英语单词大师：Pronunciation

 AA: I'm Avi Arditti; Rosanne Skirble is away. This week on Wordmaster: pronunciation the North American way. Our guest is Colleen Meyers. She teaches English to international teaching¹ assistants at the University of Minnesota. She's also a co-author of a program for non-native English speakers called Pronunciation for Success.

And success in pronunciation, Colleen Meyers says, includes learning² how North Americans position their mouth when they speak.

COLLEEN MEYERS: It sounds silly, but one technique that I have my students do is to take a pen or a pencil and put it in their mouth, so that they need to hold the pen or pencil between their teeth, and then to speak English. And this will open up their jaw³ just enough to help them be more understandable to people from Canada or the United States.

AA: Right, you're holding a pen in your hand, and so when you talk about putting it in your mouth, obviously⁴ you mean putting it in lengthwise --COLLEEN MEYERS: Right. When you're talking, it forces you to keep your jaw open. And also it forces you to use your lips more actively⁵. So, for instance⁶, some speakers of other languages don't use as much lip movement as we do. So, for instance, Koreans tend to move their lips very little. And so, as a result, their sounds maybe aren't as clear as they need to be for speakers of North American English.

And also there's just the whole way that they're perceived⁷ in terms of somebody looking at them. We have a saying in English: 'Read my lips.' So sometimes you can say something, and the person doesn't even need to hear what you're saying, but they can just look at the movement of your mouth and they can understand what you're getting at.

AA: Recently we received a question from a young woman in Iran. She's curious how she can go about learning pronunciation, and one of the things she asked is should she look at herself in the mirror?

COLLEEN MEYERS: I think that that's a great idea, to use the mirror. In fact, with the students that I work with, we pull out the mirrors right away, because using a mirror is one of the ways in which non-native speakers of English can really get the sense of whether or not they're speaking like people from North America. So you could look at somebody in a movie and see the way that they're moving their jaw, and how they're moving their lips, and then try to imitate that by using a mirror.

Another thing that I've heard, and that I sometimes tell my students to do, is to smile when they're speaking English. Because smiling -- when you smile, you're happy, and that can sometimes help with the music of English. So, for instance, if I pick up the phone and don't smile, then I might say something like 'hello' [flat tone]. But if I'm smiling, I would more likely say something like 'HEH-low.' And so to a North American listener, I sound like I'm much happier, and sound like I'm much more interested in talking to them.

AA: Now you've talked about using movies as a way to see how actors and actresses move their mouths when they're speaking English. Are there any other ways that people can, let's say at home or in school, improve their pronunciation?

COLLEEN MEYERS: Well, some other ways that they might be able to do that would be, for instance, if they have access to American music. Of course, it depends on the music. You don't want to choose something that you have a hard time understanding. But some examples of music that I use with my students are, for instance, the theme from the movie 'Titanic,' by Celine Dion. In fact, a lot of people don't realize it, but Celine Dion is a non-native speaker of English herself.

AA: She's French Canadian.

COLLEEN MEYERS: Right, she's French Canadian. And the song that she sings in that movie is excellent, because she sings it slowly, she articulates⁸ very clearly, and not only that, but for a lot of students, they don't mind singing it over and over and over again.

MUSIC: My Heart Will Go OnAA: Colleen Meyers teaches English in the international teaching assistant program at the University of Minnesota. And she's one of the co-authors of a multimedia⁹ program called Pronunciation for Success, from Aspen Productions.

That's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is [email protected], and our segments¹⁰ are online at voanews.com/wordmaster. I'm Avi Arditti.

1 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

2 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。

3 jaw   

n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训

参考例句：

• He delivered a right hook to his opponent's jaw.他给了对方下巴一记右钩拳。
• A strong square jaw is a sign of firm character.强健的方下巴是刚毅性格的标志。

4 obviously   

adv.显然；明白地

参考例句：

• Obviously they were putting him to a severe test.显然他们是在给他以严峻的考验。
• Obviously he was lying.显然他是在撒谎。

5 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

6 instance   

n.例，例证，实例

参考例句：

• Can you quote me a recent instance?你能给我举一个最近的例子吗？
• He's a greedy boy,yesterday,for instance,he ate all our biscuits!他是个贪吃的孩子――比如，他昨天把我们的饼干都吃了！

7 perceived   

v.感觉( perceive的过去式和过去分词 )；视为；认为；理解为

参考例句：

• I perceived a change in his behaviour. 我注意到他举止有些改变。
• On entering his house, we at once perceived him to be tasteful. 我们一进他的房子，立刻感觉到他是个高品位的人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 articulates   

清楚地表达( articulate的第三人称单数 )； 形成关节； 与…合成整体

参考例句：

• The base articulates with the body to form a circular shape. 底座与主体结合起来形成了一个环形物。
• She articulates that women cannot achieve their liberation without men's involvements. " 她清楚地说明女人要获得真正的解放，有赖于男人的参与。

9 multimedia   

adj.多种手段的，多媒体的；n.多媒体

参考例句：

• Multimedia is the combination of computer and video technology.多媒体是计算机和视频技术的结合。
• Adam raised the issue of multimedia applications and much useful discussion ensued.亚当提出了多媒体应用的问题，从而引发了许多有益的讨论。

10 segments   

部分( segment的名词复数 )； 瓣； [计算机]（字符等的）分段； [动物学]节片

参考例句：

• He is eating oranges in segments. 他正在一瓣瓣地吃橘子。
• Gene cloning provides a means of purifying and propagating specific DNA segments. 基因克隆化提供了一种纯化和扩增特定DNA片段的方法。