EMI one-day course
English Pronunciation Basics for
Cantonese Speakers
Pronunciation
• Consists of the phonemes (sounds from
alphabetic letters)…
– 24 consonant sounds
– 20 vowels sounds
• …and stress, rhythm and intonation
Cantonese speakers
• Cantonese is in a different language family
than English
• English is a Germanic language in the IndoEuropean family
• Chinese is in the Sino-Tibetan family
• This results in very different ways of making
sounds with our mouths.
Strategy for 90-minute lesson
• Focus on the areas where English and
Cantonese are most different
• Practice some of these starting with vowels
and consonants
Th- sound
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Three-free
Thin-fin
Thread-Fred
Death-deaf
They-day
Those-doze
Words from your
subject area:
l-n-sound
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Lot-not
Night-light
Life-knife
Lame-name
Line-nine
Words from your
subject area:
V-sound
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Vic-wick
Wine-vine
Why-vie
Advice
Arrive
Five
Words from your
subject area:
l-r-(w)-sound
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lamp ramp
lace race
lake rake (awake)
lock rock (wok)
light right (white)
load road
Words from your
subject area:
S-sh-sound
• Sea-she
• She sells seashells on
the seashore.
• Words from your
subject area:
Most difficult word
• What do you think is the most difficult word
to pronounce in the English language?
Why is English
so hard to
pronounce?
sometimes
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⅓
⅕
⅚
five-[sIksθs]
Task: Consonant clusters
Partner A
• How do you spell:
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Grow
Bloom
Flea
Fry
Clock
Task: Consonant clusters
Partner B
• How do you spell:
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Grass
Free
Frame
Flute
Crown
Vowels
/i/ /I/
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Sheep- ship
Beat-bit
Chip-cheap
Seed-sit
Words from your
subject area:
Vowel length
• Perhaps the most characteristic feature of a
Cantonese accent in English is the clipping of
vowels on words ending in a consonant.
• “Voiced” consonants (g,d,b,z,v) at the end of a
word require the vowel to be longer.
• Compare these two words and listen to the
vowel sound
– “Dock” and “dog”
Vowel Lengthening
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Pick-pig
Lived-lift
Lock-log
Tab-tap
Miss- Ms.
Lake-leg
Save-safe
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Feet-feed
Knees-niece
Lice- lies
Plays-place
Proof-prove
Belief-believe
Excuse (n)-excuse (v)
Lengthening Exercises
• Example:
• What’s a cap?
– A kind of hat.
• What’s a cab?
– A taxi
Lengthening Exercises
Partner A
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What’s a seat?
What’s a seed?
How do you spell “tight?”
How do you spell “tide?”
What does wrote mean?
What does rode mean?
Lengthening Exercises
Partner B
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What is a rope for?
What is a robe for?
What does “bright” mean?
What does “bride” mean?
How do you spell “beg?”
How do you spell “bake?”
Regular past tense
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Walked (t)
Liked (t)
Laughed (t)
Closed (d)
Filled (d)
Smiled (d)
Agreed (d)
Hugged (d)
Planned (d)
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Decide
Want
Need
Add
Start
Rent
Crowd
Visit
Past tense exercise
Partner A
• Wash
• Cause
• Arrange
• Load
• Cause
• Calculate
• Subtract
• Practice
• Multiply
Partner B
• Plant
• Wait
• Work
• Divide
• Open
• Save
• Add
• Record
Nouns and verbs
Verbs have a longer (last) syllable
Verbs
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Use (it)
Prove (it)
Save (it)
Excuse (me)
Advise (me)
Believe (me)
Relieve (me)
What are the associated nouns?
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What use is it?
Show me the proof.
Put your money in a safe.
That’s a good excuse.
Give me some advice.
He has strange beliefs.
The device is broken.
I need some relief.
Word stress
• Word stress in English is so important that it is
sometimes more important than the actual
letter sounds.
