Pronunciation, pronunciation, I think it is pronunciation, what do you think? Isn’t
it? It comes from the word pronounce, so it should be pronunciation. Isn’t it? Not really?
Are you sure, it's pronunciation? No, this word is pronounced as pronunciation, yes this
part is pronounced as pronunciation. You know English pronunciation is so tricky. My name
is Michelle and how do I write it? Like this? No, it's pronounced like this, but it is written
as Michell, join me in this lesson to learn more about English pronunciation for the 4th
criteria for the IELTS speaking test.
Let's start with word stress. This is one of the most important things in pronunciation.
So let’s see, which are the different sounds in a word. Chocolate, how do you pronounce
it? Chocolate and how many syllables do you think this has? According to me there are
three syllables in the word, cho- co- late. Of course you don't speak like that but the
word breaks like that.
Let’s look at another one, comfortable. Com- fort- a-ble. Comfortable, now I have
task for you. I'll give you about 30 seconds quickly count the number of syllables for
these words and then I'll come back. I hope you are done. Let’s look at the words ahead.
Documentary, this has 5 syllables, one, two, three, four, five. Let’s look at favourite.
Fav-e-rite, three syllables. Millionaire, mil-lion-aire, this has 4 syllables, uh sorry
three syllables. With this I hope, your answers and my answers are matching. If not don't
worry, with some practise, you will learn the number of syllables in all the words.
Now let's come to this part, I'll try to speak this word in different ways and tell me which
one sounds more natural to you. Wonderful, umm wondeerful, wonderfool, fool, no, we are
not saying fool, we are saying ful. Which one sounded the most natural to you. To me
the first one is most natural. Where we stress on the first syllable. So with this, I'd like
to tell you, that in English word stress is very important because if you stress a word
wrongly, then it gets very hard to understand what you are trying to say. My tip for you
is, that you refer to a dictionary, whenever you learn a new word for word stress.
Now something you need to be very careful about, word stress gets very complicated when
it shifts in the word family. What does that mean? Now from the word, simple, we have simplification
and we also have simplistic. They are part of the same word family but they are all stressed
differently. Let’s see how. Simple, 2 syllables and the first syllable is stressed. simple,
let’s look at the second one which also comes from simple, simplification, but this
one here is not stressed on sim, it's stressed on ca, simpifiCAtion and the third one here,
simplistic, where do you think this one is stressed? Simplistic, in this there's no ca
and it's not stressed at sim. It's stressed at simplistic. simPLIStic. So you need to
be very careful with word stress when it changes within the word family. For example photographer,
photography and other words. So you must refer to a dictionary to make sure that you have
the correct word stress for the words you are using.
Now let's look at intonation and sentence stress which is very important for the IELTS
pronunciation criteria for the speaking test. Let’s find out what is intonation. Before
that let's look at sentence stress. So words, certain words that are stressed in a sentence
are spoken slightly slowly while other words are spoken very quickly. Let me give you an
example, listen to me very carefully, I'd rather use the bus, I don't wanna drive. Here
there were two words which were stressed. I'd rather use the bus, I don't wanna drive.
So the words which are stressed are spoken slowly. What is the result of sentence stress?
The result of sentence stress is, intonation, which is the change in the pitch of your voice
like the heart rate on the ECG monitor? The heart rate, have you seen how it changes?
It goes up and down, up and down, the same way the pitch or the tone of your voice sometimes
goes high, sometimes goes low to express different functions and it really affects meaning, do
you know how? Let’s see how. So when it is neutral, please remember that monotone
intonation shows that you have memorized the answers, so kindly don't speak like this.
Yes, if you like this, the examiner will know that you have memorized the answer and therefore
there is no rise and fall in the tone of your voice. So it's important you don't speak neutrally.
Mostly neutral sentences are sometimes not stressed at all, sometimes stressed on the
words in the middle of the sentence. For example, William went for a walk. William went for
a walk. But this actually does not express too much of a function, except that, it shows
that you are thinking or concentrating. So if you use this in the IELTS speaking test,
it means that you are thinking of the answer that you've memorized. So please refrain from
using the neutral tone for your speech.
Now let's look at the second one, vroom, this is the rising tone and when do we use this?
Let’s find out. William went for a WALK? To ask a question? Or if you are surprised.
I'll repeat my expression, William went for a walk! So I go from low to high, like this.
Now let's look at the next one. Falling tone, from high to low. William went for a walk.
Here I’m sure, that William went for a walk. So I'm confident and certain and I could also
say, William went for a walk, right? Here I'm seeking an agreement. I’m expecting
the other person to say, yes. So when you speak you should be careful about your intonation.
If you are trying to seek agreement, don't talk like you are trying to ask a question.
Otherwise the listener will not be able to understand you. Now i have a quick test for
you. Like you see there are five on, two, three, four, five functions here for intonation
and here are five words that are highlighted in orange. Please choose the correct function
out of these five for these five sentences. I’ll give you about a minute, pause the
video and I'll be right back. Hi, welcome back, I hope you've done the test by now.
Let’s look at the answers quickly. I think you've done a good job. Here the stress is
on the first word and this is falling intonation, you go from high to low and this is being
confident. Let’s look at the second one, I think you've
done a good job. Here, you are a bit surprised. This is rising intonation because you are
going from a low to high because the stress is on this word. I think you've done a good
job, this one is more of a neutral tone and somewhat sounds like a monotone, the stress
is on the middle of the word. So it is a neutral tone of voice. I think you've done a good
job, what's that? It's a question and this is rising intonation because the stress is
going from low to high. High in orange. I think you've done a good job, right? I’m
asking for agreement and this one is a falling tone because you
go from being high to being low.
I hope this lesson has helped you to understand intonation and you'll be careful about it
in your IELTS speaking test. With this, we come to an end of today's lesson. I hope after
this lesson, you'll be able to use the pronunciation features that we have learnt today, word stress
and sentence stress and intonation. Use it flexibly in your IELTS speaking test, so that
your effortless to understand for the examiner. Do well, all the very best. It won't be too
long before I come back with another IELTS video, till then you take good care of yourself, BYE...