How to speak English fluently

How to speak English Fluently​

Dr. Rev. Francis Soundararaj, former principal of Madras Christian College, UGC Emeritus Fellow and a Post-doctoral fellow in Spoken English in the University of Edinburgh points out that a thorough knowledge of Sense-group, word -stress and intonation is essential for speaking English fluently.

1. Sense Group

2. Word-Stress



Chân đất mắt sõi

Sense Group
We speak to share information. When we speak, we want the listener to understand what we say. Often we speak without visual aid, in the form of a written script, for instance. Unless we speak clearly, the message cannot be shared with the listener fully.
The span of memory is also important. The speaker cannot be legible unless he or she speaks only a small group of words at a time. Longer stretches cannot be retained by memory.
Therefore, the speaker will facilitate the listener to share the message completely by giving him or her clues to brief units of meaning, each at a time, in order to reach the total meaning of the utterance without confusion. Each brief unit, discretely spoken, is called a sense group and the clue to understand it is the silence (or pause) that occurs before and after it. The meaning of an utterance will depend on how we identify sense groups with the pauses. For example, the meaning of the following utterance changes according to how we mark off sense groups with pauses:
The government of South Africa said the Zambian President has
grossly neglected the incidence of AIDS.
Note sense groups and note how they alter the meaning:
The government of South Africa / said the Zambian President / has grossly neglected / the incidence of AIDS /
The government of South Africa said / the Zambian President / has grossly neglected / the incidence of AIDS /
When the pause is used after the initial sense group,"The government of South Africa", the latter becomes the subject of the sentence, as in (a) above. If, however, the pause is after the sense group "The government of South Africa said" (as in (b)), "The Zambian President" becomes the subject instead. The answer to the question, "Who neglected the incidence of AIDS?" will, therefore, depend on determination of sense groups with appropriate pauses.
Division of sense groups depends on the identification of parts of sentences, which make convenient units of sense. The separation of units is according to some grammatical cues. In the following sentence:
Rosy said/that Vimala was stopped abruptly/ on the way to college /
and abducted / by a gang of youngsters in black masks /
the sense units are introduced by grammatical words such as relative pronoun, conjunction and preposition. Separating the particles from the clauses to which they belong will affect both meaning and fluency.
Speech must be clear: neither extempore speech nor long stretches of words spoken together shall contribute to the listener's confusion.
Utterances ought to be divided into sense groups.
Brief units of meaning shall each be spoken together.
Clues to demarcation of sense groups lie in very short internal pauses and a slightly longer terminal pause at the end of each utterance. Speaking as the utterance is marked will help acquire fluency.
If we pay attention to the way in which we speak in English, we might have noticed that we often exert ourselves by pushing out from the lung wall a series of puffs of air at regular intervals of time as in speaking a sentence like:
My 'father a' rrives to morrow.
This exertion or strain involved in making some syllables in words louder than others in speech is called stress. It is stress that lends English its characteristic rhythm. Fluency in English can be obtained by using rhythm via stress with ease.
It is essential to recognize the two degrees of stress often recognized in English speech, primary and secondary which fall on the loudest and the next loudest syllables in longer English words as in e,xami'nation, ci,vili'sation.
When some syllables are louder than others in a word, we cannot pronounce them as such if we do not weaken other syllables. In the word au'thoritative, if we have to pronounce -tho- louder than other syllables in the word, the vowels of the syllables must be weakened to /i/or/a/. Practice of pronouncing the weak vowels as weak, and not according to how they are spelt in letters, is indispensable for acquiring rhythmic fluency in speech.
Chân đất mắt sõi

