INTRODUCTION TO

LEARNING OF ENGLISH
 Guess These Words And
Languages
shukran
danke
mrci
grazie
salamat po
kamsa hamnida
 Why do you find this video clip
funny?
 1. Consonant and vowels
English has 25 alphabet:
Consonants sound [24]
Vowel sounds [12]
The vowels especially, may have
more than 1 sound in different
words:
box, look, cough
 2. Borrowed Words
English has a lot of borrowed
words in its vocabulary
Some words are borrowed from:
French
Latin
Greek
These words have different ways of
pronouncing them
RSVP chauffeur
monsieur

genre chalet
EXAMPLES

rapport
croissant
bouquet
 2. Absence of Sounds
Some of the phonic sounds in
English is not presence in the
learners language, thus
pronouncing them is difficult
th []
things, thanks, three, thoughts, thin
sh [ ]
shells, nation
s [s, z]
sad, sit, box, cats, bus
wise, miss, boss, rose, is

ph [f]
Phase, phlegm,

ch [ ]
church, chair
 3. Aspirated consononts

Some of English consonants are

aspirated and voiced
Give me some tea
He picks up the rubbish
The top is clean
 4. Pronunciation of words
Long & short vowels in a word will
affect the pronunciation of the
word pit peat
ship sheep
bit beet
chip cheap
hit heat
 5. English word stress
Words contain syllables
words (1)
contain (2)
syllables (3)
In a word, one syllable is stressed (strong)
while others are unstressed (weak)
Weak vowel in a syllable is not sounded,
instead it will turn to [ ]
A dictionary can help you to find which
syllable(s) is/are being stressed
Photograph, photographer, photographic
 Rules of stressing syllables:
Noun: stress 1st syllable
Verb : stress 2nd syllable
One-syllable
cry, make, sleep
Two syllables
evening, pilot, open
 Three syllables
de licious, marvellous, im portant,
photograph
Four syllables
pho tographer, hu manity, mili tary
 Rules of stressing syllables:
The word end decides the main stress
-logy
-ical
-tic
-ate
 -logy -ical -tic -ate

Biology economical Domestic Eliminate

analogy aphabetical Fantastic anticipate
psychology artistic
geology
 Placement of stress can change a word from a
noun to a verb or vice-versa

NOUN VERB
present present
refuse refuse
contort contort
record record
 Commonly mispronounced words due to
misplacement of stress

clerk library
secretary restaurant
comfortable medicine
wednesday vegetables
february often
especially suite
6. English Word Order
 English sentence contains a subject and a
predicate or SVO (Subject-Verb-Order)
A subject may contain a noun (Adam, She) or
noun phrase (The angry old man, Adam and
his brother)
A predicate MUST contains a verb (eat, sleeps)
or verb phrase (is, are eating, have written,
has been talking) and noun phrase ( chicken
rice), adjective phrase (beautiful, mighty and
strong) or adverb phrase (slowly and quietly)
 7. Verb/Verb phrase
Lexical/main Auxilliary/Helpi
verb ng verb
is/are is eating
was/were was
sleep were sleeping
eats have been talking
do/does are written
has/have were not going
walked Has gone
 PRACTICE
1. dropped the boy the ball.
2. was saw the movie last you night what?
3. been you restaurants to have good any
here?
4. interests your hobbies what and are?
5. get today class how to did you?
6. life was exciting most the in your year
what?
 ANSWER
1. The boy dropped the ball.
2. What was the movie you saw last night?
3. Have you been to any good restaurants
here?
4. What are your interests and hobbies?
5. How did you get to class today?
6. What was the most exciting year in your
life?
 8. English sentence structure
I hungry.
I no understand English.
She no money
He friend me.
My house big
I boring.
What u want?
 PRACTICE
I hungry.
I no understand English.
She no money
He friend me.
My house big
I boring.
What u want?
 I am hungry.
I dont understand English.
She doesnt have any money
He becomes my friend/ He is my
friend/ He befriended me.
My house is big.
I am bored.
What do you want?
 9. English Spelling System
The spelling are often contradictory
and inconsistent
there are many exceptions to the
rules and many words that simply
have to be learnt as sight words
The spellings are irregular
Some words are not sounded as
spelled
psychology kneel
knife honest
what soften
castle limb
debt hour
lamb sword
wrap doubt
 10. IRREGULARITIES
Irregularities are common in English
when it comes to plural forms and
tenses form of the words (past form)
Most words in plural form are simply
added s, but in certain words, the
form differ.
Words in past tense are normally
added ed, but in certain words, they
differ
SINGULAR PLURAL
box boxes
girl girls
knife knives
ox oxen
foot feet
mouse mice
Base Present Past Past
participle
(has/have)
walk walk (s) walked walked
eat eat (s) ate eaten
begin begin (s) began begun
write write (s) wrote written
read read (s) read read*
hit hit (s) hit hit
study study studied studied
studies