Intonation videos

Hi everyone!

The seminars were great! Today I´m posting some cool videos that talk about pronunciation and intonation. They are good for those who would like to reduce accent and make the English sound more natural.

Teacher Jennifer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2bHdXcszJ4 INTONATION LESSON 10a

I love this teacher! She´s so didactic and has such a sweet voice! There´s no way you can´t learn with her!

There are 4 lessons for intonation with this teacher (I think her name is Jennifer) . I put the link for the first class and you can find the other classes directly on Youtube.

Mr. Duncan in England

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPcBJfBTlNo&feature=fvst

Honestly, I don´t get the British sense of humor, but this teacher explains the difference between pronunciation and intonation. It´s a good video though, very very British indeed!

Accent Reduction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSms8DYnjGs&feature=related

This is from an Accent reduction institute. It´s so interesting and real! It actually shows a class and an excellent teacher teaching phonetics. Loved it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSVk61szem0

I don´t like this video as much as I like the previous ones, but still, if you´re really in the mood, go ahead and watch it.

OUR SEMINARS

Hey everyone!
I´m writing to promote our traditional SEMINARS.
I will be presenting the seminars in English, so, I´m going to explain the purpose of each.

PRONUNCIATION FOR BRAZILIANS HAVAD BARÃO GERALDO 14/06 7PM

This seminar focuses on the basic principles of phonetics applied to English as a Second Language. I will talk about most common mistakes Brazilians make when they speak English, mistakes that many times cause embarrasing communication breakdowns. There will be many examples of mispronunciations as well as tips and mnemonics to improve these unwelcome errors.

INTONATION: HOW TO MAKE YOUR ENGLISH SOUND MORE NATURAL HAVAD TAQUARAL 16/06 7H30PM

Intonation helps to create the "music" of a language. There are high notes and low notes when we speak. If we didn´t have intonation in languages, our voices would all sound very robotic and boring, wouldn´t they? The problem is that the intonation patterns in Portuguese are different from the intonation patterns in English. So, sometimes we speak English, using the intonation in Portuguese and the result of this could be funny, weird, unintelligible or even misunderstood. This seminar is aimed at explaining the most common intonation patterns in English.

Everybody is welcome to attend! Do your inscriptions by taquaral@havad.com.br or barao@havad.com.br

Places are limited

OFF versus OF

Hi everyone!

Hey, what´s the difference (in pronunciation) between OF and OFF? Don´t know? One thing you must know for sure: neither of them is pronounced "ófi"!

So, let´s get down to business.

OFF: it´s pronounced ÓF

Turn off the phone

I need to put off the meeting

She asked me to take my shoes off

This is the easy one, right? Let´s check the other one now...

OF: it´s pronounced ÂV

What??? V sound?

EXACTLY!

So, time to practice:

A friend of mine (ÂV mine)

the storm of the century (ÂV the century)

Because of this (ÂV this)

See?

Living and learning!

POCAHONTAS AND AVATAR- the same movie?

Hey everyone, for those who don´t know me, I am a cinephile.
I have a daughter, and since last April, I´ve been watching the Disney Movie Pocahontas with her about... 4 times per week, AT LEAST! And the funny thing is that I cry every time! What a sad endind, Pocahontas and John Smith don´t stay together... (oops, sorry for the spoiler!!!)
Oh well, I was surfing the net and started to find many things comparing Pocahontas with Avatar. And it was like a revelations, because whenever I was watching Pocahontas, it did remind me of Avatar! Then, I found this file about the synopsys of Pocahontas, crossed out with Avatar info! Indeed, they are very similar! And I particularly liked the abbreviation that this guy used at the end: "IMHO", which stands for IN MY HUMBLE OPINION! HAHA, loved it.
So, I found many videoclips comparing these 2 stories/movies, it´s very interesting!
Check them out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGOCodaM4UM&feature=related

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UajX9NZlONE&feature=related

And there´s this very funny guy comparing these movies on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn84d2VUlvQ&feature=related

Anyway, I don´t care!

I love Pocahontas and I love Avatar, even though they are most likely, to say the least, the same story!

Pronounce the word "THE" correctly 2

So, you have just found out that there are 2 possible pronunciations for "THE". Now, let´s make it more interesting: THE EXCEPTIONS!
In fact, it´s not really "exception", it´s just pay attention to the initial (oh, thiiiiii initial!) sound of the word.

Examples:
THE (thããã) universe
(thããã) uniform
(thããã) European
So, you can see that in these examples, we do not say "thi", because even though these words start with a vowel LETTER, they do not start with a vowel SOUND. LEt´s remember that we say "A" university, not AN university, because the "U" starts with a consonant SOUND. The same occurs when we see words starting with consonant letters, but not consonant sounds, like:
THE (thiii) honest man
(thiii) hours
(thiii) heir

Another point here. Sometimes, native speakers like to play with the word "THE" to give emphasis. For those of you who like to watch "FRIENDS", Ross always says stuff like:
"This is not the (thã course). This is the (thiiii) course!"
So, he´s emphasizing the word COURSE my changing the usual pronunciation of "THE", got it?
I´m going to try ton find some episode when he says that, I can´t think of any right now.
When I do find this video, it will be "Pronounce the word "THE" correctly 3".

Pronounce the word "THE" correctly 1

The word "THE" is one of the most mispronounced words by foreigners and it is one of the most important and most common words too.
What´s the deal about "the", then? Most people will never realize that they are mispronouncing "the", even fluent speakers of English.
Let´s remember something first, something that might help.
We use "AN" before vowel SOUNDS (not vowel letters) and "A" before consonant SOUNDS, isn´t that right? It´s the same thing about THE: There´s also an difference in pronunciation, although there is no writing difference.
WHAT?!?!?!!?!?
Examples:
you say THE (THiiiiiiiiiii) apple
THE (THiiiiiiiiiii) other
THE (THiiiiiiiiii) air



and you say
THE (THããããããããã) girl
THE (THããããããããã) student
THE (THããããããããã) business

Got it?
I know, it´s a revelation, right? Just so that you don´t freak out, this kind of pronunciation error usually, usually, doesn´t cause communication breakdowns. Keep practicing this and then your English will sound much more natural.

Some phrasal verbs

Hey students,
You always want to find a way to learn PHRASAL VERBS for good (forever), right? However, there´s no magic, unfortunetely.... you must memorize them!
There are some categories of phrasal verbs, though.
They can be:

INSEPARABLE
You can never separate the verb from the preposition:
LOOK FOR
I´m looking for my keys.
You cannot say "I´m looking my keys for", for example. The verb never gets separated from the prepostion.

SEPARABLE
In this case, you can separate the verb from the prepostion
I´m going to pick up my mother OR I´m going to pick MY MOTHER up.
A third option is also possible, you can substitute the object for a pronoun. In this case, the pronoun WILL ALWAYS COME IN THE MIDDLE:
I´m going to pick HER up (RIGHT)
I´m going to pick up HER (WRONG)

For more phrasal verbs examples and exercises, go to www.englishclub.com to the vocabulary section.
The important thing to keep in mind is to memorize a few phrasal verbs per day, per week. If you memorize 5 phrasal verbs per week, imagine how many you will have learned in a year! Pay attention to movies, songs, books and magazines that you´re accustomed to reading/watching/seeing.

Enjoy the weekend!