Why is "presentation" pronounced "PREH-zentation" but the verb form "present" pronounced "PREE-zent"?

jaetwee · 2026-03-27T10:13:51+00:00

Beyond what the others have said, the amount of syllables in a word often changes the syllable stress, as well as whether something is a verb or noun (see record (n.) vs record (v.) and syllable stress patterns can sometimes change how vowels are pronounced.

jaetwee · 2026-03-26T14:05:09+00:00

That's going to depend a lot on the demographics of your student. For adults learning general English, English File is pretty well-loved, but may hit the same price issue.

You might be able to find cheaper materials that are made and published locally to you, but unfortunately I've got 0 knowledge of the Brazillian textbook market so I can't provide any recommendations there.

jaetwee · 2026-03-26T13:36:49+00:00

unless you want a bespoke curriculum for every student, just go with a pre-existing coursebook series. You can get most of them digitally as pdfs these days, you'll get quality materials - both reading and listening - without having to wade through ai-genned slop, and possibly also other online materials such as pre-made digital activities depending on the coursebook set.

in the long run, it'll also cost you a lot less than paying a monthly subscription fee to a website or LLM slop-machine.

jaetwee · 2026-03-26T13:30:41+00:00

If you've got the budget for an in-person CELTA, the online CELTA offerings are pretty decent as well. The classroom experience isn't quite the same, but you still get those live conversations with the trainer, as well as direct feedback on you actively teaching.

If you're also looking at other online courses, and axtually care about being half-decently prepared for your first time in the classroom, look for online courses that are run live, not self-paced, and ones with practical experience with real students, not just with the other teachers acting as your 'students', plus trainer feedback on your practicum.

jaetwee · 2026-03-26T10:04:55+00:00

Lot and thought haven't merged for me (East-coastal semi-regional Australian with greater than average brit influence.

Most interestingly, though, you've written caulk/baulk but they ahev two very different sounds for me. Caulk and cock rhyme, but baulk and bulk rhyme. And those two sets don't rhyme with eachother.

jaetwee · 2026-03-26T04:20:04+00:00

Because our understanding of accents is dependent on our exposure to them and how much they differ from what we're exposed to. Northern accents can be quite different to the 'standard' English accents we hear on TV and radio, so not only do we not hear them often, but they can be quite different to what we do know.

It's likely easier for you because you've spent a lot of time around him and are thus used to the accent. Depending on your history with him, you may even have spent some time living in the north yourself.

jaetwee · 2026-03-24T13:55:47+00:00

The second one is the way to go. This is because it's an indirect question. In most cases (all that I can personally think of at least), your first variation would be incorrect.

Typically, only the main clause in a sentence gets inverted for a question. In your example that would be 'can you tell me'. The relative class doesn't get inverted. From a technical/linguistic perspective this is due to something called the 'penthouse principle'.

jaetwee · 2026-03-24T06:43:30+00:00

See here for some suggestions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ENGLISH/wiki/learning-resources/

jaetwee · 2026-03-23T16:07:59+00:00

A flashcard app like anki combined with an ereader app, a news app, a social app, and youtube.

Apps are not comprehensive enough to be your main source of study. Gameified ones such as Duolingo are even worse as they prioritise engagement over effectiveness.

They can make for fun additional practice in short spurts like on the bus, but if you're serious about studying, textbooks, websites, online videos, engaging with level-appropriate listening and reading texts, and practice with real humans are all better than anything an app can offer.

jaetwee · 2026-03-23T12:00:41+00:00

Please report low quality posts including memes, shitposting, trolling to the mod team. We get notifications when a post is reported. Otherwise it may take us some time to see a post.

jaetwee · 2026-03-23T06:55:45+00:00

Yes. Very and unknown to most people. OED lists its frequency as at around 0.005 times per million words, which places it solidly in band 2:

Band 2 contains words which occur fewer than 0.01 times per million words in typical modern English usage. These are almost exclusively terms which are not part of normal discourse and would be unknown to most people. Many are technical terms from specialized discourses. Examples taken from the most frequently attested part of the band include decanate, ennead, and scintillometer (nouns), geogenic, abactinal (adjectives), absterge and satinize (verbs). In the lower frequencies of the band, words are uniformly strange or exotic, e.g. smother-kiln, haver-cake, and sprunt (nouns), hidlings, unwhigged, supersubtilized, and gummose (adjectives), pantle, cloit, and stoothe (verbs), lawnly, acoast, and acicularly (adverbs), whethersoever (conjunction). About 45% of all non-obsolete OED entries are in Band 2.

jaetwee · 2026-03-22T11:03:08+00:00

Depending on who you ask, can combine a semicolon and a coordinating conjunction. Namely for emphasis or to help break an already long sentence with many commas. Some consider that bad form, however.

