Everton was talking about sounds with meaning. You have never heard of it? Well, don't worry, that is why we have a short blog post about it.
Have you ever struggled to say a word in English while your classmates seem to do it with no trouble at all?
There are many reasons why saying something in English might be difficult:
(1) You may be facing a sequence of sounds that you are not used to in your own language, like in the word ‘street’ /s t r iː t/, for example (Look at all those consonants meeting at the beginning of the word and we can wonder how tricky they can be for some students…).
(2) You may have just discovered a completely new sound to you!!! As we’re growing up, our brain is always trying to make sense of all the noise that surrounds us. Some of this noise is going to communicate something to us (like the infinite combination of sounds that form words).
Each language has a limited number of sounds that may be combined, and, different languages may have different sounds! As you struggle with some of the sounds in English, an English speaker might struggle with sounds in your language.
Last Thursday, we saw some of the sounds that Italian and Arabic speakers might find hard to pronounce in English. First, we have to recognise the new sound, learn how to pronounce it and, of course, practise it. For example, some students might pronounce the words ‘three’, ‘tree’ and ‘free’ in the same way, while to an English speaker they are obviously different. They carry three different sounds /θ/, /t/ and /f/ which are meaningful in the English language system (we actually call them phonemes, by the way). Come to our English for Lunch sessions and learn more about English pronunciation and phonemes!
Have you ever struggled to say a word in English while your classmates seem to do it with no trouble at all?
There are many reasons why saying something in English might be difficult:
(1) You may be facing a sequence of sounds that you are not used to in your own language, like in the word ‘street’ /s t r iː t/, for example (Look at all those consonants meeting at the beginning of the word and we can wonder how tricky they can be for some students…).
(2) You may have just discovered a completely new sound to you!!! As we’re growing up, our brain is always trying to make sense of all the noise that surrounds us. Some of this noise is going to communicate something to us (like the infinite combination of sounds that form words).
OR
Each language has a limited number of sounds that may be combined, and, different languages may have different sounds! As you struggle with some of the sounds in English, an English speaker might struggle with sounds in your language.
Last Thursday, we saw some of the sounds that Italian and Arabic speakers might find hard to pronounce in English. First, we have to recognise the new sound, learn how to pronounce it and, of course, practise it. For example, some students might pronounce the words ‘three’, ‘tree’ and ‘free’ in the same way, while to an English speaker they are obviously different. They carry three different sounds /θ/, /t/ and /f/ which are meaningful in the English language system (we actually call them phonemes, by the way). Come to our English for Lunch sessions and learn more about English pronunciation and phonemes!
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