English Recordings

grains/tomato/bread/steak/pea/canteen/pastry/everyday/tasty/meat/spread/egg
mango/daily/potato/ham/feel/pasta/vegetable/pineapple/nectarine/fats/sweet

a chocolate bar
a piece of fruit
a pineapple
a blueberry
a nectarine
a mango
a yogurt
milk
butter
cheese
a canteen
a pork pie
a scotch egg
delicious
tasty
disgusting
gross
fizzy
healthy
strong
dairy
close
grow
eat
feel
daily
once a day
twice
three times
everyday
yuck
yum
must
mustn't
can
can't

food
meat
steak
chicken
ham
fish
an egg
grains
pasta
rice
bread
a slice
breakfast
lunch
snack
dinner
a vegetable
a broccoli
a pea
a potato (potatoes)
a tomato (tomatoes)
pickles
a drink
water
fruit juice
a lunchbox/ packed lunch
mustard
fats
a sweet
pastry
a packet of crisps
chocolate spread

My monster is very big but it is not scary. It is grey. It has a round head with three red eyes, a small nose and a big mouth. It doesn't have any hair but it has two black horns. It has two long arms and two hands. It has only one leg and one foot.

My monster is very beautiful. It is blue. It has a small head with three eyes. It doesn't have teeth. It has two pointed ears. It doesn't have arms but it has two big wings, so it can fly. It has a long tail.

walked - appeared - switched - arrived - disgusted - vanished - entered - screamed - looked - frightened - started - raced - stopped - investigated - scared - played

When It Rains
by Rizwan Ahmed Memon

She alone weeps
In the corners
In pain sobs
When it rains.

Asks the wanderers
If he remembers
The past nights
When it rains.

She alone waits
Stares the trees
Recalls the memories
When it rains.

Writes she letters
Away he miles
No his replies
After her toils.

She herself collects
Removes her tears
Ends her cries
When it rains.

BOOK DESCRIPTION
Artificial intelligence is our most powerful technology and in the coming decades, it will
change everything in our lives. If we get it right, it will make humans almost godlike. If we get it wrong... Well, extinction is not the worst possible outcome.

Love, work and police: pronouncing the letter ‘o’

By Liz Walter

Pronunciation is one of the hardest things to master in English. Today I’m going to look at the letter ‘o’ and concentrate on some common pronunciation errors.

Most students have no problem with the short vowel sound /ɒ/ found in British English in words such as hot, boss and across. (Americans pronounce this as a longer sound /ɑː/.) Students also generally understand how adding an ‘e’ to the end of a word leads to a longer sound /əʊ/ (UK) /oʊ/ (US), for instance hop/hope, not/note.

However, other – often very common – words do cause problems. Word and work are good examples. The combination ‘or’ is usually pronounced as /ɔː/ (UK) /ɔːr/ (US), for example in the words fork, airport and boring, and students often try to use the same sound in word and work. However, this is not correct – for those words we use /ɜː/ (UK) /ɝː/ (US), which is the sound you find in bird, firm and dirty.

Words such as some, love and money also cause problems. Here, ‘o’ should be pronounced /ʌ/, which is the sound in fun, jump and under. Students often try to use the same short vowel as for hot etc, and this is not correct. Other very common words that need the /ʌ/sound include: above, colour/color (for the first vowel), another, comfortable (for the first vowel), other, company, glove, honey, month, nothing and onion.

It is also important to remember that in words of more than one syllable, vowels that are not stressed usually need the pronunciation /ə/. This sound is known as a ‘schwa’ and is extremely common in English. It is the sound you hear at the end of the word butter in UK English (for US English, imagine it without the ‘r’ at the end). So, for example, in the word photograph, the first ‘o’ is in a stressed syllable and is pronounced /əʊ/ (UK) /oʊ/ (US) and the second one a schwa, while in photography, the second ‘o’ is in a stressed syllable and is pronounced /ɒ/ (UK) /ɑː/ (US) and the first one is a schwa.

Other common words in which the ‘o’ should be pronounced as a schwa are: aeroplane, collect, complete, computer, factory, forget, information, kilogram, lemon, police, polite, nobody (second ‘o’), opposite (second ‘o’).

