Online Class Notes (Joe)

In today’s class, we talked about your career and your major. We focused a lot on pronunciation and a little on grammar. You made some amazing improvement the second time you told me about this topic.

Pronunciation

Science – There are two vowel sounds. It’s important to say both the /aɪ/ and he /ə/ in /saɪəns/. If you do not say both sounds, it will sound like signs.

Analysed / Analysis / Analyst – Don’t try to say these words too fast. Take it slowly and say each part clearly. Try to practice the sentence ‘The analyst analysed the analysis’. ði ˈænəlɪst ˈænəlaɪzd ði əˈnæləsɪs

Fill / fail / fall – fɪl / feɪl / fɔːl  – these three words are very close. Make sure you say the vowel sounds clearly to avoid saying the wrong one.

Suffer / surfer – ˈsʌfə / ˈsɜːfə – pay close attention to the first vowel sound in each word. This is one of those mistakes that can make people laugh, so it’s very important

Grammar

It’s about 12 years ago, I graduated from my university
It was about 12 years ago when I graduated from university
I graduated from university about 12 years ago
It’s been about 12 years since I graduated from university

In my class, there’s only 5 girls and the boys is about more than 100
In my class, there were only 5 girls and more than 100 boys

Vocabulary

they could keep studying at this university – This is OK
They dropped out – This is the natural expression