5 WAYS TO SAY "LOOK"

 

Pronunciation Practice: Homophones-II

                                                         Pronunciation Practice: Homophones-II

                                    

Dear readers, in the previous post we learnt about Homophones in English. To acquire good pronunciation, one should have brilliant receptive capacity. To make distinction between pronunciation of two similar words, one should be good at listening and observing the sound as well as rapid lip movement. Practising on listening to different sounds and repeating the heard sounds in the exact way makes one speak a language with appreciable pronunciation. In this connection, now we are going to learn what is “Homophone” and how it helps a person in both listening and speaking.

According to Cambridge Dictionary, Homophone means “A word that is pronounced the same as another word but has a different meaning or spelling, or both”. In simple words, “homo” means “same”, and “phone” means sound. Therefore, in English there a lot of homophones which play pivotal role in communication.

For example,

Sun            –          Son

See             –          Sea

Eyes          -           Ice

The above-mentioned words contain the same pronunciation, but they convey different meanings and spellings. Let us learn some of the popular homophones available in English.

Fort                 -           Fought

Forth               -           Fourth

Foul                 -           Fowl

Franc               -           Frank

Freeze             -           Frieze

Furs                 -           Furze

Gait                 -           Gate

Genes              -           Jeans

Gild                 -           Guild

Gilt                  -           Guilt

Great               -           Grate

Greys              -           Graze

Hair                 -           Hare

Hall                 -           Haul

Heel                -           Heal

Hart                 -           Heart

Hear                -           Here

Higher             -           Hire    

Hour                -           Our     

Idle                  -           Idol

In                     -           Inn

It’s                   -           Its

Knead              -           Need

Knew               -           New

Knight             -           Night

Knit                 -           Nit

Knot                -           Not

Knows             -           Nose

Laps                -           Lapse

Lead (Noun)   -           Led (Verb)

Lessen             -           Lesson

Liar                 -           Lyre   

Licker             -           Liquor

Loan                -           Lone

Made               -           Maid

Mail                -           Male

Main               -           Mane

Mall                -           Maul

Mask               -           Masque

Meat                -           Meet

Naval              -           Navel

Ode                 -           Owed

One                 -           Won

Packed            -           Pact

Pause               -           Paws               

Peace               -           Piece

Peal                 -           Peel

Plane               -           Plain

Principal         -           Principle

Rain                -           Rein / Reign

Rap                  -           Wrap

Read                -           Reed

Real                 -           Reel

Right               -           Rite / Write

Ring                -           Wring

Road                -           Rode

Root                -           Route

Scene              -           Seen

Sea                  -           See

Son                  -           Sun

Stair                -           Stare

Stationary       -           Stationery

Steal                -           Steel

Storey             -           Story

Tale                 -           Tail

There               -           Their

Threw              -           Through

Throne            -           Thrown

Tire                 -           Tyre

Vain                -           Vein

Wail                -           Whale

Waist              -           Waste

Wait                -           Weight

Waive             -           Wave

Weak               -           Week

Weather          -           Whether

Which             -           Witch

Whit                -           Wit

Yoke               -           Yolk

 

Practising these homophones certainly helps in refining pronunciation. In the next post, let us explore British and American English equivalents.

 

Author:

K. Nandhakumar

Assistant Professor of English

Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science (Autonomous)

Coimbatore- 641 020   

 

 

Types of Sentences (Part II)

                                                             Types of Sentences

(Part II)

What is a sentence?

A sentence is a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.

Examples:

1.     She opened the window.

2.     Come in, please.

3.     Do you like tea?

Types of sentences:

There are four main types of sentences:

·       Declarative sentence

·       Imperative sentence

·       Exclamatory sentence

Exclamatory Sentences:

Exclamatory sentences express strong emotion. It doesn’t really matter what the emotion is, an exclamatory sentence is the type of sentence needed to express it. Exclamatory sentences always end in an exclamatory mark, so it’s pretty easy to spot them.

Examples:

1.     The river is rising!

2.     I can’t wait for the party!

3.     Oh, my goodness, I won!

Interrogative sentences:

Interrogative sentences are also easy to spot. That’s because they always ask a question and end in a question mark.

Examples:

1.     Is it raining?

2.     Have you had breakfast?

3.     What do you want?

AUTHOR

Dr L Suresh

Assistant Professor of English

Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science

Coimbatore - 641020

Contact: 9944138137

e-mail ID: sureshenglit@rmv.ac.in

English Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal Verbs

Let In

          Meaning:

-         Let someone come in

-         Allow someone to enter

Example:

1.   She opened the window to let in the air.

2.   Don’t let anybody in, I will be back in 15 minutes.

3.   He climbed out of bed and opened the window to let in some fresh air.

4.   She opened the curtains to let in the light.

Let Down

          Meaning:

-         Fail to support or help

-         Lengthen

Example:

1.   My friend, don’t let me down this time.

2.   Her attitude really lets me down.

3.   I felt like I let down my parents when I failed my exam.

4.   My father is a tailor, so he can let my pants down.

Wipe out

         Meaning:

-         Destroy something completely

-         Feel extremely tired

Example:

1.   Whole villages were wiped out by the floods.

2.   Nothing could wipe out his bitter memories of the past.

3.   The heat had wiped us out.

4.   Archaeologists think that massive floods could have wiped out the dinosaurs.

Run out of

          Meaning:

-         Finish the supply of something

-         Document or official agreement runs out

Example:

1.   What will we do when we run out of gas?

2.   I have run out of money.

3.   I am running out of energy.

4.   My friend ran out of petrol on the motorway. 

Pronunciation Practice: Homophones-I

 Pronunciation Practice: Homophones-I
 

                                   

Source: https://www.englishbix.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/List-of-Minimal-Pairs-for-Speech-Therapy.jpg

Dear readers, in the previous post we learnt about Minimal Pairs in English. To acquire good pronunciation, one should have brilliant receptive capacity. To make a distinction between pronunciation of two similar words, one should be good at listening and observing the sound as well as rapid lip movement. Practising listening to different sounds and repeating the heard sounds in an exact way makes one speak a language with appreciable pronunciation. In this connection, now we are going to learn what “Homophone” is and how it helps a person in both listening and speaking.

According to Cambridge Dictionary, Homophone means “A word that is pronounced the same as another word but has a different meaning or spelling, or both”. In simple words, “homo” means “same”, and “phone” means sound. Therefore, in English, there is a lot of homophones which play pivotal role in communication.

For example,

Sun            –          Son

See             –          Sea

Eyes          -           Ice

The above-mentioned words contain the same pronunciation, but they convey different meanings and spellings. Let us learn some of the popular homophones available in English.

Accept                   -           Except

Air                         -           Heir

Arms                     -           Alms

Axe                       -           Acts

Alter                      -           Altar

Ate                        -           Eight

Buy                       -           By

But                        -           Butt

Bear                      -           Bare

Bite                       -           Byte

Bean                      -           Been

Board                    -           Bored

Break                    -           Brake

Calf                       -           Cough

 

Cell                       -           Sell

Cent                      -           Scent

Check                    -           Cheque

Cot                        -           Caught

Course                   -           Coarse

Dall                       -           Doll

Dear                      -           Deer

Die                        -           Dye

Due                       -           Dew

Fair                       -           Fare

Feet                       -           Feat

Find                       -           Fined

Flu                         -           Flew

Four                      -           Fore / Foe

Practising these homophones certainly helps in refining pronunciation. In the next post, let us explore further about Homophones.

 

Author:

K. Nandhakumar

Assistant Professor of English

Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science (Autonomous)

Coimbatore- 641 020