english accent
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【导语】如果我们能改变我们的⼝⾳、词汇和语法,使⾃⼰说英语听起来就像母语是英语的⼈,⽣活就会简单得多。
与此同时,如果你想说英语就像本地⼈⼀样,你必须付出⼀些努⼒。
但它可能不像你想象的那么难。
有⼀些实⽤的步骤,你可以遵循,它们会使你说英语听起来更流利,更像⼀种母语,从你的发⾳到你对词汇的⽤法。
有了这些技巧,再加上耐⼼和练习,你很快就会成为⼀种语⾔变⾊龙。
1. Get Familiar with Different English Accents1 .熟悉了解不同的英语⼝⾳There are many different accents among native English speakers. Someone from New York sounds different from someone who grew up in Texas.母语为英语的⼈有许多不同的⼝⾳。
来⾃纽约的⼈听起来不同于在德克萨斯州长⼤的⼈。
And of course, you must have heard the Queen’s English (the standard English of Britain). I’ll tell you right now that not everyone there sounds like their queen. Then there are the Scots, Welsh and Irish who speak English with different accents.当然,你⼀定听说过⼥王的英语(英国标准英语)。
我现在就告诉你,不是所有⼈都像他们的⼥王⼀样。
然后是苏格兰⼈、威尔⼠⼈和爱尔兰⼈⽤不同的⼝⾳说英语。
Here’s a fun thing to do. Go to YouTube and search for videos of people trying to do different English accents. Not all are good (or correct) but they’ll give you an idea of how many English accents there are. Here’s a good example you can start with.Done with the fun? Now back to business!这是⼀件有趣的事情。
Accent,Noise,Sound,V oice的区别_用法辨析
accent,noise,sound,voice这组词都可表示声音。
其区别是:
sound的含义较广,指任何可以听到的声音;
nose通常指令人不快的、混杂的或有害的噪音;
V oice着重指人的说话或唱歌的声音;
accent则多指某人说话的口音。
例如:
Sound travels at 1100 feet per second. 声音的传播速度是每秒钟1100英尺。
Their washing machine makes a terrible noise。
他们的洗衣机发出种令人讨厌的噪音。
We could hear voices in the neat roon,我们能听见隔壁房间里的说话声
He speaks English with a strong German accent。
他说英语带有浓重的德国口音。
测试:
用sound,voIce,noise或accent填空
1.Mrs Li speaks with a precise northern __________at the precise moment.
②The __________is harsh to the ear.
答案: 1.accent ②noise。
English accents 4. Estuary English•1980's: a claim that a new variety of English has arisen, Estuary English The•1990's: the name enters popular usage. The existence of EE is taken as a fact.The•2000's: scholarly accounts based on substantial research appear. They show that TheEE as previously defined does not exist.The claim'"Estuary English" is a variety of modified regional speech. It is a mixture of non-regional and local south-eastern English pronunciation and intonation. If one imagines acontinuum with RP and London speech at either end, "Estuary English" speakers are to be found grouped in the middle ground.'David Rosewarne 1984'The heartland of this variety lies by the banks of the Thames and its estuary, …'Rosewarne, 1984…but it seems to be the most influential accent in the south-east of England. Rosewarne 1984/home/estuary/home/estuaryThe hype'Estuary English can nowadays be heard throughout London and the Home Counties and well beyond … as far as the north Norfolk coast, … the Dorset coast, … the south Kent coast … beyond the northern boundaries of Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire.'Coggle 1993My view is that Rosewarne is misguided in very many respects. For a start, it's is not a new variety, it's just a standardised form of speech with Southeastern phonology. People have spoken like that for years and years. EE retains some regional low-level phonetic features. What MAY be new is the fact that the non-standard urban dialects are being levelled in the whole SE region, so that it is increasingly hard to tell even where nonstandard speakers come from. Rosewarne completely misleadingly tries to associate EE with certain discourse features, such as stressing prepositions and using tags. This is nonsense, and seems to be based on his dependence on local radio for his data. What we can say is that, although attitudes to it are still not positive, it is becoming more and more used in high-status occupations, including broadcasting. It lacks the snobbery associated withJCW's proposed definitionEE = Standard English spoken with a non-RP, London-influenced accent…therefore(a)has standard grammar, and(b)does not have stigmatized characteristics suchas▪h-dropping▪[æ:, a:] in MOUTH wordsThe spread of Cockney features to Estuary and RPCockney Estuary RPh→0̸+--θ,ð→f,v+±-ɫ→o++±tj→tʃ/ˈ_V ++±t→ʔ/_#V++±-no±perhaps+ yesTranscribing Estuary English:differences from RP•-ing optionally write EE /ɪn/;for -thing optionally write EE /θɪŋk/ for•l/, write EE /o/for RP dark /•t/ when between {a vowel or sonorant} and {a consonant or word for RP /boundary}, write EE /ʔ/for RP•/tj, dj/,write EE /tʃ, dʒ/•aɪ, aʊ/, write EE /ɑɪ, æʊ/for RP /•n̩/ in various positions, write EE /ən/for RP /for•twenty, plenty, want(ed, ing, it, us), went (before a vowel), in EE optionally omit the /t/The confusionStylistic variabilitydegrees of formalitycheers!there you go!Good or bad?●EE 'has street cred', is 'modern, up-front, trend-setting'●EE is 'a bastardized version of CockneyThe truthPercentage of glottalling byteenagers (Przedlacka, p. 87)RP Eton 8'EE'counties32Cockney Bethnal Green85Aylesbury, Bucks43Lit. Baddow, Essex 8Farningham, Kent38Walton/Hill, Surrey21。
英语作文字母正确发音规则In English, the pronunciation of letters can vary depending on their context within words and the influence of adjacent letters. Understanding the correct pronunciation rules is crucial for accurate communication. Below, I'll delve into the rules governing the pronunciation of English letters:1. Vowels:A: It has two primary pronunciations. The short sound, as in "cat" or "bat," is like "æ," while the long sound, as in "cake" or "late," is like "eɪ."E: It can be pronounced as "ɛ" as in "bed" or "eɪ" as in "be."I: It can be pronounced as "ɪ" as in "sit" or "aɪ" as in "mine."O: It can be pronounced as "ɒ" as in "hot" or "oʊ" as in "go."U: It can be pronounced as "ʌ" as in "cup" or"juː" as in "cute."Y: It can function as both a consonant and a vowel. As a vowel, it often takes on the sounds of "ɪ" as in "gym" or "aɪ" as in "myth."2. Consonants:B: Pronounced as "bi" with a soft "b" sound.C: Has two primary sounds, "k" as in "cat" or "s" as in "city."D: Pronounced as "di" with a soft "d" sound.F: Pronounced as "ɛ f."G: Has two primary sounds, "g" as in "goat" or "dʒ"as in "giant."H: Pronounced as "eɪʧ."J: Pronounced as "dʒeɪ."K: Pronounced as "keɪ."L: Pronounced as "ɛl."M: Pronounced as "ɛm."N: Pronounced as "ɛn."P: Pronounced as "pi."Q: Always followed by "u" in English, pronounced as "kju."R: Pronounced as "ɑr."S: Pronounced as "ɛs."T: Pronounced as "ti."V: Pronounced as "vi."W: Pronounced as "ˈdʌbəlju."X: Can have multiple pronunciations, such as "ɛks" or "z."Z: Pronounced as "zi."3. Combination Sounds:Ch: Pronounced as "tʃ" as in "church."Sh: Pronounced as "ʃ" as in "shoe."Th: Has two sounds, "θ" as in "think" or "ð" as in "this."Ng: Pronounced as "ŋ" as in "sing."Wh: Pronounced as "w" as in "what."Ph: Pronounced as "f" as in "phone."Kn: Pronounced as "n" as in "knee."Gn: Pronounced as "n" as in "gnome."4. Silent Letters:Some letters are silent in certain words, such as the "h" in "hour" or the "k" in "knife."5. Schwa Sound:The schwa sound, represented by the symbol "ə," is a neutral vowel sound often found in unstressed syllables, such as the second syllable in "banana" or the first syllable in "sofa."6. Accent Variations:English accents, such as British English and American English, may pronounce certain letters and combinations differently. For example, the pronunciation of the letter "r" varies between these accents.7. Loan Words:English borrows words from various languages, which may retain their original pronunciation. For instance, "rendezvous" retains the French pronunciation of"rɑ̃devu."Mastering the pronunciation of English letters involves understanding these rules and practicing their application in various words and contexts. Additionally, exposure to spoken English through listening and conversation can greatly aid in improving pronunciation skills.。
