manual (first version - Spring 1995, modified Fall 2000, Fall 2004). title: our way of speaking things subtitle: the mystery of russian accent and how to get rid of it note: also generalizable to many other accents by substituting the word "russian" by the corresponding language (some sounds may need changing too). part 0. dedication: to a.a. and l.s. this humble piece of work i dedicate. thanks: i wish to express my gratitude to my first american teachers of this formerly foreign language, elisabeth gareis and pamela healy. to whom: this piece of work, completed during many sleepless days, is intended for russian-speaking end-users of american version of english language (mostly for living in the US, but others can use too). for what: the idea of the manual is to give a set of practical advice on the topic of how to get rid of so familiarly sounding manner of speaking in english with russian accent to those who are interested. it is believed that the set can help in a few weeks once and for all. no guarantees and warranties are given but comments are solicited and welcome. foreword: i really do intend this manual to be helpful and productive. if it did not turn out to be this way, please notify me of this disappointing fact. my experience with american english began about 2.5 years ago and has led me to profound understanding of this language as well as ways of speaking it. my deep conviction is that one can, in fact, begin speaking american english correctly if one really wants to, by means of a system of exercises and stopping believing in the necessity of speaking with inherently russian accent all his/her life. of course this is a nice way of speaking things, but this is not the way we do it. this work is in part a reflection of the author's wish to keep the environment clean and neat. last thing, opinions expressed here and below are in part other people's opinions, adopted and sometimes adapted by the author. all other respectable opinions will not be included. convention: all letters will be small, because although there are big and small letters, there are no big and small sounds. a sound will always be referred to by means of the surrounding it word. for example h-a-t means the vowel sound in between -h-at and ha-t-. sometimes two letters corresponding to one sound will denote the one, e.g. s-ou-nd. misprints and misspells: there will be certainly a few of them. they mainly serve the distnict purpose of stressing the correct spelling of other words unless noted otherwise. part 1, sounds. languages and tongues: it is interesting to note that in russian the two words in the title of this chapter coincide. this used to be the case with english too until some moment of time, probably just about the one when "world" and "peace" were brought together in russian. so, the closeness of the two still exists in russian, and a good guess would be to assume a kind of link between them. in fact, people have noticed that there is a strong correspondence between languages and tongues. basically, there are certain ways of speaking words and phrases, and musics of languages are very different. the next observation along this way is to notice the instruments of deriving sounds and producing speech. whatever the difference between languages is, the instruments remain the same. so, the next guess would be that the instruments must be used very differently. if one can obtain with one's instruments such a strange sounding words like the russian equivalent of english "dancing", and the same one can not get "concupiscence" the way it should sound, this just means that the instruments are not used properly. may be a better expression would be that they are not tuned in the tune. instruments> there are not so many of them, no more than months in the calendar. i also would roughly divide them into moving ones and relatively steady, although they use to move when other parts of body move. this seems natural to me, just like making a distinction between the fiddle and the bow. the moving ones include TONGUE, as important as the bow for the fiddle, lips, and teeth (for those who has them). non-moving or moving along themselves include throat, hard and soft palates, and a few others which you can determine by moving the moving ones along them. tuning> thus, my concept of correct speaking amounts to the observations that if one's instruments are tuned properly and one knows how to use them, one can not produce wrong music. tuning is the first part, and learning how to use them is no less important second one. well, if we think thoroughly what we can ever tune, it does not turn out to be a great number. of course, one should always clean one's teeth before speaking or even clear up one's throat if needed, but this does not always help as was verified in practice. the other strange thing that may come to one's mind is that in contrast with the musical instruments, where to the non-moving parts a great attention is paid, it is not always so in speech. so, we're going to follow the rule of checking, moving, and tuning the moving instruments first, and if it does not help, may proceed to the other ones, and check for example if one's breath is not obstructed or a piece of chewing gum is not an explanation of mumbling. tongue> now, we're all people and know how to speak, at least russian. if it were so much more different from english speakers, how could we be so similar to the friendly americans? in fact, we are similar, but this similarity is external to a great extent, and many difficulties result from internal dissimilarities. leaving discussion of cultural and moral differences for a later time, notice that organs of speech also can be divided into external and internal. the most important hidden internal organ is definitely tongue. if you ask your fellow american to open his/her mouth to a width of 2-3 inches (depends on mouth) you'll be able to notice a striking