Monday, February 18, 2013

Can u pronounce 90% correctly?

Aku takde la terer sangat English, tapi aku yakin la aku ni above average (konon!), sebab aku boleh lulus IELTS tanpa study/kursus (though I could have done better).

Masa buat Master dulu, memang syok la aku jadi 'dewa' kepada Kelly dan Rebecca, sebab diorang (Korean and Taiwanese) datang ke Aussie semata-mata untuk belajar English. So, bila aku cakap berterabur pun, bagi diorang dah cukup tererist la kan? Wahahaha

Tapi lately, entah nape ntah.. aku rasa English aku sungguh hamsap. 
Nak nak bila bercakap dengan SV dan colleagues. Entah apa-apa aku meraban. Biasanya limited dengan vocab la, sebab aku cenderung untuk jaga grammar jugak walaupun dalam conversation (ye la, ye la... aku tau orang meluat aku jadi grammar nazi, correcting people when they are talking. hewhewhew)



Now, meh kita test power...

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
(mind you, kadang-kadang spelling dia similar, tapi bunyinya totally lain).


English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité
Source: HERE

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!



Oh well... aku pun tak pasti betul ke aku boleh dapat 90%, bcoz I have this attitude.... Hehe

9 comments:

  1. Panjang gile poem tuh.....tak larat nak "test" all those pronunciation...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sampai tang daughter... Laughter...
    Aku dah jeng kreng...
    Hahahaha...

    ReplyDelete
  3. kalo ada audio utk double check bagus jgk ni. kalo x, mmg yakin 100% je wahahaha (JK)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I gigih skit buka online..cari certain words yg I am not sure of. Mana yg xlarat tu..kira halal la kan.kehkeh

      Delete
  4. Sila..sila. jgn lipa klik iklan nuffnang s3kali

    ReplyDelete

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