Hello everyone! I just want to share with you this cool exercise that my professor, Prof. Orlino Rabago, forwarded to me after the end of our classes last summer. Most of the people close to me how crazy I am about grammar and pronunciation, if not the English language itself. I already tried it and I'm happy to realise that there is still so much to learn. So, go ahead and try it for yourself, friends! Have fun!


If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.


Bert Christensen’s

Truth and Humor Collection

English Pronunciation!

6
Dearest creature in creation, study English 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, your 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.

8
We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Pauper 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, clover: leeches, breeches, wise, precise, chalice, but police and lice: camel, constable, unstable, principle, disciple, label.

7
Petal, panel, and canal, wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succor, 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.

2
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear, say break and steak, but bleak and streak; cloven, oven, how and low, script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of 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.
5
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, bouquet, wallet, mallet, 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 the pronunciation’s OK when you correctly say croquet, rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamor and enamor 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 clangor.

1
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, loath. Job, knob, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little.

3
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 paling stout and spiky? Won’t it make you lose your wits, writing grouts 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 !!!

school's almost done --- YAY!

I'm almost done with my classes. Only a few more days left to deal with the exams. I'm so nervous. I don't really have that much time to study for all my subjects and I feel that my brain is about to explode due to information overload. It would be such a big relief to go through them without any problems.

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I got a call from Mitch, my supervisor regarding my new RDs. I will still be on the same shift, i.e. 10pm-7am with Thu and Friday as my RDs. I have no complains about it since I will still be working on weekends (which I like since there are less people on the floor). I just hope there is still a chance for me to be on the morning shift soon. I jus miss being with my sister and my nephew (of course, with Csar too) in the evening, just watching TV/DVDs or whatever. The idea to live a "normal" life for a couple of months is something that I always look forward to as it helps me get through the two months of GY shift. It is what I call the light at the end of a tunnel.

But with how things are going in the office, that little hope is slowly fading away.

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I want to thank Sir Mark for being so accommodating in changing my transition off from Tuesday to Monday, but all my hugs go to Kuya Luck who gave way. He gave me his Monday transition off and will be working 6 days straight so I have the time to prepare for a big day. Thank you, Kuya Luck!

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It's so sad to hear that some people would not accommodate two people's wishes for their own convenience. I may not understand the job that they do because I am not in their position but is it really that difficult to be considerate in this industry? It's not like they asked her to move mountains. I'm sure she can make the necessary adjustments, after all, it's not like she's going to coach that person everyday. She just doesn't want to. As we often say in Filipino, kung gusto, may paraan; kung ayaw, may dahilan.

I am amazed at how this world seems to be coming to. Powertripping is like an "in" thing these days. I always wonder why power is given to those who CANNOT handle it. Some people tend to forget that they are dealing with people not just with metrics and product knowledge and quality to be maintained or obtained.

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I sometimes forget that Kmart is growing up. I think I will forever be in denial that he will soon be a young man leading his own life.

He always expect me or Csar to bring home something for him like a large tumbler of iced tea or a chocolate bar. He would be show us a sad face (sad puppy dog eyes and pouty lips) when we don't have anything for him.

He has been like this for the past couple of weeks for some reason I don't know. He was never like this -- demanding. Hahaha! Yesterday, I decided to bring him something. I stopped by at the Hi-Top supermarket after class to buy him one of his favorites -- Hello Panda biscuits. He was so happy and all giddy. (Yes, Vayie, Kmart is a giddy kid too, but please note that Tita Jen is way giddier). =P

We watched TV while he happily munched on the treat. RJ, Josine and I were talking about how are we going to celebrate Kmart's 3rd birthday. No big party yet for Kmart, since most of our friends don't have kids that we can invite should we have a children's birthday. We'll just save the idea when Kmart is already in school. Hopefully, he'll have classmates and friends his age. =P

Anyway, going back to the discussion we're having about Kmart's birthday, I already volunteered that I will buy Kmart a cake for his birthday. To our surprise, he suddenly blurted out: "Salamat!" I found it really sweet that I immediately gave him a big hug. Siyempre, medyo naiiyak pa ako. Ang sweet talaga ng pampangkin ko.

another lazy entry

As usual, I'm too tired (or lazy) to write a decent blog entry...