difference. just kidding. of course, you won't be able to notice the difference just because you have not looked at yours since you were young. the naked and sad truth is that tongues are different. more precisely, their locations in the mouths are. to understand what i mean, do the following experiment. relax your mouth and tongue. open the mouth and look at it in a mirror. notice where your tongue is. ask about the same thing your fellow american. the tongue is at a different place. the pictures to be observed should be like this: yours: american's: _____---__ _____________ vv / \- vv --/ <-------- tongue ---> ----------- ^^_________ ^^___________ the abstract painting above depicts profiles of tongues, yours and a fellow american's if neither of you cheated. the one of a russian speaking person reminds the sin curve when it goes up from 0 to pi/2, the one of the american stays low and steady as american constitution. it is as plain as the top of the white house (if the latter is flat as an airport landing ground). the difference is disappointing and disgusting. it seems to be genetic or due to major political system differences. in fact, it is not. it is due to the language we use and can either remain or decrease. it is not inborn but it is developed during the very first months or years of our growing up. can we try to decrease it? yes, we can. did i try to do it? in fact, i did. did i succeed? 95% i did. can you do it? yes, you can. strangely enough, it may cure 80% of your accent. understanding this difference and making your tongue lie like an american one does, helps also to figure out the ways of extracting sounds and why they turn out to be this way. it becomes suddenly clear why would one say the word "possibility" with such an aspiration and would not make -t- sound neither in "winter", nor in "glisten". con- if i did not convince you about the importance vinced? of the position of the tongue in the relaxed state of the mouth, either reread the above said or try to convince yourself the way one would convince another not to park on a parking spot reserved for disabled. work so, there is something to work on. i tried one rather painful method that finally worked out. you take a clean pencil or a pen and begin to push the back of your tongue down, so that to make the whole tongue flat. you should be able to see a drop hanging in the back of your mouth, just on the wall of the throat, it is called uvula. if you feel like throwing up, take a rest for a moment or two, then go on. when you feel like you pressed it as far as you could down, try to hold it in that position without the pencil. of course, it does not want and bends up. what can you do? only further work can help. there are no alternatives. notice which of your muscles ache when you hold back of the tongue down with the pencil and exercise them. try to make them ache without the pencil. eventually you'll find the right muscles and make them ache and hold the damn back of the tongue down. this took me a few weeks. now my tongue is as flat as my desktop computer. it keeps this way without a pencil. and that pain probably made me write this manual. it was one of a few rewarding pains. i wish you won't have it. good luck, because the rest of the manual is devoted to and intended for the people who went through this endeavor (as well as self torture). other people, please don't read it. it's not going to help you anyway. ..................................................... ..................................................... ..................................................... ..................................................... several weeks later ... now we can talk as people who know how to handle one's tongue and who finally found the answer to the standard question: who is to be the master. the other instruments, like lips and teeth, will be developed too. sounds: sounds are divided into several groups and subgroups. the first major division to make would be between vowels and consonants. a noticeable difference is that even though one can extend the length of a vowel for a few moments (say 5 seconds wouldn't be an exaggeration), the same does not work out with consonants. this is a sort of a definition, where one does not have to check the validity. sounds are different in many languages. although our ear can not tell apart sounds different in other languages, we easily distinguish our natural ones. for example, h-u-t and h-o-t will be practically the same for many russian speakers, but not so many americans would tell the difference between the russian equivalents of "dust" and "ardor". there are many other examples. since at the moment our purpose is to extract sounds of english and not of russian, we will restrict ourselves to the former subject. before proceeding, let's note the difference between the old space you had for extracting sounds in your mouth and the newly acquired one. since now your tongue is as flat as a pan, the space you have is about twice as much as you used to. (a simple calculation: assuming that the russian tongue is like a "sin" curve from 0 to pi/2, the area can be roughly estimating by taking the corresponding definite integral. easy to verify, it is 1. a flat tongue gives you pi/2 times larger. the rest of the area comes from the fact that now you can use a part of the throat as well. that makes up at least twice as much than it was.) also, since the tongue now does not obstruct movement of air from the throat to the teeth as it used to, the aspirate sounds come out nicely and easily. back sounds appear as well, since that particular area has been freed from the tongue. getting to the point, i can just say that it looks like you've changed a string or two or have given them a good tune up, at least. vowels: vowels can be further divided into lax and tense, back and front, with mouth open wide and open narrow, with tongue lying low and