I need a couple of short texts that contain major phonetic configurations in English

[Bennevis]

I've been tutoring a couple of new students lately and I feel I need to have a short warm-up reading session in my lessons. There is this great book called Remedial Reading Skills that is intended for learners willing to improve their reading skills. But it doesn't have texts - just words for any given letter combination. I've been trying to lay my hands on a text or two that would contain all major phonetic configurations (e.g., ight, ea, ou, ought, ce, ow, le, etc.). So far I've found one:

The brown house looked dark in the night. An owl hooted somewhere nearby. John had doubts about anyone living in such an old building. He began to walk past it, when he heard a loud shout.
The boy thought about running, but what if someone was in trouble? That was no shout of joy. The voice sounded scared. Surely help was needed. Should he go get an adult to join him? No. He had to act fast. Listen. Bang! Another noise.
John climbed the stairs to the front door and began to knock. No answer. When he began to knock a second time, there was a cry from an open window above. John stepped back and tried to see who was there. He saw a pair of yellow eyes in the window. They belonged to a big black cat. Did the cat need help? No. Didn’t they say all cats have nine lives? So when John heard a man angrily shout, “Go away!” he did just that. He did not need to find out who lived in that old house.

If someone knows where I could download a similar text, please let me know. Thank you very much!

[BobK]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'all major phonetic configurations'. I'm compiling lists of the sounds that all vowel-pairs can represent - and the task is huge (I know that you're not thinking of an exercise like this, but what I'm doing does give an indication of how much variation there can be in such a small range of configurations - just five digraphs so far (although there are another 11 well on the way to completion, and I expect to have all digraphs done by the end of the year).

b
PS - Don't be deterred by the price; follow @WVGTbook on Twitter, and I'll tell you when it's free.

[5jj]

I have no texts, but if you want to write your own, this may help:


/i:/ - me, bead, key, see, deceive, people, quay, encyclopaedia, foetus, police, relieve, soliloquy, Yves
/ɪ/ - bid, Greenwich, hymn, luggage, mountain, pretty, wanted, women, sieve, busy. Foreign, handkerchief
/ʊ/ - look, put, woman, Worcester
/u:/ - booed, boot, through, true, truth, whose, route, new, lieu,manoeuvre
/e/ - bed, said, head, any, leisure, leopard, friend
/ə/ - about, the, teacher, ration, Russia, photography, cemetery, thorough, bureaucrat, station, patient, pigeon, gorgeous, gynaecology, forget failure, status, cupboard, tortoise,
/ɜ:/ - bird, burred, turn, herd, heard, myrtle, myrrh, worse, masseuse connoisseur , journalist oeuvre,
/ɔ:/ - bored board, broad, thought, law, awe, caught, fall, warm, George
/æ/ - bad, plaid
/ʌ/ - bud, rough, money, flourish, flood, does
/ɑ:/ - bard, barred, father, aunt, heart, clerk, catarr, palm rseervoir
/ɒ/- bod, cough, want, because, knowledge, sausage, geography

/ɪə/ - beard, leer, fierce, weird, here, Liam, idea
/ʊə/ - obscure, tour, sure, moor
/eə/ - bare, there, air, wear, where aeroplane, bear
/eI/ - bayed, say, make, weigh, main, vein, break, gauge ballet, they, gaol
/ɔɪ/ - buoyed, buoy, boy, coil schadenfreude
/aɪ/ - bide, nigh, lie, buy, by, eye, aisle, isle, l, height, choir
/əʊ/ - bode, know, although, oh, groan, beau, gauche, Cockburn, brooch , chauffeur
/aʊ/- cow, mound, bough, Faust, cowed.

