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A Pronunciation Poem!!!

A Pronunciation Poem!!!

Date: Oct 04 2007

Topic: Pronunciation

Author: Ocean-SA

Lesson

Hi guys I found this poem .. It teachs you pronounciation!!

Have fun Wink

English is tough stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

What agreat way to learn Pronounciation !

===================================================

Yours

Ocean

Comments

Log in to Comment

unknownpsycho

Peru

that was so great. Thanks for posting it ;)

06:01 PM Feb 24 2011 |

nothing else matter

Italy

it seems boring

07:34 AM Feb 10 2011 |

friend-01

friend-01

Algeria

simply it s great

 

11:02 AM Jan 05 2011 |

ykdeniz

Turkey

hello

 

11:11 AM Jan 04 2011 |

jack147

jack147

United States

This is great!

12:48 AM Dec 10 2010 |

Ocean-SA

Ocean-SA

Saudi Arabia

you're welcome brother Mohammad from Yamen

03:58 PM Oct 18 2010 |

Mohammed Basaleem

Yemen

I have read a lot of poems but like this one not. thnx they are useful . 

03:33 PM Sep 29 2010 |

ramesh.sinha1

India

thanks!

08:16 PM Aug 13 2010 |

Ocean-SA

Ocean-SA

Saudi Arabia

Thanks for your comments all!

03:10 AM Jul 25 2010 |

Fares.dz

Fares.dz

Algeria

thank’s it is really good

10:14 PM Mar 06 2010 |

Turaan

Turaan

Sri Lanka

It's quite interesting to learn on this way., every bit of it I like it! 

04:17 PM Feb 20 2010 |

xcentric

xcentric

Philippines

great way to improve my pronounciation! nosebleed, LoL.. thanks :)

08:47 AM Feb 20 2010 |

hameedwali

hameedwali

Pakistan

I need a teutor for it???????

realy

awsome

05:14 PM Nov 21 2009 |

hameedwali

hameedwali

Pakistan

I need a teutor for it???????

realy

05:14 PM Nov 21 2009 |

Lysastre

Lysastre

Germany

Great poem but VERY tough to find all the tiny difficult bits. :D

 

02:06 PM Aug 07 2009 |

ramesh.sinha1

India

Thank you!

It good way to improve pronounciation…

11:14 PM Apr 23 2009 |

littlepig2007

China

its great to find it,thanks

05:17 AM Mar 06 2009 |

Shen yu ru

Taiwan

Thank you so much!  But….I can't find the link of the poem…

09:50 AM Mar 01 2009 |

lakswin

lakswin

India

Whoop…what a lengthy and lot of words to know…wonderful one, must read!

 

06:57 PM Nov 02 2008 |

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