• I can swim. [kən]
• I can’t swim. [kænt]
• All words of two syllables or more have stress
on at least one syllable.
Word stress
• 7/11
• Seven eleven
• There is no set system but there are some
patterns.
• For example, what pattern do you notice:
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Reduction, suggestion
Politician, registration
Participation examination
Identification, electrification
Stress on second last syllable
• Reduction, suggestion
• Politician, registration
• Participation examination
• Identification, electrification
More stress patterns
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Strategic
Economic
Statistic
Biology
Geology
Astronomy
Policy
equality
• Main stress comes on
the syllable before:
• ic
• omy,
• ery ,
• ogy,
• ity
Where is the stress?
Patterns do not hold for all endings, e.g., “ment”
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Argument
Establishment
Regiment
Achievement
Stress on nouns and verbs
Nouns (try making a question starting with
Verbs (try asking a question starting with
“Is it a…”
“Does it…”
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Record
Object
Permit
Suspect
Conflict
Contract
Increase
Produce
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Record
Object
Permit
Suspect
Conflict
Contract
Increase
Produce
English rhythm
• I really like eating apples.
• I really like eating apples.
• 我好鍾意食蘋果.
• Content words tend to be stressed while
function words are unstressed.
• In Cantonese, all words tend to be equally
stressed.
English rhythm
• The girl is interested in increasing her
vocabulary.
• The girl is interested in increasing her
vocabulary.
Practice rhythm
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I ate a chicken salad sandwich
In an hour, I’ll be ready to go to school.
He eats three full meals each day.
Do you like the photo on your passport?
My cat eats fish and she likes to hunt mice in
the garden.
• Make sure you study for the test during the
holiday.
Rhythm
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I ate a chicken salad sandwich
In an hour, I’ll be ready to go to school.
He eats three full meals each day.
Do you like the photo on your passport?
My cat eats fish and she likes to hunt mice in
the garden.
• Make sure you study for the test during the
holiday.
Intonation
• English uses rising and falling tone to indicate
meaning?
• For example
– Falling tone indicates the end of a sentence.
– Rising tone indicates a yes/no question.
– Rising also indicates a list
• Get some bananas, oranges, apples and lemons.
Coffee or tea?
• Would you like coffee or tea?
• Two stress and intonation patterns…
• …and different expected answers.
• Would you like coffee or tea? (Choose one)
• Would you like coffee or tea? (yes or no)
Common teachers’ question?
Either or
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Is the answer 2 or 4?
CPU or RAM?
Melody or harmony?
3-dimensional or 2-dimensional?
Underhand or overhand?
Think of two words or concepts in your own
teaching that you ask this type of question.
Why is spoken English so hard to
understand?
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Is he busy?
Ed
edited
it.
ededitit
Informal contractions
which you don’t learn in school
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Wanna- I wanna study English. (want to)
Gonna- I’m gonna study English. (going to)
Hafta- I hafta study English. (have to)
Gotta- I’ve gotta study English. (got to)
Shoulda- I shoulda studied English. (should
have)
• Do you… [jə]
Informal sentences
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What are you going to do tonight?
[wǝdǝyǝgǝnǝdutǝnait]
Do you want to go to a movie tonight?
[jəwanəgotəəmuvitənait]
Finding the stress in tech words
• alphanumeric,
asynchronous,
proprietary, mnemonic
• Acrylics, Assemblage,
Maquette, Rhythm
• disassembly,
ergonomics,
translucent, malleable,
adhesive
• strenuous, sport
etiquette, calisthenics
• revenue, allotment,
Merchandiser,
Proprietorship
• utensils, recipe
Classroom instructional language
• http://www.slideshare.net/josemariaagulleiro
/classroom-language-simple-instructions
• http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/traini
ng/
Dictionary help
• Check online dictionaries for sample tech
words pronunciation
• http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/ac
rylic
• http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/pr
oprietary
• Requests?
Pronunciation help
• http://www.howjsay.com/