The Great Gatsby F.Scott.FitzgeraldContextFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of The Star-Spangled Banner. Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end. Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life appear in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from Minnesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick’s case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South.Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy’s love. As the giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the bleakness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an era that he dubbed “the Jazz Age.” Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, in which the American economy soared, bringing unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation. Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919), made millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground culture of revelry sprang up. Sprawling private parties managed to elude police notice, and “speakeasies”—secret clubs that sold liquor—thrived. The chaos and violence of World War I left America in a state of shock, and the generation that fought the war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate. The staid conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade were turned on their ear, as money, opulence, and exuberance became the order of the day.Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this new lifestyle seductive and exciting, and, like Gatsby, he had always idolized the very rich. Now he found himself in an era in which unrestrained materialism set the tone of society, particularly in the large cities of the East. Even so, like Nick, Fitzgerald saw through the glitter of the Jazz Age to the moral emptiness and hypocrisy beneath, and part of him longed for this absent moral center. In many way s, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald’s attempt to confront his conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised.Plot OverviewNick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also l earns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom andMyrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Ga tsby’s legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.” Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.After a short time, Tom grows in creasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust h e feels for the people surrounding Gatsby’s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby’s power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—is over.Character ListNick Carraway - The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he facil itates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.Nick Carraway (In-Depth Analysis)Jay Gatsby - The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.Jay Gatsby (In-Depth Analysis)Daisy Buchanan - Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautifulsocialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s constant infidelity. Daisy Buchanan (In-Depth Analysis)Tom Buchanan - Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation.Jordan Baker - Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth.Myrtle Wilson - Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire.George Wilson - Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom.Owl Eyes - The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion. Nick finds Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby’s library, astonished that the boo ks are real. Klipspringer - The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby’s mansion, taking advantage of his host’s money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he does call Nick about a pair of te nnis shoes that he left at Gatsby’s mansion.Analysis of Major CharactersJay GatsbyThe title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from an impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he achieved this lofty goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and sophistication—he dropped out of St. Olaf’s College after only two weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with which he was paying his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end.Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel. Gats by’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter III. Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity before he is ever introduced to the reader. Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby’s background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns about Gatsby’s childhood in Chapter VI and receives definitive proof of his criminal dealings in Chapter VII). As a result, the reader’s first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note from that of the lovesick, naive young man who emerges during the later part of the novel.Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical qualit y of Gatsby’s approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. This talent forself-invention is what gives Gatsby his qual ity of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion.Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.(See Important Quotations Explained)As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism become subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out that the former, passionate and active, and the latter, sober and reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgerald’s personality. Additionally, where as Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, Gatsby is a loyal and good-hearted man. Though his lifestyle and attitude differ greatly from those of George Wilson, Gatsby and Wilson share the fact that they both lose their love interest to Tom.Nick CarrawayIf Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued and glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to o bserve and assist the resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922. Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter I, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzger ald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter IX.Insofar as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized througho ut the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people.Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes him lose his equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s party in Chapter II. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over the appalling spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.Daisy BuchananPartially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents.After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy fallsfar short of Gatsby’s ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter VII, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter VII. