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English Highway Podcast Intonation: Making Pauses (#0298) Practice various sentences to improve your intonation.

Announcer: Youre about to listen to an audio lesson from OpenEnglish.com.Welcome. My name is Andres Moreno, and Ill be your English coach for this lesson. Our goal with these audio lessons is to help you improve your listening and speaking skills by working on key pronunciation and intonation tools. I promise youll be impressed at how much your English can improve by simply listening and repeating the sentences in these audio lessons. Today we're going to practice making pauses.

Pauses are silent breaks that you can make when speaking to gain more control over what you're saying. Pauses give you space to breath and divide your sentences into smaller phrases that are easier to pronounce.

For example, listen to how I say the following sentence:

Mike / took the call / in his office.

I made two pauses in the last sentence, after Mike and call. Listen to it again:

Mike / took the call / in his office. To begin making pauses, split up sentences into smaller phrases by making short pauses as you read or speak. For example, listen carefully:

Tom Ferri / called me / to talk about his wedding.

There is no right or wrong way of doing this as long as you dont break up the idea. For example, if I said:

The call / got cut / off / because of the bad connection.Im breaking up an idea. It would be more natural to say:

The call / got cut off / because of the bad connection.Not:The call / got cut / off / because of the bad connection.Can you hear the difference? You have to make your sentences flow but still find some room to put in the proper pauses. So let's practice. Listen and repeat after me:

She decided / to call back later.

We're making one pause after the word, decided. Listen and repeat again:

She decided / to call back later.

An original Open English production in association with Cl@se. Copyright FoxyP2 Inc. and Rainbow Heights International LLC

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That's it. We're making a pause. Here's another example. Listen and repeat after me:

I called Melissa / to her office.

And again:

I called Melissa / to her office.

That's right. Here's a longer sentence. We're going to make two pauses. Listen carefully and repeat after me:

I would like to talk/ to David Smith/ at your legal department.

Let's try it again. Listen carefully and repeat after me:

I would like to talk/ to David Smith/ at your legal department.

That's it. As you can see, we're making pauses after talk and David Smith. It would be a lot more complicated to say that entire sentence in one breath. I would have to say:

I would like to talk to David Smith at your legal department.

And chances are I would make a mistake. So it's a lot better to make a couple of pauses and take it easy, and emphasize the right pronunciation for each word in the sentence. Let's keep going. Here's another long sentence. Give it your best:

Toms cell phone / had no signal /and ran out of battery.

That's it. We have two pauses, after cell phone and signal. Let's try it again. Repeat after me:

Toms cell phone / had no signal /and ran out of battery.

Good job. Here's another sentence with two pauses. Listen and repeat after me:

Melissa / had a busy day / at the office.

That's right. We're making pauses after Melissa and busy day. Let's try it again. Repeat after me:

Melissa / had a busy day / at the office.

Great job. It's incredible what pauses can do to your speech. You can really focus on each of the phrases and words in the sentences instead of trying to say the entire sentence in a single breath. So let's keep practicing. Repeat after me:

Would you like me/ to take a message?


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And again, repeat after me:

Would you like me/ to take a message?

That's right. We left a pause after Would you like me.

Now let me show you how you can divide the same sentence into two or three phrases depending on where you place the pauses. Listen carefully:

The story/ came out / on the evening news.

As you can see, I'm making two pauses, after story and came out.Listen to it again:


We can take this same sentence and only make one pause and it would still make sense. Listen carefully:

The story/ came out on the evening news.

This sentence is actually harder to say just because I took out the pause after came out. Listen to the two examples once again. I could say:


Two pauses or only make one pause and say:

The story/ came out on the evening news.

The difference is this last sentence, again, is more complicated to say. My suggestion is that for now, you make as many pauses as you can until you gain the confidence you need to say longer sentences in a single breath.

To end this session, let's practice on a couple of more sentences. So listen carefully and repeat after me:

Do you have his extension number/ so I can transfer the call?

That's a long sentence. We're making one pause after extension number. Listen and repeat after me:

Do you have his extension number/ so I can transfer the call?

That's it. Last sentence now, listen carefully. Repeat after me:

I ran out of change / for the pay phone.

We're making a pause after change. One more time:

I ran out of change / for the pay phone.Good job. Thats the end of this audio lesson. Thank you for your time and effort. From now on, no text or sentence will be too long or too complicated for you to say. All it takes are a few pauses for you to breathe


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and say every word with the perfect pronunciation. My recommendation is that you to listen to this lesson as many times as you can because remember, practice makes perfect!For additional practice, turn on your computer and go to OpenEnglish.com. At OpenEnglish youll find hundreds of interactive lessons and videos to help you perfect your English. Accelerate your English today. See you soon.

Additional practice: Emphasizing key words

Words:meetingtalkingsalesplangoalsvoteagreesAugust 25th, 2004January 28th, 201028th201010:3010:3110:3210:3310:3410:3510:3610:3710:3810:39425-45-68

Sentences:In todays meeting / we will be talking / about sales. We need to plan / to meet our yearly goals.The plan / is to hire more salespeople.Lets take a vote/ to make sure everyone agrees. My phone number is 425-45-68.


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