Pratica di Shadowing: Tone units & Tonic syllables | Intonation in English | Speaking Naturally - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
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Hi everybody and welcome to this video.
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We want to have a look at tone units and tonic syllables.
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But first of all, thank you so much for your many lovely comments in my videos and on my channel.
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I love hearing from you.
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Thank you so much.
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But let's get back on track.
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So what are tone units the way we speak.
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Now, speech in English is organized into tone units.
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Thank you.
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not into individual words or sentences.
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Often we think of it this way, but that is not really accurate.
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Thank you.
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Tone units are the building blocks of all spoken communication.
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So can you give an example?
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This might sound a bit technical so far. Of course.
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Let's have a look here.
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We have two sentences.
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The car stopped, we'd arrived at the park and got out.
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and to put any capital letters into lowercase.
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We will use other symbols to show tone units, and we will use capital letters for another purpose later.
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So here are the sentences again but we've removed all the punctuation and capital letters.
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Now, let's listen how the speech is divided up into short pieces here.
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Listen carefully.
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The car stopped.
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We'd arrived at the park and got out.
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Thank you.
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Here again are the different units of speech.
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And this time you can see a little symbol appearing where there was a little break.
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The car stopped.
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We'd arrived at the park and got out.
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These short pieces are called tone units.
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We're going to use this symbol here, those two forward slashes, to show a tone unit boundary.
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Thank you.
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Here's some more examples.
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Our context is a day at the park.
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Let's have a look at the text.
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We had brought a picnic, a blanket and some games for the children.
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It was a beautiful day with blue skies and sunshine.
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Finally, we had a chance to relax.
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But then, the accident happened.
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So this is our little story and let's have a look what happens when we say this.
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Let's see if you can find the tone units.
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Let's look at the first part.
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Again, I have removed all the punctuation and capital letters.
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Let's listen.
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We had brought a picnic, a blanket and some games for the children.
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Here are the town unit boundaries.
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We had brought a picnic.
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a blanket and some games for the children.
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You can hear a little pause in between each tone unit.
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Now I have a bit of a longer pause so you can hear it properly,
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but in natural speech there is a pause but it is still very short.
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We had brought a picnic, a blanket and some games for the children.
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What is important is that there is no pause whatsoever in between a tone unit.
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Let's have a look at the next part.
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It was a beautiful day with blue skies and sunshine.
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Here are the tone units and their boundaries.
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It was a beautiful day.
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with blue skies and sunshine. And the last part.
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Finally, we had a chance to relax.
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But then the accident happened.
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And once again, here are the tone units.
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Finally, we had a chance to relax.
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But then the accident happened.
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So this sentence, originally it was one sentence, is really consisting of one,
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two, three, four tone units in total.
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So you can see when we talk about pronunciation and
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when we want to have a look at what happens when we speak,
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it makes much more sense to think of tone units and to show the tone units rather than the sentence.
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Thank you.
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Now so well done you've found already some tone units and you've heard some Let's just revise.
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A tone unit or tone units are the basic building blocks of spoken English.
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When we hear spoken English, it is heard as organized into tone units.
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And this is really important.
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We hear it organized into tone units, not sentences.
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In written English, we think of individual words and sentences.
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But in spoken English we hear tone units.
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And tone units and sentences are not the same.
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Good.
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In a tone unit, all the sounds of the words join together.
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They are linked.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Often, a town unit sounds like one long word to the listener.
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Thank you.
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Let's have a look at a comparison to illustrate what that means.
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For example, all the sounds of a word linked together to form a word, and you know that already.
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Let's have a look at an example: the word "sunshine".
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We had this word come up before in the sentence: "It was a beautiful day with blue skies and sunshine".
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"Sunshine" consists of several sounds.
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Peace.
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ah, nn, sh, i, nn.
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But obviously, I do not say them individually.
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Yeah.
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I would link them up.
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SUNSHINE And quickly...
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sunshine So we link those sounds together to form a word.
