Home    >    Lesson 2: VC Connections    >    Unit 2.3 Syllable shapes

Presentation

Audio [02:32]

Quiz

#1. To guarantee VC connections in a sentence, the syllable shapes should be:

V-C

V-C

C-C

C-C

C-V

C-V

friendly

friendly

#2. True or false: the syllables in this sentence have only C-V shapes: ‘He saw too far’.

True.

True.

False.

False.

#3. Which word below does not have a C-V shape?

for

for

be

be

the

the

him

him

#4. When C-V syllables meet, they create ________ VC connections.

good

good

bad

bad

indifferent

indifferent

friendly

friendly

#5. Other syllable shapes, like V-C, ________, and C-C, create problems when we speak, which must be corrected by connected speech.

V-V

V-V

C-V

C-V

Finish

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Discussion

1. Have you ever considered the shape of words before, i.e. whether they begin or end with a consonant or vowel sound, and how that affects pronunciation in English?
2. Are you able to learn groups of words with each syllable shape as a way of speeding up the process of using connected speech?
3. Have you become conditioned to speaking English word by word through constant study and practice? How can you learn to accept and incorporate connected speech into your everyday spoken English?
4. Do you believe that syllables like ‘The ne kstrain willa rye vinna minnit’ are silly and not ‘proper’ English? Are you committed to speaking English word by word, or are you open to learning to speak English syllable by syllable?

Practice

1. Write ten words that have a C-V syllable shape, e.g., ‘for’. This is the right kind of syllable shape for spoken English. (Think BA BA BA BA BA…)
2. Write ten words that have a V-C syllable shape, e.g., ‘of’. This syllable shape will lead to a bad connection on both sides, because VC connections cannot result.
3. Write ten words that have a C-C syllable shape, e.g., ‘that’. This syllable shape will lead to a bad connection on the right side only, which cannot produce a VC connection, so it must be corrected.
4. Write ten words that have a V-V syllable shape, e.g., ‘a’. This syllable shape may lead to a bad connection on both sides, but definitely on the left side, because we need to meet a consonant sound, not a vowel sound.
5. Write down lists of common words that have each syllable shape and learn them. For example, ‘for’ is good, ‘and’ is bad, and so on.
6. Practice saying the two sentences on slide 9 – which one sounds more natural to you? Why?
7. Study the list of high-frequency words – 100 Most Common Words in Written English. Group them by syllable shape. Get to know which very common words will cause problems that have to be corrected by connected speech.

Further Study

• Syllable Shapes
• 100 Most Common Words in Written English