Como você pronuncia focus e closet (em inglês)?

By Ana | Podcast Inglês Online

Oct 11
Como você pronuncia focus e closet (em inglês)

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Hi, everybody! What’s up?

Hoje o podcast vai focar na pronúncia de algumas palavrinhas do inglês: focus, closet e chocolate. Por que estas palavras específicas? Por que na minha opinião estas três são as que as pessoas mais erram na pronúncia, incluindo gente que lida com inglês no dia a dia. Se você gosta do assunto, já fiz outros podcasts focando em pronúncia de outras palavras: o primeiro deles gira em torno de blew, o passado de blow.

podcast_400_01Transcrição

Hi, how have you been? What kinds of interesting things have you been up to? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast, as usual. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline. On this episode, we’re going to talk about three specific words: FOCUS, CHOCOLATE and CLOSET. I’m sure at least one of these words is no stranger to you even if you’re a beginner. Why am I focusing on these three words? Because throughout my life what I’ve noticed is that these are probably the three words I hear Brazilians mispronounce the most. Did you get that? Mispronounce… that means, pronounce incorrectly.

Here’s the first time I heard the pronunciation “choco-leit” for chocolate: when I was a kid I went to Disneyland as part of a group, and our guide was a woman who spoke English, of course. One day I saw her chatting with an American and she asked him some question about “chocolate”. But the thing is, she didn’t say chocolate; she said choco-leit. The American guy didn’t understand what she was talking about. She repeated the word choco-leit two more times, I think, until someone realized what was going on and said “Oh, she means chocolate!” And then the American guy finally got it and gave our guide the information she was looking for.

So there you have it: not chocoleit, no. We say chocolate. Again, chocolate. It’s not really “chocoláte”, and it’s not “chocolet” either… it’s chocolate. Chocolate. Fortunately it is extremely easy to find numerous examples of how the word chocolate is used, since it’s such a popular snack (or delicacy) everywhere! Do you like hot chocolate? White chocolate? Brazilian chocolate, or imported chocolate? I have never liked white chocolate, I don’t know why… I just don’t like how white chocolate tastes. Do you? Also, I used to eat a lot more chocolate when I was a kid than I do now. I still love chocolate, don’t get me wrong… I just don’t eat it as often now. How about you? Are you one of the few people in the world who doesn’t like chocolate? Or are you a chocolate-eater like me?

Let’s talk about the second word: focus. Yep, focus. F-O-C-U-S. Focus. Remember that car called Focus? OK, so that’s not how we pronounce focus. We don’t say fócus, and we don’t say fókius either. We say focus. Again: “fôu-câs”. How do we use this word? The meaning is about the same in Portuguese and English, so… Sometimes when a group of people is having a meeting and people start to get disctracted and start talking about something unrelated to the subject of the meeting… When that happens, someone may say “Focus, people, focus!” That means, let’s concentrate, let’s focus on the topic of the meeting. When you focus on something, you put all your attention on that thing, right? And when someone says “Oh, Mary is very focused… she’s a very focused person” that means that Mary has a very clear idea of what she wants and probably a clear idea of what she has to do to get what she wants, and so she’s very focused on getting there. How focused are you? Are you determined, driven and focused?

And last but not least we have the little word closet. C-L-O-S-E-T, closet. In Brazil, it is common to hear people say clôset. However, that is not the correct pronunciation. People do not “clôset” in English-speaking countries. They say closet. Again, closet. What is a closet? Well, it’s a space in a bedroom where people keep their clothes and other stuff. It has a door, or two doors, a few drawers, and it’s usually made of wood or some plastic material. When someone is trying to sell a house, they may say “The bedrooms have a lot of closet space”. That means that the closets must be very large, there’s a lot of room inside them, a lot of space, and therefore residents will be able to store lots of things inside them. Do you have a lot of closet space at home? Are your closets small or large? I have to say, there’s not much closet space in my bedroom. My closet is not big. It’s not small either, it’s just average.

OK, so here’s a sentence that contains all three words we focused on today:

Keep your focus on the chocolate in the closet

Let’s pretend there’s a chocolate bar inside the closet and for some reason you have to keep an eye on it… Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense but it puts all of those words in the same sentence, so there you have it: keep your focus on the chocolate in the closet. Talk to you next time!

