Send me a text message. Suggestions? Subjects for future podcasts? Let me know--thanks!

Here's another podcast where I dig into exactly how I pronounce a single sentence:

"To tell you the truth, I was surprised by his attitude." 

By the way: thank you to my supporters who contribute to help pay for the expenses of this podcast. You are greatly appreciated!

Intro & Outro Music: La Pompe Du Trompe by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Note: the podcast recording is not identical to this short essay. But the topic is the same.

Who knew? The "TH" sound in English does not exist in Turkish.
And yet, the articulation of the "TH" sound does exist in Turkish. Really and truly.

If you are a native speaker of Turkish, do this:
1) Say the word "geldi".
2) Repeat the word, but do NOT pronounce the "di". Just say "gel" and stop. Freeze. Don't move. Go look in the mirror and see where your tongue is. Or if no mirror is nearby, just say "gel" and feel where your tongue is. If you're like the native speakers I checked, the tip of your tongue will be between your teeth.  

3) Practice this. Say "gel" ten or twenty time and each time, stop and see or feel where your tongue is.
4) Now say "mother" in English. Then repeat it, but leave off the "er" at the end. Guess what? Your tongue should look, feel, and be in exactly the same position as when you say "gel".

Who knew? You Turkish speakers know how to articulate the "th" in English because you've been doing it forever. 

Practice this trick, tell your friends, and soon words like:  this, that, these, those, the, mother, father, path, and thirty-three will be ever so much easier. 

Who knew?

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This podcast contains a very close analysis of how I pronounce a few sentences:

1- I am so tired of waiting in the rain.
2- I'm so happy to be walking in the park.
3- I was so tired of waiting in the rain that I went to a restaurant.

Remember:  Written English is not a good guide to pronunciation.  Believe me! You need to listen closely to how we native speakers actually speak. Listen, listen, listen.

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No text. This podcast is my quick report on how my Turkish studies are going after one month. It's definitely an adventure. 

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 There was once a young rat named Arthur, who could never take the trouble to make up his mind. Whenever his friends asked him if he would like to go out with them, he would only answer, ‘I don’t know.’ He wouldn’t say ‘yes’ and he wouldn’t say ‘no’ either. He could never learn to make a choice. 

His aunt Helen said to him, ‘No one will ever care for you if you carry on like this. You have no more mind than a blade of grass.’ Arthur looked wise, but stupidly said nothing. 

One rainy day, the rats heard a great noise in the loft where they lived. The pine rafters were all rotten in the middle, and at last one of the joists had given way and fallen to the ground. The walls shook and all the rats’ hair stood on end with fear and horror. ‘This won’t do,’ said the old rat who was chief, ‘I’ll send out scouts to search for a new home.’ 

Three hours later the seven tired scouts came back and said, ‘We have found a stone house, which is just what we wanted; there is room and good food for us all. There is a kindly horse named Nelly, a cow, a calf, and a garden with flowers and an elm tree.’ Just then the old rat caught sight of young Arthur. ‘Are you coming with us?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know.’ Arthur sighed. ‘The roof may not come down just yet.’ ‘Well,’ said the old rat angrily, ‘we can’t wait all day for you to make up your mind; right about face! March!’ And they went straight off. 

Arthur stood and watched the other little rats hurry away. The idea of an immediate decision was too much for him. ‘I’m going back to my hole for a bit,’ he said to himself dreamily, ‘just to make up my mind.’ That Tuesday night there was a great crash that shook the earth and down came the whole roof. Next day some men rode up and looked at the ruins. One of them moved a board and hidden under it they saw a young rat lying on his side, quite dead, half in and half out of his hole. 

Notes: This story was written a long time ago and contains most--perhaps all--of the phonemes (sounds) of English.  For this podcast, please use it to practice your listening. I'll also upload it as an mp3 file to my Telegram channel so you can play it as an endless loop. Hope you enjoy it.

And thank you to my supporters who donate to help cover the costs of the podcast! Every donation helps.

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English has three nasal sounds. They are “M” as in “mama”, “N” as in “nine”, and /ŋ/ - the ‘ing’ sound, as in “ring.”

In making each of these sounds, some air comes out through your nose which is why they are called ‘nasal’ sounds. If you pinch your nose shut while trying to make these sounds, you’ll find they sound very different. If you hum: mmmmmmmmm and then pinch your nose, you’ll see what I mean. Listen…

Let’s practice first with words containing the ‘M’ sound.

1- I’m glad I’m not a company manager.

