Chapter 1 American Intonation The American Speech Music CD 1 Track 4 What to Do with your mouth to Sound american One of the main differences between the way an american talks and the way the rest of the world talks is that we dont really move our lips. (So, when an American says, Read my lips! "what does he really mean? We create most of our sounds in the throat, using our tongue very actively. If you hold your fingers over your lips or clench your jaws when you practice speaking American English, you will find yourself much closer to native-sounding speech than if you try to pronounce every .. single.. sound..very .. carefully. If you can relate American English to music, remember that the indigenous music is jazz. Listen to their speech music, and you will hear that Americans have a melodic, jazzy way of producing sounds. Imagine the sound of a cello when you say, Beddy bada bida bedder budder(Betty bought a bit of better butter) and you'll be close to the native way of aying it. Because most Americans came from somewhere else, American English reflects the accent contributions of many lands. The speech music has become much more exaggerated than British English, developing a strong and distinctive intonation. If you use this intona- tion, not only will you be easier to understand, but you will sound much more confident, dynamic, and persuasive Intonation, or speech music, is the sound that you hear when a conversation is too far away to be clearly audible but close enough for you to tell the nationality of the speakers The American intonation dictates liaisons and pronunciation, and it indicates mood and meaning. Without intonation, your speech would be flat, mechanical, and very confusing for your listener. What is the American intonation pattern? How is it different from other languages? Foa egzampuru, eefu you hea ah Jahpahneezu pahsohn speakingu Ingurishu the sound would be very choppy, mechanical, and unemotional to an American. Za sem vey vis Cheuman pipples, it sounds too stiff. A mahn frohm Paree ohn zee ahzer ahnd, ee intonashon goes up at zee end ov evree sentence, and has such a strong intonation that he sounds romantic and highly emotional, but this may not be appropriate for a lecture or a business meeting in English
American Accent Training American Intonation Do's and Don'ts Do Not Speak Word by word Bob... is . on.. the lone Connect Words to Form Sound groups the foun Use staircase intonation Ba Start a new staircase ou that information, generally a noun 4 Do not speak word by word. If you speak word by word, as many people who learned"printed"English do, you'll end up sounding mechanical and foreign. You may have noticed the same thing happens in your own language: When someone reads a speech, even a native speaker, it sounds stiff and stilted, quite different from a normal conversational tone. 4 Connect words to form sound groups. This is where you're going to start doing something completely diferent than what you have done in your previous English studies. This part is the most difficult for many people because it goes against everything theyve been taught. Instead of thinking of each word as a unit, think of sound units. These sound units may or may not correspond to a word written on a page Native speakers don' t say bob is on the phone, but say [babizan the foun. Sound units make a sentence flow smoothly, like peanut butter- never really ending and never really starting, just flowing along. Even chunky peanut butter is acceptable. So long as you don' t try to put plain peanuts directly onto your bread, you'll be OK
Chapter / American intonation o Use staircase intonation Let those sound groups floating on the wavy river in the figure flow downhill and you'll get the staircase. Staircase intonation not only gives you that American sound, it also makes you sound much more confident. Not every American uses the downward stair case. a certain segment of the population uses rising staircases--generally, teenagers on their way to a shopping mall: Hi, my name is Tiffany. I live in La canada. I'mon the pep squad What Exactly Is Staircase Intonation? In saying your words, imagine that they come out as if they were bounding lightly down a flight of stairs. Every so often, one jumps up to another level, and then starts down again Americans tend to stretch out their sounds longer than you may think is natural. so to lengthen your vowel sounds, put them on two stairsteps instead of just one Were here The sound of an American speaking a foreign language is very distinctive, because we double sounds that should be single. For example, in Japanese or Spanish, the word no is, to our ear clipped or abbreviated Standard american When you have a word ending in an unvoiced consonant one that you""(t, k, s, x, f, sh)you will notice that the preceding vowel is said quite quickly, and on a single stairstep. When a word ends in a vowel or a voiced consonant--one that you""say"(b, d, g, z, v, zh, j), the preceding vowel is said more slowly, and on a double stairstep eat Unvoiced Voiced There are two main consequences of not doubling the second category of words: Ei ther your listener will hear the wrong word, or even worse, you will always sound upset
merican Accent Training Consider that the words curt, short, terse, abrupt, and clipped all literally mean short. When applied to a person or to language, they take on the meaning of upset or rude. For example, in the expressions"His curt reply .. " Her terse response. or"He was very short with me""all indicate a less than sunny situati Three Ways to Make Intonation About this time, you,re coming to the point where you may be wondering, what exactly are the mechanics of intonation? What changes when you go to the top of the staircase or when you put stress on a word? There are three ways to stress a word 4 The first way is to just get louder or raise the volume. This is not a very sophisticated vay of doing it, but it will definitely command attention 8 The second way is to streeeeetch the word out or lengthen the word that you want to draw attention to(which sounds very insinuating) 4 The third way, which is the most refined, is to change pitch. Although pausing just before changing the pitch is effective, you don, t want to do it every time, because then it becomes an obvious technique. However, it will make your audience stop and listen cause they think you're going to say something interesting Exercise 1-1: Rubber Band Practice with Nonsense Syllables CD1Track 5 Take a rubber band and hold it with your two thumbs. Every time you want to stress a word by changing pitch, pull on the rubber band. Stretch it out gently, don 't jerk it sharply. Make a looping oo figure with it and do the same with your voice. Use the rubber band and stretch it out every time you change pitch. Read first across, then down 1. duh duh duh 1. la lala 1. mee mee mee 1. hoho ho 2. duhduh duh 2. lala la 2. meemee mee 2. hohoho 3. duh duh duh 3. la lala 3. mee mee mee 3. ho ho ho 4. duh duh duh 4. lala la mee mee mee 4. ho ho ho Read each column down, keeping the same intonation pattern A B D 1. duh duh duh 1. duh duh duh 1. duh duh duh 1. duh duhduh 2. ABC 2. imprecise 2. condition 2. alphabet 3.123 3. a hot dog 3. hot de log 4. Dogs eat bones. 4. They eat bones. 4. They eat them. 4. Give me one
Chapter 1/ American intonation Staircase Intonation CD 1 Track 6 So what is intonation in American English? What do americans do? We go up and down cases. We start high and end low we go and cases down Every time we want to stress a word or an idea, we just start a new staircase. That sounds simple enough, but when and where do you start a new staircase? Statement Intonation with nouns Intonation or pitch change is primarily used to introduce new information. This means that when you are making a statement for the first time, you will stress the nouns Dogs bones Exercise 1-2: Noun Intonation CD 1 Track Practice the noun stress pattern after me, using pitch change. Add your own examples 1. Dogs eat bones 1l. Jerry makes music 2. Mike likes bikes 12. Jean sells some apples 3. Elsa wants a book 13. Carol paints the car. 4. Adam plays pool 14. Bill and i fix the bikes 5. Bobby needs some money. 15. Ann and Ed call the kids 6. Susie combs her hair 16. The kids like the candy. 7. John lives in France 17. The girls have a choi 8. Nelly teaches French 18. The boys need some help 9. Ben writes articles 10. Keys open locks 20 Pause the CD V Practice the patterns five more times on your own, using your rubber band