Prática de Shadowing: Tone units & Tonic syllables | Intonation in English | Speaking Naturally - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

Criando lição...
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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.

Sobre Esta Lição

Nesta lição, você irá aprofundar seus conhecimentos sobre os tone units e tonic syllables na língua inglesa. Através do entendimento desses conceitos, você aprenderá como a fala em inglês é organizada em unidades de tom em vez de palavras ou frases isoladas. Isso permitirá que você converse de forma mais natural e fluente, identificando as pausas e a entonação corretas ao se comunicar. Este conhecimento será extremamente útil para sua prática de conversação em inglês, permitindo que você pronuncie frases de maneira mais eficaz e clara.

Vocabulário e Frases Chave

  • Tone units - Unidades de tom que organizam a fala.
  • Tonic syllables - As sílabas que recebem mais ênfase em uma frase.
  • Pausa - Um pequeno intervalo entre as unidades de tom.
  • Contexto - A situação ou a história que emoldura a comunicação.
  • Speak naturally - Falar de maneira natural.
  • Intonação - A variação da voz ao falar.
  • Communicação falada - A troca de ideias ou informações através da fala.
  • Delimitação de unidades de tom - A demarcação das pausas na fala.

Dicas de Prática

Para aprimorar sua prática de conversação em inglês utilizando os conceitos de shadowing, siga as dicas abaixo:

  • Escute a gravação da conversa cuidadosamente, prestando atenção nas pausas entre as tone units.
  • Repita em voz alta logo após ouvir cada unidade de tom, imitando a entonação e o ritmo do falante original. Essa técnica é conhecida como shadowspeak ou shadow speak.
  • Espaçamentos: Tente perceber como as pausas ajudam na compreensão. O falante pode usar uma pausa para dar ênfase a partes importantes da frase.
  • Grave sua própria voz ao praticar. Isso ajudará você a se ouvir e ajustar seu ritmo e entonação.
  • Pratique em diferentes velocidades: comece devagar e aumente a velocidade conforme sua confiança cresce.
  • Utilize o exercício do shadowing em inglês sempre que possível, focando especialmente nas entonações que indicam emoções e atitudes.

Gramática neste vídeo

As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:

EstruturaNo vídeo
Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem fazis organized · is divided · are called
Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agorawe've removed · have removed · you've found

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.

Técnica de shadowing: leia o guia completo passo a passo →