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set.Themes, Motifs & SymbolsThemesThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920sOn the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike.Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel’s symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune s ymbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.As Fitzgerald saw it (and as Nick explains in Chapter IX), the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Additionally, places and objects in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. In Nick’s mind, the ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream, as early Americans invested their new nation with their own ideals and values.Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor p ossesses. Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is moveback to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.The Hollowness of the Upper ClassOne of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new ho use far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in the morning in Chapter VII simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans’ bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.MotifsMotifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.GeographyThroughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nick’s analysis in Chapter IX of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.WeatherAs in much of Shakespeare’s work, the weather in The Great Gatsby unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion begins amid a pouring rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come out. Gatsby’s climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet). Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.SymbolsSymbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.The Green LightSituated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.The Valley of AshesFirst introduced in Chapter II, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.The Eyes of Doctor T. J. EckleburgThe eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising。
American Accent and Regional American AccentsShanghai International Studies UniversityThe College Of International EducationThe Department Of English EducationClass 3Gao Yihui0081102054There are a large number of countries are speaking English, the most common ones we know are the United Kingdoms, the United States of America, Canada and Australia. The common sense that we have learned is those countries all speak English, some of us might know they speak with different kinds of English but few of us can tell what the differences are. Nowadays, most ESL students study English with the start of choosing what kind of English accent they are going to determine, the selection is mostly between British accent and American accent. This essay is mainly about the introduction of the various local accents of the American English accent.American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States.English is the most common language in the United States. Though the U.S. federal government has no official language, English is the common language used by the federal government and is considered the de facto language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 28 of the 50 state governments.The use of English in the United States was a result of British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. Since then, American English has been influenced by the languages of the Native American population, the languages of European and non-European colonists, immigrants and neighbors, and the languages of slaves from West Africa.American accent has its unique characteristics, The three most distinctive consonants are “R”, the American middle “T”, and the “Th” sound. The “R” is a consonant, but it acts more like a vowel, because the tip of the tongue doesn't touch anywhere in the mouth, Usually it sounds a little bit too much with the pronunciation of “R”, you always have to pronounce it with your mouth wide open. The middle “T” is what makes a word like greeting sound like greeding. As the most commonly used word in English is the word the, the Th is very important. Here are some very high-frequency TH words: the, these, those, they, them, there, they're, their, this, that and then. If these and those are pronounced with a D instead of a TH, it sounds like dese anddose, which is considered lower class in the US.The American “R” is like a vowel because it doesn’t touch anywhere in the mouth. In Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Greek and many other languages, the “R” isa consonant because it touches behind the teeth. The American “R” is produced deep in the th roat. Like the French “R” and the German “R”, the American “R” is in the throat, but unlike those two consonant sounds, it doesn't touch. Let's contrast two similar sounds: [ä] and [r]. Hold your hand out in front of you, with your palm up, like you are holding a tray on it. Slightly drop your hand down, and say ah, like you want the doctor to see your throat. Now, curl your fingers up slightly, and say [r]. Your tongue should feel in about the same position as your hand.The American T is influenced very strongly by intonation and its position in a word or phrase. It can be a little tricky if you try to base your pronunciation on spelling alone.There are, however, there are 3 basic rules: [T is T], [T is D], [T is Silent].If the T is at the beginning of a word (or the top of the staircase), it is a strong, clear T sound, like table, take, tomorrow.If the T is in the middle of the word, intonation changes the sound to a soft D, the word letter sounds like [ledder];T and N are so close in the mouth that the [t] can disappear. Such words like international [innernational], percentage [percen'j]. If the T is at the end of a word, you almost don't hear it at all, like put, what, lotThe American L has two different pronunciations in English. In the beginning or middle of a word, the tongue tip touches just behind the teeth — on those hard ridges. In this position, the L shouldn't give you much trouble. The difficulty begins when the L is at the end of a word. Because the letter L has a shorter, sharper pronunciation in other languages, this will carry over into English, where the whole word will just sound too short. At the end of a word, the L is especially noticeable if it is either missing (Chinese) or too short (Spanish). You need to put a little schwa sound before the final L.The most common word in the English language is THE, so after the schwa, [th] would be the sound you would hear most often, which is why it is so important to master it. ([th] also exists in English, Greek and Castillian Spanish.) Besides 'the,' there are several other very common words that start with a voiced [th]: this, that, that, those, they. Just as with most of the other consonants, there are two types — voiced and unvoiced. The voiced TH is like a D. To pronounce TH correctly, think of a snake's tongue. You don't want to take a big relaxed