somewhere in the middle, and so on. since russian has more vowels, i'll try to show the difference between corresponding russian and english ones and to point out the major ones. begin with the first, easy ones: short -i- like in b-i-t is the same as russian long -ii- like in b-ea-t is different, because it is tense. this means exactly that the tongue is tense and its front part touches the alveolar ridge, the one that protrudes a little just after the teeth. this sound is not exactly a long -i- sound. it is naturally long, because the tongue has to get tense first, then relax back. since both things take time it turns out to be this way. try to push the front of your tongue to the ridge so they touch. if you try to say -i- at the same time, this is not quite the same sound. the problem here is that russian ear could not tell the difference, while there is one. short -u- like in p-u-t is the same as russian long -uu- like in boot is different. it is, as you guess, also tense, but at a different place, namely at the back of the tongue. the tongue should rise a little bit higher than usual at the back, like it did in the front for the long -ii- sound. again, it is naturally long, and again it is hard to tell from its counterpart. however, there is no other difference except for laxness and tenseness. the sounds above were done in the upper part of the mouth. as we go further down, a few more sounds appear. -^- sound like in b-u-t. it is the most common and one of the most difficult to master. it is neutral, and often takes place of many other sounds. one sound out of three would be this one. this is one of the reasons the exercise which took you few weeks to practice will be so useful. this sound is obtained by opening mouth just as you do when drink and doing a voiced exhalation. it is the most lax sound that exists in english, and again the sad fact is that such a sound (the most lax one) exists in russian as well, and the two are different. as soon as you master this one, you can say that you pronounce correctly at least half of english sounds. -e- sound like in m-e-t. this sound differs slightly from the one used in russian. first of all, it is pronounced like the unstressed russian -e- in such words like russian equivalent of "spit" (noun). it is rather lax, and front of the tongue is a little bit lower than in case of russian one. needless to say, it is entirely front sound. Now a few words about lower sounds, that is ones obtained by laying the tongue further down. -A- sound like in b-A-t. this one is a deep back sound. it is simply obtained by opening one's mouth very wide in every direction and making a sound which earlier used to be the first one in russian equivalent of "echo". please do not try to substitute this free and wide sound by the one in russian. it did not help much mr. ostap bender, and won't help much you either. this sound, when said correctly, should resonate in every part of the upper throat. it sounds so nicely in such words like r-A-p and r-A-ck. -ou- sound like in b-ou-ght. the only difference between this one and the previous one is that in this case lips are close together and make a kind of an "o"-ring. i guess, this is the reason why in russian and in british english this sound is somewhere near the letter "o". again, the tongue is down, and the sound is back. in comparison with this sound, the russian counterpart sounds somewhat shallow. the difference is no less than between the moscovian and standard russian pronouncing of the russian m-o-skva sound. (remember?) -a- sound like in p-o-t. this one is simple, because it is a middle sound, where most russian vowels are. it is produced with tongue lying down in the middle of the mouth. however, the mouth and lips should be wide open. otherwise you would get the one of the previous sounds, -ou- or -^-. is not it nice to be able to say t-o-p with such a top pronunciation? well, the road to the top is yet ahead. let's go now to the compound vowels, or diphthongs. i would not consider long -uu- and -ii- vowels as compounds, since they are not. in general, regarding all the compound vowels, if one looks like obtained by a combination of two simple sounds, like -a- and -i-, e.g., the one n-i-ght, you can just combine the two into the one, enunciating a little bit less than required. that is, you make lax versions of the tense vowels and combine them together. by the way, the long vowels -uu- and -ii- do not fit in. now goes a short list of compound vowels (hope none are missed) with a recipe how to obtain them from the simple ones. l-a-ke b-a-t + kn-i-t r-ow- b-ou-ght + p-u-t n-i-ght p-a-rk + l-i-st n-ow- f-a-rm + b-oo-k n-oi-se c-au-ght + t-i-n you may have noticed that i had not used combinations of vowels with the -r- sound before this small table. a good reason for this is that before the -r- sound practically all vowels change a little. the simple ones like -o-r and p-a-rk become less enunciated, and as some people call it, "r-colored". i used them above because the ones in compounds also are not enunciated to the full extent, just about 2/3 of the original amount. there are some compound vowels which occur before -r- only. these are: b-ee-r st-ee-p + b-u-t sp-a-re st-a-ck + f-a-rm g-er-m b-u-t + -r-, can't think of a better example i consider these and combinations of simple sounds with -r- in more detail in the chapter devoted to the -r- sound. conso- now, let's go further, to consonants. here we won't nants: experience so much trouble, while in case of russian consonants every american certainly will. there are no soft and hard consonants. there are only a few of them. many of them are similar to russian ones. first those which are just like the russian ones: -b-ye -v-ery -d-ear -z-eal -l-ess -m-ore -n-one -s-top -f-ight -ch-ose -sh-ave let me try to explain how the sounds -g-one, -k-een, -p-ossible, -t-aste, and -h-ow are different from their russian counterparts