Listen to Natural Spoken English!

Story: Last week, we celebrated a special day in our family. It was my parents’ 53rd wedding anniversary! Pronunciation lesson: How to pronounce the word anniversary   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life in Canada. […]

Story: This past weekend I went downtown Toronto with my family to spend the day at the Canadian National Exhibition. Pronunciation lesson: How to pronounce abbreviations (like ‘CNE’).   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life […]

Story: Last week my parents and I went to visit my aunt in the hospital after she had a stroke. Pronunciation lesson: The reduced form of ‘and’   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life in […]

Story: Have you seen Sex & the City 2? I saw it recently and I thought it was awful! Pronunciation lesson: Even native English speakers sometimes don’t understand spoken English!   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my […]

Story: I had a very strange encounter with a dog when I went for a walk around my neighbourhood. Pronunciation lesson: How to contract and reduce the verbs could have been into the sound /kʊdəv bɪn/   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life in Canada. Each podcast also includes a pronunciation lesson that explains something I said in the story. You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. After the pronunciation lesson, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed. I speak naturally and with a standard American accent.   TRANSCRIPT I recently had a very strange encounter with a dog in my neighborhood. The other day I decided to go for a walk to get some exercise and some fresh air. As soon as I closed and locked my front door, a dog appeared in my driveway and started barking at me. It’s not normal for a dog to be wandering around a residential neighborhood by itself. We don’t have stray dogs living outdoors on their own. I was really concerned about the dog & I wanted to help. He could have been far from home and he could have been wandering the streets for days without food or water. I tried to show him that I was friendly and that he didn’t need to be afraid of me. I tried to get closer to him to check if he had an ID tag on his collar, but he ran away from me! He ran up the street, stopped, and started barking at a man walking down the street toward me. I wondered if this was his dog, but then the dog turned around and started barking at me. I continued to follow the dog, and this time he let me get close enough to pet him. I noticed that his ID tag said his name was Thor and there was also a phone number on it. Unfortunately I didn’t have a cell phone with me. I tried to grab his collar and lead him back to my house so I could call the phone number, but he was too quick. He ran away from me again. All of a sudden, I smelled burning wood, and that’s not a common smell in the middle of the day! There was a fire in someone’s garage! Thor wasn’t lost. He was looking for someone to alert to the fire! What a heroic dog! I called out to the man walking down the street to ask if this was his house and let him know that there was a fire. He called 911 on his cell phone, and ran into the house to see if anyone was inside. Three people ran out. They didn’t even know there was a fire in their own garage! Apparently some wood in their garage caught fire after someone had been smoking a cigarette. With all this activity, no one noticed that Thor had disappeared. He had alerted someone to the fire and this wasn’t even his house! His work was done, so he headed home. NOTE: I called the dog ‘he.’ I know that ‘Thor’ is a male name. If you know the sex of an animal, you can use ‘he’ or ‘she’ instead of it. Yes, this is a REAL, TRUE story!   PRONUNCIATION Listen again to something I said in the story: He could have been far from home and he could have been wandering the streets for days without food or water. Did you hear me say could have been? I contracted the two helping verbs could and have into one sound: /kʊdəv/ Since the verb have is just a helping verb here and not the main verb, it doesn’t need to be fully pronounced. It’s reduced. The h is not pronounced, and the vowel sound is reduced to the schwa sound /ə/, so it sounds like /əv/.

