Pronunciation with Wlodek Barbosa

Last Wednesday (4th Nov) we did two activities, both notecard-based:

1. 30 non-compound heteroaccentual homographs: a list of thirty words of two syllables each. They can all be stressed on the first or second syllable, with the accompanying difference in grammatical category, meaning and pronunciation. Sometimes the difference is simple to grasp: ['accent] is a noun, while [ac'cent] is a verb, but they mean the same thing: "to place stress on something". Sometimes the difference is more subtle… Continue

Last Wednesday (28th Oct) we continued with English lexacal stress: first we did the homework notecard with 5-syllable word stress patterns, then we had a rather complex activity involving the finder and some PAVed objects. Briefly: the task was to #find objects around by typing their name followed by their stress pattern, like this: #find Table & Chairs OooO. The finder then directed the student to the object, which had some additional information in its [description] field. Students collec… Continue

Hello Pronunciation Students!

I've updated the walk-through grid in my launchroom. You walk on stones as before, but this time try to navigate the [Ooo] path: only step on stones with three-syllable words in them, stressed on the first syllable. The last -- seventh -- stone in the [Ooo] sequence is marked "End here". The remaining 9 stones have other stress patterns. Have fun!

Tonight we did one more activity, a match'm'all, with 4-syllable words (see below for player 1 notecard) and the finder game with 5-syllable words. The former turned out to be quite difficult and took quite some time. The latter was rather easy, even for newcomers, although some words present difficulties in terms of stress placement, for example "laboratory", oOooo in British English, but OooOo in American English :-(. Anyways, the finder game is there, if you want to try it. I will also shortl… Continue

On the question of money...

Our pronunciations sessions will remain free of charge. Some students have recently given me some lindens to help defray the cost of Virtlantis upkeep... Thank you very much! Let me declare that these lindens will go entirely to cover the mentioned costs, and I will not keep any to myself. The situation is certainly new, and we'll all have to adjuct to it somehow, but, as far as I'm concerned, your decision to give me lindens or not (to pass over to Kip for Virtlanti… Continue