Pronunciation Challenge5 Fascinating Facts About Rats

It's a rare occurance, but a frightening reality in towns with older sewage systems.

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The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. Lily Tomlin

What’s up Voicetube listeners! My name is Hubert for the new listeners and I’ll be your host for today’s Pronunciation Challenge! Have any of you listeners ever gone down the deep rabbit hole of Youtube? A rabbit hole, in this context, means a bizarre (weird), confusing, or a situation or environment that doesn’t make sense. The deeper you go, the weirder it gets. So, have you ever clicked through Youtube and ended up watching earwax removal videos? What about blackhead removals? Disgusting stuff right? I’m into this stuff! I find it disgusting when I’m in the moment watching the video but at the same time, I can’t take my eyes away from it! Which brings me to the topic of today’s video! Rats! I hate them! I also want to know more about them! Here’s a video giving us 5 fascinating facts regarding our lovely little friends. Come back after the featured sentence so I can tell you about my experience with rats!

Today’s featured sentence:
It's a rare occurrence, but a frightening reality in towns with older sewage systems.

It's a rare occurrence, but a frightening reality in towns with older sewage systems.


Ok, now time for the Pronunciation Tips.


For the first word, we have
Occurrence
Three syllables.
"OC" has a short U sound. "CUR" sounds like it's spelt "KER" and "ENCE" sounds like it's spelt "UNS" which would have a short U sound. Occurrence.


Next up, we have
Frightening
Three syllables
"FRIGH" has a long i sound. The second syllable, "TEN" is just a really soft T sound. "NING" has the typical "i n g" sound, "ing". Frightening.

Lastly, we have,
Sewage
Two syllables.
"SEW" sounds like the name Sue. "AGE" kind of has a short i sound. Also kind of sounds like the word "itch" but not as rough. Sewage.


Moving onto Vocabulary!

The first word is:
1. Occurrence
Definition
something that happens
Used in a sentence you could say,
“Divorce has become an everyday occurrence.”

Next word,
2. Frightening
Definition
making you feel fear
Used in a sentence, you could say:
“The Exorcist is quite a frightening movie!”

And lastly,
3. Sewage
Definition:
waste matter such as water or human urine or solid waste
Used in a sentence, you could say:
“I heard a lot of sewage waste is being dumped into the lake over there.”

I don’t know if you guys can remember, but there used to be a documentary on Netflix about rats! The documentary talked about all the diseases/parasites that rats can carry and it was quite frightening!
I used to teach English at a nursery school in Hong Kong back in my younger days. One day, I was the only male staff at work and all the aunties came running to me asking me to handle a rat situation in the school. A lone rat had entered a closet they were cleaning and they were too afraid to chase it out. They pressured me into doing it. It was a small closet but with many corners and boxes it could hide behind. I was scared myself because in Canada, I had never seen a rat up until that point. The rats in Hong Kong are huge compared to the ones in Canada so I was shaking. I used a broomstick to poke around every corner and out of nowhere a big brown rat jumped towards me! Luckily, I had quick reflexes and jumped out of the way myself and the rat ran off. I hate rats.
Alright, talking about this story gave me chills down my spine. Get your recordings in and check out the other episodes from the Pronunciation Challenge if you haven’t done so already. I’ll see everyone again in the next episode! Bye!

Day 156