手把手教你学口语10

Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on sound linking.

When 2 identical or similar consonants¹ are in a row, most sounds are not pronounced. For example, stop Peter. “stop” ends in the sound “p”, and “Peter” begins in the same sound. Together the words are linked as “sto-peter”. The words aren’t pronounced stop Peter. To pronounce two identical sounds one after another, would sound like someone stuttering. English words are always linked smoothly². Similar but not identical sounds such as voiced and voiceless pairs of consonants are also linked in this way. For example, it’s a big cake. “big” begins in the sound “g”, cake begins with the sound “k”. “k” and “g” differ only in that “k” is voiceless and “g” is voiced. When they are next to each other in a phrase they’re linked smoothly by not aspirating or pronouncing fully³ the first of the 2 sounds. Listen carefully as I read the example again. It’s a big cake. Notice how the first sound “g” is not released. If the pair of sounds is reversed, like in “I like goats.” it is the “k” sound which is not pronounced. Listen closely. I like goats. I like goats.

There’re 8 pairs of consonants that differ only in the presence or lack of vocal⁴ cord vibration⁵. Listen as I give one example of sound linking for each pair.

v, f : I love France.

δ,θ: Let’s bathe three times.

z, s : She is Susan.

з,∫: The garage should be cleaned.

dз,t∫: He has a huge chin.

b, p : Put the cap back on.

d, t : Dad told me.

k, g : I like Gavin. (? )

It is important to include this type of sound linking in your speech if you want to achieve fluency⁶. It is also important to be aware of how this linking affects how spoken English sounds. Otherwise you may not understand native speaker’s speech. This has been today’s daily tip. Tune⁷ in tomorrow for another on learning English.

1 consonants   

n.辅音，子音( consonant的名词复数 )；辅音字母

参考例句：

• Consonants are frequently assimilated to neighboring consonants. 辅音往往被其邻近的辅音同化。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Vowels possess greater sonority than consonants. 元音比辅音响亮。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

2 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

3 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

4 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

5 vibration   

n.颤动，振动；摆动

参考例句：

• There is so much vibration on a ship that one cannot write.船上的震动大得使人无法书写。
• The vibration of the window woke me up.窗子的震动把我惊醒了。

6 fluency   

n.流畅，雄辩，善辩

参考例句：

• More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
• Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。

7 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。