Monthly Archives: August 2010

How S’mores can Improve your American Pronunciation

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Today is National Marsh­mal­low Toast­ing Day. You may won­der what that has to do with your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion, but I think it is a tasty oppor­tu­nity to intro­duce you to a yummy part of Amer­i­can cul­ture, and have a les­son on word con­trac­tions as well.

First for the Amer­i­can culture.

I think every Amer­i­can kid who has ever been around a camp­fire has had at least one s’more. In case you’ve never heard of a s’more, it is a dessert eas­ily assem­bled out­doors and only requires three ingre­di­ents: marsh­mal­lows, gra­ham crack­ers, and milk choco­late bars. The key ingre­di­ent is the marsh­mal­low, which must be speared onto a long stick and toasted to per­fec­tion over the fire.

“Per­fec­tion” is a mat­ter of debate between marsh­mal­low toast­ing enthu­si­asts. Some peo­ple like their marsh­mal­lows slightly toasted, while oth­ers burn them to a black­ened crisp. I like mine slightly toasted. My kids, how­ever, com­pete to see who can keep their marsh­mal­low burn­ing the longest with­out it falling off the stick.

One cru­cial trick we have learned is that the cheap brands of marsh­mal­lows always end up as one huge, sticky glob. Buy the Jet-Puff brand marsh­mal­lows if you want to actu­ally get the marsh­mal­lows out of the bag and onto the stick to roast them. Roast your marsh­mal­lows until they are slightly brown to charred black. The trick is to get them soft and gooey on the inside.

If you have a steady hand and you’re a bit of a pyro­ma­niac, you can rest a gra­ham cracker topped with a choco­late bar on one of the logs while you’re roast­ing your marsh­mal­low. It’s def­i­nitely a bal­anc­ing act, but if you’re suc­cess­ful, you get yummy, gooey choco­late on your s’more. When your marsh­mal­low is soft­ened, pull it off the stick, place it on a gra­ham cracker, add a piece of choco­late bar, and top it with another gra­ham cracker. Enjoy!

Now for the Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion lesson.

The word s’more is actu­ally a con­trac­tion or short­en­ing of two words, much like can’t from can not or we’ll from we will. No one is clear on when this camp­fire dessert orig­i­nated, but a recipe was found in a Girl Scout hand­book from the 1920’s. Even then, they were referred to as “Some Mores”, as in “they’re so good you’ll want some more.”

Over time, the name was short­ened to S’mores, which was just eas­ier and quicker to say. When you say the word S’more, the s and m blend as if it were a con­so­nant clus­ter, just as in the word smell. So, you can say: I smell s’mores cook­ing, and the two uses of sm sound exactly the same.

Now, let’s prac­tice using sev­eral con­trac­tions in one sentence:

We’ll eat s’mores until we can’t eat any more!

For a fun and tasty treat, try mak­ing s’mores and let me know how you like them!

Want more tips to improve your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion? To get your FREE guide, How to Speak Eng­lish Like an Amer­i­can, just enter your name and e-mail in the box to your right.

  • 8/31/2010 10:24 AM Whit­ney Ferre’ wrote:
    Lisa, I had an inkling about the source of s’more, but glad to know its Girl Scouts ori­gin. I LOVED s’mores as a kid! I never tried the gra­ham cracker/chocolate bal­anc­ing act. Thanks for the tip.
  • 8/31/2010 12:53 PM Jeff Brun­son wrote:
    Dang. Now I’m hun­gry for this sweet treat. I’m check­ing my cal­en­dar to see if I have time to go start a camp­fire in the backyard!
  • 8/31/2010 1:58 PM Sue Painter wrote:
    I didn’t know s’mores came from the Girl Scouts, but wher­ever they came from they are good!
    Sue Painter
  • 8/31/2010 3:22 PM Terri Brooks wrote:
    Ok, I have to fess up. I’ve never eaten a s’more. :-) I like all of the com­po­nents, but have just never made them. Even as a kid! So def­i­nitely this fall, I will have a s’more and think of you Lisa!!

    • 9/1/2010 11:35 AM Lisa Scott wrote:
      Terri,I must admit that I’m sur­prised, but I do hope you enjoy them!
  • 9/1/2010 8:12 AM Linda Pucci wrote:
    What a cre­ative way to teach about con­trac­tions, Lisa. BTW, the 4th com­po­nent needed is a wet cloth to wipe off our sticky hands!
    • 9/1/2010 11:33 AM Lisa Scott wrote:
      Good point, Linda! :-)
  • 9/1/2010 10:07 PM Beth Wood­ward wrote:
    YUM! Have you had GUCCI s’mores? Go to the gourmet aisle in your store and find the BEST choco­late cook­ies in place of gra­ham crack­ers and Hershey’s. Add those deli­cious, heated marshmallows.
  • 9/5/2010 3:17 PM Melanie wrote:
    Yum­m­m­mmy! For the last cou­ple of years, the women who have par­tic­i­pated in my Fall Women’s Retreat have insisted on s’mores.…this makes me look for­ward to the retreat even more!
  • 10/13/2010 2:45 AM jan­i­to­r­ial equip­ment wrote:
    Good work! Your post is an excel­lent exam­ple of why I keep com­ming back to read your excel­lent qual­ity con­tent that is for­ever updated. Thank you!
  • 10/13/2010 6:21 AM amer­i­can wrote:
    Learn­ing gram­mar can be bor­ing but you have found a fun way to teach it and I applaud you. We made s’mores when­ever our par­ents weren’t home.