tongue and push it far between your teeth and just leave it out there. Make only a very quick, sharp little movement. Keep the tip of your tongue very tense. It darts out between your teeth and snaps back very quickly.After the Civil War, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the Eastern U.S. led to dialect mixing and leveling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard.The Connecticut River and Long Island Sound is usually regarded as thesouthern/western extent of New England speech. Although no longer region-specific, African American Vernacular English, which remains prevalent among African Americans, has a close relationship to Southern varieties of American Accent and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans.A distinctive speech pattern also appears near the border between Canada and the United States, centered on the Great Lakes region. Those not from this area frequently confuse it with the North Midland dialect treated below, referring to both collectively as "Midwestern" in the mid-Atlantic region or "Northern" in the Southern US. The so-called '"Minnesotan" dialect is also prevalent in the cultural Upper Midwest, and is characterized by influences from the German and Scandinavian settlers of the region, for example, yah for yes/ja in German, they are pronounced in the same way.The South Midland or Highland Southern dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms (outsiders often mistakenly believe South Midland speech and coastal South speech to be the same).Dialect development in the United States has been notably influenced by the distinctive speech of such important cultural centers as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, NYC, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which imposed their marks on the surrounding areas. Big cities have their own unique styles of American accents.In conclusion, there are many kinds of English styles and accents existing in the world, each of them represent a certain country or a specific culture, with the exclusive research of English accent study, we can learn the language quicker and better, it also helps us to understand the according culture and the local dialects.References:1) Carver, Craig M. (1987). American regional dialects: A word geography. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.2) McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1979). Dialects in culture. W. Kretzschmar (Ed.). Tuscaloosa:University of Alabama Press.3) McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1980). Varieties of American English. A. Dil (Ed.). Stanford:Stanford University Press.4) Metcalf, Allan. (2000). How we talk: American regional English today HoughtonMifflin Company.。
accent的用法说明
1.表示“口音”、“腔调”注意以下几点:
①通常为可数名词,表示带有某种口音或腔调,通常用介词with或in:He speaks with a Southern accent. 他说话带有南方口音。
He speaks French with [in] an English accent. 他讲法语时带有英国腔。
偶尔也可用作不可数名词:He told me his story in broken accent. 他语不成句地对我叙述了他的经历。
He speaks without (an) accent. 他说话不带地方口音He speaks without (an) accent. (土音)。
②以下表达合乎英语习惯:His accent is London. 他操伦敦口音。
/He has a strong American accent. 他有很重的美国口音。
2. 表示“重音”是可数名词:
The word "lady" has its accent on the first syllable. lady 这个词的重音在第一个音节。
3. 表示“强调”或“重点”可用作可数或不可数名词,但用作可数名词时通常用单数形式:
In all our products the accent is on quality. 在我们的所有产品中,最重视的就是质量。
学术英语视听说1 lesson14 听力原文全文共6篇示例,供读者参考篇1My Week at Summer CampHi everyone! Today I want to tell you all about my awesome week at summer camp last month. It was so much fun and I learned a ton of cool new stuff. Get ready for a long story because there's a lot to cover!On Monday morning, my mom drove me to Camp Wildwood which is about an hour away from our house. I was a little nervous since I had never been away from home for a whole week before. But as soon as I arrived, the counselors were really nice and helped me feel welcome. They showed me and the other new campers around the camp and explained all the different activities we could do.After dropping off my stuff in the cabin, we headed over to the lake for swimming lessons. I'm not the strongest swimmer yet, so I was in the beginners group. The lifeguards taught us how to float on our backs and tread water. It was hard work butI'm glad I practiced those skills. Later that afternoon, we had arts and crafts time where I made a cool tie-dye shirt.The best part of the day though was definitely campfire time at night. All the campers gathered around the fire pit and the counselors told spooky stories and taught us funny camp songs. We made s'mores too which was my first time trying them. So good! I had a hard time falling asleep that first night because I was too excited.Tuesday started with an awesome nature hike through the woods. Our counselor Jim pointed out different plants, birds, and animal tracks along the trail. He taught us tree identification by looking at the leaves and bark. After the hike, we had an outdoors cooking lesson over the campfire. We made hobo pies which are like little personal pies cooked in tinfoil with fruit filling inside. Delicious!In the afternoon, we went canoeing on the lake. I was a little nervous getting into the canoe at first because I thought it might tip over. But our counselors showed us the proper rowing technique to keep the canoe stable. It was harder work than I expected to paddle across the lake! That night after campfire, we had a stargazing session with a big telescope. It was amazing to see planets, stars, and galaxies up close.Wednesday was probably my favorite day. In the morning, we went on a rockin' climbing adventure! Camp Wildwood has this awesome rock climbing wall and high ropes course. After getting harnessed up, I conquered my fear of heights and made it all the way to the top. The view from up there was incredible. In the afternoon, we did some team building games and activities which helped me make new friends. At night, we had a talent show around the campfire where kids could sing, dance, tell jokes, or show off any other talents. I told a few of my favorite kid-appropriate jokes which got some good laughs.Things slowed down a little on Thursday. We had a relaxing morning learning about bird watching and identifying different species by sight and sound. Later on, we had a workshop on camping skills like how to pitch a tent, build a fire, read a compass, and other survival stuff. I feel ready to go camping in the wilderness now! That evening, we had an outdoor movie night on a big screen set up near the lake which was really cool.On my last day Friday, I was definitely feeling sad that camp was ending. We spent the morning packing up our stuff in the cabins and doing cabin clean-up duties. In the afternoon though, we had one final big event which was the Camp Wildwood Olympics! Campers were split into teams to compete in goofyevents like a three-legged race, water balloon toss, tug-of-war and more. My team was unstoppable and we won the gold medal!After the Olympics, we had one final campfire ceremony where they handed out awards and signatures to decorate our Camp Wildwood shirts and bandanas. I was honored to receive the "Camper of the Week" award which made me feel so proud. I'll never forget that incredible, adventure-filled week of learning new skills, conquering challenges, and making wonderful friends.So that's the full scoop on my summer camp experience, friends! I highly recommend going to sleep-away camp if you get the chance. You're guaranteed to have an awesome time exploring nature, trying new activities, and creating lasting memories. I'm already counting down the days until next summer when I can go back to Camp Wildwood!