PART ONE of a lesson in TWO parts. Topic: Thought Groups. Develop your awareness of the natural rhythm in English. Learn to pause naturally by grouping your words into thoughts. Levels: intermediate to advanced.
Learn how and where to pause in sentences
Do you have a favorite singer? I myself cannot sing very well so there are many singers I admire from Frank Sinatra to Steve Perry, from Ella Fitzgerald to Celine Dion. One thing, all of these singers have in common is that they know how to breathe properly. When we speak, it’s not unlike when we sing. There are natural places to pause and take a breath. It is not possible to sing a whole song in one breath, and it’s not natural to say long sentences in one breath. In this lesson, we’re going to talk about something we called “Thought Groups.” I’m going to explain how we group our words into thoughts. If you group your words naturally, there will be a better flow to your speech and will be easier for people to understand you. [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
I want you to listen very carefully to the difference. [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
So what is exactly made the difference between two readings? How did I form the thought groups and the second one? [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
In this text, the periods and commas told me where to pause. Often we pause a bit longer at commas than we do at periods, so I use a double slash (//) at the period and a single slash at the comma. In this lesson I’ll use these slashes to indicate pauses. [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
No there is also grammar. So our two keys to identify though groups: punctuation and grammar. So when you’re speaking and you are not able to look at punctuation, let grammar guide you. [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
What kinds of grammatical units am I talking about? Well first kind is noun phrases. For example, a beautiful woman: it is not natural to separate these three words. They represent a single idea of a thought group. So an article, adjective and noun must be pronounced in one breath. Noun phrases can be a subject in our sentences.
Now let’s look at the sentences one and two. In the first the first noun phrase is our subject (a beautiful woman), so if we’re going to pause at all in the sentence, we can pause after the subject and before the predicate. A beautiful woman /entered the room. But in sentence two, the subject is a bit longer. Again grammar is our guide, and we’re dealing with the compound subject, meaning there is two, so it’s possible to pause after woman before dog and still sounds natural. A beautiful woman / and her little dog / entered the room.//
Verb phrases are another kind of grammatical unit. For example, ran blissfully, we don’t separate a verb from adverb. Climbed tall trees, we don’t separate a verb from object. Had been dancing, we don’t separate auxiliary verbs from a main verb.
Here are two more grammatical units. Prepositional phrases, for example, with my friends, and clauses. The first example of clause is an adverb clause, adverb clause of the time. When I was a boy,/ I leaped over fences. In sentence two, we have an adjective clause: The boy,/ who was no older than six or seven,/ leaped over a fence. Again these grammatical units represent ideas, though groups, and we don’t wanna break up these ideas.
Be careful, although grammar is our guide in forming thought groups, it doesn’t mean that every sentence have to be broken up in grammatical units. We don’t break up short statements. [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer] It would not be natural to pause in the short statements. We only pause at the very end and before the next statement.
Here’s some more advice in forming thought groups. . [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
Read the statement to yourself and decide where to pause. I would read the statement as follows: [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer] It’s also possible to pause after toys and after children. As I stated before, if you need to speak slower for any reason, you’ll break long sentences into shorter thought groups. So the alternative reading for the statement is [See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
Part 2
[See the text on screen and listen Jennifer]
That’s all for now! Thanks for watching and Happy Studies!!
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