Gareth King - Colloquial English - A Complete English Language Course

This book does not shy away from grammar, and a glance at the index will show how central a component of the course it is. In explaining the grammar in the body of the book, while aiming to keep technical language to a minimum, I have not held back from using grammatical terminology where I think this helps make the system and mechanisms of the language clearer for the learner.

English spelling

You will see that sometimes phonetic symbols have been used to help you with pronunciation in this book. This is because English spelling (like French and Danish, and unlike German and Russian) is a historic rather than a phonetic system, which means that it does not always correspond very well to pronunciation – the words have changed in sound while the old spelling has stayed the same.

This is a difficulty for people learning English, but it is something that must be accepted from the start – you will have to learn pronunciations as well as spellings. But the important thing to remember is that English spelling does have a system – it isn’t completely illogical. It’s just that the system is sometimes a bit more complicated than you might expect, and there are a lot of apparent exceptions to rules.

For example, we use a ‘silent e’ as a regular component of the system: a silent e after a single consonant changes the sound of the vowel before the consonant: pan/pn/ but pane/pεin/; hop/hɔp/

but hope/həυp/. And sometimes we spell the same sound in different ways – look at the different possible spellings there are for

/ɑi/: my night time; and for /əυ/: hole throw boat only soul. Or (to take an extreme example) look at the different pronunciations of the combination -ough: through/θru/ though/ðəυ/ bough/bɑu/

bought/bɔt/ cough/kɔf/ enough/`nf/. But don’t worry – millions of people learn English all over the world, and they all manage pretty well with the spelling, because the more contact you have with the language, the easier it is. If you approach this aspect of English with a positive frame of mind, you’ll be surprised how quickly you get used to it!

IPA symbols

Vowels

Consonants

/ə/

butt er, sof a

/b/

book, a ble

//

c at, h and

/k/

come, loo k

/ɑ/

f ather, f arm

//

children, whi ch

/ε/

g et, s end

/d/

re d, down

//

s it, w in

/f/

fall, i f

/i/

happ y

//

go, le g

/i/

f eel, mach ine

//

Gerry, Jenny

/ɔ/

l ong, t op

/h/

have, hand

/ɔ/

f all, th ought

/l/

look, mi lk

/υ/

f ull, b ook

/m/

man, co me

/u/

d o, c ool

/n/

now, ru n

//

c up, s ome

/ŋ/

bri ng, runni ng

//

b ird, h urt

/p/

pa per, cu p

/kw/

quite, quick

/r/

red, a rrive

Diphthongs

/r/

ca r, fou r†

/εi/

s ay, eight

/s/

send, mi ss

/ɑi/

m y, n ight

/ʃ/

should, wi sh

/ɔi/

b oy

/t/

i t, time

/əυ/

b oat, h ome

/θ/

think, three

/ɑu/

n ow, f ound

/ð/

the, wi th

/ə/

h ear, h ere

/v/

very, gi ve

/εə/

h air, wh ere

/w/

want, when

/υə/

s ure

/j/

yes, you

/z/

pri ze, ro se

/ `/ (precedes stressed syllable)

/%/

mea sure

†silent before consonant and at end of sentence

Grammatical terms

used in this book

action verb– a verb that describes a dynamic action or event: run , read , throw , phone .

active– a sentence structure where the doer of the action is the subject: the dog bit the postman .

adjective– a word that describes a noun: red , heavy , electronic , difficult .

adverb– a word that describes how, where or when an action or event takes place: quickly , here , tomorrow .

auxiliary– a special verb that is used with another (main) verb: I was going , he didn’t come ; compare modal auxiliary.

base-form– the normal dictionary form of the verb, without any endings: come , go , study , drive , stop .

C1– a type of conditional tense: if he arrives late .

C2– a type of conditional tense: if he arrived late .

clause– a part of a sentence that includes a verb.

comparative– the form of the adjective that shows a higher degree: cheaper , bigger , more expensive .

conditional– a tense of the verb that indicates hypothetical situations: I’d read a book . There are two main conditional tenses in English: C1 and C2.

consonant– in writing, the following letters: b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x y z; compare vowel. But consonant soundscan sometimes be written as vowels: university .

definite article– the word the .

degree words– words that describe the degree of an adjective: very small , quite expensive , awfully clever .

direct object– the person or thing that receives the action of the verb: we saw the concert .

direct speech– the actual words someone said, put in the sentence as a quote: She said: He isn’t coming ; compare reported speech.