Adir Ferreira Idiomas

Archive for the ‘Pronunciation’ Category

Hello, there!

Hoje temos mais um post gentilmente cedido pelo Deep English: Happiness or Misery? It’s Your Choice.

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I want to be happy. You want to be happy. We all want to be happy, right? And by happiness I don’t mean going to parties and joking around with friends or getting excited by rides at an amusement park. I’m talking about feeling satisfied with living a meaningful, purposeful life. You’d think it’d be a simple thing to accomplish, but so many of us get depressed, or feel frustrated, or we get that feeling that we are lacking something. And if we just had a little more money, or a slightly better job, or we had the right partner, that happiness would appear. As if happiness were always just around the corner, waiting for us.

The point here is that we make the mistake that happiness depends on circumstances around us, rather than on the way we look at those circumstances and respond to them. In other words, happiness or its opposite, misery, is actually a choice rather than a circumstance for most people.

To illustrate this point, Dr. Joel Wade, a psychotherapist, made a three-step list on how to be miserable:

1. Be as self-absorbed as possible. Make sure every situation at work or at home is primarily about your thoughts, your feelings, your welfare. Talk about yourself. Think about yourself. Make sure the point of every action is to get some kind of personal benefit.

2. See yourself as a victim. See the world as being against you. View others as the source of your problems. Blame them for your frustrations and setbacks. Tell yourself that you are helpless in your life circumstances.

3. Spend a lot of time ruminating (or worrying). Go over past negative events again and again in your mind. Think about things that make you angry or bitter. Remember how you were hurt in the past and who was responsible for your pain. Spend a lot of time re-living and re-experiencing these events in your mind.

So that is how to be a miserable, unhappy person. Are you doing any of these things? Well, if so, it could be the main cause of your feelings of dissatisfaction with life. The good news is, doing the exact opposite can move you in a more positive, happy direction. Those things are:

1. Absorb yourself in your work, friends, family relationships and outside interests. Move your focus outside. Become absorbed in what you’re doing. Remind yourself what you are trying to achieve. And if you don’t have personal goals – dreams with deadlines – set some.

2. See yourself as in control of your destiny. We all have problems and setbacks, but things only begin to turn around when you take ownership of your situation. Then you can begin to move forward.

3. Focus on what’s right with your life. This is not easy in some cases. Many of us are dealing with unfortunate economic or personal circumstances. Still, you make it worse by lying in the mud. Accept that the past is past. Forgive any people who have harmed you, not for their sake but for yours. Start imagining how things could improve. This is the first step toward action.

There is no doubt that life is difficult enough as it is, but the point here is that we make a difficult situation worse by our response to it. With the exception of perhaps extreme poverty andstarvation, happiness and misery are states of mind that we give birth to through our response to the world around us. They are choices available to us every moment of the day. Which do you choose?

This post was adapted from an article written by the investment guru, Alexander Green.

Click here to read the original post on the Deep English blog.

Hello, there!

O assunto “pronúncia” sempre me fascinou e acabei fazendo três podcasts com o English Experts sobre isso. Coincidentemente vi um vídeo com dicas de uma professora sobre como reduzir seu sotaque em inglês.

O que ela ressalta, porém, é que o problema não é o sotaque, e sim… Bom, veja o vídeo para descobrir!

Curso de Pronúncia Onlline

English Podcast 15: Schwa, TH e outros sons do inglês

English Podcast 16: O som do T no inglês americano

English Podcast 17: Encontrando a Entonação certa

Hey, there! How’ve you been?

Hoje temos este vídeo super interessante da professora Rachel onde ela explica como pronunciar a palavra “your” corretamente no meio das frases.

Enjoy the video!

Se você está lendo este post no seu e-mail, clique aqui para ver o vídeo.

Da mesma forma que existe ênfase nas palavras e frases, há entonação ao soletrar siglas e números. Em inglês americano é muito comum se soletrar as siglas, em vez de lê-las como uma só palavra. Nas siglas e números abaixo a letra ou número com mais ênfase está em negrito, ok?

Let’s practice!

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Acronyms

IBM
MIT
Ph.D.
MBA
LA
IQ
RSVP
TV
USA
ASAP
CIA
FBI
USMC
COD
SOS
X, Y, Z

Spelling

Box
Cook
Wilson

Numbers

Area Code 213
Zip Code 94708
Date 9/6/62
Phone Number 555-9132

Fonte: American Accent Training, de Ann Cook. Compre na Amazon.

Hey, there!

Hoje vou dar dicas de três dicionários online onde você pode checar como as palavras são pronunciadas em inglês.