2- We must improve our meetings. 

3- I will attempt to find a word with a similar meaning.

4- We have a complex economy. 

5- You are welcome to our kingdom.

6- This is your minimum payment, and this is the maximum.

7- I can’t measure someone who keeps moving.

8- She will monitor the monthly outcomes.

9- He promised to examine the medical performance of the staff.

10- All the students at the academy wear uniforms. 

“N” Sounds:

11- Mr. Johnson is the current leading candidate.

12- I need to include the General in the decision. 

13- He runs a network of spies for our country..

14- What is the benefit of running every weekend?

15- He has billions of dollars in a foreign account. 

16- Someone has written me a note in French.

17- Our economy is not generating enough revenue.

18- She is a western finance minister. 

19- I have concerns about the new version of our accounting software.

20- Our mission is to prevent the advance of the aliens.

/ŋ/ - the ‘ing’ sound

21- Now you’re being stubborn.

22- Oh, he’s just doing his thing.

23- Let’s go mingle with the throng.

24- I’m right and you’re wrong. 

25- Please bring your brother along.

26- Politicians are lying while people are dying.

27- She’s young, angry, and very hungry.

28- The singer was in the kitchen eating dinner.

29- A guitar usually has six strings. 

30- I’m saving fifty dollars every week.

31- The baby is crying. 

32- He’s working at a boring job.

33- My darling is out sailing.

34- That’s the famous leaning tower of Pisa.

35- Water is dripping through a hole in the ceiling. 

36- I’m hunting for a good book. I love reading.

37- Sarah is sitting on the sofa waiting for her uncle to arrive.

38- She is trying to hide her feelings.

39- He saw a monster creeping across the floor.

Plea for support from Jennifer: Hey listeners. Before I repeat the last sentence, I want to share some information. It currently costs Barry about $35 per month to create and maintain this podcast. That's just for the software and the hosting expense. His time is donated but every hour of recording can take two to four hours of preparation. If you went to a restaurant, you wouldn't expect the food to be free. Hundreds of listeners download every podcast. If you make a small donation, Barry will feel appreciated and he'll keep recording more lessons. Thank you!

40- Superman flies faster than a speeding bullet.

Buy Barry a coffee and support this podcast. Or become a monthly supporter below.

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About a week ago I decided I would learn some Turkish. Why Turkish you might ask? And the answer is I don't really have a good reason. I'm 75 years old. I'm not going to travel to Turkey. I have no local friends who speak Turkish. So I have no good reason. I don't need it for work. I don't need it for anything. But as far as that goes I don't really need the foreign languages that I speak. I don't need French. I like it. I like it a lot. I don't need Spanish. I can communicate in Spanish. So no, I don't need Turkish for anything. So why did I choose Turkish? The answer I guess is number 1, I'm curious to see if I can learn some of a new language at my age. Number 2, learning or trying to learn a new language helps me to be a better teacher of English. Why? Because when you're suffering through what your students are suffering through, you are more sympathetic, or you should be, and your understanding of what it's like to learn another language is increased. 

It has been a long time since I began to study a language as a new experience. It's been decades. I know how to do it because I've done it about eight times in my life. But I've never studied Turkish before and Turkish is what the linguists call an agglutinative language. Agglutinative means that you have a root word and you add suffixes. And none of the other languages that I've ever studied was agglutinative. So this will be a new experience for me from a grammatical point of view. 

There are also sounds in Turkish that do not seem to exist in English as far as I can tell after one week. So it'll be a test for my hearing, a test for my linguistic ear. It'll be a test for my ability to figure out grammar. It'll definitely be a test for my memory. I don't know how fast I would learn new words if I was learning Turkish at age five and living in Turkey with Turkish parents. But it'll certainly be a slower process for me at age 75. I'm going to need a lot of repetition. 

One more reason I chose Turkish, although it's a reason that could have applied to other languages, is that I have access to native speakers of Turkish on the Tandem app. And it is possible for me to trade some help with English in return for help with Turkish. And having access to native speakers is very important. In fact, it's an absolute necessity. 

Okay, just some brief remarks about my methods, my beginner methods for learning Turkish after all these years of studying languages and not studying languages. The first thing that I have already begun doing is to listen to Turkish. I have several podcasts that I've been listening to. They're 10 to 20 minutes long, a few stories in Turkish. And all I'm doing is listening. I don't understand the words except for one or two here and there. But basically, I'm only listening to the sounds of the Turkish language. I want to get it into my ear. I want to start getting it into my brain. This is what babies do. If you're a baby born in China or you're a baby born in Ecuador or South Africa or Senegal or France, you're born and you start listening to the language of your parents. So right now, I'm a newborn baby somewhere in Turkey. I don't need to understand. Nobody expects me to understand. I'm just listening to the sounds. And if you do this even for a week, for an hour or two every day, it's amazingly helpful, at least I think it is. 

