The Sounds of Spoken English: A Manual of Ear Training for English Students

Ripman, Walter, 1869-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3

Word count: 201K words
Chapters: 21

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Sounds of Spoken English: A Manual of Ear Training for English StudentsAuthor: Ripman, Walter, 1869-1947,Language: English, Class: PE: Language and Literatures: English, Release Date: Nov 18, 2014

Editor's review

This book, The Sounds of Spoken English, is an ear-training manual written by Walter Ripman for English learners. Its core value lies in bringing pronunciation learning back from paper symbols to the ear. It does not aim at a vast system of phonetic theory but designs exercises around actual listening discrimination, helping readers develop sensitivity to English vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation. For readers accustomed to silent reading and learning English through spelling, this old-school listen-first approach offers a corrective: hear it clearly first, then say it accurately. The material bears clear marks of its time, and some sound classifications and example-word choices may not fully match contemporary general English; precisely for this reason, it can also serve as a sample for observing early twentieth-century approaches to English pronunciation teaching. It is best used alongside reading aloud and dictation, genuinely putting each exercise through the ear rather than reading it through as a theory book. It suits learners who hold themselves to a conscious standard in English pronunciation and are willing to slow down for foundational training.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Self-learners who want to improve their English listening discrimination and pronunciation foundations
English majors or students in teacher-training programs who need to understand traditional pronunciation training methods
Readers interested in the history of English pronunciation teaching and old textbooks

Not a good fit for

People who only want to improve spoken fluency quickly and are unwilling to do mechanical listening-discrimination exercises
Beginners expecting a contemporary phonetic system and the latest pronunciation guidance
Readers who treat this book as a systematic textbook of phonetic theory

Reading tips

Read the table of contents first, pick out the sound categories you confuse most easily, and work through listening discrimination and shadowing unit by unit.
Prepare paper and pen for dictation-style practice, mark the places you mishear, and listen again after a few days.
Check example-word pronunciations against a contemporary pronunciation dictionary, noting differences between the book's old-style pronunciations and current ones.
Keep each practice session under twenty minutes, stopping when your ears tire, and do not try to finish the book in one go.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English learners starting from zero?

Not very suitable. The book assumes readers already have some English vocabulary and spelling foundations, and the exercises focus on sound discrimination; zero beginners may lack a store of example words to rely on. First master basic spelling and common words, then return to ear training, and the results will be more evident.

Does the pronunciation content in the book match English today?

Not entirely. The book was compiled early, and some sound classifications, example-word choices, and notation carry features of their time, differing from contemporary general English pronunciation. You can use it as ear-training material while checking specific pronunciations against a contemporary pronunciation dictionary; there is no need to copy it item by item.

With only an electronic edition, how can I use it effectively?

An electronic edition is convenient for searching and annotating, but ear training needs sound. Read the example words aloud and record yourself to listen back, or use a reading tool to produce sound, turning the exercises on screen into real listening and speaking. The point is not to finish reading but to put every exercise through the ear.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Ripman, Walter, 1869-1947 Author · British · 1869–1947

Walter Ripman (1869–1947) was a British phonetician and language educator. Public information about him is limited, and few details of his life survive, but his works show that he devoted himself over many years to the study of English pronunciation and to the practice of language teaching. He compiled several dictionaries of English pronunciation and language textbooks, among which The Sounds of Spoken English: A Manual of Ear Training for English Students most clearly reflects his approach: he valued basic training in listening and sound discrimination and insisted on mastering English speech through actual spoken language rather than written spelling. Books of this kind were written for English learners, clearly organized and practical in emphasis; they exercised a certain influence on pronunciation teaching of the time and offered a model for later textbooks on English pronunciation.