Pronunciation ChallengeWhen bad things happen.....

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Hello everyone and welcome to the Pronunciation Challenge! My name is Hugh and I’ll be your host today. In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing (discussing means to talk about) when plans don’t work out. How do you bounce back? (to bounce back means to recover from) It’s all about attitude according to this video. What kind of attitude should we have about this? Obviously, it’s about being positive but sometimes, it’s not that simple. We have to shift our mindset and in order to do so, we have to challenge some lifelong beliefs we’ve always had. Let’s get to the featured sentence first before we talk about what some of the beliefs we should have to change our life!

Today’s featured sentence:
volunteers were asked to describe something bad that had happened in their life, and then list one way in which they'd benefited from the experience.

I’ll say that again.

volunteers were asked to describe something bad that had happened in their life, and then list one way in which they'd benefited from the experience.

Ok, now time for the Pronunciation Tips.


For the first word, we have
volunteer
Three syllables.
“VO” sounds like the word, “all” with the V sound in front. “LUN” has a short U sound and “TEER” sounds like the word, “ear” with a T sound in front.

Next up, we have
benefited
Four syllables.
“BE” has a short E sound. “NE” has a short U sound. “FIT” sounds like the word, “fit”, like you’re physically fit and finish the word with the “ed” sound because it’s the past tense. Remember, if the word ends in either a T or a D then we pronounced the “E D” sound as “id” instead.


Lastly, we have,
experience
Four syllables.
“E” sounds like the letters “i” and “g” together, to give you “ig”. “XPE” has a long E sound with the SP sound in front, to give you “SPEE”. “RI”, also has a long E sound and “ENCE” if spelt out like how it should sound would be something like “ENZ”.


Moving onto Vocabulary!

The first word is:
1. volunteer
Definition
a person who does something, especially helping other people, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it
Used in a sentence you could say,
“I had a great time being a volunteer at the children’s hospital today.”

Next word,
2. describe
Definition
to say or write what someone or something is like
Used in a sentence, you could say:
“It is hard to describe the exact taste, but this dish definitely reminds me of home!”


And lastly,
3. benefit
Definition:
a helpful or good effect, or something intended to help
Used in a sentence, you could say:
“The climate would benefit greatly from electric vehicles.”

So how do we change our mindset to deal with disappointments or setbacks? (Setbacks could mean something not working out as you wanted it to) We take each setback as a lesson. We take it as a lesson so as not to repeat the same mistake. Denzel Washington said it best. He told everyone to fall forward instead of falling backwards. Keep failing and making mistakes but keep trying. Keep trying to improve bit by bit. Never give up. That’s how you fall forward. Do you know that Mark Ruffalo (the actor who plays the Hulk) failed about 600 auditions before he started getting good work? Fall forward! Never give up! This is the change of attitude. Don’t let setbacks hold you back.

Alright, that about does it for today’s episode. Get your recordings in if you haven’t done so already. See everyone again soon! Bye!

Day 90.

Day 244