Fingers’ Pronunciation

AUDIO DR FINGERS’PRONUNCIATION

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my pronunciation course! (The answers to the exercise are on page 50)

Irregular Participles

This is the second part of our series on irregular past participles and their pronunciation. Just to start, I would like to perform another rap to help you with the pronunciation of these words. Once again, I asked my good friend DJ Stokes to lay down another drum ‘n’ bass line. I hope you enjoy my little rap, especially as the language focus of my rap is based on the pronunciation of these words.

Dr Fingers’ Rap - “I’ve Been A Bad Boy”

In my life I’ve been so bad, And done some things that make me sad, I’d like to tell you all about them, And hope you can learn something from them.

I’ve ridden to death some sick old mules, And shown up friends to be real fools, I’ve taken things that were not mine, And thrown a cat from room 49.

I’ve grown some plants that were illegal, And hidden food from a dog called Dougal, I’ve spoken harshly to my class, And stolen things that were made of glass.

I’ve never given to charity, And refuse to speak with clarity, I’ve stolen fruit from trees in Fall, And laughed at cats that were too small.

Now I hope one day you can forgive me, You see, my parents died when I was three, After that I had no love, And no one I could call mum.

By Dr Fingers - copyright, 2004.

Listen & Repeat

Now let’s get on with some pronouncing. Listen and repeat these verbs and their irregular pasts and past participles:

Infinitive Past Past Participle

Give Gave Given Grow Grew Grown Hide Hid Hidden Know Knew Known Ride Rode Ridden Shake Shook Shaken Show Showed Shown Speak Spoke Spoken Steal Stole Stolen Take Took Taken Throw Threw Thrown Wake Woke Woken

Connected Speech

Now, let’s look at these participles in connected speech. As you can see, all of them end in the letter “n”. Now, when the following word starts with a vowel, this “n” sound connects with the vowel to form a new sound. For example: “I’ve stolen a painting”, which is like this in connected speech, “I’ve stole na painting”. This is quite hard to hear because the articles, prepositions and object pronouns (him, her, us, etc) are often very weak sounds. Listen to some more examples: 1. She has given it away = she has give nit away. 2. The plant has grown a centimetre = the plant has grow na centimetre. Exercise

Now let’s try an exercise. Listen to the following sentences and repeat them with me. Then, listen again and try to write the sentence normally and in connected speech. We’ve done the first one for you. Good luck!

1. She has hidden it somewhere safe =

She has hidde nit somewhere safe. 2. ____________________________ 3. ____________________________ 4. ____________________________ 5. ____________________________ 6. ____________________________ 7. ____________________________ 8. ____________________________ 9. ____________________________ 10. ____________________________

OK, that’s all for today. Bye, and happy pronouncing!

G L O S S A R Y

a mule n an animal that is half horse, half donkey (I’ve) shown up friends to be real fools exp I’ve done things to make my friends appear to be stupid (fools) harshly adv in a cruel and strong way to speak with clarity exp to speak openly and honestly Fall n US autumn (October - November) to forgive vb if you “forgive” someone, you stop being angry with them