Hey what's up Stefanie The English Coach here from englishfulltime.com In this video,
I want us to do some practice, some natural English pronunciation practice with suffixes.
Because I have found that when English students try to pronounce suffixes, they often
don't pronounce them the way that we usually do in English. They might look at the actual
letters and try to pronounce the letters and you have to remember English is not spoken the way
that it is written. So I have 15 very common suffixes that we are going to go over and I
have practice words that we're going to use, three practice words for every suffix. Okay,
so the first suffix if you look at it it looks like -able okay but really I want you to think
of this as uh-bohl, uh-bohl, okay so for example available, available, available,
lovable, lovable, okay and then reliable, reliable, reliable, okay, so the -able suffix
think of it as uh-bohl, okay, available, lovable, reliable. Next we have what looks like -age but I
don't want you to say age, I want you to say and think of it as idg okay so, mileage, mileage,
package, package, package, courage, courage, courage. Next we have what looks like -ary or
something like that but I want you to think of it as ehr-y, okay like the air that we breathe,
ehr-y, so ordinary, ordinary, nary, primary, primary, dictionary, dictionary, dictionary,
nary, nary, ordinary, primary, dictionary. Oh, I forgot to say this is the document that I'm
reading off of, you can go down to the description and you can download it, and you can practice with
it. I have the suffix, how you should think of it, and then the practice words. So go ahead and get
that. Next, we have what looks kind of like -cious or something like that just think of it as shis
or you could even remove the vowel sound and think of it as shs. Okay, so
delicious, delicious, delicious, mmm this cake is delicious. Precious, precious, precious,
conscious, conscious, conscious. Next we have what looks like -dom okay,
but I want you to think of it as -duhm, -duhm, -duhm, okay so, kingdom, kingdom, kingdom,
freedom freedom, freedom, uhm uhm wisdom, wisdom, wisdom wisdom. Next, we have -ence,
but I want you to think of it as ins so, confidence, confidence, distance, confidence,
independence, independence, ins independence, patience,
patience, patience. Next, we have -ent, but I want you to think of it like int, int, student,
student, confident, confident, confident, different,
int. Next, we have -ful okay, it's just pronounced like that -ful,
-ful and I like to represent that -ul sound as in ol ol, fol, fol, beautiful, beautiful, cheerful,
cheerful cheerful, cheerful, helpful, helpful, helpful. Next, we have -ical,
and I want you to think of it as either i-col or uh-col, either one is fine so, magical, magical,
okay magi or magi both are fine magical, magical, or magical, magical. Next, historical, historical,
historical, practical, practical, practical. Next, we have -ism, -ism,
-ism, and you could say -ism or you could say i-zuhm, i-zuhm, i-zuhm, so listen racism, racism,
or racism, racism, it really depends on how much you reduce the vowel sound in the final syllable,
okay so both are correct. Racism or racism. I find that when I'm trying to speak extra
clearly I tend to pronounce all of the sounds and all of the syllables as much as possible,
but when my speech is a little bit more relaxed, like everyday speech you might say,
then I tend to reduce those vowel sounds a little bit more. So instead of saying racism, I might
say racism, racism. Next, we have patriotism, patriotism, i-zuhm, i-zuhm, criticism, criticism,
criticism. Next we have what looks like -logy, but we're going to say luh-djee, luh-djee, luh-djee,
so psychology, psychology, psycholuh luh luhdjee, luh-djee, luh-djee, psychology, biology, biology,
biology, luh-djee, luh-djee, biology and geology, geology, geology, luh-djee, luh-djee, geology.
Next we have -ment but I want you to think of it as mint, mint, mint, so development, development,
improvement, improvement, improvement, sentiment sentiment, sentiment. Next, we have -ness but I
want you to think of it as nis, nis, nis, happiness, happiness, happiness, kindness,
kindness, kindness, darkness, darkness. Then we have -tion but I want you to think of it as shin
or shn shin or shn okay, so action, action, or action, action, creation, creation or creation,
creation, solution, solution or solution, solution so in one version I'm just saying the e sound a
little more prominently and in the other I'm just reducing it okay basically s-h-n okay. The final
one we have -ward and I want you to think of it as werd werd actually like the word word, like,
what word did he say, word so we have backward, backward, backward, forward, forward, and upward,
upward, upward. Okay, so I hope this exercise helps you see that you cannot rely on the spelling
in English, and if you try to read words the way they are spelled it will actually make your accent
stronger, more prominent and if you want to reduce your accent if you want to sound more natural,
if you want to speak more clearly, then you have to really listen to how English is spoken and
imitate that. Don't rely on the written system because it will confuse you and it likely has
already confused you so this is something we go over extensively in my program Accent Freedom,
but that program is not open for enrollment right now, and a good stepping stone into that program,
because that is a big 12-week program with a lot in it, but a good stepping stone into that
program if you're struggling with your sounds in English and you really want to fine tune them and
learn how to master every single sound of English so you can speak clearly then I would recommend
checking out my Amazing American Accent Sound Bank Course, because it will teach you how to
make every single sound of American English clearly and it's all based on the way that
I speak. So hopefully you already know this that there are lots of ways to speak American English
but I developed a course that's all about how I speak so if you want to use me as your role model
you can do that and you can learn by imitating my sounds and my speech. Okay so that's it do
not forget to download this document and uh I'll see you in another video take care, bye.