in one place. the main difference is that in case of russian ones the tongue is pressed to the upper palate in some cases, or at least obstructs the air movement in thers cases. none of this is usually true for their english counterparts. the reason for this is that for the "american" tongue to presss against the palate it needs to pass a long way up, which is not necessary for the "russian" tongue, where the distance between the back part of the tongue and the palate is very small. therefore, all the sounds listed in this section are obtained in american english by the middle part of the tongue, which usually does not press against the palate, unless a surrounding sound requires so. from here the phenomenon of aspiration results, that is when air goes unobstructed through the mouth. having the tongue in the proper position, you should have no difficulty extracting an aspirate sound like i do, no longer thinking (as i used to do back in russia) when aspiration "needed" and when it is not. a couple of examples: -c-ough is a higly aspirate sound, because the one after that is a wide back lower sound. therefore, if you do it naturally, you won't have time to press the tongue against the palate. -p-ossibility is aspirate for the same reason. on the other hand, -t-ook will be just aspirate, not highly, because the following sound is narrow and upper. therefore your tongue will be up anyway, and thus only modest aspiration results. in case of -g-one you won't be able to reproduce it harshly, the way it sounds in russian, just because it is an unnecessary effort and you try to spare it. in case of -h-ow sound, the tongue practically does not touch the upper palate. it is only slightly obstructing the air flow. no friction is involved. it is aspiration itself. so, in general, these sounds are either slightly or highly aspirate, depending on the environment. since russian has no aspiration, a distinction is made. to obtain a perfect english -j-erk sound just combine the russian -d- and -zh- sounds, BUT the tongue does not go as high as in russian. the combination occurs half way in between the two sounds along the hard palate and slightly below it, so the tongue again does not press against it (see the pattern?). the lei-s-ure sound is obtained similarly to the one above from russian -zh- sound by applying the same rule of not pressing too hard. although we have sometimes difficulties pronouncing the above-mentioned sounds, to tell apart the following pairs of sounds is practically impossible for many russian ears: -th-ink and -s-ink, -th-at and ro-s-e, trai-n- and traini-ng-, -w-ary and -v-ary i have no other ways of pronouncing the sound -th-ink correctly but to protrude the tip of the tongue through almost shut teeth and exhale. may be you know? the only way i know how to practice this sound is before a mirror, obtaining or trying to obtain this hissing sound every time. the difference between the ways of pronouncing the similar sounds, -th-ink and -s-ink is clear and big. if you practice well enough, finally you'll be able to obtain the first one. then distinguishing of the two in speech comes. first, you can see how the other pronounces it. if the tip of the tongue does come out, everything is fine. otherwise he/she cheats. my personal characteristic is that among many things i hate cheating the most. if you're about the same, you'll be able to tell apart the two sounds in a short while. if not, look for other means. if found, please tell me so i can advise it to other people like you. the same true for the other couple of sounds, -th-ese and -z-oo. except for the fact that when one pronounces it he/she uses his/her voice to some extent. i also have reached the level where i can tell the -v- sound from the -w- sound, just by looking at the person's lips position and movement, as well as by the sound they produce. it is common for a russian to try to reproduce the -w- sound using the p-u-t and the b-ou-ght sound. it is not quite right because the first sound is to a high degree front sound, and the other two are back ones. so the recipe for this one would be to repeat the same lips movement as in case of the combination of the two sounds, but to make the sound in front of teeth, and not behind the tongue. nothing is required except for voice, air flow and the proper lips movement. tongue is not involved. a different thing is with hiki-ng- sound. i can't tell it from the other one, but i know how to reproduce it the way it should be. there is a major difference not felt by an untrained ear. the -n- sound is obtained by pressing the front of the tongue against the front of the upper teeth, back of the tongue is lying down. in case of -ng- sound just the converse happens. the front part of the tongue lies down and the back one rises until it touches the hard palate. since the back of the tongue is much wider than the other parts of it, this touch causes the air flow through the mouth to stop, practically the only case of such a complete stopping, and in this case air is rerouted through the nose. this is the only nasal sound. (usually -m- and -n- are also considered to be nasal sounds, but they are a little bit different.) last, but not least, the intriguing -r-escue and p-r-iest sound. it is highly used in the american english at many occasions and the ability to say it correctly is a subject of deserved pride of anyone who is capable of doing this. i can do it only 75% right. however, it helps to notice that this sound in english is close to -l- sound and, guess what, some people from asia even mix the two. therefore, it must be the case that the ways of their pronounciations are close. in fact, they are. so, to make a correct -r- sound, slowly begin doing -l- sound by raising front of the tongue up, little voice should come out of the throat. when it reaches the middle of the way between the bottom and the top, curl tongue tip back, so that