English - pronunciation exercises

[HacTpoeHue]

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse​

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.​

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;​

Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.​

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! 10

Just compare heart, hear and heard,​

Dies and diet, lord and word.​

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).

Made has not the sound of bade,​

Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.​

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,​

Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak, 20​

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;

Woven, oven, how and low,​

Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.​

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,​

Missiles, similes, reviles.​

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining, 30

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,​

Solar, mica, war and far.​

From "desire": desirable - admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,

Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,​

Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,​

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.

Gertrude, German, wind and wind,​

Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind, 40​

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth​

Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.​

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,

Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,​

Peter, petrol and patrol?​

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. 50

Blood and flood are not like food,​

Nor is mould like should and would.​

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.

Discount, viscount, load and broad,​

Toward, to forward, to reward,​

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,​

Friend and fiend, alive and live. 60​

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.

Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,​

Buoyant, minute, but minute.​

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;

Would it tally with my rhyme​

If I mentioned paradigm?​

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy? 70

Cornice, nice, valise, revise,​

Rabies, but lullabies.​

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,

You'll envelop lists, I hope,​

In a linen envelope.​

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.

To abjure, to perjure. Sheik​

Does not sound like Czech but ache. 80​

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,​

People, leopard, towed but vowed.​

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,​

Chalice, but police and lice,​

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label. 90

Petal, penal, and canal,​

Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,​

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",

But it is not hard to tell​

Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.​

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,​

Senator, spectator, mayor, 100​

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.

Pussy, hussy and possess,​

Desert, but desert, address.​

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.

Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,​

Cow, but Cowper, some and home.​

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor", 110

Making, it is sad but true,​

In bravado, much ado.​

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,​

Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.​

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.

Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,​

Paradise, rise, rose, and dose. 120​

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.

Mind! Meandering but mean,​

Valentine and magazine.​

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,

Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,​

Tier (one who ties), but tier.​

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring? 130

Prison, bison, treasure trove,​

Treason, hover, cover, cove,​

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.

Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,​

Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.​

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;

Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,​

Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn. 140​

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.

Evil, devil, mezzotint,​

Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)​

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,

Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,​

Rhyming with the pronoun yours;​

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did, 150

Funny rhymes to unicorn,​

Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.​

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.

No. Yet Froude compared with proud​

Is no better than McLeod.​

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,

Troll and trolley, realm and ream,​

Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme. 160​

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,

But you're not supposed to say​

Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.​