Un|vers|dad Uc|nf

Lngllsh edagogy
oqllsb lbooetlcs ooJ lboooloqy. 5opto-seqmeotols, 5ecooJ 1etm 2012

Making your speech more natural and more fluent (2)
Continuing with more exercises on how to make your speech more fluent and sound more
natural, and therefore, minimize the chances for experiencing communication breakdowns, here
are some more mini-dialogues to practice both specific pronunciations of contracted forms as well
as to practice overall features of pronunciation in the English language. Match part A of these
mini-dialogues to their correspondent part B. In each of both parts, identify their corresponding
content words or more prominent words by circling/underlining them. Then start practicing by
reading them aloud.
A: Hes leaving now ___ B: Lets ask that farmer.
A: Were arriving at ten. ___ B: I thought hed gone already.
A: I havent got any money on me. (UK)
A: I dont have any money on me. (Am)
___ B: Yes, I think its ridiculous.
A: Do you think itd be okay to camp here? ___ B: Itll be good to see you.
A: You shouldve taken the job. ___ B: Well, lets eat now.
A: I suppose youve heard Toms idea? ___ B: Dont worry. Ive got my credit card.
A: Im starving. ___ B: Youre right. I should.

As explained before, contracted forms are spoken forms of written format or organized lexical
units in grammatical configurations. So when speaking, its absolutely normal, and further
recommendable, to use contracted forms even if written forms are in long ones. For example, you
might find the following sentence: Those are too big, but these will fit. The underlined lexical
units are the ones that in normal and fluent speech should be uttered in their contracted forms.
The production of such sentence should be something like:
]aoza'tu:btg]bat'i:za!ftt[
Can you utter such sentence following the IPA symbols and especially, giving the intonation
contour indicated in the above transcription? In normal speech, these two ideas, utterances,
should be clearly pronounce in, say, ONE SECOND and, maybe, with one or three milliseconds
more extra. Like in the following exercises, with which youre supposed to so the same practice,
identify content words, practice pronunciation, fluency, intonation and contracted forms.
N SENTENCES / UTTERANCES
1 My feet will get wet because my shoes have got holes in them.
2 There is no butter, but this will do instead.
3 I am sure David would help you if he could.
4 How did they know we would be there?
5 Diego has phoned to say he is not ready to go yet, but he will call again when he is.
(no more that 4 secs)
6 There have been four parcels delivered for you while you have been away.
(no more than 2 secs)
7 What will you do if Freddy has already gone?