the distance between the tip and the hard palate is a couple of mm's and the tip is as far as your back teeth. a mirror would help. at this point the sound should have become a more or less correct -r- sound. if it did not, check the distances above. this one is practically impossible to do with the russian tongue, since the sound resounds just at the place where the back part of the russian tongue is. the reward from getting this sounds right exceeds all expectations. since that occasion, i have always felt myself a free man in a free country. note: above i promised to devote some space in this chapter to correct combination of the -r- sound with vowels, but apparently forgot. could you please erase the above promise, so i won't feel like cheating someone, as well as this note afterwards, since it's not going to be needed then. this is one more exersise in addition to the ones below. exercises: general> a good exercise would be to listen to natural american speech somewhere on the radio or on tv and try to write down the sounds used in words. my notation is neither recommended nor very useful. use the one you like most. just be consistent. then check a dictionary with american pronunciation (british, in general, won't fit). then reproduce. a simple recorder will be of help here. do the same with your sounds as you did with radio or tv ones. do they sound the same? can you express your sounds in the same notation? one of the difficulties lies in the fact that your ear probably is not able to distinguish some sounds, e.g., the ones like b-o-ss and b-u-s. this comes with practice. if you look at a news reporter on tv, try to imagine how he or she obtains the sounds, their tongue, lips, and teeth movements. for another remark here is that if a vowel sounds correctly, vowels> it will do so for as much time as you can reproduce it. an incorrect vowel will not become more correct if said very hastily unless it is the empty sound. extend your sounds in time. if it does not sound right, you would be able to notice that and correct it properly. incorrectness of a sound can not be diminished by saying it for a much shorter period of time. to help yourself, one can use a rubber band (i got many of them when subscribed a newspaper, can share some if a return envelope with stamps is enclosed) in the following way: put one part of it on one hand, and the other part on the other hand. now begin saying a vowel, gently stretching the rubber band simultaneously. stop saying the vowel only after the rubber band has been stretched enough (a couple of seconds at least). record if possible. check the results and correct if necessary. it is helpful in particular when making compound sounds. you can say the first part of it during stretching the rubber band and the other half during relaxing the band. if you happen to know other ways, use them too, and send them here so that i'll be able to incorporate them as well. other check your mouth movements in front of a mirror. how is useful tongue moving? are lips round? is it open wide when things> needed? you're the master, don't be afraid to overexercise them. one more remark is that the sounds should come out naturally, that is should not be combinations of jerky movements of lips and tongue, but a result of smooth operation of the whole mechanism. you're trying to reproduce sounds of a natural language and not a whistle of a steamer, and the nature had taken care of the sounds' simplicity and naturality. if it is hard, may be there are other ways to do it? self-study: take a dictionary with american pronunciation and exercise reproducing words by pronunciation only. find a few examples of similar vowels in seemingly different spellings and the other way around. be creative. end of part 1 note: this part was created a week later than the first part was, and although i did read the first part just before writing this one, it may be very loosely connected to the part above, which is good for you (can read separately) as well as for the parts. part 2, stresses. intro: i have not heard many explanations to the phenomenon of stress, which is present in all more or less known to me languages. every word has a stress, some even 2. every time stress falls on a vowel (at least i have not heard of stressed consonants), and if a word has only one vowel (or syllable), it is always stressed (or at least they say that it is stressed, but can someone give an example of an unstressed syllable in a one-syllable word?) (why would i use so many parentheses?) (that's because i wanted to make comments on my own phrases but have no other place but inside the parentheses.) all of us know how to make a vowel stressed. many of us know what happens if we misplace a stress. a standard example of russian equivalents of "lock" and "castle" will do. (by saying "corollary" properly, you can pass for an englishman.) although the correct stress can be figured out from the context, as it happens in case of the other phenomenon best illustrated by the words "cut" and "cut" (which reminds me of compromises and compromises), it still takes some time and knowing the context. letting other people to guess why stress is present in many languages, let us make the following remark: it is possible to stress not only vowels (or consonants) in words. after all, what is stress? it is putting more emphasis on one thing and make other ones look smaller or less important. so we can put stress on activities, foods, and other things where we have at least two of them. as in case of vowels, you can't make one thing of the kind unstressed. stress: however, in case of syllables there are standard ways in words of doing that. namely, your pitch (or voice) rises and the length of the sound increases. thus, you make this sound different from the other ones, not exactly knowing why. and the fact is that the stress makes the whole word sound correctly, so it will be easily