手把手教你学口语19

In a previous tip, I mentioned how in long sentences, it is necessary to pause between thought groups. However, relatively¹ short sentences may also require pauses to help the listeners organize the stream of sounds correctly. Let’s look at some examples. In the question “what time do you come in in the morning?” It is necessary to pause between the two prepositions² “in”. If you pause after the word “come”, “what time do you come / in in the morning?” Then the listeners will be confused, because “come in” and “in the morning” are two separate thought groups. Here’s another similar example. “Look your papers over over the weekend.” You need to pause between the two “over”s to help your listeners organize your words. If you pause somewhere else like “Look your papers / over over the weekend”, nobody will understand you. Sometimes pausing in the wrong place will change the meaning of what you say.

For example, let’s take two sentences. Sentence 1: “I usually eat sushi for lunch.” Sentence 2: “I ate noodles today.” When you put the two sentences together in speech, you must pause slightly between them. “I usually eat sushi for lunch. I ate noodles today.” If you pause after the word “sushi”, the meaning changes. “I usually eat sushi. For lunch I ate noodles today.” So remember to use pauses to group ideas together. If you pause in the middle of ideas, or group pieces of different ideas together, your listeners will have a hard time understanding you.

This has been today’s daily tip. Tune³ in tomorrow for another tip on learning⁴ English.

1 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

2 prepositions   

n.介词( preposition的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She lays a lot of emphasis on the usage of prepositions. 她把重点放在介词的使用上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Prepositions and conjunctions are particles. 介词和连词是小品词。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 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。

4 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。