[5jj]

Here are some consonants:

/p/: pat, hoping, stop; happy, shepherd
/b/: bat, tribal rub; robbed, cupboard
/m/: mat, timing, sum;lamb, summer, column
/f/: fine, lifer, reef; coffer,laugh, often, elephant Volkswagen, Krakow
/v/: vine, savings, spiv; of, skivvy, Stephen, Volkswagen
/θ/: thick, author, mouth (noun)
/ð/as inthey, withinmouth (verb)
/t/: ten, later, not; patter, ptomaine, night, subtle, stopped, two, Thomas, worked
/d/: dot, rider, nod; bladder, red

/n/: not, finer, ten; banner, knight, reign, pneumonia, column, Wednesday
/s/: sit, basin, gas; massive, cede, science, psychology, listen, answer waltz
/z/: zone, hazy, fez; buzz, rose, xylophone, crescent, dessert
/ʧ/: chin, perching, larch; hatch, nature, cello, Tuesday (some speakers) adventure
/ʤ/: gin, judge, strange, sandwich, gradual, exaggerate (some speakers) duty (some speakers),
/ʃ/: shout, washing, dish, machine, passion, delicious, caution, sugar, conscience, schedule (some speakers)
/ʒ/: genre, rouging, beige; measure, seizure
/k/: kit, baker, took; cot, succour, back, pique, character, saccharine racquet
/g/: got, begin, sag; bigger, ghost, league, guest, ghost
/ŋ/: sing, hanger, sink
/h/: has, behind, who
/r/: read, horror, write, rhyme, catarrhal
/l/: lead, solo, pool; poll, island
/j/: yet, payee; onion, n_ew, hallelujah
/w/: wet, away; white (most speakers) language, quick, choir
/hw/ (some Scottish and Irish dialects, and some speakers of formal, rather old-fashioned RP): white, when, nowhere
/x/ and /χ / (some Scottish, Irish and Welsh dialects): loch, lough, Llanfairfechan. This sound is frequently pronounced /k/ by English people.

/ɬ/ (some Welsh dialects) Llandaff. This sound is frequently pronounced /l/, and occasionally /hl/ or /θ/ by English people,

[Esgaleth]

I might be totally missing the mark and this speech archive might be not exactly what you want, but they offer a text read in various accents. Some Ss find such practice beneficial.

[BobK]

...
/ɬ/ (some Welsh dialects) Llandaff. This sound is frequently pronounced /l/, and occasionally /hl/ or /θ/ by English people,

That unvoiced lateral flap seems to cause much more trouble than it should; I find the /θ/ version just risible.

Although the /ɬ/ is 'foreign', it is routinely pronounced in English as an allophone of /l/ (after /k/).

b

[Frank Antonson]

I have no texts, but if you want to write your own, this may help:


/i:/ - me, bead, key, see, deceive, people, quay, encyclopaedia, foetus, police, relieve, soliloquy, Yves
/ɪ/ - bid, Greenwich, hymn, luggage, mountain, pretty, wanted, women, sieve, busy. Foreign, handkerchief
/ʊ/ - look, put, woman, Worcester
/u:/ - booed, boot, through, true, truth, whose, route, new, lieu,manoeuvre
/e/ - bed, said, head, any, leisure, leopard, friend
/ə/ - about, the, teacher, ration, Russia, photography, cemetery, thorough, bureaucrat, station, patient, pigeon, gorgeous, gynaecology, forget failure, status, cupboard, tortoise,
/ɜ:/ - bird, burred, turn, herd, heard, myrtle, myrrh, worse, masseuse connoisseur , journalist oeuvre,
/ɔ:/ - bored board, broad, thought, law, awe, caught, fall, warm, George
/æ/ - bad, plaid
/ʌ/ - bud, rough, money, flourish, flood, does
/ɑ:/ - bard, barred, father, aunt, heart, clerk, catarr, palm rseervoir
/ɒ/- bod, cough, want, because, knowledge, sausage, geography

/ɪə/ - beard, leer, fierce, weird, here, Liam, idea
/ʊə/ - obscure, tour, sure, moor
/eə/ - bare, there, air, wear, where aeroplane, bear
/eI/ - bayed, say, make, weigh, main, vein, break, gauge ballet, they, gaol
/ɔɪ/ - buoyed, buoy, boy, coil schadenfreude
/aɪ/ - bide, nigh, lie, buy, by, eye, aisle, isle, l, height, choir
/əʊ/ - bode, know, although, oh, groan, beau, gauche, Cockburn, brooch , chauffeur
/aʊ/- cow, mound, bough, Faust, cowed.

