You do not need to read this. It is extra:
There are 5 colored lesson boxes on this page, each marked by Roman Numerals I, II, III, IV, and V.*
The lesson boxes are not colored for decoration, but to help make them distinct from one another. It is my belief that the sameness of things is why people forget them and their differences from one another.**
*Did you know that the base 10 number system of 0 ~ 9 is Arabic?
I. A Phoneme (“fō’ – neem”) is a sound heard and seen in spoken and written language and non-lingual (non-language) communication;
Words are made of phonemes:
1. ‘Oh’ (the sound of the letter ‘o‘, or the word we say to describe surprise.) has 1
phoneme.
2. ‘Get’ has 2 phonemes: “geh” + “teuh”
3. ‘Ouch’ has 3 phonemes: “ah” + “ooh” + “ch”
Here is the American Heritage Dictionary definition of phoneme:
1. It’s the smallest phonetic unit* in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in English.
2. It’s the same as phone, n.
3. A voice-sound imagined by the insane; a hallucination of voices.
*Phonetic(s) is the system of breaking words into sound-parts for understanding pronunciation.
II. A vowel is a letter in the alphabet system that makes a sound which is not made with the teeth, tongue, lips or a closed throat. A vowel sound is the sound that a vowel makes.
Vowels sounds are made with an open throat by air from the lungs passing out of
the mouth with no obstruction by those parts of the body mentioned above;
a, e, i, o, u (and sometimes y)–-are vowels.
If you just pronounced the previous
series of letters, you shouldn’t have used your teeth, tongue, lips or a closed throat.
III. A consonant is a letter which makes a sound with the teeth, tongue or a closed throat.
A consonant sound is the sound that a consonant makes.
c, b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x and z are consonants.
IV. A syllable is a sound in a word that has 1 vowel sound and 1 or more consonant sounds.
V. See if you agree:
1. In ‘cat‘ there are 1 syllable, 2 phonemes, 2 consonants and 1 vowel.
2. In ‘ball‘ there are 1 syllable, 3 phonemes, 3 consonants and 1 vowel.
3. In ‘bet‘ there are 1 3. syllable, 3 phonemes, 2 consonants and 1 vowel.
4. In ‘beat‘ there are 1 syllable 3 phonemes, 2 consonants and 1 vowel.
5. In ‘fill‘ there are 1 syllable, 3 phonemes, 3 consonants and 1 vowel.
6. In ‘site‘ there are 1 syllable, 3 phonemes, 2 consonants and 1 vowel.
7. In ‘on‘ there are 1 syllable, 2 phonemes, 1 consonant and 1 vowel.
8. In ‘ooh‘ there are 1 syllable, 1 phoneme, 1 consonant and 2 vowels.
9. In ‘mouse‘ there are 1 syllable, 3 phonemes, 2 consonants and 3 vowels.
** In my opinion, it is the sameness of things that effectively causes people to become lost in architecture that offers too much symmetry–such as in buildings and train stations that only bear differences between their sections by labels and signs. One of the best features of the Seoul subway–when I was there–was that many train stations were so totally different, displaying different themes, that it was difficult to get lost (not that one wants to get lost).
CΔRL ΛTTΞNIΞSΞ: 