28th
I talked with Amanda about syllables
I met Amanda who was my pronounce teacher in ESL before at Shafer Dining Food Court on Oct.22,08. I told her that Mr. Ron who was my writing teacher in ESL before didn’t understand the word of “difficult” that I pronounced when I met and talk to him at the entrance of Franklin Street Gym the day before. She asked me to pronounce it again. After that, she told me that he couldn’t understand it because I pronounced it as two syllables. It means that I pronounced it “diff-cult” as it was two syllables though I had to pronounce it “dif-fi-cult” as it was three syllables. I got why he didn’t understand it. I asked her how she usually recognize every word’s syllable. She told me that she learned it naturally so she couldn’t explain why it is so because English is her native language. It made sense to me because I couldn’t explain about detail rules of Japanese because I also learned them naturally.
She gave me an advice that I should speak in English slowly and make sure how I pronounce words. When I speak with native English speakers, I usually rush to speak with them because that they might feel too slow for my speed that I speak in English. Then, I got a crue that they might understand what I will say better than now if I can pronounce about every word’s syllable correctly. If so, it will be useful for me to improve my speaking skill. Besides, it might be useful for my listening skill if I understand about every word’s syllable well.
