Syllables are Serious Fun!

Deciphering Syllables:

The syllable is the place where the specific sound is made. When the sound tends to change, it becomes the next syllable. They are either Vowels alone, or start with the consonant and may end with the vowel or consonants. Each syllable may also have a combination of multiple consonants.

For instance, in the word “Italy”, it is pronounced as three syllables, “ee-ta-lee”, where the first sound ee is pronounced by only vowels, while other two sounds start with the consonant, which are followed by vowels. In the word “car”, there is just one syllable that starts and ends with a consonant; while the monosyllable word “cramps” has two consonant sounds in the beginning and two consonant sounds in the end.

There are so many uses of syllables in usage of English, knowing which would make the person see this language as an art, rather than a boring verbatim-filled subject of study!

Fun Reading:

It is easy to read the words once the child learns to separate the syllables and since most of the English words can be spelt out, the final pronunciation can be found by the kids or others who want to learn English.

Fun Speaking:

While a few Asians tend to pronounce “Development” as “dev-lop-ment” sounding it as three syllables, it is actually four-syllable word to be pronounced as “dev-e-lop-ment”, which makes a huge difference for the listener.

Right Emphasis:

Once the person learns to segregate the words using its syllables, they can next learn where to put the emphasis on. For example, the words with the same root word would have to be emphasized in different syllables:

• Photo, Photograph: The emphasis is on first syllable “pho”.
• Photography, Photographer: The emphasis is on second syllable “toh”.

If the emphasis is given on the wrong location, then the audience would listen to the other word forms, rather than what the speaker intends to convey.

So, it is important to learn the syllables and parents and teachers should make it fun to encourage the students to learn this important facet of the language.