篇2My Big Adventure at the ZooLast weekend, my mom and dad took me to the zoo for my birthday! I was so excited because I love animals. We got up really early and packed a picnic lunch with sandwiches, fruit, chips, and juice boxes. The drive to the zoo took forever, or atleast it felt like it to me. I kept asking "Are we there yet?" every five minutes.Finally, we made it to the zoo entrance. I could see the huge sign with a picture of an elephant. My dad paid for our tickets and we went inside. The first thing I saw was the map showing all the different animal exhibits. There were so many! I didn't know where to start.We decided to head to the Africa section first to see the lions, zebras, and giraffes. On the way, we stopped to watch the sea lion show. The sea lions were so funny and did lots of cool tricks like balancing balls on their noses and jumping through hoops. One of them even waved at me!In the Africa section, we saw the most amazing animals. The lions were sleeping in the shade under a big tree. They looked very peaceful and fluffy. The male lion had a huge mane around his head that made him look like a king. I wouldn't want to make him mad though - those teeth were massive!My favorite was definitely the giraffes. They were so tall - taller than the trees even! Their long necks seemed to go on forever. One giraffe was sticking his giant purple tongue out to grab some leaves off a branch. I wanted to pet their spots but the sign said not to try to touch or feed the animals.Next, we went to the primate area to see the monkeys and apes. They were so funny, swinging from branch to branch and making lots of loud noises. Some of the smaller monkeys liked to pick bugs and leaves out of each other's fur. The gorillas were incredible - they looked so strong and powerful. One silverback gorilla was beating his chest which made the ground shake!After that, it was time for our picnic lunch. We found a nice shady spot near the duck pond to eat our sandwiches and rest our feet for a bit. I fed the ducks some crumbs from my chips which they seemed to love.Our last stop was the reptile house. To be honest, I was a little scared at first because some of the snakes looked really slippery and creepy behind the glass. But I was also fascinated by how they could unhinge their jaws to swallow huge prey whole. The crocodiles and alligators were pretty scary too with their massive jaws and teeth.My favorite reptiles ended up being the turtles. There was a really old, huge one that looked like it was smiling as it swam around its pond. The zoo keeper said some turtles can live to be over 100 years old! I also got to pet a smaller tortoise. Its shell felt hard but smooth, almost like a rock.After the reptile house, we were all getting pretty tired so we decided to call it a day. On the way out, I begged my parents for one last treat - a swirl ice cream cone from the snack stand. Cookies and cream for me, please!I had such an amazing day seeing all the cool animals up close. The zoo was so much fun that I can't wait to go back again sometime soon. Maybe next time I'll even get to feed a giraffe! I just hope nobody tells the lions where I live - those teeth were no joke.篇3Hi, my name is Timmy and I'm in 3rd grade. Today I want to tell you about what I learned in Listening Lesson 14 in my Academic English class. It was all about understanding different accents and pronunciation in English. Boy, was it interesting!First, we talked about how English is spoken differently in different countries and regions. My teacher said that even though English started in England, it spread all around the world as people moved and settled in new places. So now there are lots of different "accents" or ways of pronouncing English words.One accent we learned about was the British accent from England. The teacher played some recordings and it soundedreally fancy and proper to me. Like when they say words with an "a" like "can't" or "pants", they make it sound more like "cahn't" or "pahn'ts". They also don't pronounce "r" sounds as strongly as Americans do.Then we listened to some Australian English accent samples. That one sounded really relaxed and casual, kind of like a dude at the beach. They say "day" like "dye" and "no" like "nah". The Australian accent makes a lot of the vowel sounds higher too.The next one was from India and it sounded very melodic and musical to me. In Indian English, they really stretch out their vowel sounds and their accents go up and down a lot on different syllables of words. Like "hello" almost sounds like "helloooo". It's a very lilting accent.After that was the Jamaican accent from the Caribbean islands. That one was my favorite - it had such a fun, bouncy rhythm! The Jamaican speakers we heard kind of sang their words and dropped a lot of consonant sounds. Like "There" became "Dere" and "think" was more like "tink".We also covered the Southern American accent from states like Texas and Alabama. That drawling accent drew out a lot of vowels, like "I" became "Ahhhhhh" and "prize" turned into "prahhhhhz". The Southern accent speakers also tended to drop"g" sounds at the end of words like "going" (goin') and "reading" (readin').Finally, we learned about the Boston accent from Massachusetts. Boy, that was a tricky one! In the Boston accent, "r" sounds get added to words that don't actually have any "r"s! So "park the car" comes out like "pahk the cah". They also make the "a" really flat like the British do.After listening to all those different accents, we had to do some exercises identifying which accent we were hearing in short clips. I got most of them right because the different accents all sounded really distinct to me after practicing.My teacher said it's important to be able to understand all the different accents because English is a global language spoken by people all over the world. If you can't understand different pronunciations, then you'll miss out on communicating with a lot of people! She also said having an accent is totally normal and natural. As long as you can be understood, there's no accent that's "better" or more correct than others.I think my favorite part was hearing the fun rhyme about all the accents:"There once was a speaker from Mass,Whose accent would make your head ask -Was there an "r" carOr a kid named Marr?Who could nevah be sure, in that class!"I had such a good time learning about all the different ways to speak English in Lesson 14. Understanding accents helps me appreciate how diverse and far-reaching the English language is across the globe. I can't wait for the next lesson to learn more!