The Chaos (Slower Version For ESL Students)

I am doing a slower version of this poem to give some of you a chance to hear the pronunciation of some of the words more clearly. This is not intended as a serious poetry read. I'm an English teacher, not a poet!

Many of you have been asking me great questions about how you can memorize certain pronunciation patterns. While many letters and letter combinations can have patterns, as you can see by this video, and the accompanying text, English doesn't always follow the rules!

This is a poem by Dutch teacher and author, Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité. This is the modernized, abbreviated version of the original poem. I'm reading this version more slowly, so it's easier for you to hear the pronunciation. If you want to see me recite the original piece, check it out at my site:

http://web.me.com/signe_dupuy/eslclick.com/Video.html

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• ESL
• English
• eslspells
• pronunciation
• Signe
• learn
• instruction
• teach
• language

[jamixxmariie]

thaaaaaaaanks! :)))) I got the score of 100/100 thaanks to you!

[eslclick]

@jamixxmariie

Wow!! That's so great! You must've worked really hard to get such an awesome score. Congratulations!

[qazastan]

The reason people prefer American English is because it's easier. Americans dumb down English so that perfect tenses are mangled, t is pronounced as a d (bottom becomes boddom), twenty becomes twenny but 10 is pronounced correctly as ten.

They changed centre to center but ask Americans what er is supposed to be used for and they don't know, they just like the simplicity of center even though Brits have no trouble using centre.

US English = substandard English :)

[eslclick]

@qazastan

2) The reason why American English is more popular isn't because it's "easier". It is because the United States is considered a cultural and an, until recently, economic superpower.

I've made it clear, I love British English. However, if you speak with the average British person, even watch BBC, you will see that the majority of people in the UK, like Americans, have a conversational dialect that can't be taught in most textbooks.

[boyluckluck]

You look a lot like Liz Lemon! Anyway, thanks for the pronunciation tips. Very helpful!

[jamixxmariie]

@eslclick Thank you very much! Hope i'll get the 1st rank for the 1st Quarter! :DDD

[eslclick]

@Takaouto No, I really appreciate when someone asks if I used the correct pronunciation. As for the rhyming scheme, even after a few decades, some of the pronunciation continues to change (e.g. "khaki"). Ugh.

Since I originally put up the video, there have been a slew of different versions; some better than mine. But I decided to keep mine up to show that everyone's human, even the teacher. : )

[Takaouto]

@eslclick It's fine. :) After some research [aka using American friends as guinea pigs and forcing them to pronounce things] that's just HOW N.Americans pronounce 'Balmoral'. :shrug: No biggie. I would think that as long as it didn't break the rhyming scheme/couplet that it wouldn't matter if you pronounced it either way. Eh, tomato/tomato.

Thanks for the reply! Was definitely not trying to bag you out, sorry if it came over that way.

[eslclick]

@qazastan

Your argument doesn't carry weight. Here's why:

1) If it is easier, why would ESL learners want to learn a language where the pronunciation doesn't match the spelling? Your example of "twenty" would be easier to pronounce as it's spelled. As an ESL teacher, I do know that English (both British and American) can be very frustrating for the ESL student, which is why I made this video. As for "centre": then what about "phone", "colonel" or "picture"? Those weren't "dummied" down.

[eslclick]

@Takaouto

Sorry to take so long to respond. I did previously admit to messing up "Balmoral". So, yes, as you can see, even an ESL teacher can't say all of these words correctly! : )

[youjinnida]

Thanks! (^^)/