How Your American Pronunciation Can Explode Like a Volcano

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Improv­ing your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion may seem to be a long process, but some­times it is much more like a vol­cano explod­ing. One day, noth­ing seems dif­fer­ent. And the next day, sud­denly, your whole world has changed.

On this day in AD 79, Mt. Vesu­vius exploded, leav­ing a last­ing impres­sion as one of the most pow­er­ful vol­ca­noes ever recorded. We often think of vol­ca­noes as being sud­den and unex­pected, but in real­ity, the pres­sure is build­ing under­ground for a long time before any­thing is ever vis­i­ble on the sur­face. There may be a few trick­les or warn­ing signs in the few days prior to the big explo­sion, but for the most part the red hot lava bursts onto the scene rather unexpectedly.

It reminds me of what often hap­pens when you are work­ing on reduc­ing your accent. Thank­fully, no one is harmed by burn­ing lava! But, often there is a great deal of change going on just beneath the sur­face of your brain when you don’t even real­ize it.

You see, rep­e­ti­tion retrains the brain to do things a dif­fer­ent way. So, you may be prac­tic­ing your sounds daily, not sure if it’s mak­ing any dif­fer­ence at all. Then, all of sud­den, one day you wake up and you just hear the sounds differently.When you speak, you are more con­fi­dent that the words are com­ing out cor­rectly, and even other peo­ple notice that your speech is clearer.

Just like that. Boom!

You’re on a whole new level with your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion. You become more tuned into the sub­tle dif­fer­ences in your speech and the speech of oth­ers because you can finally really hear the dif­fer­ences. You don’t have to wait for your speech coach to tell you if you pro­nounced the word right or wrong because you KNOW. Now, you own the progress you are mak­ing as you inter­nal­ize what you’ve learned in a whole new way.

And, just like the lava flow­ing down the moun­tain­side, your new speech pat­terns are unstop­pable. The more you speak, the more those new pat­terns become engrained in your brain. And the more eas­ily they come out every time you speak, the more con­fi­dent you become.

Have you expe­ri­enced your “speech vol­cano” yet? What are you wait­ing for? I’d love to show you howto have explo­sive growth in your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion. Let’s get started!

If you’re not sure what sounds you should be prac­tic­ing, visit www.losemyaccent.com to sign up for your free accent screen­ing. You can record your voice, send it to me, and I will tell you the top three sounds that will help you to improve your Amer­i­can pronunciation.

Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer Contest

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Ever get frus­trated try­ing to improve your spo­ken Eng­lish by read­ing writ­ten Eng­lish? Or won­der why two words that are spelled com­pletely dif­fer­ently are pro­nounced exactly the same? With cer­tain words, you have to hear them in con­text in order to fig­ure out which word, and which spelling, was intended.

Today’s entry is a humor­ous look at how a spelling checker on your com­puter might sub­sti­tute cor­rectly spelled words in a com­pletely wrong con­text. Give your­self a spelling chal­lenge and see if you can fig­ure out how the words really should be spelled.

To make it more fun, I’m turn­ing it into a contest!

Here’s how the con­test works: Rewrite the poem with the cor­rect spellings for the con­text and e-mail it to me at lisa b scott at gmail dot com. From all the cor­rect entries, I will select one win­ner on Fri­day to receive a free 30 minute coach­ing ses­sion with me! This is a $50 value! We can work on pro­nun­ci­a­tion, gram­mar, idioms, or other Eng­lish top­ics. It’s up to you!

Please share this with your friends on FB, Twit­ter, and other sites; I want as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to have a chance to win! Good luck!

Here’s the poem:

Eye halve a spelling che­quer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly mar­ques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its let­ter per­fect in it’s weigh
My che­quer tolled me sew.

— Sauce unknown

Don’t for­get — when you fig­ure it out, e-mail me your answer and check back on Fri­day to see if you are the lucky winner!

 

  • 8/17/2010 2:16 PM Linda Pucci wrote:
    What a great idea, Lisa!
  • 8/18/2010 8:43 AM Jeff Brun­son wrote:
    What fun Lisa! And what a great idea for those you serve by your pas­sion­ate work. It was also a reminder of how hard my spell chequr makes me think sometimes.
  • 8/18/2010 4:35 PM Terri Brooks wrote:
    What fun, Lisa!! I loved read­ing the poem and think I have fig­ured out most of them.Thanks for break­ing up the day with a lit­tle game.

    Terri

  • 8/18/2010 6:09 PM Whit­ney Ferre wrote:
    That is so fun, Lisa! LOVE the con­test. I have had many a funny mes­sages sent and received because of that handy spell checker!
  • 8/19/2010 1:50 PM Melanie McGhee wrote:
    Pretty inno­v­a­tive! Can’t wait to hear the results.
  • 8/19/2010 4:05 PM Beth Wood­ward wrote:
    You are so cre­ative, both for the con­test and the content.
  • 8/26/2010 12:29 PM goldenrule.com wrote:
    This poem really proves how con­fus­ing the Eng­lish lan­guage is. As I’m read­ing this, I’m won­der­ing how any­one ever learns this lan­guage. There’s a dou­ble mean­ing to vir­tu­ally every sound!