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 month we are looking at some past participles that are the same as the past tense, but different to the infinitive. Listen and repeat these verbs and their irregular pasts and past participles:

Infinitive Past Participle

To bring Brought Brought To buy Bought Bought To catch Caught Caught To fight Fought Fought To teach Taught Taught To think Thought Thought

Participles In Context

Before looking at some of these participles in connected speech, I would like to perform one of my famous raps. This should help you see these participles in context. Once again, I asked my good friend DJ Stokes to lay down a 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 past participles.

Dr Fingers’ Rap - “Why do my students hate me?”

It is so strange for me to see, That my students can’t stand me, I’ve taught them well, and been through hell, But they still don’t know how to spell.

I’ve lent them money to buy them sweets, And found the time to bring them treats, But nothing seems to make them smile, And they continue to be so vile.

Just this week I’ve caught a cold, And I’m feeling ever so old, So I think I’ll go to bed, And try to rest my weary head. Connected Speech

Well, that’s enough of that. Now let’s get on with some real pronouncing. In the following exercise we are going to look at these past participles in connected speech. As you can see, many of these past participles end with consonants. Now, when the following word starts with a vowel, these consonant sounds connect with the following vowel sound to form a new sound. For example: “I have hung up the clothes”, which is like this if you say it in connected speech, “I have hun gup the clothes”. Listen to some more examples: 1. I heard it yesterday = I hear dit yesterday. 2. She dreamt about me last night = she dream tabout me last night. Exercise

Now let’s do 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. We have brought it again = we have brought it again. 2. ________________________________ 3. ________________________________ 4. ________________________________ 5. ________________________________ 6. ________________________________ 7. ________________________________ 8. ________________________________ 9. ________________________________ 10. ________________________________

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

G L O S S A R Y

my students can’t stand me exp my students hate me (I’ve) been through hell exp this means: I’ve had a really bad experience to spell vb to write words correctly, with the letters in the correct order a treat n a nice, special thing you give someone if they have been good vile adj terrible, horrible a weary head n if you have a “weary head”, you feel very tired