recognized and identified. stress in however, some languages, like english, can stress phrases: other things as well, and those things are words. words are the next step from letters and sounds and they constitute phrases. as mentioned above, it is easy to imagine stressed words, and those who heard american speech will certainly recognize the ones. generalizing from the above, stressed words make phrases recognizable and easy graspable. there are a few questions about this. first, is there word stressing in russian or not. my opinion is that there is no such a thing in russian, and this is because most of the words in russian are equally valuable. in english, however, all words being equal, there are more equal ones. the second question you might ask is why there is this difference. i'm not sure, but may be it results from the presence of auxiliary verbs or just the lengths of the sentences measured in words. my observation is that, in general, in an english sentence there are more words than in russian, and as in case of railway tracks where there are 100 meter and 1km posts, they are made different in size or pitch, since some of them are more informative than the others. since we all know how to make sounds stressed and since words are just combinations of sounds in speaking, roughly speaking a stressed word is a relatively high pitched one, and is said with more enunciation and greater precision. it should differ from the surrounding words, and since we don't have many means of making the difference, the above procedures apply. it is unbearable for many russians to make this difference due to our common socialistic background, i believe, and to the capitalistic ideas that all the words should have equal opportunity of being stressed. i guess, not all ideas are so generally applicable, and this was a nice example. where to the next question which may arise is where to make stress> this difference and to what words give more stress. good randomized algorithms were always of help in the first stages, but some people have figured out the rule of stressing the last new significant word most. to determine the one, usually one takes out all the non-significant or less equal ones, like articles, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions. usually, nouns, verbs (with particles), sometimes adjectives, and other things carrying more meaning are among the ones to be stressed. although a phrase usually has one most stressed word, there are also relatively less stressed ones among the unstressed ones. stress in as we all know from high school, in english there are questions> two basic types of questions, namely, "yes/no" questions and all other questions. the division here is apparently by the type of answer one expects to get asking the question. although it is possible to hear "yes" as an answer to the question "what is your age?", it is somewhat uncommon. also things are easier in english than in russian because speaking correctly one puts all the words into an appropriate sequence, the question sequence, which is somewhat different from the usual order of words in sentences. therefore questions in tone and stress patterns do not differ much from the standard ones. in fact, only yes/no questions are to some extent different. they are little exercises on advanced thinking, because the rule is that after you have found the word to put the most stress on, that is the one closer to the end and having the most meaning, you don't make the following words in lower tone, but in higher tone instead, making the tone higher and higher as you go along. therefore, making the stressed word sound too high can leave you no room for the heightening and therefore will make your simple yes/no question into a somewhat different and more difficult to answer as well as to understand. by the way, it follows that to begin in high tone in the very beginning is even more risky. my personal experience tells me that the very notion of stressed (more or less) and unstressed words helps improving speech, because at least now you know what you're missing and can work on it. practice can help greatly. a good practice would be to take a phrase heard or most likely to be heard on tv or on radio, put stresses on words, pronounce it according to the written and compare with the speech of an american. i can give you only a few examples. stressed words are surrounded by signs ">" and "<". examples: good >luckcan< we? how are you >doingmatterplease<, take >care< of it. i've >heard< of it but very >little<. did >you< take my book? did you >take< my book? did you take >my< book? did you take my >booklooking< for a >>car<<. - what >kind< of car? - a >used< car. - >any< used car? so, the upshot is that every phrase has a stressed word in it, sometimes several. they are the ones that carry more additional information (if there were some before) than the others. one has to observe or listen to native american speech to get used to it and to correctly determine where it should be put. don't be shy stressing words, even incorrectly. it is a good custom to put stress on all the syllables in an unknown word not taking the chance of severely mispronouncing it, but this may help only in case of a word per phrase or so. otherwise, it sounds like playing on a fiddle using various speeds of the bow only, and not the various lengths of strings. now try to imagine the sound and go back to work. stress in: paragraphs this paragraph is going to be short, since the phenomenon is not observed in english, at least it is unnoticeable by many native american speakers, most probably because it is kind of hard to make a phrase stressed. here our physical abilities just give in to technical abilities of modern printing devices, which make italics as well as courier just in one pass. have you tried to speak either one? end of part 2 part 3, rhythm (not rhyme) intro: the webster's dictionary that i