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English Sounds

There are 26 alphabet letters in English. The alphabet letters make up our English words. In writing, the letters must be well spelt to express something meaningful. But, for spoken conversations, we use sounds. There are 49 sounds in English; 24 of these sounds are consonant while 25 are vowels. Out of the 25, 12 are Monothongs or pure vowel sounds. That is, one vowel sounds. 8 are diphthongs- two vowel sounds while 5 are triphthongs- three vowel sounds.
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 Collocations used in idiomatic ways Collocation is the way in which particular words tend to occur or belong together. Collocation can also mean two or more words that go together.It sounds right to native speakers who use them all the time. Other combinations may be unnatural and just sound 'wrong'. For example, you can say: Meals will be served outside on the terrace, weather permitting. But not: Meals will be served outside on the terrace, weather allowing.  "Allow and permit have very similar meanings but in this combination, only permitting is correct. It collocates with weather. We say, the fast train not quick train. Fast food not quick food. A quick shower not a fast shower. A quick meal not a fast meal. Some collocations that fall under idiomatic expressions: Achille's hill meaning: A small but important weakness in a person. E.g Favour's achille's hill is her spellings. To rack one's brain: (rack and brain collocates) meaning: to think hard E.g Y...
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 Consonant clusters: Cluster of two consonants at the final position Definition: Consonant cluster is the coming together of two or more consonants without an intervening vowel. In many languages, there are no consonant clusters but in English, there may be an initial cluster of two or three consonants. To speak English properly, one must be able to pronounce words with clusters without dropping any of the consonant or inserting a vowel between the cluster. Cluster of two consonants at the final position: Cast/kæst/               Damp/dæmp/ Mend/mend/           Blank/blæŋk/                        Shift/ʃift/.                 Bats/bæts/        Hand.    Dogs.     Pens.     Talked Moved/mu:vd/  Hissed/hist/   Mobbed.  Think Bitten/bit...
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 Cluster of three consonants at the final position You have learnt that consonant clusters is the coming together of two or more consonants without an intervening vowel. We can have cluster of two to three consonants at the initial position while the most of the cluster at the final is four. Examples of three consonant clusters at the final position: Ends        Asked     Nests      Tasked       Binds Mixed      Masks    Pinched  Camps     Jumped Lumps     Bangle   Pints        Ants         Opts  Lamps   Tanks     Sinks       Stinks     Jungle  Quiz Identify the one with three clusters A.Banked B.Shopped C.Begged D.Wished
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 Cluster of four consonants at the final position You have learnt cluster of three consonants at the final position. Let's look at some of the examples of cluster of four consonants at the final position: Tempts/tempts/         Angsts /æŋsts/        / Texts /teksts/          Prompts /prɔmpts/      Contexts/kənteksts/     Twelfths /twelfθs/ Exempts/igzempts/ Sixths/siksθs/ Attempts /ætempts/ Sculpts/skʌlpts/ Glimpsed /glimpst/ Brain Tease: How many clusters are in the word 'examples' A.3 B.4 C.2 D.5
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