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A Pronunciation Poem!!!

A Pronunciation Poem!!!

Date: Oct 04 2007

Topic: Pronunciation

Author: Ocean-SA

Lesson

Hi guys I found this poem .. It teachs you pronounciation!!

Have fun Wink

English is tough stuff
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.
Foeffer 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!!!

What agreat way to learn Pronounciation !

===================================================

Yours

Ocean

Comments

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carlos07Super Member!

Argentina

Have it record by a native and publish it!! (for enblishbaby webmaster)

01:14 PM Nov 19 2007 |

victor31106

China

how can i listen to this poem?

01:10 PM Nov 19 2007 |

kebingka

kebingka

China

A new comer,,,

12:44 PM Nov 19 2007 |

zeeshi

zeeshi

Pakistan

good exercise…

09:51 AM Nov 19 2007 |

binglengbaby

China

Hi Ocean, nice to meet you! This is the first time I joined you,pls kindly give me a hand how to imprive listening ,speaking.Thanks a lot!

Binglengbaby

05:03 AM Nov 19 2007 |

yuanweiliang

China

thanks,but it's so hard.

03:01 AM Nov 19 2007 |

come on xiaqing

China

very good

01:58 AM Nov 19 2007 |

helena lee

helena lee

China

great,

my english pronunciation is not good !

thank you very much !

 

 

01:29 AM Nov 19 2007 |

SYR_Star

SYR_Star

Syrian Arab Republic

thanks
nice poem

11:50 PM Nov 18 2007 |

fyhy150

China

halo .!

10:20 PM Nov 18 2007 |

ness04

Philippines

it's really nice!!

 

04:08 PM Nov 18 2007 |

xuxing

Anguilla

very good!

12:09 PM Nov 18 2007 |

xuxing

Anguilla

very good!

12:08 PM Nov 18 2007 |

jhchenhao

jhchenhao

China

Laughing

11:50 AM Nov 18 2007 |

chamoh42@gmail.com

Solomon Islands

Hi.. friends, english is second language in my country and iam so please to join this as it will enrich my pronounciation pratice and most especially the words with same surffixes and prefixes that could prounced the same but have different meanings..

Great indeed! I'm anticipating your continuos support by providing more english tips to those of us who have such a troublesome.

charity haga

07:56 AM Nov 18 2007 |

applezhuqing

China

It's very simply

I like it.

06:07 AM Nov 18 2007 |

tianmiguoguowxf

China

i like it,too

03:25 AM Nov 18 2007 |

newestuser

newestuser

Turkey

thanks

12:48 AM Nov 18 2007 |

gilbs76

gilbs76

Philippines

I love it…......... I learned a lot. Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

08:25 PM Nov 17 2007 |

fetian

Egypt

ITS  GOOD

 

05:31 PM Nov 17 2007 |

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