Um que eu gosto muito é o Howjsay, é só digitar a palavra que você gostaria de saber a pronúncia, ele procura e já fala imediatamente.

O dicionário online Macmillan é feito para estudantes de inglês e traz definições fáceis e exemplos das palavras e expressões. É só clicar no ícone pronunciation para ouvir a pronúncia.

O dicionário online da Cambridge traz, além de definições e exemplos, a pronúncia americana e britânica das palavras.

See you next time!

Ainda ouço de vez em quando gente que pronuncia APPLE como se a palavra rimasse com TABLE e LABEL. Fica a dica mais uma vez, não se pronuncia o ―A em ―APPLE como o ―A do alfabeto, /ei/. O som desse A é algo entre o A em pá e a letra E em pé. O símbolo fonético é æ.

Ainda na dúvida? Por que não conferir o som em um dicionário online? Clique em APPLE para ouvir o que diz o Macmillan Dictionary.

Fonte: “Guia Tecla SAP: Pronúncia Dicas práticas de pronúncia de inglês”, de Ulisses Wehby de Carvalho. Compre na webstore do Tecla Sap.

Vamos praticar alguns sons do T em inglês com este pequeno texto: Thirty Little Turtles in a Bottle of Bottled Water. Listen and repeat as many times as you can.

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Thirty Little Turtles in a Bottle of Bottled Water

A bottle of bottled water held 30 little turtles. It didn’t matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy. The problem was that there were many turtle battles for the less and oodles of noodles. The littlest turtles always lost, because every time they thought about grappling with the haggler turtles, their little turtle minds boggled and they only caught a little bit of noodles.

Fonte: American Accent Training

Let’s practice our /s/ and /z/ sounds with these two small paragraphs. Remember to listen and repeat as many times as you can in order to master these sounds.

/s/

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Sam, a surly sergeant from Cisco, Texas, saw a sailor sit silently on a small seat reserved for youngsters. He stayed for several minutes, while tots swarmed around. Sam asked the sailor to cease and desist but he sneered in his face. Sam was so incensed that he considered it sufficient incentive to sock the sailor. The sailor stood there for a second, astonished, and then strolled away. Sam was perplexed, but satisfied, and the tots scampered like ants over to the see-saw.

/z/

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A lazy Thursday at the zoo found the zebras grazing on zinnias, posing for pictures, and teasing the zookeeper, whose nose was bronzed by the sun. The biggest zebra’s name was Zachary, but his friends called him Zack. Zack was a confusing zebra whose zeal for reason caused his cousins, who were naturally unreasoning, to pause in their conversations. While they browsed, he philosophized. As they grazed, he practiced zen. Because they were Zack’s cousins, the zebras said nothing, but they wished he would muzzle himself at times.

Fonte: American Accent Training

Como em todos os países, os Estados Unidos têm vários sotaques regionais e o de Nova Iorque se tornou famoso em alguns filmes da década de 50. Uma das suas características é a retirada do som de R em palavras como car, park, que soam como cah, pahk. Porém, hoje em dia, muitos nova iorquinhos que ainda carregam esse forte sotaque estão mudando a situação: contratam fonoaudiólogos para ajudá-los a falar com um inglês mais natural, sem tanto sotaque.

Na TV, em séries como The Nanny, onde a atriz Fran Drescher fazia o papel de uma babá do bairro Queens e a personagem Hilda de Ugly Betty, trazem o estereotípico sotaque nova-iorquino para a pequena tela.

Veja este vídeo com uma atriz contando que depois que começou a fazer as sessões com a fonoaudióloga, conseguiu mais papeis e veja também a reação dos seus amigos que bairro.

Veja este vídeo de um vocal coach inglês dando uma dica de como é o sotaque de Nova Iorque (com script!)

Hello, I’m Gareth Jameson. I’m an actor and a voice coach from www.londonviocelessons.com. Here are some tips for working on your voice. Now, the secret to any accent, is to isolate the key sound that is specific to that accent.

So when we are talking about a New York accent, and we are going to talk about a really old fashioned style New York accent like you get in your old gangster films. So this is probably not as common today, but it does still exist with some speakers. The first sound is the ‘R’ sound.

Unlike general Americans, an ‘R’ sound in New York is only pronounced when it’s before a vowel. So listen to the phrase. Are green cards brighter, are green cards brighter.

Listen to are and cards. Even though there’s a letter ‘R’ in those words, you don’t hear it. So it’s not cards, it’s cards.

Are green cards brighter. Our next feature is the vowel ‘er’ as in verse and ‘oi’ as in voice. They become almost the same.

Don’t go too far where you sound silly. So don’t say, thirty third with an ‘oy’. It’s almost there, thirty third.

Verse, that’s verse, verse. He sang the first verse with his beautiful voice. He sang the first first with his beautiful voice.

So they’re very similar, but not exactly the same. He sang the first verse with his beautiful voice. There’s another one there as well in, the first verse and his beautiful voice.

We’ve got ‘da’, he’s saying ‘da’ first verse. It’s fairly common for ‘th’ sounds to be replaced with T’s or D’s, so that you hear, ‘da’ first verse. The next feature is the caught and ‘caught’ vowels.

They’re different in British, English, in New York they’re the same, and they’re very long, drawn out sounds. So we hear, don’t let the dog walk across there. Don’t let the dog walk across there.

There’s another example of that ‘th’, across there. Don’t let the dog walk across there. Now if we take that T H, t t t, instead of, th th th, and mix it with an earlier sound, the first verse, we get the stereotypical New York.

So that instead of thirty third, you get thirty third. The corner of thirty third and third. Now of coarse that’s going too far, that;s a little stereotypical, but if you’re doing this for a play or you’re in a show, then why not go that extra mile and you can bring it back if you need to.

Hey, there!

Pra você que não está fazendo o Curso de Pronúncia online hoje trago uma parte dele que trata sobre o som /aI/, que é igualzinho ao “ai” do português. Check it out!

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Hey, there! How’ve you been?

Na linguagem informal falada acontecem várias contrações e reduções. Abaixo você tem a palavra no discurso formal, sua forma na linguagem informal e alguns exemplos. Lembre-se de que as formas abaixo somente ocorrem na linguagem oral.

Check it out!

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you - ya
I’ll call ya.
See ya.

because - ‘cuz
I did it ‘cuz I wanted to.
I’m tired ‘cuz I worked all day.

I don’t know - I dunno
I dunno why.
I dunno what to do.

let me – lemme
Lemme do it.
Lemme help you.
Lemme talk to him.

give me – gimme
Gimme a call.
Gimme a break!
Can you gimme a minute?

did you…? – joo
Joo call me?
Why joo do it?
Joo go out last night?

do you want to…? – wanna…?
Wanna go out?
Wanna dance?
What do you wanna do?

have got to – gotta
I gotta go.
You gotta do it.

should’ve - shoulda – You shoulda told me.
would’ve – woulda – It woulda been nice.
could’ve – coulda – We coulda come.
must’ve – musta – You musta seen it.

shouldn’t have – shouldna – You shouldna done that.
wouldn’t have - wouldna – I wouldna known.
couldn’t have – couldna – It couldna happened.

going to – gonna
I’m gonna go.
It’s gonna rain.
What are you gonna do?

what do you…? - whadda you…?
Whadda you want?
Whadda you doing?
Whadda you think?

a lot of - a lotta
That’s a lotta money.
I’ve got a lotta friends.

kind of - kinda
It’s kinda hot.
What kinda car is that?

out of – adda
Get adda here.
I’m adda money.
You’re adda your mind.

go to – goddu
I go to work.
Let’s go to a concert.

yes - yeah/yup
Yeah. It’s good.
Yup. I did it.

no - nope
Nope. I’m not going.
Nope. That’s not right.

-ing – in’
What are you doin’?
Nothin’ much.

Texto + áudio: Mastering the American Accent (Barron’s)

Hey, there! How’s it going?

Meu Curso de Pronúncia Online começou sexta-feira passada, dia 18/3 e um dos tópicos do material é o estudo do som /æ/. Veja uma amostra da lição.

O som /æ/ não existe em português, e é uma mistura do som á, da palavra pá, com o som é, da palavra pé. Ele é somente representado pela letra a, em inglês.

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actor – answer – anthem – apple – bad – bat – can – dad – draft – example – habit – hat – man – national – plan – sad – sand

Let’s practice!

Ouça e repita as seguintes frases com o som /æ/ (as palavras com este som estão em itálico).

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1. You shouldn’t set such a bad example for your students.
2. Do you know how to sing France’s national anthem?
3. We’ve got lots of food back at the ranch.
4. I will not leave until I get an accurate answer.
5. Smoking is a very bad habit.
6. We have to come up with a practical plan.
7. I’m not going to attend this year’s teachers annual gathering.
8. Was that our last chance?
9. Rock Hudson was a very handsome actor.
10. I’ve never seen such an angry man in my whole life!
11. Matt sat at the back of the math class.
12. Did Danny have a salad and a sandwich in the cafeteria?
13. Sam had a very bad attitude in her Spanish class.
14. I think I’ll study acting at the national academy.
15. He who laughs last laughs best.

Por hoje é só! Nos vemos amanhã!