Test Your Skill

Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in the following poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.  If you find it tough going , do not despair, you are not alone.

Dearest creature in creation,

Study Englisn pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse,

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, you dress will tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it;s written)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid and trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet and chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation is OK,
When you correctly say croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous, clamour,
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge.
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, nob, bosom, transom and oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual  but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, and clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Verb: That's What's aHappenin'

I get my thing in action (Verb!)
To be, to sing, to feel, to live (Verb!)
That's what's happenin'
I put my heart in action (Verb!)
To run, to go, to get, to give (Verb!)
(You're what's happenin')
That's where I find satisfaction, yeah! (Yeah!)
To search, to find, to have, to hold
(Verb! To be bold)
When I use my imagination (Verb!)
I think, I plot, I plan, I dream
Turning in towards creation (Verb!)
I make, I write, I dance, I sing
When I'm feeling really active (Verb!)
I run, I ride, I swim, I fly!
Other times when life is easy
(Oh!) I rest, I sleep, I sit, I lie.
(Verb! That's what's happenin')
I can take a noun and bend it,
Give me a noun -
(Bat, boat, rake, and plow)
Make it a verb and really send it!
(Show me how)
Oh, I don't know my own power. (Verb!)
I get my thing in action (Verb!)
In being, (Verb!) In doing, (Verb!)
In saying
A verb expresses action, being, or state of being. A verb makes a statement. Yeah, a verb tells it like it is!
(Verb! That's what's happenin'.)
I can tell you when it's happenin',
(Past, present, future tense)
Ooh! Tell you more about what's happenin',
(Say it so it makes some sense)
I can tell you who is happenin'!
(Verb, you're so intense)
Every sentence has a subject.
(Noun, person, place, or thing)
Find that subject: Where's the action?
(Verb can make a subject sing)
Take the subject: What is it? (What!)
What's done to it? (What!)
What does it say?
(Verb, you're what's happenin')
I can question like: What is it?
(Verb, you're so demanding.)
I can order like: Go get it!
(Verb, you're so commanding.)
When I hit I need an object
(Verb, hit! Hit the ball!)
When I see, I see the object
(Do you see that furthest wall?)
If you can see it there, put the ball over the fence, man!
Go ahead. Yeah, alright.
What?! He hit it. It's going, it's going, it's gone!
(What!)
I get my thing in action.
(Verb, that's what's happenin')
To work, (Verb!)
To play, (Verb!)
To live, (Verb!)
To love... (Verb!...)