Out of time

Hey guys,

I get several question about my next post here. Well, you're right. At the beginning I posted more. I have two unfinished series:
- American English vowels,
- tricks of T sounds,
- interviews.
These series are not interrupted, I'm going to continue them. 
My next posts are written right now, but I can do it slower than at the beginning. I've published 27 posts. My target is to reach the 40th post (this one is not counted).

If you want to watch nice videos about American English just follow Rachel's English on youtube. I also recommend Mandy's pronuncian.com. 

I'm going to post an interview with Kate very soon.

Bye bye,

Attila

Tricks of T sound 3 – What happens with T (or D) sound between two consonants

Hi everyone,

After the flap T, and glottal stop  let’s see what can happen with the T (or D) sound between two consonant sounds. Try to pronounce the word “exactly”. Its “official” pronunciation is /ɪgˈzæktli/. It means that the T sound should be pronounced but it’s not so easy, especially in quick everyday speech. So what happens in real everyday conversations, or even in formal situations? I have an easy job now. What I will do is only refer to one of Rachel’s recent videos.

Tricks of American T sound 2. – Glottal stop

In the previous post, I introduced the Flap T with the help of Jennifer’s video channel and I also mentioned Rachel’s and Mandy’s materials. It means that sound T can be pronounced as a soft D sound in specific situations (between vowels – or sound L and R, when it’s not stressed). T can be interesting in other occasions as well. You can hear something interesting when an American says these words: button, written, Clinton, mountain, fountain, sentence. In the dictionaries, you can see the “official” pronunciation of the “-ton”, “-ten” or “-tain” is /- tən/ or /-t^ən/ or /-tn/, but you can hear something else. This is called a glottal stop.

Tricks of American T sound - Flap T

I have a series on American English vowel sounds, but I think it’s important to speak about consonants as well. I would like to begin with the 'T' sound. If you have learned British English the American T sound can be very tricky for you as it can change in several ways. First of all I would like to speak about Flap T.  In American movies you can often hear the 'D' sound rather than the 'T' sound (like in water, or city). It is one of the characteristics of American English and it’s accepted even in formal speeches, however some teachers (even from the States) consider Flap T as lazy speech, but they’re not right at all. You can hear Flap T everywhere.

Today's idiom - Bend over backwards

Hi everyone,

After learning the idioms spill the beans, and pay through the nose  we’re going to speak about the idiom ”bend over backwards”. As I mentioned before, learning the idioms is a great adventure. I can’t show you all the idioms, I can show you some of them, in addition I can recommend some sources that can help you learn them.

Suit vs soot – Other OO and Other U sounds

Hi everyone,

Some weeks ago we began to work on American English sounds in pairs. We learned the difference between ‘sheep and ship’ (Long E – EE – and Short I – IH – Sounds) , and between ‘cattle and kettle’ (Short A – AA – and Short E –EH –sounds) . We also learned that in American English, long vowels are NOT consequently longer than short vowels. Long and short vowels are simply the names that have been used for naming them for ages. 

In this article, we will compare the other OO and other U sounds. I have to add that if you only read my article, it’s probably not enough. If you want to learn this topic entirely, you should visit the materials that I recommend you. Let’s get started.

Interview with Jaime Miller - TOEFL teacher

Hi everyone,

In my former blog posts, I was writing about Jaime Miller. First, when I summarized my TOEFL experience. Second, when I introduced her excellent right notes course. And now I'm very happy because Jaime gave me the possibility to conduct an interview with her. I hope you'll like it and maybe some of you feel like visiting Jaime's website, youtube  channel or even working with her.

Update - please visit my other interviews as well: Gardeniafly and Kate. Both of them from Georgia, USA.

So, let's meet Jaime.

 -     Hi, Jaime. Thank you very much for this interview. Let’s begin with your studies. When and where did you graduate from university? 

-       I graduated from a school called Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon. It was in May, 2008. It was five years ago.

-       What kind of faculty did you attend?

-       I studied History mostly.

Today’s Idiom – Pay Through the Nose

Hi everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I began a new series about idioms. The first idiom was “spill the beans”. As I told you, Americans (and other native English speakers) use a great number of idioms. It makes the English language beautiful, varied and alive. If you try to learn them, it is a great adventure. In this series within my blog, I can show only a few idioms, but I’m going to introduce books, websites, and video channels that can help you.

Cattle vs kettle - Short A (AA) and Short E (EH) sounds

Hi,

Earlier in this blog, after the classification of American English vowels, we began to work on the vowels in pairs. In this series, we were speaking about the /i/ (Long E - EE) and /ı/ (Short I – IH)sounds. And now we’re going to learn about the /æ/ (Short A - AA)  and /ɛ/ (Short E – EH) sounds. The methods we will use will be similar. We’re going through some useful materials from Rachel’s website and video channel, and we will talk about Mandy’spronuncian.com and her excellent podcast. There are many good teachers who concentrate on American English pronunciation, but in my opinion Rachel and Mandy are the best.

Five Common Excuses Not To Learn a Foreign Language – guest post from Lingholic

Hi,

I don’t need to tell you that I like learning languages. I know there are many people who don’t like to do so. When I ask them why, there are some frequently repeated answers. It’s surprising these people don’t know each other, but I hear the same reasons again and again. I was very surprised when I found a blog called Lingholic. This blog has excellent articles that are helpful and I’d like to show you the kind of excuses the author encounters when he asks, “Why aren’t you learning a foreign language?” This article is based on the passage that I read on Lingholic (written by Sam Gendreau). I have added my comments to each statement. Also, I will give two additional excuses that I hear frequently. You can find Lingholic on Facefook as well.