The system marked this text Advanced 2, I have nevertheless put it into Beginners 2, because it is mainly meant to be a pronunciation exercise. Helen (skyblueteapot) suggested I should write something with “all, awe, or, cord, called and cawed” in it. (Although I enjoyed writing the story, I blame Hurricane Irene for the slightly odd text…)
The Audacity sound profiles of “all, awe and or” look very similar. The profiles of “called, cawed and cord” are not too dissimilar to each other, either. So, please, do not be surprised if it all sounds exactly the same to you at first. Context is a great hearing aid…
Here are the respective links, the lesson one is the first:
I have been a busy little bee, writing all sorts of Beginners’ texts. Those words have sounds in them that are quite tricky to distinguish and reproduce. If you were an ardent follower of my work, you’d understand…
With my accent I struggle to make “or” and “all” sound any different, yet my family and friends understand me with no problem. Natives learn to figure out from context which word should come next, so their brains make sure that’s the word they “hear”.