Tag Archives: pronunciation

Text2Phonetics: a useful tool

In the Computer Room, Phonetics, ,

Text2Phonetics is a wonderful tool that can save a lot of time if you need to transcribe something. I have tried it with small texts (two or three lines) and it’s incredible!
Just paste the text you want to transcribe and click the Transcribe Button to get the transcription.

 

Why don’t you try some words to see how they are pronounced?

Type , for instance, since, cold, danger, aunt, parents … were there any words you usually mispronounced?

Remember :
Since | sɪns |
Cold | kəʊld |
Danger | deɪndʒə |
aunt | ɑːnt |
parents | peərənts |

Free Audio Books

Audio, Resources, ,

When I am in the gym trying to sweat my kilos away I’ve sometimes considered not listening to music and  instead ,making a better use of the time I spend there. Today I’ve bumped into this page and I have thought :” That’s what I was looking for!” So instead of running with Lady Gaga I’m going to start running with Jane Austen, Mark Twain or Virginia Wolf.
In Books Should Be Free you can find a lot of free audio books divided according to their genre: adventure, comedy, romance, fairy tales, poetry…etc and you can download them in mp3,iPod or iTunes format . Now, you have no excuse for not practising English, even when you’re at the gym!!

You’ll never forget how to pronounce “would”

Funny Stuff, Phonetics, The English language, , , ,

Learning and mastering English pronunciation can sometimes feel like a daunting task. I have been marking heaps of exams lately and now it’ s time  for the oral test and if you want to know the truth… I ‘m dreading  it!! Students insist on mispronouncing words they have heard a thousand times, like the word “since”, which they insistently pronounce as /sains/ and the “l” in words such as: walk, talk, should, half .… and would, when I’m well aware they know the “l” in these words is never pronounced.

By the time you finish watching this video, I bet you won’t forget how to pronounce “would”.

This clip from the movie “The Pink Panther”  is probably one of the funniest I have ever seen and Steve Martin is at one of his best performances

 

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Howjsay.com : A Pronunciation Dictionary

Dictionaries, ,

I’ve been using this pronunciation dictionary for quite a long time and I love it for several reasons:

♥ You can find almost any word here and this includes proper names as it is the world’s largest English pronouncing dictionary.
♥ You enter the word and you submit it. When it appears in pink, mouse over it to hear it spoken as often as you want. You don’t have to wait a second as it is individually pre-recorded!!
♥ You can translate the word into Spanish or any other language using the Google Translate and then get the definition for the word .

I hope you like it as much as I do.

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An amazing dictionary online

And yet another way to improve your vocab

From London with love

Converting Text into Speech

Listen a minute

Audio, Listening, Resources, , , , , ,

That’s the name of this superb website for pre-intermediate students to practise listening

and this is what they promise. This site is still growing  and at the moment of publishing this post you could only  find alphabetically-listed topic- based activities going  from A to H. That’s it, you can find listenings about Airports and Harry Potter  but don’t try Vegetarians yet.

You can do the quizzes about the listening on line and it also gives you some writing ideas. What’s more,  you don’t even need to register. It’s completely free!!

One  minute a day… that’s all they are asking and in return… you’ll be passing your listening tests with flying colours.

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Podcards

BBC Learning English

Practise reading and listening

ELLA: English Language Lab in Asturias