Chapter 1 American Intonation The American Speech Music CD 1 Track 4 What to Do with your mouth to Sound american One of the main differences between the way an american talks and the way the rest of the world talks is that we dont really move our lips. (So, when an American says, Read my lips! "what does he really mean? We create most of our sounds in the throat, using our tongue very actively. If you hold your fingers over your lips or clench your jaws when you practice speaking American English, you will find yourself much closer to native-sounding speech than if you try to pronounce every .. single.. sound..very .. carefully. If you can relate American English to music, remember that the indigenous music is jazz. Listen to their speech music, and you will hear that Americans have a melodic, jazzy way of producing sounds. Imagine the sound of a cello when you say, Beddy bada bida bedder budder(Betty bought a bit of better butter) and you'll be close to the native way of aying it. Because most Americans came from somewhere else, American English reflects the accent contributions of many lands. The speech music has become much more exaggerated than British English, developing a strong and distinctive intonation. If you use this intona- tion, not only will you be easier to understand, but you will sound much more confident, dynamic, and persuasive Intonation, or speech music, is the sound that you hear when a conversation is too far away to be clearly audible but close enough for you to tell the nationality of the speakers The American intonation dictates liaisons and pronunciation, and it indicates mood and meaning. Without intonation, your speech would be flat, mechanical, and very confusing for your listener. What is the American intonation pattern? How is it different from other languages? Foa egzampuru, eefu you hea ah Jahpahneezu pahsohn speakingu Ingurishu the sound would be very choppy, mechanical, and unemotional to an American. Za sem vey vis Cheuman pipples, it sounds too stiff. A mahn frohm Paree ohn zee ahzer ahnd, ee intonashon goes up at zee end ov evree sentence, and has such a strong intonation that he sounds romantic and highly emotional, but this may not be appropriate for a lecture or a business meeting in English
American Accent Training American Intonation Do's and Don'ts Do Not Speak Word by word Bob... is . on.. the lone Connect Words to Form Sound groups the foun Use staircase intonation Ba Start a new staircase ou that information, generally a noun 4 Do not speak word by word. If you speak word by word, as many people who learned"printed"English do, you'll end up sounding mechanical and foreign. You may have noticed the same thing happens in your own language: When someone reads a speech, even a native speaker, it sounds stiff and stilted, quite different from a normal conversational tone. 4 Connect words to form sound groups. This is where you're going to start doing something completely diferent than what you have done in your previous English studies. This part is the most difficult for many people because it goes against everything theyve been taught. Instead of thinking of each word as a unit, think of sound units. These sound units may or may not correspond to a word written on a page Native speakers don' t say bob is on the phone, but say [babizan the foun. Sound units make a sentence flow smoothly, like peanut butter- never really ending and never really starting, just flowing along. Even chunky peanut butter is acceptable. So long as you don' t try to put plain peanuts directly onto your bread, you'll be OK
Chapter / American intonation o Use staircase intonation Let those sound groups floating on the wavy river in the figure flow downhill and you'll get the staircase. Staircase intonation not only gives you that American sound, it also makes you sound much more confident. Not every American uses the downward stair case. a certain segment of the population uses rising staircases--generally, teenagers on their way to a shopping mall: Hi, my name is Tiffany. I live in La canada. I'mon the pep squad What Exactly Is Staircase Intonation? In saying your words, imagine that they come out as if they were bounding lightly down a flight of stairs. Every so often, one jumps up to another level, and then starts down again Americans tend to stretch out their sounds longer than you may think is natural. so to lengthen your vowel sounds, put them on two stairsteps instead of just one Were here The sound of an American speaking a foreign language is very distinctive, because we double sounds that should be single. For example, in Japanese or Spanish, the word no is, to our ear clipped or abbreviated Standard american When you have a word ending in an unvoiced consonant one that you""(t, k, s, x, f, sh)you will notice that the preceding vowel is said quite quickly, and on a single stairstep. When a word ends in a vowel or a voiced consonant--one that you""say"(b, d, g, z, v, zh, j), the preceding vowel is said more slowly, and on a double stairstep eat Unvoiced Voiced There are two main consequences of not doubling the second category of words: Ei ther your listener will hear the wrong word, or even worse, you will always sound upset