have defines rhythm as periodical emphasis in verse or music. most things in our life are periodical, beginning from newspapers and seasons of year to planets and deaths. periodicity is as huge a subject as infinity itself, worth discussing in a number of pages, and it has one more illustration in american speech. almost anywhere where there is emphasis there is rhythm (otherwise, according to the definition, it would not be periodical). these simple observations lead to the notion of phrase rhythm: hopefully i don't have to explain to you what both words mean, and you can on your own distinguish a rhythmical verse from a non-rhythmical one, as well as in case of music. although, there are different frequencies, which is illustrated by such extremities as the rhythm of a heart and the rhythm of a DX2/66 processor. it is practically impossible to imagine rhythm at the level of separate words, since they usually have only one point of emphasis, that is their stress vowel. so the reasonable place to look for rhythm is at the level of phrases. again, this phenomenon is not observed in russian for the obvious reasons. for a thing to be periodical, according to oxford's dictionary, it must be occurring or appearing at regular intervals, usually called periods (not commas). an easy exercise in applied science would be to deduce that stressed words in phrases must come at a regular interval one after another. there is no respect for unstressed words, which sound more like background or felt more like waiting periods for bigger events to come. as one night comes after another at an interval distanced by all the troublesome or nice events of the day, so do we expect a stressed word, the only one worth hearing, to come right at the moment when we're expecting it to hear, skipping all the rubbish in between. (after all, what is the best time, night or day? do days come regularly? they are completely unexpected, in which we just plunge on arising. on the other hand, the night is always welcome, and it would be certainly a disappointment for us not to meet it after such a nasty day.) so are the words. good ones must appear regularly, and this was again a little promotion of regularity on my part. now is a good place to give a few examples. please note that the time stretch between 2 consecutive stressed words remains the same, independently of the amount of the unstressed ones in between. examples: i >>saw<< him i >saw< him >>yesterday<< i >saw< him under the >>kitchen<< table i >saw< him >yesterday< under the >>kitchen<< table i >saw< him >yesterday< under the >kitchen< table to the >left< from the >>refrigerator<< where is your >>hat<hat< that i >>bought<< you? where is your >hat< that i >bought< you last >>week<hat< that i >bought< you last >week< for the >>hike<hat< that i >bought< you last >week< for the >hike< in the rocky >>mountains<are< equal. try to do this by beating a rhythm (whichever you like) by hand on the lap or on the table, and make it a little song. don't forget to make the pitch and length of the stressed words higher and longer respectively. of course, you can't say 10 unstressed and unimportant words using the same time as for saying only 2 of them, but then you should try not to have so many unimportant words in the first place, and try harder in the second. a good exercise here is again to listen to native american speech and to try to determine the intervals between the stressed words, in heartbeats or in ticks of the processor. although different people have different intervals, the very fact of existence of the intervals makes life a lot more regular and periodic. find your initial period and try to follow it. at first it may be rather big but as you master english more, the words will come more quickly and the period will decrease not loosing its characteristic property of being one. so, listen, notice, follow. as with word stress, periodicity is somewhat hidden in the manner of speech, so now when you know about it, only your wicked character will prevent you from developing it in the flow of sounds emitting from once open fountain. end of part 3 part 4, linking intro: the phenomenon of linking also has to do with similar things, making them closer to each other as the name suggests. since speaking occurs in terms of sounds and not in terms of words, a good guess is that several sounds can become closer together than one imagined them to be. however, it is clear that in a word the sounds are already close by means of the enclosing them word. therefore, linking occurs between sounds of different words. this may be a big problem, since words and not sounds are sources of meaning. the same phenomenon is present in russian if you think about it a little. itmakesitdifficultforapersonknowingmanywordstorecognizethem. ----- what to link and what not: as a more or less general rule, i would recommend linking all the sounds until the next stressed word. so, you begin a chain, then make a stress on a word, pronouncing it more clearly than the preceding ones, then make a little pause and begin a new chain if there are words left. where there is no pause, there is a chain and therefore linking. the converse also holds. luckily enough, there are a few stressed words in each sentence, so this gives rise to several chains. in fact, the chains become separate meaning units, the next level after words. it is therefore important to separate the units by means of stressing last words in the units, as well as unstressing all the words inside the units. now it becomes more clear why you would want to make linking in a unit: to make it a unit that is better built and easier to grasp. how to link: it was discovered a long time ago that it is easier to encode, say a paragraph, than to decode it back. a nice supporting example would be encoding the paragraph into a single character. linking, however, does allow such a reconstruction, although sometimes