Finally, note the very strange word women, in which (as I mentioned in a previous post: https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2015/11/04/women-and-biscuits-common-pronunciation-errors-in-english/), both the vowels are pronounced /ɪ/, the sound you find in the words in, hit and trick.

Remember that if you are unsure of a pronunciation, the dictionary on this site has British and American audio recordings for all the words in it.

Breaking the mould: words and phrases for things that are new or modern

By Liz Walter

Last month I wrote about ways of talking about people or animals that are young. This post looks at a related set: words for things that are new or modern.

Firstly, if we want to emphasize that something is very new, we say it is brand new: She bought herself a brand new sports car. This phrase means that something has just been made, but the thing itself does not necessarily have to be modern.

To talk about very modern things, we often use the phrase the latest in front of the thing we are talking about: He likes to buy all the latest sound equipment. We also use ‘the latest’ to talk about very recent information. Another word for this is up-to-the-minute: Have you heard the latest news? We are receiving up-to-the-minute reports from the scene of the accident.

Cutting-edge describes things that use the most recent ideas and methods and are often rather experimental: The company uses cutting-edge technology to reduce waste. If we describe something as bleeding-edge, we mean that it is still being developed and is not yet perfect: Using these bleeding-edge tools for complex data is risky. State-of-the-art is similar to ‘cutting-edge’ and implies very high quality: She has her own state-of-the-art recording studio.

There are several words connected with objects or ideas that are new and very different from what has existed before. Avant-garde is used to describe new styles, for example of art or literature: The city’s avant-garde architecture is not to everyone’s taste. If something is so modern that it seems to belong in science fiction, we can describe it as futuristic or space-age: They showed us their futuristic designs for the new hotel. He was wearing a space-age suit made of plastic.

Something that is innovative uses completely new ideas: They used innovative techniques to look deep into space. We use the word groundbreaking to describe ideas or inventions that help to make important progress in something: They carried out groundbreaking medical research.

If something such as a system, invention or area of study is new and not fully developed, we can say that it is (still) in its infancy: Electric transport is still in its infancy. If something has never happened or existed before, we say it is unprecedented: Our hospitals are seeing unprecedented levels of demand. We also use the idiom break the mould (UK)/mold (US) for things that are totally different from what has existed before: The show broke the mould of traditional TV chat shows.

I hope this post has given you some brand new words and phrases to use – let me know if you can think of any others!

Knee-high to a grasshopper: words and phrases that mean ‘young’

By Liz Walter

Over the last couple of months I’ve written about words and phrases for being old or old-fashioned, so now it’s time to look at the opposite. I’ll start with expressions connected with being young.

We often describe very young children as small or little: There were lots of little children at the show. A small child sat alone in the corner. However, to talk about someone’s younger brother or sister, you always need to use little, not ‘small’: That’s Brad’s little sister.

Several words connected with being young have a double meaning – a literal one and a disapproving one. Childish, for instance, can either mean ‘suitable for or like a child’ or ‘silly and not appropriate for an adult’: These books are too childish for Mia. His behaviour was very childish. Babyish is used in a similar way: The toys were a bit babyish. It’s babyish to cry like that. Childlike can be positive, meaning that someone is innocent, happy and enthusiastic, or more negative, meaning that they are naïve and trust other people too much: They showed a childlike enthusiasm for the task. He had a childlike belief that people were honest.

The rather formal word juvenile can be used in official contexts to refer to a young person, or in the same disapproving way as ‘childish’ and ‘babyish’: She works with juvenile offenders. Her juvenile comments were very unhelpful. Juvenile can also be used as a noun in legal contexts: She was still a juvenile at the time of the crime. Immature is most commonly used in its disapproving sense, but also in more scientific contexts to describe plants or animals that are not fully grown: He’s rather immature for his age. There are strict rules about the sale of immature animals.

The word youthful is always positive and is used to describe something that is typical of young people, though it can be used admiringly of older people too: They were full of youthful excitement. She’s a very youthful seventy-year-old.

Finally, a couple of colourful idioms. If we want to say that a young person lacks experience, we can describe them as wet behind the ears: He was still a bit wet behind the ears in those days. And in a rather sweet, though slightly old-fashioned, phrase we might describe a small child as being knee-high to a grasshopper: The last time I saw you, you were knee-high to a grasshopper!

In my next post, I’ll be looking at words for talking about things that are modern or new.