篇4Hi there! My name is Emily and I'm going to tell you all about Listening Lesson 14 from my Academic English class. It was super interesting to me so I want to share what I learned.The lesson was all about understanding conversations between multiple people. The teacher said this is an important skill because in the real world, we often find ourselves in group situations where several people are talking at once. It can be really hard to follow along!We started by listening to a conversation between three friends deciding where to go for lunch. There were lots of suggestions being thrown around - pizza, Chinese food, that newburger place. I had to concentrate really hard to keep track of who said what and their reasons for wanting a particular type of food. The friends also interrupted each other a few times which made it even trickier.After listening, the teacher asked us some comprehension questions. Things like "Who suggested the pizza place?" and "What reason did Jessica give for not wanting burgers?" I got most of them right because I took good notes while listening. Writing down key words and details really helps me concentrate.Next up was a more challenging conversation - a family discussion about what to do over summer vacation. This time there were four people involved - mom, dad, and two kids. They were weighing the pros and cons of different vacation options like going to the beach, visiting relatives, or staying home and doing local activities.The hard part was keeping track of who preferred what option and why. The mom and dad had different priorities than the kids. And then the kids weren't fully agreeing with each other either! At one point they all started talking over each other and I got a bit lost. But I tried circling words like "I think," "My idea is," and "What if we..." to identify who was stating an opinion.When we discussed it as a class, I realized I had missed some key points about the dad's perspective. My teacher reminded me to always be listening for cues about each speaker's stance, like "My main concern is..." or "The best part would be..." Those signal phrases helped clue me into the main arguments.The final conversation was THE HARDEST! It involved a teacher and four students having a casual discussion about favorite books. With so many people, there was a lot of crosstalk and interrupting. Also, people would briefly mention book titles or authors without giving much context. So I'd be scrambling to write down vocabulary words I couldn't quite make out.For that one, taking notes wasn't as effective for me. I ended up having to listen for context clues about what book someone was referring to based on their opinion about the writing style, character descriptions, etc. The teacher said that for complex group conversations, that's a really important skill - making inferences from limited information.Overall, I learned that following group conversations requires intense concentration, active listening, and note-taking skills. It's something I definitely need to keep practicing. Maybe I'll ask my friends to have more multi-person chats when we hang out! I'll be the expert conversation-follower in no time.Whew, that was a lot of detail! But I really enjoyed that listening lesson and wanted to share all the tips I picked up. Let me know if you have any other questions!篇5Lesson 14: My Favorite AnimalTeacher: Good morning, class! Today, we are going to talk about our favorite animals. Let's start with you, Jenny. What is your favorite animal?Jenny: Good morning, everyone! My favorite animal is a dolphin. Dolphins are super smart and friendly. They live in the ocean and swim really fast. They can even jump out of the water and do tricks. I like watching videos of dolphins because they make me happy.Teacher: That sounds wonderful, Jenny! Dolphins are amazing creatures. How about you, Tim? What is your favorite animal?Tim: Hi, everyone! My favorite animal is a cheetah. Cheetahs are the fastest land animals. They have spots on their fur, which helps them hide in the grass. I love watching documentaries about cheetahs running and chasing their prey. They are so cool!Teacher: Great choice, Tim! Cheetahs are indeed fascinating animals. Now, let's hear from you, Sarah. What is your favorite animal?Sarah: Hello, everyone! My favorite animal is a panda. Pandas are adorable and cuddly. They are black and white, and they eat bamboo. I think they look like big teddy bears. Whenever I see a picture of a panda, I want to give it a big hug.Teacher: Oh, pandas are absolutely adorable, Sarah! They are loved by people all around the world. Thank you for sharing. Now, let's move on to you, Alex. What is your favorite animal?Alex: Hi, everyone! My favorite animal is a monkey. Monkeys are so playful and funny. They swing from trees and make funny sounds. I like watching videos of monkeys doing tricks and imitating humans. They always make me laugh.Teacher: Monkeys are indeed entertaining, Alex! They are full of energy and mischief. Thank you for sharing your favorite animal. Now, let's hear from you, Emma. What is your favorite animal?Emma: Hello, everyone! My favorite animal is a butterfly. Butterflies are so colorful and beautiful. They start as caterpillarsand then turn into butterflies. I love seeing them fluttering around flowers. They make me feel happy and peaceful.Teacher: Butterflies are truly magical, Emma! They bring joy and beauty to our surroundings. Thank you for sharing that. Now, let's hear from you, David. What is your favorite animal?David: Hi, everyone! My favorite animal is a lion. Lions are the kings of the jungle. They have a big mane and a loud roar. I like watching videos of lions hunting and protecting their pride. They are strong and brave.Teacher: Lions are majestic creatures, David! They are symbols of strength and courage. Thank you for sharing. Now, let's move on to you, Lily. What is your favorite animal?Lily: Hello, everyone! My favorite animal is a horse. Horses are elegant and graceful. They can run really fast, and they are good at jumping. I like riding horses and taking care of them. They make me feel free and happy.Teacher: Horses are magnificent animals, Lily! They have been our companions for centuries. Thank you for sharing your favorite animal. Now, let's hear from you, Ethan. What is your favorite animal?Ethan: Hi, everyone! My favorite animal is a dog. Dogs are loyal and friendly. They are our best friends. I like playing fetch with them and taking them for walks. They always make me feel loved and protected.Teacher: Dogs are indeed wonderful companions, Ethan! They bring so much joy and love to our lives. Thank you for sharing. Well, class, it was fantastic to learn about your favorite animals. Remember, every animal is unique and special in its own way. Let's appreciate and respect them all.篇6Lesson 14: Our Amazing Solar SystemHello, everyone! Today, we are going on an exciting adventure to explore our amazing solar system. Are you ready? Let's start our journey!Our solar system is made up of the Sun and all the objects that orbit around it. The Sun is like a big, bright ball of fire in the sky. It gives us light, heat, and energy. We should always remember to never look directly at the Sun because it can hurt our eyes.Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. It's a small, rocky planet that is very hot during the day and extremely cold at night. It takes Mercury only 88 days to orbit around the Sun. That's really fast!Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It's often called Earth's sister planet because it's similar in size. Venus has thick clouds that trap heat, making it the hottest planet in our solar system. Did you know that it spins in the opposite direction compared to most other planets?Earth is our home planet, and it's the third planet from the Sun. We are so lucky to live here! Earth has everything we need to survive – air, water, and beautiful landscapes. It takes 365 days for Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun, and that's why we have different seasons.Next, we have Mars, also known as the "Red Planet." It gets its nickname from the reddish color of its surface. Scientists have sent many missions to Mars to learn more about it. Who knows, maybe one day we'll be able to visit Mars and explore it ourselves!Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It's so big that all the other planets could fit inside it! Jupiter has a big, redspot called the Great Red Spot. It's actually a huge storm that has been going on for hundreds of years. Isn't that amazing?Saturn is famous for its beautiful rings made up of ice and rocks. These rings make Saturn look like a giant with a fancy belt. It's truly a sight to behold! Saturn also has many moons, and some of them are even covered in ice.Uranus and Neptune are the last two planets in our solar system. They are both known as ice giants because they are made mostly of ice and gas. Uranus is a bluish-green color, while Neptune is a deep blue. They are very far away, and it would take a long time to reach them.Wow! Our solar system is full of wonders. From the scorching heat of Mercury to the icy beauty of Neptune, each planet has its own unique characteristics. Remember to keep exploring and learning about our incredible universe. Who knows what other mysteries we will uncover in the future?I hope you enjoyed our journey through the solar system. Until next time, keep reaching for the stars!。
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF UK AND US ENGLISH ACCENTS INRECOGNITION AND SYNTHESISQin Yan, Saeed VaseghiDept of Electronic and Computer EngineeringBrunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK UB8 3PHQin.Yan@,Saeed.Vaseghi@ABSTRACTIn this paper, we present a comparative study of the acoustic speech features of two major English accents: British English and American English. Experiments examined the deterioration in speech recognition resulting from the mismatch between English accents of the input speech and the speech models. Mismatch in accents can increase the error rates by more than 100%. Hence a detailed study of the acoustic correlates of accent using intonation pattern and pitch characteristics was performed. Accents differences are acoustic manifestations of differences in duration, pitch and intonation pattern and of course the differences in phonetic transcriptions. Particularly, British speakers possess much steeper pitch rise and fall pattern and lower average pitch in most of vowels. Finally a possible meansto convert English accents is suggested based on above analysis.1. INTRODUCTIONIn the recent years, there have been significant advancesin speech recognition systems resulting in reduction in the error rate. Two of the most important remaining obstaclesto reliable high performance speech recognition systems are noise and speaker variations. An important aspect of speaker variation is accent. However, current speech recognisers are trained on a specific national accent group (e.g. UK or US English accents), and may have a significant deterioration in performance when processing accents unseen in the training data. An understanding of the causes and acoustic properties of English accents can also be quite useful in several areas such as speech synthesis and voice conversion.In [3] J.C. Wells described the term accent as a pattern of pronunciation used by a speaker for whom English is the native language or more generally, by the community or social grouping to which he or she belongs. Linguistically, accent variation does not only lie in phonetic characteristics but also in the prosody.There has been considerable research conducted on understanding the causes and the acoustics correlates of native English accent. A study in [3] examined a variety of native English accents from a linguistics point of view. Recently more focused studies have been made on acoustic characteristics of English accents. In [4] a method is described to decrease the recognition error rate by automatically generating the accent dictionary through comparison of standard transcription with decoded phone sequence. In [1], rather than using phonetic symbols, different regional accents are synthesized by an accent-independent keyword lexicon. During synthesis, input text is first transcribed as keyword lexicon. Until post-lexical processes, accent dependent allophonic rules were applied to deal with such features as /t//d/ topping in US English, or r-linking in British English. The advantage of this method is that it avoids applying different phonetic symbols to represent various accents. In addition, [2] established a voice conversion system between British and US English accents by HMM-based spectral mapping with set rules for mapping two different phone sets. However, it still has some residual of original source accent characteristics in the converted result.In this paper, experiments began with cross accent recognition to quantify the accent effects between British accent (BrA) and American accent (GenAm) on speechrecognition. A further detailed acoustics feature study of English accent using duration, intonation and frequency characteristics was performed.2. CROSS ACCENT RECOGNITIONAt first, a set of simple experiments was carried out to quantify the effect of accents on the speech recognisers with accent specific dictionaries. The model training and recogniser used here are based on HTK [9]. British accent speech recogniser was trained on Continuous Speech Recognition Corpus (WSJCAM0). American accent speech recogniser was trained on WSJ. Test sets used are WSJ si_dt_05 si_et_05 and WSJCAM si_dt5b, each containing 5k words. Both recognisers employ 3-state left-to-right HMMs. The features used in experiments were 39 MFCCs with energy and their differentiation and acceleration.Accent British model American model British input 12.8 29.3American input 30.6 8.8 Average 21.719.1 Table 1: % word error rate of cross accents speech recognition between British and American accentTable 1 shows that for this database the American English achieves 31% less error than the British English in matched accent conditions. Mismatched accent of the speaker and the recognition system deteriorates the performance. The result was getting worse by 139% for recognizing British English with American models and 232% for recognizing American English with British models. The results are based on word models compiled from triphone HMMs with three states per model and 20 mixtures Gaussians per state.The next section examines the acoustics features of both English accents in an attempt