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Learn English With Podcasts Learn English With Podcasts: Audio Transcript

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99 views3 pages

Learn English With Podcasts Learn English With Podcasts: Audio Transcript

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mcmastermurdoc
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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EnglishClass101

Learn English with FREE Podcasts

Audio Transcript

All About , Lesson 2 - Learn The English Writing System

Chihiro Hey everyone and welcome back. I'm Chihiro and


welcome to EnglishClass101.com. This is All About
English Lesson 2, Learn the English Writing System. In
this lesson, Daniel and I are going to explain a little bit
more about the writing system in English.
Daniel Right, we’re going to briefly talk about how English is
written with a pencil and paper… or printed.
Chihiro Listeners, you most likely know the alphabet, the 26
letter writing system that consists of 21 consonants and
5 vowels either from your own language, or from
studying it. It has no diacritics, which are markings on
letters to show the way a letter should be pronounced.
Each letter can be written in two ways, upper case and
lower case.
Daniel You probably have seen the alphabet around you,
perhaps on products or on TV, even if English is not an
official or even a second language for that matter in
your country.
Chihiro Some languages that use the alphabet have a phonemic
system… which…
1 Daniel
Chihiro
A what sytem?
A phonemic system, which means that the sound
corresponds to the letter of the alphabet. It means you
can probably spell the word just by hearing it.
Daniel Right.
Chihiro The spelling for English is to a certain extent
phonemic, but the rules are more complex than other
phonemic languages. This means that the spelling is not
always easy to figure out just from hearing the word.
This is because it has influences from French, Greek,
Latin, and other languages.
Daniel Also, between 1400-1700 there was a major change in
the pronunciation of vowels. This is called the Great
Vowel Shift.
Chihiro Which also accounts for irregularities in the writing
system. There are several theories behind this, but
immigration could be one. The need to communicate
with people with different accents meant adjusting
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pronunciation.
Daniel Right. That’s for sure. That’s why today, you find so
many words with similar or identical pronunciation
spelled differently. For example the double o in the
word food is pronounced differently from the double o
in the word good.
Chihiro That's a good example. And also I realized that since
we use computers to write things these days, when I
write to my friends I tend to take shortcuts in my
writing… for example I drop double letters just to make
things shorter… and when I find myself having to write
something out, by hand, I tend to doubt my spelling!
Daniel Ah, you’re not the first person I bet. So listeners, as
you can see, spelling is not always straightforward in
English!
Chihiro No, and also British English and American English
sometimes spell words differently, we suggest that once
you pick a spelling form, don’t mix the two up, just
stick with one or the other.
Daniel Let’s give some examples of tricky spellings for words.
Listeners, go ahead and try to spell them yourself, see if
you know them! Give us one Chihiro.
Chihiro Ok, let’s start with accommodate… that’s
a-c-c-o-m-m-o-d-a-t-e
Daniel Those double letters are a pain but necessary… which is
spelt n-e-c-e-s-s-a-r-y
Chihiro How about the word although? That’s a-l-t-h-o-u-g-h.
2 But the word cough is c-o-u-g-h. Similar, but different
pronunciation.
Daniel Good examples. How about just plain difficult
spelling… this next word is also one of my favorite
drinks… daiquiri… d-a-i-q-u-i-r-i
Chihiro And if you’re in the military, you should know how to
spell colonel… c-o-l-o-n-e-l
Daniel And one more, if you lived through the 80s, you might
remember lots of fluorescent colors… Flourescent, which
is spelt, f-l-o-u-r-e-s-c-e-n-t.
Chihiro Spelling is all about memorization, so keep on
practicing.
Daniel And when working on the computer, always double
check your spelling with the spell check and with your
own eyes. Spelling errors are frowned upon in formal
documents.
Chihiro Right good point. Ok, that's all we have for this lesson,

LC: ALL_L2_081810 © www. EnglishClass101 - All Rights Reserved 2010-08-18


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Learn English with FREE Podcasts

thanks for listening everybody and hope you tune in


next time.
Daniel Thanks everybody, bye for now.

LC: ALL_L2_081810 © www. EnglishClass101 - All Rights Reserved 2010-08-18

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