14	Sentence stress and intonation to convey a writer's message
Lesson 15	Highlighting keywords
Lesson 16	Using sentence stress to contradict or correct
Lesson 17	Pronunciation and grammar
Lesson 18	The schwa in "that" clauses
Lesson 19	Synthesizing all the pronunciation skills studied so far
Lesson 20	Specific problem sounds for Cantonese speakers: /v/, /z/ and 'th'
Further Practice	Practice 1: /l/ and /n/ Practice 2: /l/ and /n/ Practice 3: /t/ and /d/ Practice 4: /t/ and /d/ Practice 5: /k/ and /g/ Practice 6: /k/ and /g/ Practice 7: /ɪ/ and /iː/ Practice 8: /ɪ/ and /iː/ Practice 9: /e/ and /æ/ Practice 10: /e/ and /æ/ Practice 11: /ɔ/ and /ɒ/ Practice 12: /ɔ/ and /ɒ/ Practice 13: /uː/ and /ʊ/ Practice 14: /uː/ and /ʊ/ Practice 15: /ə/ Practice 16: Word stress - compound words Practice 17: Word stress - nouns VS verbs Practice 18: 'ed' endings Practice 19: 'ed' endings

*Many of the lessons contain audio materials and/or interactive tasks. Please consult the "Technical" section on the menu bar if you have any problem displaying the transcriptions or listening to the sound recording in MP3 format.

Table of contents