not unique. basically, as was pointed out above, linking is just removing of pauses between adjacent sounds of two consecutive words. since linking occurs only in words between stressed ones, a simple way to practice it would be first to find the stressed words, then to remove the pauses, and say the phrase making only very few unremoved pauses. for example the phrase i am thinking about the kind of dress i want to put on tomorrow evening. becomes i=am=thinking about=the=kind=of=dress i=want=to= put=on tomorrow=evening. here "=" denotes linking. you can also practice on other phrases, such as those given in part 3. reduction: sometimes, as life shows, linking may lead even to reductions. it is also partially a result of lesser importance of certain kinds of words, for example, of auxiliary verbs or pronouns. some of them are even abused in writing, not mentioning speech. "i'm" and "it's" are among the most common ones. they practically receive the status of separate words, and therefore many of them have pronunciation different from the combination of the words they were obtained from. this is one side of the reduction, and it is not treated here as well as pronunciation of separate words as a whole. the other side results from the reluctance of spending a lot of energy on pronouncing -h- sound when it is relatively unimportant, for example, in pronouns and very unstressed words. sometimes non-reduction is very unnatural. compare, for example, "i have a question" with "i've a question". in the first case your work would be twice as much as in the second. therefore the second version is preferable and most commonly heard. other examples include "i talked to'im" and "take'er out". although both pronunciations, with -h- and without it, should be fine. other reductions, like the ones occurring in case of conjunctions "and" and "or" or the ones with some prepositions like "for", are left as an exercise for the diligent reader. my personal belief is that these types of contractions do not make the language nicer sounding, and are very optional. end of part 4 part 5, to (be) last intro: i want to devote this one to the special letters/sounds t and d. quest- all other sounds are more or less easy to explain. these ions: two undergo many changes and sometimes even become silent. when did you hear last time somebody saying "i'm going to take..." or "winter"? did not you hear it from a compatriot? why would "lecture" have that -ch-ose sound instead of the fine ins-t-ead one? why would it be leane-d- and stoppe-d-? no other consonant letters get abused so much as these two. why would "bottle" become a "bo-dd-le"? questions are posed, but no answer will be given. and not because i don't know it, but because i want you to observe the pronunciation and the abuse of the sounds in the natural speech. understanding of the reasons of such particular pronunciation will certainly improve your other sounds. hints: the major principle to use is sparing as much effort as possible. if it requires some additional work or your tongue gets tired quickly, something is done the way it shouldn't have been done. the other thing to observe is that the -t- and -d- sounds are really very special among all others. try for example -z-oo sound. if you like, you can buzz it for quite a while. or you can hiss with the -s-tre-ss- sound. you can enjoy the co-ll-ocation sound for a period of time. now try the same with one of the two. to make a correct -t- sound you have to put the tongue in the right place and then to take it from there. if you just leave it there, no sound comes out. the same true about the -d- sound. of course being quick and apt you can observe the same thing regarding the -b- and -p- sounds. (if you give me as one more example -g-o sound i would just say that you don't make it right, the four sounds are the only ones.) however, the difference is that the last pair is made with lips only, the tongue is not involved. and since the lips don't move as much, you can afford use them for extracting the sounds practically at every occasion. a more fine observation to made is that the sounds are used differently in combination with other consonants, e.g., you rarely find the combination of -n- sound with the -p- or -b- sound in the middle of a word. also, what differs -t- from -d- is voicelessness. this is the explanation of all those voice-d- and bereave-d-. if you think a little, this explain the li-tt-le as well. ok, now how would you explain "win[t]er" and mean-t-? the keyword here is "stop". it stops. what a stop means? it means a pause. if you now recall what a pause means, you most likely conclude that it makes the word at which the stop is made a stressed one. there is no reason for stressing a part of a word, as in case of the win[t]er. if you observe a little bit more, you would find that there are not so many words in english that have -t- or -d- sound somewhere in the middle, although this sentence may convince you in the contrary. however, there are no unimportant words with -t-'s in the middle. for example the word "unimportant" is important in virtually every phrase. i see now that i've answered almost every question i had posed. no wonder, since at the moment i asked them i did not know the answers exactly. but if you think about it, and better yet write, the answers come. yet a: a research topic would be "modification of sounds few more under the influence of surrounding sounds". for questions example, how does the -r- sound reflect on the -t- sound. why the la-st- sound is different from the -st-ory sound? do you feel the difference between the two and the -st-eel sound? how are they different? what happens when two consecutive -t- or -d- sounds occur, or the two one after another, like -last try-? if you have any other questions no less interesting, please address them to me, or, better yet, send along with correct answers. end of part 5 end of manual