Bad English Speakers Anonymous

A man stands up and says, “Hi everybody. My name is so and so and I’m an alcoholic.” 

This is what happens when someone joins the AA. They introduce themselves by saying their name and admit openly that he or she is an alcoholic. I’m sure you’ve often seen this scene in movies.

Now what would it be like to go to a meeting of foreigners who can barely make themselves understood in English, but are doing their best to improve? The new member might begin like this:

“Hi, my name is so and so and my English sucks.”

Well, what could we do for this poor fellow?

The very first step, I think, should be to teach him how to pronounce correctly the suffix –ed of the simple and past participle of regular verbs. Mispronouncing that suffix is a sure indication that his English is - how should I put it - mildly poor.

So here we go:

1.   The suffix –ed may be pronounced in three different ways:

/t/ (when the verb ends in a voiceless sound)

/d/ (when the verb ends in a voiced sound, including all vowels)

/id/ (when the verb ends in t or d)

2.   Voiceless sounds are pronounced with no vibration of the vocal chords. Try putting your finger on your throat. You will feel no vibration at all when you pronounce: p, k, s, sh, ch and th (as in tooth).

3.   Voiced sounds, on the contrary, are pronounced with some vibration of the vocal chords. If you put your finger on your throat, you will feel your vocal chords vibrate when you pronounce: b, th (as in this), v, l, r, z, j (as in joke), or any vowels or diphthongs.

This is a small list of regular verbs in the past tense, which you may feel like practicing, in case you have nothing better to do.

/t/	/d/	/id/
attacked	admired	accepted
announced	agreed	added
attached	advised	admitted
developed	allowed	afforded
liked	begged	calculated
rushed	argued	needed
impressed	bathed	waited
dropped	arrived	wanted
danced	borrowed	avoided
kicked	amused	completed
helped	buried	expected
fixed	destroyed	commanded
coughed	listened	prevented
laughed	closed	counted
slapped	complained	exploded
dropped	opened	doubted
washed	breathed	heated
watched	answered	icluded
kissed	carried	loaded
unearth	disapproved	landed
faced	afforded	succeeded
launched	ignored	intended
harassed	annoyed	requested
introduced	considered	supported

And here is an exercise: fill out these columns correctly, using the following verbs: jailed, labeled, rhymed, murdered, licked, overflowed, lasted, married, managed, prayed, knitted, occurred, melted, produced, judged

/t/	/d/	/id/