to identify where the main difference lies in addition to the variation in pronunciation.3. ANALYSIS OF ACOUSTIC FEATURES OFUS AND UK ENGLISH ACCENTS3.1 DurationFigure 1 shows that the vowel durations at the start andthe end of sentences in BrA is shorter than that in GenAm. This could be due to the following reason. British speakers always tend to pronounce last syllable fast. It is the case especially for consonants. However, Americans tend to realize more acoustically complete pronunciation.Table 2 gives the comparison of two database in speaking rate. The speaker rate of Wsjcam0 is 7.8% higher than that of Wsj. This is in accordance with comparison in phone duration in Figure 1.The results of these comparisons are shown in Figure 1. Note that results are only presented for models common to both system phones sets.Speak Rate(no/sec)Phone WordWsjcam0 9.77 3.04 Wsj 10.39 2.82Table 2 : Speak rate in Phone and wordfrom Wsjcam0 and WsjFigure 1: Difference of Vowel duration of GenAm and BrA at the utterance starts and ends3.2 Pitch CharacteristicsTable 3 and 4 list average pitch values and numbers of speakers from both databases. Figure 2 displays the difference of average vowel pitch frequency of male speakers of two accents while Figure 3 shows the corresponding comparison of female speakers. Even BrA has lower average pitch than GenAm in the whole phone set, for the common vowels, their average pitch in BrA is stil much more lower than corresponding part in GenAm. It is interesting to note that for most of vowels, British speakers give lower pitch than American counterparts. For British female speakers, its 118% lower than American female in average while it drops down to 7.7% when comparing with British male and American male in the common set vowels. In accordance with [4], diphthongs such as ay uw er, display more difference than other vowels. Furthermore, average pitch frequency of the last word of sentences from male speakers of both accentsalso clearly demonstrate similar results that British speakers are generally speaking lower than their counterpart. Besides, it can be noted that British male speakers gain high average pitch in three vowels : uh, ih and ae .Speaker No. Male FemaleWsjcam0 112 93 Wsj 37 41 Table 3: Number of speakers Wsjcam0 and WsjAvg PitchMaleFemale Wsjcam0 115.8 Hz 196.2 Hz Wsj 127.8 Hz 208.9 Hz Difference 9.4% 5.7% Table 4: Average pitch of Wsjcam0 and WsjFigure 2: Difference of average pitch value of vowels ofGenAm and BrA (male speakers)Figure 3: Difference of average pitch value of vowelsGenAm and BrA (female speakers)Figure 4(a)Figure 4(b)Figure 4 (a): Average of Rise and Fall patterns fromBritish and American speakersFigure 4 (b): Average of Rise and Fall patterns of lastword of the sentencesXlabel: uniform duration (1.812ms), Ylabel: frequency 3.3 ProsodyProsody is usually made up of Intonation-groups, Pitch Event and Pitch Accent .Intonation-groups are composed of a sequence of pitch events within phrase. Pitch Event is a combination of a pitch rise and fall. Pitch accent ,either a pitch rise or a pitch fall, is the most elementary unit of intonation.In [6], a rise fall connection (RFC) model was applied to model the pitch contour by Legendre polynomial function [a1, a2, a3], where a1, a2, a3, called discrete Legendre Polynomial Coefficients, were related to the average contour, average contour slope and average trend of the slope within that pitch accent. Rise and fall are detected according to f0 contour. Based on this, experiments were made on computing the average pattern of pitch accents(Fall and Rise only in this case) to explore the numerical difference of both accents in intonation. Figure 4(a) illustrates the average of rise and fall patterns from both male and female speakers. It is noticeable that British speakers intend to have steeper rise and fall than American speakers. Particularly, for rise pattern, their difference in pitch change rate reaches 34% in average while fall pattern only gives 21% difference. In addition, it is also noticeable that pitch range narrows towards the end of an utterance as [8].Further to the results that American speaker tends to speak lower in final words of sentences. Figure 4(b) indicates that BrA Rise pattern in the last words is much more steeper than that of GenAm with pitch change rate of 48% and 32% respectively.In contrast, the fall pattern is almost same in either figure. Then British speakers possess much steeper pitch accent than American speakers.5. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONWe have presented a detailed study of acoustic features about two major English accents: BrA and GenAm. In addition to the significant difference in phonetics, the slope of Rise and Fall accent also exhibits great difference. British speakers tend to speak with lower pitch but higher pitch change rate, especially in the rise accent. Future experiments are to be extended to other context-dependent pitch pattern analysis besides utterance end.In general, accent conversion/synthesis could be simplified into two aspects: phonetics and acoustics. Beep dictionary and CMU dictionary explicitly display the phonetics difference between two accents in terms of phone substitute, delete and insert. In this paper, we began the exploration of acoustics difference between two accents in the view of duration, pitch and intonation pattern.Therefore, the accent synthesis is planned to carry on by two steps for future experiments.1) Pronunciation modelling by transcribing GenAm by BrA phones to map phonetic difference of two accents [4] or vice verse.2) Prosody modification [7] [8]. By applying Tilt model base on decision-tree HMM, tilt parameters are changed according to above analysis. The advantage of Tilt model lies in its continuous tilt parameters, which better describe the intonation pattern than RFC models or FUJISAKI models [7]. A new pitch contour is then synthesized after changing tilt parameters according above study.6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis research has been supported by Department of Computing and Electronic Engineering, Brunel University, UK. We thank Ching-Hsiang Ho for the program of detecting the pitch accents.7. REFERENCE[1] Susan Fitt, Stephen Isard, Synthesis of Regional English Using A Keyword Lexicon.Proceedings Eurospeech 99, Vol. 2, pp. 823-6.[2] Ching-Hsiang Ho, Saeed Vaseghi, Aimin Chen, Voice Conversion between UK and US Accented English, Eurospeech 99.[3] J.C. Wells, Accents of English, volume:1,2, Cambridge University Press, 1982[4] Jason John Humphries, Accent Modelling and Adaptation in Automatic Speech recognition, PhD Thesis, Cambridge University Engineering Department[5] Alan Cruttenden, Intonation, Second Edition 1997[6] Ching-Hsiang Ho, Speaker Modelling for Voice Conversion, PHD thesis, Department of Computing and Electronic Engineering, Brunel University[7] Thierry Dutoit, Introduction to text-to-speech synthesis, Kluwer (1997)[8] Paul Taylor, Analysis and Synthesis of Intonation using Tilt Model, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol 107 3, pp. 1697-1714.[9] Steve Young, Dan Kershaw, Julian Odell, Dave Ollason, Valtcho Valtchev, Phil Woodland, The HTK Book. V2.2。