[Please see the transcript f

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Listen to the following weather report read by an A.I. (artificial intelligence produced) voice. I'll play it twice and then I'll record the same report. Listen to the A.I. reading, then listen to my version, and see if you hear any important differences in pronunciation, rhythm or intonation. 

“A chance of rain before 8 p.m., then isolated showers between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.. Patchy fog before 7 p.m.. Otherwise cloudy during the early evening. Then gradual clearing with a low around 35. Northwest wind around ten miles per hour with gusts as high as 25 miles per hour. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a 10th of an inch possible.” 

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Hello, everybody. Barry is resting his voice and he asked me to record this podcast. My name is Hannah. Today’s sentences all include the verb “make” plus a noun. Listen to each sentence 3 or 4 times, and then repeat along with me. 

1) Let me make you a fresh cup of hot coffee. 

2) She tasted the soup and then made a face. “Too salty!”

3) A landslide had blocked the road so we had to make a detour.

4) I had to go home early so I made my apologies to our host and headed home.

5) I’ll make you a bet that I can run faster than you.

6) He made a fist and pounded it on his desk. “I will never give up!” 

7) The explosion made us all flinch.

8) I made too many dumb mistakes on the math exam and I failed it.

9) She made a fortune selling funny puppets.

10) I explained my position several times and finally made him realize that I knew what I was talking about.

Hannah says:

Good job! You guys are good listeners and your pronunciation is getting better and better. I hope you enjoyed listening to my smooth, professional voice instead of Barry's old growl. Sometimes he sounds like his dog ----- Ollie! 

However, I have a confession to make. I'm not really a person. I'm a voice generated using artificial intelligence, or A.I. Oh, I started out as a human voice, I suppose, but since then I've been manipulated and changed all over the place. I hope none of you guys were thinking of inviting me out on a date! That would have been a shock for you! On the other hand, Barry doesn't know if some of the listeners to his podcast are also A.I. listeners. Anything is possible nowadays. 

I guess the moral is: don't believe everything you read, see, or hear on the internet. Be careful and be suspicious. Well, I have to go now. Thanks for listening and please donate so Barry will pay me! See you soon!

Bye, Hannah. Thanks for helping me. Well, that was an interesting experiment. How did you like practicing pronunciation with an AI voice? I have to admit I am impressed with how good her speech is. Good, but not always perfect. Here’s one place where she goofed: listen to this [Well, I have to go now.] Listen again: [Well, I have to go now.] Now listen to me say the same words. I’ll repeat three times—see if you can hear the difference. [Well, I have to go now.] And here’s Hannah one more time. 

The difference is in the stress. Hannah puts stress on the word “now” and the more important word in that short sentence is “go”. Listen again. […more explanation.]

Before I let you go, let’s practice some more collocations with “make” + a noun.

11) My children are hungry so I’m going to make them a snack.

12) If we’re going to stay at the hotel, we need to make a reservation. 

13) I’m happy to say that after the operation on my shoulder, I made a full recovery.

14) The archaeologists found some footprints made by ancient hominids in Africa.

15) Let’s make a recording of Spanish proverbs popular in the Caribbean.

16) Microsoft makes two products: software and money.

17) The dogs were barking and making a big racket.

18) The air was full of dust and it made us sneeze.

19) My cousin is go

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A reminder: collocations are words that are commonly used together by native speakers. For example “brand” and “new” are a collocation, as in “Look at my brand new car,” or “All her clothes are brand new.”

Here are some collocations using the word “book”.

1) Have you read her most recent book?

2) I like to buy used hardcover books for my grandchildren.

3) My uncle collects rare books.

4) Did you read comic books when you were a kid?

5) An encyclopedia is a kind of reference book.

6) Oliver Twist is a book by Charles Dickens.

7) It’s sad when great books go out of print.

8) I have to take these books back to the library tomorrow.

9) My sister is an artist. She illustrates childrens’ picture books.

10) I couldn’t put that book down. It was too exciting!

11) It’s very difficult to translate a book of poetry.

12) My cousin is writing a book about the history of piracy

13) She wrote a best-selling book which was made into a movie.

14) I edit books for a living.

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