词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Lida Baker: Pronouncing 'th'

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER -- help for English learners who have trouble pronouncing words with the letters t-h.

RS: Our friend Lida Baker¹ joins us with a pronunciation lesson. She writes textbooks for English learners, and teaches at the American Language Center at the University of California at Los Angeles.

AA: Lida Baker says the problem is that few other languages have the sound -- actually, the two sounds -- that we write in English with the letters t-h.

BAKER: "There's t-h like in the word 'thing' and then there's the t-h sound that you have in a word like 'brother.' And because it doesn't exist in a person's language, what they tend to do is to substitute a sound that they do have in their language.

"So a word like 'thing,' a French speaker might pronounce it as 'sing.' They'll put an 's' there because they don't have a t-h sound in their language, so they may not be aware that the t-h exists. And even if they do, they don't know what to do with their mouth in order to produce that sound, so they simply substitute something that they're familiar with.

"Other people might pronounce it as 'ting.' And in the same manner, the word 'brother,' speakers of some languages pronounce it as 'bruzzer,' with a 'z' sound, and other people pronounce it 'brudder,' with a 'd' there in the middle."

RS: Now let's get back to the two different t-h sounds. With the example of "brother," the vocal² cords vibrate ... brother. When the example of "thing," there's no vibration³ ... thing.

AA: Our lesson continues, as Lida Baker describes the basic way to form a t-h sound.

BAKER: "It involves putting the tongue between the teeth and then inhaling⁴ and blowing air out. And of course you have to do all these things at the same time, so it takes a little bit of practice."

AA: "I'm trying to do it myself and I can't do it!"

BAKER: "Well, step one, Avi, put your tongue between your teeth, take a deep breath and now blow."

AA: [Blowing sound]

BAKER: "And say 'thing.'"

AA: "Thing."

BAKER: "Yes. And t-h is easy because you can actually see that the tip of the tongue protrudes⁵ between the teeth."

AA: And once her students can see for themselves -- it helps that she walks around with a mirror -- she then moves on to teaching "sound discrimination."

BAKER: "I might write the word 'sing' -- s-i-n-g -- and the word 'thing' -- t-h-i-n-g -- on the board, and under the word 'sing' I'll write the number one, and under the word 'thing' I'll write the number two. And then I'll start saying those words, and the students have to -- if they hear me say 'sing' they have to hold up one finger and if they hear may say 'thing' they have to hold up two fingers.

"So modeling the sound, learning how to put one's mouth in the proper position, doing sound discrimination exercises, to make sure you can hear the difference between two sounds, and finally practicing the sound in context, in meaningful ways, such as a game or a dialogue or a discussion -- those are the four parts of a pronunciation lesson."

RS: "And telling the students ... or I should say, and encouraging the students that this is a very difficult task, and that with practice -- hopefully -- they can approximate sounding like an American."

BAKER: "With time."

RS: "With time."

BAKER: "Because don't forget that when people are learning a language, what's their number one priority?" RS: "Communication."

BAKER: "Exactly, communication. So they're concerned with vocabulary, they're concerned with choosing the right word. Pronunciation tends to be almost the last priority."

AA: "Which, ironically, is what native speakers might end up judging them on, is whether they can understand how they're pronouncing words." BAKER: "Well, it's very ironic⁶, because pronunciation is the very first thing that people notice about you."

RS: So what to do? Lida Baker tells her students at the American Language Center in Los Angeles to look in a mirror and -- you guessed it -- practice, practice, practice.

AA: Need help practicing your American English? Write us at VOA Wordmaster, Washington DC 20237 USA. Our e-mail address is [email protected].

RS: And our new Web site address is www.voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

2 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

3 vibration   

n.颤动，振动；摆动

参考例句：

• There is so much vibration on a ship that one cannot write.船上的震动大得使人无法书写。
• The vibration of the window woke me up.窗子的震动把我惊醒了。

4 inhaling   

v.吸入( inhale的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was treated for the effects of inhaling smoke. 他因吸入烟尘而接受治疗。 来自辞典例句
• The long-term effects of inhaling contaminated air is unknown. 长期吸入被污染空气的影响还无从知晓。 来自互联网

5 protrudes   

v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• My part that protrudes from the gum has a'skin" of enamel. 在我突出于齿龈的部分有一层珐琅“皮”。 来自辞典例句
• Hyperplasia median lobe of the prostate produces a polypoid mass that protrudes in the bladder lumen. 前列腺中叶异常增生，表现为息肉样肿物，突入膀胱腔内。 来自互联网

6 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。