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For Life
2008.09.16

Greetings!

Thanks to the sexagenarians, septuagenarians, octo-, nona-, and centenarians out there for giving us a great reason to enjoy a three-day weekend. We wish you all much health and happiness!

This week we look at elements of pronunciation. Now, watch our mouths carefully as we say the following words: “You are going to love this stuff!”

Today's LessonCATEGORY: ジャパニーズイングリッシュ
SYLLABLE   音節

Explanation

  • A syllable is any one of the parts of a word that are heard as a single sound when the word is pronounced. For example, “WordMaster” has three syllables: Word-Mas-ter.

    Be Careful! In English, each syllable must contain one and only one vowel sound.* So, for example, the word “hand” is only one syllable because it has only one vowel, although it may seem to have three separate sounds when written in katakana （ハ・ン・ド）.

    * NOTE: A single vowel SOUND may sometimes be written using two or even three vowels, as in the one-syllable word “eat” and in the first syllable of the word “beautiful.”
  • syllable とは、単語を発音したときに、１つの音に聞こえる単語の一部分、つまり、音節のことです。例えば、 WordMaster には３つの音節（Word-Mas-ter）があります。

    注意：英語では、それぞれの音節に含まれる*母音は必ず１つです。例えば、hand という単語は、カタカナ表記で（ハ・ン・ド）となるので３つの音があるように見えるかもしれませんが、母音は１つしかありません。ですから音節は１つということになります。

    *１つの母音は、１音節語の eat や、beautiful の最初の音節のように、２～３の母音字を使って書かれることもあります。

SYLLABLE

examples

  1. How many syllables are there in the word “chocolate”?
  2. How do you pronounce the first syllable of “either”?
  3. “Saturday” is the only day of the week that doesn't have two syllables.
  4. When you write a haiku poem in English, it should have 17 syllables in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each.

英会話レッスンAny way you say it, “WordMaster” means English, plain and simple!