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"Sunshine." sunshine In the same way,
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all the sounds of the words link together to form a tone unit.
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Here was our original tone unit. And sunshine. And sunshine.
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You can see the transcript next to the spelling.
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And here you can see very clearly that it really sounds and looks like one word.
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and sunshine and sunshine.
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There's no pause in between and the word 'and' has been reduced to 'n' and joined with sunshine and sunshine and sunshine.
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This happens in all tone units.
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All the sounds link together.
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Thank you.
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Let's look at more tone unit examples in which the sounds link together.
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Thank you.
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Let's have a look at number one.
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I will always read them out and I want you to concentrate on the linking between the words of each tone unit.
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Number 1.
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They arrived.
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They arrived.
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Number two: It was early.
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It was early.
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Number three.
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There were toys.
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There were toys.
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Number four: for children, for children.
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Number five: "It was summer.
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It was summer." Number six, she was shy, she was shy.
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Number seven where the shop was Thank you.
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Can you hear how the sounds of these words run together to form the tone unit?
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I hope so.
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In each of these tone units, one syllable is stressed more than the others.
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Let's have a look at the first three again.
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Listen carefully and see if you can identify the syllable that is stressed more.
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Number one: They arrived.
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They arrived.
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Here, arrived is stressed more.
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Remember that the word arrived consists of two syllables.
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Arrived The second syllable is stressed.
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The first one isn't.
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Number two.
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It was early.
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It was early.
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Here /ɛ / is stressed in early.
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Early also consists of two syllables, but here the first syllable is stressed.
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It was early.
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It was early.
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Number three.
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There were toys.
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There were toys.
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Here, toys is stressed.
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Toys only consists of one syllable and therefore that is the one that is stressed.
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Now, these stressed syllables are called tonic syllables.
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In each of the tone units we have one stressed syllable and one stressed syllable only in our examples.
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And those are the tonic syllables of the tone unit.
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Thank you.
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Now we will show tonic syllables in capitals in this video.
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So have a look again at our three examples.
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They arrived.
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Arrived is now in capital letters and that means this is the tonic syllable.
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Thank you.
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Here are more tonic syllables from our earlier examples.
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I'll read them out one more time.
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Pay attention to the tonic syllables and how they are more prominent and stressed than the rest.
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Number one: They arrived.
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Number two: It was early.
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Number three: They were toys.
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Number four: For children.
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Number five: It was summer.
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Number six.
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She was shy.
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Number seven, where the shot was.
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Some of the tone units have tonic syllables that consist only of one syllable like toys,
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shy and sharp in number three, six and seven.
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And the other tone units all have tonic syllables in words that are more than one syllable long.
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Arrived, early children, summer.
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So those all consist of two syllables, but only one is stressed and that is the tonic syllable.
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In our example of course, you could also have a word with three
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or four syllables where one is stressed and that could be the tonic syllable as well.
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Thank you.
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So in our example here, All tone units have only one tonic syllable.
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However, let's look at another tone unit.
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Listen carefully.
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The car stopped.
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The car stopped.
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What is different here?
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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This town unit has two syllables that are stressed.
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car and stopped.
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The car stopped.
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Can you find the two stressed syllables in the following example?
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Listen carefully.
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The playground was full.
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The playground was full.
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Thank you.
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Play and playground and 'full' are the two stressed syllables in this tone unit.
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Thank you.
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They ran across.
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They ran across.
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Here, 'ran' and 'cross' in the word 'across' are both stressed.
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Thank you looking at the ducks Look and looking and ducks are both stressed.
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Looking at the ducks.
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Thank you.
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Now, if we have a tone unit with two stressed syllables,
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We need to decide which of the two is the tonic syllable.
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Now.
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These two are not stressed in quite the same way.
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Yes, we would say they're both prominent, they're both stressed, but not in quite the same way.
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Thank you.
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In the last stressed syllable of a tone unit, there's a fall -in pitch.
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Listen carefully.
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The car stopped The car stopped Thank you.
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The last stressed syllable in each tone unit is the tonic syllable.