This is such good and careful work. But I believe that those same sounds can be represented adequately by, in order: /y/,/i/,/oo/,/w/,/e/,/u/,/er/,/or/,/a/,/ar/,/o/,/yr/,/oo/ (or /yoo/). /ei/,/ey/,/oy/,/uy/,/uw/, and /aw/.

Those symbols require nothing that is not already on a normal keyboard. They work fine for my dialect of American English. For German or Portuguese a few have to be added.

[Frank Antonson]

Here are some consonants:

/p/: pat, hoping, stop; happy, shepherd
/b/: bat, tribal rub; robbed, cupboard
/m/: mat, timing, sum;lamb, summer, column
/f/: fine, lifer, reef; coffer,laugh, often, elephant Volkswagen, Krakow
/v/: vine, savings, spiv; of, skivvy, Stephen, Volkswagen
/θ/: thick, author, mouth (noun)
/ð/as inthey, withinmouth (verb)
/t/: ten, later, not; patter, ptomaine, night, subtle, stopped, two, Thomas, worked
/d/: dot, rider, nod; bladder, red

/n/: not, finer, ten; banner, knight, reign, pneumonia, column, Wednesday
/s/: sit, basin, gas; massive, cede, science, psychology, listen, answer waltz
/z/: zone, hazy, fez; buzz, rose, xylophone, crescent, dessert
/ʧ/: chin, perching, larch; hatch, nature, cello, Tuesday (some speakers) adventure
/ʤ/: gin, judge, strange, sandwich, gradual, exaggerate (some speakers) duty (some speakers),
/ʃ/: shout, washing, dish, machine, passion, delicious, caution, sugar, conscience, schedule (some speakers)
/ʒ/: genre, rouging, beige; measure, seizure
/k/: kit, baker, took; cot, succour, back, pique, character, saccharine racquet
/g/: got, begin, sag; bigger, ghost, league, guest, ghost
/ŋ/: sing, hanger, sink
/h/: has, behind, who
/r/: read, horror, write, rhyme, catarrhal
/l/: lead, solo, pool; poll, island
/j/: yet, payee; onion, n_ew, hallelujah
/w/: wet, away; white (most speakers) language, quick, choir
/hw/ (some Scottish and Irish dialects, and some speakers of formal, rather old-fashioned RP): white, when, nowhere
/x/ and /χ / (some Scottish, Irish and Welsh dialects): loch, lough, Llanfairfechan. This sound is frequently pronounced /k/ by English people.

/ɬ/ (some Welsh dialects) Llandaff. This sound is frequently pronounced /l/, and occasionally /hl/ or /θ/ by English people,

Again, this is such good and careful work. But I feel that the following "normal" letters are adequate, again, in order: /th/ for thick, /dh/ for they, /ch/ for chin, /j/ for judge, /sh/ for shout, /zh/ for beige, /ng/ for sing, /y/ for yet, /kh/ for loch and the German "ich" and "ach".

[5jj]

This is such good and careful work. But I believe that those same sounds can be represented adequately by, in order: /y/,/i/,/oo/,/w/,/e/,/u/,/er/,/or/,/a/,/ar/,/o/,/yr/,/oo/ (or /yoo/). /ei/,/ey/,/oy/,/uy/,/uw/, and /aw/.

Those symbols require nothing that is not already on a normal keyboard. They work fine for my dialect of American English. For German or Portuguese a few have to be added.

They can, but they aren't. I think that Bennevis was trying to give his students examples of how sounds are represented in writing.

[Frank Antonson]

Ah! I see what you mean. To help his students with the spelling system.