Word - Stress
As in most languages, a word in English is made of syllables. Each syllable has a vowel as its centre. For example, the word practice' has two syllables, 'prac-' and 'tice' with the vowels / and / i / as their centres respectively. Perhaps, you may be able to identify the syllables and the vowels of the words in the box:
a-bo-' li-tion po-' lice se- 'mes- ter
?Ư - u- i- ?ả ?ả - i: i- e - ?ả
ma-' lig-nan-cy ' thea-tre fan-' tas-tic
?ả - i - ?ả - i i - ?ả ?Ư - ?Ư - i
As you see it marked, each syllable has a vowel, however long or short the word may be.. Only one of the syllables in words longer than a single syllable (monosyllabic words) is pronounced the loudest. And that syllable is said to have the primary stress. It is marked with an " ' " in front of the syllable which takes the primary stress, above the line. Now look at the syllables, which carry primary stress Do pronounce them markedly so that the contrast between the stressed and weakly stressed syllables may be evident. As monosyllabic words automatically take stress, generally it is not indicated with a notation when they are pronounced in isolation. Now let us repeat the same exercise with reference to words, which take low stresses, a primary, and a secondary. You may read the words in the box. Remember to read the secondary stress less loud than the primary:
i, nocu' lation ,engi'neer ,fore'knowledge
Par, tici'pation 'passion, flower par, ticu'larity
It is not possible to predict stress in English. Some languages, like French, have primary stress on the final syllable of the root. We cannot say the same thing about English. For instance, the initial, medial and final syllables are stressed in words like 'penetrable, se'mester and ,pana'ma respectively. There are, however, some stress clues which can help to predict stress in some words.
Words ending with suffixes such as -tion, -ic, -ical, -ically, -tial, -atory, -city and some others have primary stress on the syllable immediately before the suffix:
a-bo-' li-tion po-' li-ti-ca-lly la-' bo-ra-to-ry
co-a-' li-tion po-' le-mi-ca-lly in-' for-ma-tive
fan-' tas-tic i-' ni-tial su-' per-la-tive
po-' le-mic po-' ten-tial ,e-las-' ti-ci-ty
po-' li-ti-cal in-flu-' en-tial ,i-lec-' tri-ci-ty
po-' le-mi-cal pre-' pa-re-to-ry 'hor-ta-to-ry
One ought to have the caution not to make such cues hard and fast rules. Longer words or words with other segmental structure may behave differently. For instance in words like co'operative and co'rroboarative the stress falls on the syllable second before the sufix.
Words ending with suffixes such as -ology and -ality have primary stress on the first syllable of the suffix:
or-ni-' tho-lo-gy e-, ven-tu 'a-li-ty
psy-' cho-lo-gy ba-'na-li-ty
Some words have optional stress. The following words may have two primary stresses each or one. Where there is one, it shall fall on the second syllable.
'Ju- 'ly or Ju-' ly 'bam- 'boo or bam-' boo
'four-' teen or four-' teen 'fif-' teen or fif-' teen
'Car-' lisle or Car-' lisle
Shifting stress from one syllable to another, sometimes changes grammatical functions of words. A noun may become a verb or a noun an adjective. Again, this cannot be applied to all words. The following are some examples of functional stress:
' conduct (n ) con' duct (v)
' produce (n ) pro' duce (v)
' licence (n ) li' cence (v)
' invalid (adj ) in' valid (adj )
' convert (n ) con' vert (v)
' prospect (n ) pros' pect (v)
' protest (n ) pro' test (v)
Indian students are advised to watch the intrusion of mother-tongue patterns of syllable prominence in words. Most Southern speakers are unconsciously used to the shifting of stress to the syllable with a long vowel, where there is one. Even if there is not one, sometimes speakers use an imaginary long vowel. Where there are no long vowels they may show a preference for using the primary stress on the second syllable of a polysyllabic word. Such interference may be avoided in the interest of clarity and fluency. The following are some common errors:
Indian English
obli ' gatory /e:/ ob' ligatory
pa ' norama /o:/ ,pano' rama
infor' mative /e:/ in ' formative
' police /o:/ po' lice
me ' thod /?ả :/ ' method
com ' rade /e:/ ' comrade
Medial doubling of consonants in Indian languages also affects English stress patterns and thereby affects fluency:
Indian English
' cut ' ter ' cutter
' run ' ner ' runner
' kil ' ler ' killer
' but ' cher ' butcher
Ch?Ân ?'ỏ?Ơt mỏ??t s?ài

Chắc thấy dài thế này thì ai cũng ngại đọc nhỉ.
Chân đất mắt sõi

Ok.I've read it.
[black]

Too long, I don't need to read this. Personal experience: Unlearn (quote OB1 Kenobi - Star War)how to pronounce the Vietnamese styles. Notice how Americans shorten their pronunciations of most words and practice doing the same thing. Remember to add "s" in the third person's verb when speaking because you talk faster than your brain can remember the S . Practice. Practice. Practice.

​

English is "polysensory"
==>think in English
read English, listen to English
Try to pronounce the word correctly when you first see it
Finally, jump at any chance to speak English

Reference for Small Dragon .
Được sửa chữa bởi - milou vào 15/02/2002 10:57

Oh, now I have seen the seriousness of English - It is "gross"

Thanks so much for ur message, nha que.
From my personal experience, I do think that every Vietnamese has to practice their ways of breathing like native speakers. Once they breath correctly, they will speak correctly. They have to pause in right places and pronounce correctly each and every word.
Surely they will improve their skills.
Dr. Lion King