Story: I thought it would be more relaxing to take the bus downtown Toronto instead of driving, but I was wrong! Pronunciation lesson: When to drop the h sound at the beginning of the pronouns him, his, and he To download, right-click on Download > Save link as or Download Linked File (depending on your browser).   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life in Canada. Each podcast also includes a pronunciation lesson that explains something I said in the story. You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. After the pronunciation lesson, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed. I speak naturally and with a standard American accent.   Transcript On a recent Friday night, I went downtown Toronto for a night out with friends. I really don’t like driving downtown. There’s so much traffic crowded into a very small space, and parking is so expensive! I decided to take the bus instead. There’s an express bus from my suburb that will take me straight downtown without stopping. The buses are really nice and the seats are really comfortable. I thought it would be more relaxing and less stressful than driving, but I was wrong! On that Friday night there were tons of people heading downtown, so the bus was packed. My friend and I couldn’t get 2 seats together, so we had to sit on opposite sides of the aisle. I had the great misfortune to sit next to a complete stranger who insisted on telling me his entire life story … for 45 minutes! I didn’t want to be rude to him, but I really didn’t feel like talking to him. I just wanted to rest & relax. I tried to ignore him and look uninterested, but that didn’t work. He just kept talking. It sounded like he had a really sad life. At the end of the bus trip, he asked me to go out with him and then he tried to give me his phone number. What was he thinking? I don’t think he was all that bright. To make things worse, the bus was so packed that people were standing in the aisle and sitting on the aisle floor. There was a guy sitting on the floor next to me who had not showered for days. Not only did he smell of B.O., but he started eating the smelliest crackers ever. He ate the entire package. It was disgusting. You know, I think I would have been better off driving downtown instead of taking the bus!   Pronunciation: In the story, I used the pronouns he, him, and his frequently. Did you notice that I didn’t fully pronounce them? Listen carefully: I tried to ignore him... I don’t think he was all that bright. What was he thinking? Pronouns are functions words. They’re grammar words. They need to be there for the sentence to be grammatically correct, but they’re not important words. Function words are not fully pronounced in a sentence. When any pronoun with h is in the middle of the sentence (and NOT at the beginning), you don’t need to pronounce the h. You can drop the h, and then link the pronoun to the previous consonant sound. Then he becomes /ðɛni/ was he becomes /wəzi/ ignore him becomes /ɪgˈnoɚɪm/ Listen to the story again. Can you hear more examples of pronouns without the h sound?   Related blog posts: How to practice listening How to talk about transportation How to talk about relationships   Reference Vocabulary relaxing (adjective) I thought it would be more relaxing and less stressful than driving,... = describes something makes you feel relaxed (calm, pleasant, less tense, etc.) stressful (adjective) I thought it would be more relaxing and less stressful than driving,... = describes something that causes you to feel stressed (something that causes you to feel worried, tense, anxious etc.) aisle ...so we had to sit on opposite sides of the aisle. ...people were standing in the aisle and sitting on the aisle floor

Story: I went to see a figure skating show downtown Toronto! Pronunciation Lesson: How to pronounce the word figure and how to pronounce compound words, like figure skating   To download, right-click on Download > Save link as or Download Linked File (depending on your browser)   This podcast is for intermediate to advanced English learners. I use core vocabulary to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life in Canada. Each podcast also includes a pronunciation lesson that explains something I said in the story. You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. After the pronunciation lesson, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed. I speak naturally and with a standard American accent.   Transcript On Friday night I went to see a figure skating show called, "Stars on Ice." It's a tour that’s currently traveling across Canada. All the performers are Canadian, and they’re some of the best figure skaters that Canada has ever produced. They include past and present Canadian national champions, world champions and Olympic medalists. Each skater performed a solo routine (or duet if they were a pair!) and also participated in group routines. It was an amazing show! Figure skating is really popular right now because of the success of some of our skaters at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. One of the performers was Joannie Rochette [she's French-Canadian*]. She performed a beautiful routine dedicated to her mother. Two days before Joannie started competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics, her mother died of a sudden heart attack. Joannie decided to compete anyway in honor of her mother, and she went on to win a bronze medal. Her determination and courage at such a painful time in her life inspired the entire country. Another performer was four-time World Champion Kurt Browning. He's really popular in Canada and the audience was happy to see him! He’s arguably the best male figure skater Canada has ever produced, and he's a good person who does a lot for charity. He's also a big fan of hockey and at "Stars on Ice" he did his routine wearing hockey skates. That was incredible, because it's very difficult to jump and spin in hockey skates! I was really disappointed with the audience at "Stars on Ice." The audience was really quiet. I was surprised that people weren't cheering very loudly and there weren’t many standing ovations. Other than that, I had a great time. I thought all the skaters were outstanding. Canada has a small population. There are only 30 million of us, so it's impressive that Canada has produced so many world-class figure skaters!   NOTE: One of the performers was Joannie Rochette [she's French-Canadian*]. This is not the English pronunciation of the female name 'Joanne' [other spellings: Jo-Ann, Jo-Anne,]. Joannie Rochette is from Quebec, the French-speaking province in Canada, so her name is pronounced the French way.   Pronunciation: In this pronunciation lesson, you’re going to learn two things: How to pronounce the word figure and how to pronounce compound words. Let's begin. I. The word figure is two syllables. The stress is on the first syllable /fɪg/. This is the syllable that is said louder and longer than the other syllable. Be careful NOT to say /i/ or /fig/. The letter i is pronounced as the short vowel /ɪ/: /fɪg/ The second syllable begins with the consonant y sound /j/. The –ure at the end of the word is pronounced as the vowel r sound /ɚ/. The –e at the end of the word is not pronounced: /jɚ/ (*This is the same sound as in the words cure, pure, & failure) Now put those two syllables together: fɪg + jɚ /fɪgjɚ/ II. In the story, figure was also part of two compound nouns: figure skating figure skater In compound nouns and compound adjectives, the first word is always stressed. The first word is said louder and longer than the second word. Listen carefully: FIGURE skating