First, I would like to apologise to my Uno Animo teammates. No pictures yet from our get-together last March 30. I know the pics I have are not a lot but I know you love to see them too. When I have the time (yeah, right!), I will post them in Facebook and our yahoogroups site. =)

Here is a presentation (uh-huh) of the things I've done, been doing, will be doing and would've wanted to do:

I had dinner with my bessy, Gran a few days after he got back from his Asian tour. He got me a bag, a couple of keychains and a fridge magnet from Singapore. What a thoughtful sweetheart! The pictures he and JB took of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were amazing, but the stories he told were hilarious. =)

Uno Animo (Alex, Cacai, Dustin, Febe, RJ, Tetay, Vayie and me) and Grumpig (Milo) had merienda/dinner at Dad's Glorietta last March 30, Monday/payday. Tin was missing in action but for a valid reason so she's forgiven. =P We also met Cacai's boyfriend, Ivan.

As you already know, Tita Tess, Tito Josal, Inna and Iris arrived from Canada last March to attend the funeral and burial of Tito Josal's father, Mr. Bartolome del Castillo, Jr. in Bicol. They are now in Baguio with my Tita Bebot, my cousins Andrea and Camille, my sister, Josine, my brother, Joshua and my niece, Nikki. I was supposed to join them but work got in the way. (What's new?!)

I watched the movie , "Race to Witch Mountain" with Bubi. The plot was predictable but the characters were entertaining.

Csar and I learned that tea latte tastes awful - the hard way. It is a rarity that I would dare try something new and it was not a good experience. =(

I went to a bookstore sale and found this cool dictionary from Oxford: The Official Dictionary of the Unofficial English. It was on sale for Php150, but wasn't able to get it -- found that I only have Php110 in my pocket and didn't have my ATM card with me. Bummer!

I would like to greet my bessy, Apol a very happy birthday (April 7). I wish we could see her soon and spend loads of time with her since she's been working for the last year - almost nonstop.

Birthday wishes also goes to my gradeschool friend, Ivylaine (April 6), my supervisor Mitch (April 7) and my ex-boyfriend, Cerwin (April 8) and to a baby sister, April Adap (April 9) who is now a wife and a mother to a beautiful family.

These are the songs that I just love listening to these days: I Stay in Love (Mariah Carey), Heaven Sent (Keyshia Cole), Insomniac (Craig David), One Step at a Time (Jordin Sparks), More to Life (Stacie Orrico), Forever & Because of You (Boyce Avenue version).

Csar and I did our best to catch the movie, "Knowing" (starring Nicholas Cage) together and we did. We found it interesting as subtly showed the unity of faith and science in our lives. The movie looked like a blockbuster movie in the making. I've seen a few movies these past months and I've never seen a cinema this packed since Harry Potter and Twilight. With or without the hype, it was worth it. The movie will leave you thinking.

Before we watched "Knowing", Csar and I had lunch at Bigoli's (Trinoma), an Italian restaurant Tetay and I "discovered" (from a clickthecity.com review) while looking for a nice place where we can hold the Mean Girls' little get-together with our former supervisor, Spawn.

Bigoli's has this new promo: Eat-All-You-Can Pizza for Php199 only. The price includes a refillable drink. Eat the most number of pizza slices will earn you a place in their Hall of Fame and a shirt. So far, a Nursing student from UST, "Jogar" Garcia holds the record for eating 25 slices of pizza. Beat that! But remember, this promo is only available between 10am-2pm everyday.

I dropped by at the Fully Booked Gateway Mall branch and National Bookstore Superbranch last Monday. I got a couple of stuff added to my wishlist: an LED slim book light and a red grab bag (super cute) which I want to buy this coming payday. I also passed by the Girbaud store and I found the three most adorable bags I have ever seen since I visited the store last Christmas. I hope I will have the extra cash to take at least one of those cuties home.

I will soon be seeing my ex-boyfriend who I haven't seen in a decade. (Yup, he's the forgetful ex. hehehe) We still haven't agreed on the details because of my crazy schedule.

I'll be taking Education classes starting April 13. My classes will be from 9am-1pm, Mondays to Fridays. I'm so excited! It'll be a little bit tough since I will be attending my classes after my work shift at 7am, but I welcome the challenge because finally I'll be doing something beyond the walls of the office. That doesn't mean you will be seeing me more relaxed.