 

Key words

  • focus
  • chocolate
  • closet

Glossary

is no stranger to you = não te é estranha

did you get that? = entendeu (isso)?

delicacy = iguaria

don’t get me wrong = não me entenda mal

driven = empenhado, motivado

last but not least = por último, mas não menos importante

keep an eye on = ficar de olho em

doesn’t make much sense = não faz muito sentido

Ana
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Glauce 20/05/2012

That’s perfect. I loved it :-)

Patricia 22/01/2012

Hi,
Estou fazendo uma maratona e ouvindo seus podcasts… este particularmente adorei!! Palavras simples do nosso dia-a-dia e que acabamos pronunciando errado. Parabéns!

Luana 01/11/2011

Ana… outra palavra que tenho dificuldade na hora que falo rapido é GOLF, o jogo de golfe… sempre falava gôlf, e aprendi que o certo é gólf! hahaha… o problema é que passamos anos da vida da gente falando em portugues a palavra golf com a letra o fechada, e depois tem que mudar tudo…. mais uma palanvrinha pra tua lista de palavras mispronouced by brazilians! Thanks a lot!

Thaís 17/10/2011

Dificilmente esqueço algo que aprendi com seus podcasts e este, como sempre. está excelente!!!!

Obrigada!

Ana Luiza 17/10/2011

@ Deisi – que bom q o site tem te ajudado aí down under!! Vou pensar em mais ideias para podcasts sobre pronúncia.

@ Ailson – awesome! Keep it up (= continue assim)

@ Matheus – adorei saber q seu inglês está melhorando! Maravilha… Que bom que você está vendo resultado – se a gente não tem a experiência de melhora no inglês, é porque estamos só aprendendo sobre inglês.

Matheus 15/10/2011

Hi Ana.
I have been studying English for a long time, but since I found out inglesonline, I decided to follow your tips and I think my English is getting better. I’m always with my mp3 player, filled up with a large number of podcasts (including inglesonline), listening to it whenever I can.

I really appreciate your work.
Thanks!

    Ana 01/11/2011

    Awesome!!!! É isso ai.. o player de mp3 é teu melhor companheiro no que diz respeito a progredir na fala (a não ser q vc seja um couch potato e possa ficar o dia inteiro vendo TV)

Ailson 15/10/2011

Hello Ana. I am a Student of IT Management and I wanna learn the english at least the intermediate. I am happy: I am canning Understand very sentences that You speak. Very nice the post. Congratulations to you!!

Deisi 15/10/2011

Oi Ana,
Faz um tempão que quero escrever e sempre deixo para depois. Bom, descobri seus podcasts há 6 meses atrás. Moro na Austrália há 10 meses e fim para ficar com família, filhos…Escuto muitos podcasts de tudo que é canto e faço aulas de inglês aqui. Confesso que os seus levaram o meu voto. Ouço sempre que tenho um tempinho,fila, onibus…Sei que sua pronúncia muitas vezes difere da pronúncia australiana,mas mesmo assim EU ADORO!!Parabéns pelo seu trabalho e tb por este podcast,sempre tenho problemas com chocolate. Peço que quando puder faça mais, com outras palavras similares com o português como por ex.: restaurant, sempre coloco na sílaba tônica no ligar errado.
Obrigada,
Deisi

    Ana 01/11/2011

    Hi Deisi, thanks for writing! Que legal q os podcasts ajudam!! Adoro o sotaque australiano.. é bem laid-back, muito legal!

Ana Luiza 14/10/2011

hi everyone – thanks for all the comments smile

Cláudia: veja na barra lateral – “como ter progresso na fluência”.

Julio 14/10/2011

Wow,Sempre pronunciei errado closet.
Thank you

Cláudia 13/10/2011

Ana,

Very usufel these hints about pronunciation.

I’ve studied english for many years, but I don’t have fluency. How can I improve it?

Thanks,

Cláudia

Ailson 13/10/2011

Hello Ana! Congratulations! Yoour blog Is very useful for improve my english listening.
                  Bye!!

Luciano 13/10/2011

Hi Ana
Nice post.
I have listen all your posts.
Great job. Your posts have help me to improve my listen english. Thank you so much!
Take care and God bless you.

Fernando 12/10/2011

Hi Ana as usual a good tip from you.

Glaucio 12/10/2011

i didn’t know that

Rafael 12/10/2011

Hi, Ana.

I love any kind of chocolate.
Both me and my fiancée are chocoholics!

Thanks for the podcast. It was very useful to me!

Camila Buturi 12/10/2011

Hi, Ana Luiza…
Nice post!
wink

Ana Luiza 12/10/2011

Hi, Lucia – foi algum problema temporário de conexão, provavelmente. Tente mais tarde, q deve funcionar, OK?

Lucia 12/10/2011

Hi, Ana Luíza!

Não consegui executar o áudio completamente. Só começa e para depois de 7 segundos.

Thanks for everything and keep up the great work!

xxxxx

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