merican Accent Training Consider that the words curt, short, terse, abrupt, and clipped all literally mean short. When applied to a person or to language, they take on the meaning of upset or rude. For example, in the expressions"His curt reply .. " Her terse response. or"He was very short with me""all indicate a less than sunny situati Three Ways to Make Intonation About this time, you,re coming to the point where you may be wondering, what exactly are the mechanics of intonation? What changes when you go to the top of the staircase or when you put stress on a word? There are three ways to stress a word 4 The first way is to just get louder or raise the volume. This is not a very sophisticated vay of doing it, but it will definitely command attention 8 The second way is to streeeeetch the word out or lengthen the word that you want to draw attention to(which sounds very insinuating) 4 The third way, which is the most refined, is to change pitch. Although pausing just before changing the pitch is effective, you don, t want to do it every time, because then it becomes an obvious technique. However, it will make your audience stop and listen cause they think you're going to say something interesting Exercise 1-1: Rubber Band Practice with Nonsense Syllables CD1Track 5 Take a rubber band and hold it with your two thumbs. Every time you want to stress a word by changing pitch, pull on the rubber band. Stretch it out gently, don 't jerk it sharply. Make a looping oo figure with it and do the same with your voice. Use the rubber band and stretch it out every time you change pitch. Read first across, then down 1. duh duh duh 1. la lala 1. mee mee mee 1. hoho ho 2. duhduh duh 2. lala la 2. meemee mee 2. hohoho 3. duh duh duh 3. la lala 3. mee mee mee 3. ho ho ho 4. duh duh duh 4. lala la mee mee mee 4. ho ho ho Read each column down, keeping the same intonation pattern A B D 1. duh duh duh 1. duh duh duh 1. duh duh duh 1. duh duhduh 2. ABC 2. imprecise 2. condition 2. alphabet 3.123 3. a hot dog 3. hot de log 4. Dogs eat bones. 4. They eat bones. 4. They eat them. 4. Give me one
Chapter 1/ American intonation Staircase Intonation CD 1 Track 6 So what is intonation in American English? What do americans do? We go up and down cases. We start high and end low we go and cases down Every time we want to stress a word or an idea, we just start a new staircase. That sounds simple enough, but when and where do you start a new staircase? Statement Intonation with nouns Intonation or pitch change is primarily used to introduce new information. This means that when you are making a statement for the first time, you will stress the nouns Dogs bones Exercise 1-2: Noun Intonation CD 1 Track Practice the noun stress pattern after me, using pitch change. Add your own examples 1. Dogs eat bones 1l. Jerry makes music 2. Mike likes bikes 12. Jean sells some apples 3. Elsa wants a book 13. Carol paints the car. 4. Adam plays pool 14. Bill and i fix the bikes 5. Bobby needs some money. 15. Ann and Ed call the kids 6. Susie combs her hair 16. The kids like the candy. 7. John lives in France 17. The girls have a choi 8. Nelly teaches French 18. The boys need some help 9. Ben writes articles 10. Keys open locks 20 Pause the CD V Practice the patterns five more times on your own, using your rubber band
American Accent Training Statement Intonation with Pronouns CD 1 Track 8 When you replace the nouns with pronouns (i.e, old information), stress the verb eat TH them As we have seen, nouns are new information; pronouns are old information. In nutshell, these are the two basic intonation patterns Dogs eat Thev them Exercise 1-3: Noun and Pronoun Intonation CD 1 Track 9 In the first column, stress the nouns. In the second column, stress the verb. Fill in your own examples at the bottom Bob sees betty 1. He sees her 2. Betty knows Bob 2. She knows him 3. Ann and ed call the kids 3. They call them 4. Jan sells some apples 4. She sells some 5. Jean sells cars 5. She sells them 6. Bill and I fix the bikes 6. We fix them 7. Carl hears Bob and m 7. He hears us 8. Dogs eat b ones 8. They eat them. 9. The girls have a choice 9. They have one. 10. The kids like the candy. 10. They like it 11. The boys need some help I1. They need something. 12. Ellen should call her sister 12. She should call someone 13. The murderer killed the plumber. 13. He killed a man 14. The tourists went shopping 14. They bought stuff 15 16 16. 17 7. 18. 18. 19. 20
Chapter 1/ American intonation Statement Versus Question intonation cD 1 Track 1 You may have learned at some point that questions have a rising intonation. They do, but usually a question will step upward until the very end, where it takes one quick little down ward step a question rises a little higher than a statement with the same intonation pattern Here is my car “ Where is my car? Here Where my Emotional or Rhetorical question Intonation If you know that your car is parked outside, however, and someone doesn't see it and asks you where it is, you might think that it has been stolen and your emotion will show in your intonation as you repeat the question. As your feelings rise in an emotional situation,your intonation rises up along with them Where is my car?” “why? Is it gone? al an? Where Why Is Exercise 1-4: Sentence Intonation Test CD 1 Track 11 Pause the cd and underline or highlight the words that you think should be stressed. Check Answer Key, beginning on page 193 1. Sam sees bill 11. He sees him 2. She wants one 12. Mary wants a car. 3. Betty likes English 13. She likes it 4. They play with them 14. They eat some 5. Children play with toys 15. Len and Joe eat some pizza 6. Bob and I call you and Bill 16. We call you 7. You and Bill read the news 17. You read it 8. It tells one 18. The news tells a story 9. Bernard works in a restaurant. 19. Mark lived in france 10. He works in one 20. He lived there
