Introduction to phonetics The study of phonetics is very useful because it can help us understand and produce sounds of any

variety of English. Note that every time you see a symbol written between / /, it is a symbol to represent how we pronounce a word or part of it. Each of these symbols is called Phoneme. Some phonemes coincide with spelling, some others do not.

/s/
1)Listen and repeat: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o A bus A glass A horse A house A bicycle A policeman A pencil A star A stick A desk A box A spoon A son A sun

1.A)Look carefully at different spellings of /s/. Can you make any rules? 2)Listen and practice the following dialogues. Pay attention to the intonation. Dialogue 1 Mom: Whats this, Sammy? Sammy: Its a bicycle. M: And whats this?

S: Its a house. M: A house? S: Yes! A house! M: Oh, yes! Now I see it. And whats this? A bus? S: Yes, a bus. M: And whats this? A stick? S: No! Its a pencil! M: Oh, sorry. Yes. A pencil. Dialogue 2 Arnold: Did you see Sally and Sam, Stan? Stan: Sally Solidness and Samuel Seller? Arnold: Yes, Sally Solidness and Samuel Seller. They work with us. Stan: No, sorry. I didnt. Why? Arnold: Its strange. They never miss work. Stan: Well, perhaps theyre sick. Arnold: Certainly. Thats the only possible explanation. But What a coincidence! Sick on the same day? Stan: What are you saying? Arnold: Welllets not be silly. Sally looks sexy, shes sweet and shes still single. SoI guess Sam saw this, and he didnt want to miss the chance! Stan: Well, I must say what you say makes sense. But why miss work?

Watch out! Unfortunately there are some spellings that are pronounced /s/ which are not so obvious. Look at the following examples: Psychology science scene- scent- psychic- psycho 3)Fill in the Spelling Colum

Spellings for /s/

Spelling Sun, see, Sally Discuss, kiss, glass, Examples

Advice, council, Sexy, explanation Science, scent, psychology