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The tonic syllable is underlined.
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So for our example in this video and the ones following, we will write stressed syllables in capitals.
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and the tonic syllable will be underlined.
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Here are some more examples from the tone units earlier.
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The playground was full.
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Full is the tonic syllable.
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They ran across.
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Cross is the tonic syllable.
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Looking at the ducks.
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'Dax' is the tonic syllable.
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um Here is a summary.
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Spoken English is organised into smaller pieces called tone units.
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This helps the listener because...
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The message is heard in smaller pieces, which we can hear one at a time.
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and because deciding which words really which syllables to stress shows what is important in our message.
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Thank you.
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And as a result, it is easier for the listener to understand you.
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Remember, try to make it easy for the listener to understand you.
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Learn more about the pronunciation system of English.
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Thank you.
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Why?
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Well, because so you can feel at home using it.
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And the pronunciation system of English does not just cover sounds or word stress.
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Really, really important are sentence stress and intonation and tone units and tonic syllables form an important part.
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Develop a good understanding of the pronunciation and intonation of English.
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This is so important.
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People will find it much much easier to understand you.
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It all starts with learning to listen well.
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And remember, there are two ways of listening.
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You can listen to the "what" and you can listen to the 'how' "What" means this is all about the content,
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what is being said, what the message is.
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But the "how" is about how things are said.
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This is about the pronunciation.
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If you want to become better at spoken English and pronunciation, you need to focus on the how.
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Listen to how people say things and then pay attention to how you say them.
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And this will help you to improve your pronunciation.
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Now remember, you can find more free materials and videos to help you improve your pronunciation on my channel, Billy English.
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And if you visit, leave me a comment and a message.
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Like Sophia did, she passed both her phonology exams and I was so delighted to hear from her.
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Thank you.
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Perché praticare la conversazione con questo video?
Praticare la conversazione in inglese è fondamentale per migliorare la propria fluidità e intonazione. Questo video offre un'opportunità unica di ascoltare e riprodurre come gli anglofoni parlano realmente. Con l'analisi dei tone units e delle tonic syllables, puoi comprendere come organizzare il tuo discorso in unità più gestibili. Seguendo queste strutture, potrai non solo migliorare la pronuncia inglese, ma anche aumentare la tua confidenza nel parlare. Imparare l'inglese con YouTube ti consente di ascoltare ripetutamente e di esercitarti nel tuo tempo libero, rendendo la pratica di conversazione in inglese più accessibile ed efficace.
Grammatica & Espressioni nel Contesto
- Tone Units: Come spiegato nel video, le unità di tono sono segmenti di discorso che facilitano la comprensione. Utilizzando le unità di tono, puoi rendere il tuo linguaggio più naturale e fluido.
- Esempio di struttura: "We had brought a picnic." In questo esempio, si evidenzia l'importanza di pause appropriate per migliorare la chiarezza del messaggio.
- Uso di simboli: Il video introduce simboli per delimitare le unità di tono, insegnando così a identificare le pause necessarie durante il parlato.
- Combinazione di elementi: Frasi come "a blanket and some games for the children" mostrano come connettere più idee in una singola unità di tono, aumentando la coesione del discorso.
Trappole Comuni nella Pronuncia
Quando si pratica la pronuncia inglese, ci sono alcune trappole comuni che gli apprendenti potrebbero incontrare. Ad esempio, l'uso di parole come "picnic" può risultare difficile per chi non è abituato a pronunciare combinazioni di consonanti e vocali. Inoltre, l'accento e l'intonazione sono cruciali per rendere il discorso autentico. È importante prestare attenzione a come si enfatizzano le tonic syllables all'interno di ogni unità di tono, poiché questo è fondamentale per comunicare emozione e intenzione. Praticare l'orecchio per le sfumature dell'accento attraverso il materiale audio, come questo video, è un modo efficace per migliorare la tua pronuncia inglese.
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | is organized · is divided · are called |
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | we've removed · have removed · you've found |
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.