American Accent Training Exercise 1-5: Four Main Reasons for Intonation CD 1 Track 12 Depending on the situation, a word may be stressed for any of the following reasons New information Opinion Contrast Can't 1. New Information It sounds like rain Rain is the new information. It's the most important word in that sentence and you could replace everything else with duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duh rain will still let you get your point across. v Repeat: Duh-duh-duh rain /It sounds like rain Duh duh duh V Make rain very musical and put it on two notes: ray-ayn Duh-duh-duh ray-ayn/It sounds like ray-ayn 2.。pini。n It sounds like rain, but I don't think it is In this case, intonation makes the meaning the opposite of what the words say: It looks like a diamond, but I think it's a zircon. It smells like Chanel, but at that price, it's a knock-off. It feels like. It tastes like... These examples all give the impression that you mean the opposite of what your senses tell you. V Practice the intonation difference between new information and opinion It sounds like rain. (It's rain. It sounds like rain .(but it's not 3. Contrast He likes rain, but he hates snow, Like and hate are contrasted and are the stronger words in the sentence 4. Cant It can't rain when there 're no cloud Contractions(Shouldn't, wouldn't) and negatives(no, not, never)are important words since they totally negate the meaning of a sentence, but they are not usually stressed Can't is the exception
Chapter 1/ American Intonation Exercise 1-6: Pitch and Meaning change CD 1 Track 13 ractice saying the four sentences after me. Pay close attention to the changes in pitch that Pr you must make to convey the diferent meanings intended. The words to be stressed are indicated in bold face 1. It sounds like rain 2. It sounds like rain 3. He likes rain but he hates snow 4. It can't rain on my parade! He can't do it. (See also Ex 1-43 for negatives. Exercise 1-7: Individual Practice CD 1 Track 14 Practice saying the sentences after the suggestion and the beep tone i You will be given only a short time in which to reply so that you won, t have the leisure to overthink. Start speaking as soon as you hear the tone because I'll be saying the sentence only a few sec- onds later 1. Convey the information that it really does sound as if rain is falling. 4 Convey the opinion that although it has the sound of rain, it may be something else. y 3. Convey the different feelings that someone has about rain and snow. t 4. Convey the fact that rain is an impossibility right now. t s Pause the cd V Practice the four sentences on your own ten times x Once you're familiar with moving the stress around and feeling how the meaning changes, turn the Cd on to continue with the next exercise. Exercise 1-8: Meaning of"pretty' CD 1 Track 15 Native speakers make a clear distinction between pretty easily (easily)and pretty easily(a little dificult). Repeat the answers after me paying close attention to your stress Question: How did you like the movie? Answer: 1. It was pretty good. (She liked it.) 2. It was pretty good. (She didn't like it much
American Accent Training Exercise 1-9: Inflection CD 1 Track 16 Notice how the meaning changes, while the actual words stay the same 1. i didnt say he stole the money. Someone else said it. 2. I didnt say he stole the money. That's not true at all 3. I didnt say he stole the money. I only suggested the possibility 4. I didnt say he stole the money. I think someone else took it. 5. I didnt say he stole the money. Maybe he just borrowed it. 6. i didn't say he stole the money, but rather some other money 7..I didn't say he stole the money. He may have taken some jewelry I didnt say he stole the money. Someone else said it. It's true that somebody said it, but I wasn' t that person. Didn't I didnt say he stole the money. Thats not true at all. Someone has accused me and I'm protesting my innocence i didn't say he stole the money. I only suggested the possibility Maybe I hinted it. Maybe I wrote it. In some way, I indicated that he stole the money, but I didnt say it. He I didn't say he stole the money. I think someone else took it I think someone stole the money, only not the person you suspect did it Stole I didnt say he stole the money. Maybe he just borrowed it. I agree that he took it, but i think his motive was different The I didn't say he stole the money, but rather some other money. We agree that he stole some money, but I dont think it's this money. Money I didn't say he stole the money. He may have taken some jewelry We agree that hes a thief, but we think he stole different things Notice that in the first half of these sentences nothing changes but the intonation V Repeat after me