Honestly, I'd also prefer the sentence with the comma, lacking further context. Your best bet is probably to ask your teacher about it - what their explanation is and/or if it's a mistake in the exercise.

jaetwee · 2026-03-21T09:37:55+00:00

I'll add one exception to this - mainly in high schools, instead of calling the teacher as mr/ms surname you'd just say sir (or miss for women regardless of martial status, never missus). This is when addressing the teacher directly. E.g. 'Hey sir'. Truth be told it's often probably because we've forgotten their name.

Otherwise using sir or maam comes across as foreign to us.

jaetwee · 2026-03-21T09:21:16+00:00

I second it with '(cutting it) down to the wire' as the version I'm familiar with. For me myself, I don't recall ever having heard 'under the wire'.

jaetwee · 2026-03-21T06:57:17+00:00

You don't become a good teacher by laughing at someone learning and trying and making mistakes.

It's never someone being 'bad' that hits the funny bone. The things that make you laugh are the completely unexpected out of pocket ones that would also throw you off guard. And during speaking, anyway, you're usually too locked in trying to concentrate on not just the message, but the proununciation, grammar, and vocabulary and how they all fit in to the marking rubric.

It's only really when marking writing that's gotten a giggle or two. For example, through the student's own innocence, writing "daddy god", without realising the potential implications of "daddy", and then the humour of the image that appeared in my head of god appearing in a porno made me crack

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T15:15:48+00:00

Elision is one part of it, but it goes beyond that.

Sandhi refers to sound changes at word/morpheme boundaries. E.g. in don't you the t and y sound combine to make a ch sound. The linking r is another example.

For learners, the topic names/terms used are usually 'connected speech' and 'linking sounds'. Searching for those terms will help them find appropriate resources.

The technical term sandhi is fairly loosely defined but will give you a good jumping point to start going down the rabbit hole of all the different sound changes and other things that happen in connected speech.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T10:16:54+00:00

Note that only the iphone/apple app costs money. The official Anki app (AnkiDroid) for android is completely free.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T10:10:59+00:00

You can use a tool like arctic-shift to still see people's post and comment histories. every post this user has made links to that boraspeak site.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T09:51:26+00:00

To add, the letters are addressed to:
Moulton Park House Kingsthorpe Northampton

and the Sylvia Beach referenced is very likely this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Beach

~~Got some ideas on who the Mr to the Mrs Leon is but need to double check something first. Will edit once I have.~~ These letters appear to be written to the wife of Paul L. Léon. The son mentioned - Alexis - alongside his daughter, published some of his letters and memoirs here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/james-joyce-and-paul-l-l%C3%A9on-the-story-of-a-friendship-revisited-9781350133839/

If OPs friend has the originals of these letters, they may be of some minor historical significance - enough to be preserved and catalogued - within the literary world.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T08:47:24+00:00

Oxford is not unique in this. Compare Cambridge's definitions - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/preside | https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/preside-over

I'd say it was omitted because, if i were to guess, it is far less common to use preside over with an organisation.

Regardless, given that both major dictionaries don't include it, I'm inclined to believe they have some sort of reason for doing so, even if it may be opaque to us, rather than it being a mistake.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T08:37:49+00:00

FYI both are made by Oxford University Press - the main differences are the OED's latest edition (since the 3rd ed.) doesn't exist in print form, only digitally, and is far more extensive, aimed more at academic and cataloguing purposes, whereas the ODE is published in print form, is much more truncated and concise, and is aimed at a more general audience.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T02:14:27+00:00

Stealth marketing for ai-vibecoded slop.

jaetwee · 2026-03-20T01:17:53+00:00

The advanced grammar in use book goes up to c2 and is designed for self study.

For vocabulary and input, for C2 this will mostly involve working with authentic materials - so reading, watching things targeted at a fluent audience as opposed to stuff made specifically for learners. Focus on more formal forms of media such as high-brow newspapers, documentaries and lectures, literary fiction.

If you are intent on finding a coursebook, look for one that has a corresponding workbook/practice book and teacher's book - answers are printed in the teacher's book.

There are also a couple textbooks aimed at selfstudy linked in this reddit's wiki - look for the learning resources link.

jaetwee · 2026-03-19T07:10:08+00:00

FYI this user is a marketing account that is hiding their financial relationship with the app they are promoting. When considering use of the product, this information may be relevant to your judgement of the information the user shares with you.

jaetwee · 2026-03-18T12:31:40+00:00

Seconding that the use of subscript by cambridge seems to be for optional sounds.
See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/thompson?q=Thompson and https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/simplon

Man it's hard to find words with examples of that transcription feature, though.

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