SPELLING THE ENGLISH ALPHABET

Spelling the English alphabet has its difficulties, specially with some of the letters. In the chart above you can see the letters of the alphabet ordered by their pronunciation. Below another chart to practice listening and pronunciation.

HOW TO SPEAK FOOTBALL

The 2014 Football World Cup starts today in Brazil. Even if you're not a football fan, I think that it would be interesting to check up on some vocabulary related with this sport, just to be updated. Here are some vocabulary charts and videos with words you'll need to understand if you watch a football match broadcast or if you read any article about one in English.

LINK TO FOOTBALL VOCABULARY.

Watch these videos with football vocabulary for correct pronunciation:

Here is a chart with the different groups of teams in this World Cup:

PRONOUNCING ENGLISH NUMBERS

Always insisting on how you must pronounce the numbers in English, so that it's clear what number it is. In the chart above you can see underlined which are the stressed syllables in each of them. Most numbers between 0-10 are monosyllables. Numbers between 13-19 are all stressed on their last syllable -teen /ti:n/. The different numbers that refer to each set of tens, ending in -ty /ti/ always have the stressed syllable on the first one, never on the last.

So, 

thirteen - thirty

fourteen - forty

fifteen - fifty

sixteen - sixty

seventeen - seventy

eighteen - eighty

nineteen - ninety

(Stressed syllables are darker black)

This is the first post of a series of them devoted to numbers and expressing them.

IRREGULAR VERBS PAST & PARTICIPLES ORGANIZED BY THEIR PRONUNCIATION

Including a chart that distributes irregular verbs past and participles organized by how they are pronounced. There are also videos with raps to practice their pronunciation through listening.

Video 1:

Video 2:


Video 3:

HOMOPHONES: DIFFERENT WORDS THAT SOUND THE SAME

Two charts with homophones: words that are pronounced the same way but spelt differently.

ONLINE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE

Here you can find collected some interesting links to practice English pronunciation online:

- BRITISH COUNCIL PHONEMIC CHART

- BBC: Pronunciation tips.

PRONUNCIATION OF THE "-S" ENDING

Here's another post devoted to pronunciation. Pronunciation in English because there aren't many fixed rules for it. But the few there are must be known. One is the pronunciation of final regular verb "-ED" ending. And in this post you can see the rule to pronounce plural noun endings, 34d person singular "-(E)S" endings and "'S" possessive endings. At the same time you can check on plural spellings, too.

Video "-(E)S" ending pronunciation:

AN INCORRECTLY PRONOUNCED OLYMPIC SPEECH

Unfortunately, Madrid didn't get the Olympic Games after its third bid in a row. Now everybody is considering the reasons why. One of the possible reasons is that our politicians either can't speak English very well or don't even speak it at all.

The Mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella, tried, but her pronunciation isn't very good. Here's a video of her speech with "funny" subtitles.

Video Ana Botella's speech at Buenos Aires last Saturday:

Links:
 - OTHER RIDICULOUS MOMENTS OF SPANISH VIP SPEAKING ENGLISH.
- THE REASONS WHY SHE DID IT WRONG (In Spanish).
El español tiene isocronía silábica -todas las sílabas duran más o menos lo mismo-, mientras que el inglés tiene -isocronía acentual-. O para que lo entiendan 'English is stress-timed; Spanish is syllable-timed'. O sea, para que suene a inglés-inglés las sílabas que no llevan acento no se deben pronunciar apenas, y en ellas la vocal debe perder su sonido característico.
Dado que la Regidora de Madrid no domina las peculiaridades de la fonética inglesa, convierte 'nuestra amistad' -'our friendship' pretendida- en 'nuestro cordero amigo ' -'our friend sheep' [audio]-, simplemente por acentuar la vocal que no debía.

BRITISH ACCENTS

In Spanish an Andalusian doesn't pronunce it as a Galician or a Madrilenian, Basque or Catalan... The same happens to English in Britain, accents change from county to county, city to city, even in the same city... Here are some videos which show some of the differences of pronunciation of English in Britain.

Video:

Video Canadian accent:

VIDTIONARY: THE VIDEO DICTIONARY

Here's something new and interesting: VIDTIONARY. It's an online video dictionary for learners of English. It defines and expresses words through images and audio. You can search for words by categories, collections, parts of speech or alphabetical order. It's fantastic!

From today there's a permanent link on the right-hand sidebar of this blog: VIDTIONARY.

Here are some of its definitions:

- ARRIVE (verb):

- NOBODY:

- QUICK (adj):

- WATERFALL (noun):

BRITISH ENGLISH vs AMERICAN ENGLISH

The difference between the British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) can basically be distinguished in:

1) VOCABULARY: a different word or use of a word for a different meaning. Some examples:

There are many more:

British:
HOLIDAY / LIFT / SWEETS   are  in AmE?

American: 
COOKIE / FALL / SOCCER are in BrE?
Do you know any more? 
Check answers to previous questions and other examples in the link below.
Link: BRITISH ENGLISH AMERICAN ENGLISH VOCABULARY DIFFERENCES.

2) SPELLING: The same word is spelt in a different way. The general idea is that American English has a much more simple and logical spelling from a Spanish point of view.

Link: BRITISH ENGLISH AMERICAN ENGLISH SPELLING DIFFERENCES. (Wikipèdia)

3) GRAMMAR. Here are some basic grammar differences:

& 4) PRONOUNCIATION. As you can seen what happens in Spanish being spoken by a Spaniard or an Argentinian, or even a person from Galicia, or Madrid and one from Andalucia, all have different accents. Language pronunciation changes from one geographical area to another. 

Here's a video:

For other specific differences, check on this link, which includes all:
Link: GENERAL DIFFERENCES BRITISH ENGLISH vs AMERICAN ENGLISH.

READ IT ANYWAY

INTRODUCING FRIENDS

Click on the photo and you'll link to a video where you can practice how to introduce new people to your friends. Enjoy!

And here's another video of how people are introduced in English, taken from different scenes of different TV series (Brothers & Sisters, Grey's Anatomy, Big Bang Theory, Two and a half men, Desperate Wives...)

Video "INTRODUCING NEW PEOPLE":



And at last, another video where you can see how to introduce yourself.

Video "INTRODUCING YOURSELF":

PRONUNCIATION OF THE "-ED" ENDING

Here's another video for you to check and practice how to pronunce correctly the "-ED" verb ending of the Past Simple regular form of English verbs. Watch it.

Video Pronunciation of "-ED" verb ending:


Video with many examples: