English Listening: The Missing Photo | Episode 24

01/25/25 • -1 min

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Listen to a story about looking for an important photo!You’ll also learn how to say “photograph,” “photography,” and “photographer,” and how to pronounce the American T sound.

Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!

Each episode includes a story and a pronunciation tip. In the story, I use core vocabulary, the most common words in English, to tell a real world story. The pronunciation tip will help you understand natural spoken English.

You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. It sounds funny because I used editing software to change the speed of the story and make it slower. After the pronunciation tip, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed.

THE STORY

We love photos in my family. My mom has a huge collection of family photos, starting with photos taken in the 1950s. The most important photos are the ones of family members who have passed away. My mom has a really nice photo of me and my brother with my maternal grandmother, who passed away in 2000. My mom kept the photo in a frame on her desk, but it had been in the frame so long that it was stuck to the glass. She wanted to put the photo in a new frame, but she couldn’t remove it from the old frame without tearing it. She needed a new copy of this photo.

We left no stone unturned looking for a copy of this photo. My mom and I went through every photo album we have looking for a copy of it or a similar photo taken at the same time. We found ... nothing. We asked multiple people in my family if they took the photo, including my aunt, my cousin, and my brother’s girlfriend at the time. None of them remembered this photo, and they all said they didn’t take it. I tried taking a photo of the photo and the glass together, but the quality wasn’t very good.

We didn’t have a digital camera in 2000, so we know the photo was taken with a film camera. I looked through my mom’s giant box of negatives, which sounds easier than it was! The negatives are so small that it was hard to see the images. Again, I found nothing. I bought a scanner so I could start digitizing all the negatives. This is our last option. If I can’t find the photo after digitizing all the negatives, we may have to give up on ever finding this photo, unless a miracle happens and someone else discovers they have it!

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PRONUNCIATION TIP

PART ONE: HOW TO SAY PHOTOGRAPH AND THE AMERICAN TAP T SOUND

This transcript uses IPA symbols to represents sounds and teach pronunciation. Learn more about the IPA here.

The first syllable in the word photograph is the stressed syllable. It’s said louder and longer than the other syllables and the vowel sound is fully pronounced: /foʊ/

The T sound is not a fully pronounced T sound. We don’t say /foʊtoʊ/, although people will understand you if you say /foʊtoʊ/. It’s not a D sound either, as many students think it is. We don’t say /’foʊdoʊ/.

It’s actually a third sound.

This sound has many names. The proper name is the alveolar tap or flap. It’s also called the flap T, tap T, flapped T or tapped T.

There’s a bump behind your top teeth called the alveolar ridge. We’ll just call it the ridge. The tip of your tongue quickly taps, or hits, the ridge behind your top teeth.

Your tongue doesn’t stop in the middle of the sound as it normally does with a fully pronounced T sound. There is also no release or puff of air after the T. It’s a quick tongue tap.

Listen carefully: /’foʊt̬oʊ/

This is the T sound that occurs when:

the T is at the beginning of an unstressed syllable and
it’s between two vowel sounds.

In the word photo, the second O is fully pronounced: /’foʊt̬oʊ/

However, the second O in photograph is reduced and it becomes the schwa sound /ə/: /’foʊt̬ə/

The fina...

Listen to a story about looking for an important photo!You’ll also learn how to say “photograph,” “photography,” and “photographer,” and how to pronounce the American T sound.

Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!

THE STORY

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PRONUNCIATION TIP

PART ONE: HOW TO SAY PHOTOGRAPH AND THE AMERICAN TAP T SOUND

This transcript uses IPA symbols to represents sounds and teach pronunciation. Learn more about the IPA here.

The first syllable in the word photograph is the stressed syllable. It’s said louder and longer than the other syllables and the vowel sound is fully pronounced: /foʊ/

It’s actually a third sound.

This sound has many names. The proper name is the alveolar tap or flap. It’s also called the flap T, tap T, flapped T or tapped T.

There’s a bump behind your top teeth called the alveolar ridge. We’ll just call it the ridge. The tip of your tongue quickly taps, or hits, the ridge behind your top teeth.

Your tongue doesn’t stop in the middle of the sound as it normally does with a fully pronounced T sound. There is also no release or puff of air after the T. It’s a quick tongue tap.

Listen carefully: /’foʊt̬oʊ/

This is the T sound that occurs when:

the T is at the beginning of an unstressed syllable and
it’s between two vowel sounds.

In the word photo, the second O is fully pronounced: /’foʊt̬oʊ/

However, the second O in photograph is reduced and it becomes the schwa sound /ə/: /’foʊt̬ə/

The fina...

Previous Episode

English Listening: 30 Years of Stuff | Episode 23

30 Years of Stuff | English listening lesson 23 – EnglishTeacherMelanie.com

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Listen to a story about cleaning out all my stuff from my parents basement!You’ll also learn how to link same consonant sounds in spoken English.

Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!

THE STORY

My parents have lived in the same house for 30 years. For 30 years I’ve had a place to store my stuff. I’ve been very fortunate. All through university and coming & going from my travels overseas, my parents let me put boxes of my stuff in their basement. It’s stuff that I wanted to keep but didn’t need immediately. I had planned to sort through everything someday, but I never got around to it.

Now my parents have decided to sell their house, and I have to clean out 30 years of my stuff from the basement! This is such bad timing for me, because I don’t have time right now to go through every box and decide what to keep and what to toss! The boxes are full of things like books, old clothes, souvenirs, school memorabilia, photos, scrapbooks, and toys my mom kept from my childhood. I don’t even know why I’ve kept some of that stuff. So, I’ve rented a storage locker to store all my stuff for the time being.

A storage locker (or a storage unit, which is the same thing), is a temporary storage space. The space can be as small as a closet or as big as a garage. My locker is a 5×10-foot space inside a building. It has walls on three sides and a large metal roll-up door that is secured with a lock. I pay monthly to rent that space, and I’m the only person who can access that space because I have the key for the lock. The building is very secure, so I feel safe storing my stuff there.

I’ve removed about two-thirds of my stuff from the basement so far. I’m running out of space in my locker, but a bigger locker is too expensive. I’ll have to start going through the boxes that are still in the basement. Whatever doesn’t fit into the storage locker, I’ll either donate it to charity, or throw it out.

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PRONUNCIATION TIP

HOW TO LINK SAME CONSONANT SOUNDS IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

This transcript uses IPA symbols to represent sounds and teach pronunciation. Learn more about the IPA here.

One of the main features of natural spoken English is linking.

In English, words flow together in a natural rhythm.

Part of that flow includes linking words together so that there is no pause between words.

Listen to part of a sentence from the story:

... coming and going from my travels overseas ...

Listen carefully to the way I say FROM and MY:

... coming and going from my travels overseas ...

The word FROM ends with an M sound, and the next word MY begins with an M sound. When one word ends with the same sound that the next word starts with, you only need to say that sound once.

With the words FROM and MY, you only need to say the M sound once, so that there is no stop or pause between the two words.

Listen carefully:

... from my ... / frəmaɪ/
... coming and going from my travels overseas ...

I connected the two words together by only saying the M sound once.

Linking is a very common feature of natural spoken English. Here are some easy phrases that you can practice to get used to linking same consonant sounds.

some money
a bad day
this Saturday
a fun night

QUEST...

Next Episode

English Listening: Shopping for a New Dress | Episode 15

English Listening: Shopping for a New Dress | Episode 15 | English Teacher Melanie

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Listen to a story about all the problems I had trying to buy a dress to wear to my friends’ wedding!
You’ll also learn how to to pronounce “hadn’t,” “didn’t,” and “couldn’t.”
Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!

THE STORY
Earlier this year I was invited to a wedding in New Zealand! Two of my close friends were getting married! I’d never been to New Zealand and I hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time, so this was a great excuse to buy a new dress!

I didn’t want to waste time dress shopping in New Zealand. I wanted to spend as much time as possible sightseeing, doing things with friends and resting before the wedding. I wanted to buy a dress before I left Canada. Since there are almost 200 stores in the nearby mall, I thought for sure I could find a nice dress there!

Listen: Garage Sales | Episode 18

I spent an entire afternoon at the mall trying on dress after dress, but I came away very disappointed. I couldn’t find anything that fit my figure. Every dress I tried on had no shape to it. The chest, waist, and hips were all the same size and the dress just hung like a sack on my body. I know I’m not skinny, but I’m not fat, either. I’m somewhere in the middle, like most women. I couldn’t find any dresses made for a normal-size woman with curves. This was very disappointing.

On my way to New Zealand, I spent a week in Hawaii. I knew I would have better luck dress shopping there. There are a lot of places to shop in Hawaii since it’s a popular tourist destination! I was not let down! My hotel was near the largest mall in Hawaii. The very first store I went into had amazing dresses that fit me perfectly. The sales girl was so persuasive, I walked out of the store with TWO new dresses! I decided to wear one dress to the bachelorette party and the other dress to the wedding.

PRONUNCIATION TIP
Listen to some sentences from the story:

“I hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time.”
“I didn’t want to waste time dress shopping in New Zealand.”
“I couldn’t find anything that fit my figure.”

Did you hear the negative contractions hadn’t, didn’t, or couldn’t in those sentences? In natural, fast speech, these negative contractions are not fully pronounced.

Contractions are a basic part of natural spoken English. Instead of saying had and not separately, they are joined together, and some letters are left out of the final contraction, hadn’t.

Something interesting happens with these specific negative contractions. Had, did, and could all end with a d consonant sound. When they are contracted with not, not is reduced to the letters n and t. The d, n, and t consonant sounds all have the same tongue position, so in natural spoken English, they are not fully pronounced.

To begin the d consonant sound, the tongue goes up, and the front of tongue is pressed up against the top of the mouth. This is also the tongue position for the n consonant sound. This is also the starting position for the t consonant sound.

For example, to say the word hadn’t, move your tongue up to start the d sound, but don’t finish it. Keep your tongue pressed up against the top of your mouth: had.

Next, make the n consonant sound had n. The n consonant sound comes through your nose. The n sound is very short.

The t consonant sound at the end of the word is a held t. It stops the n sound, and it’s not fully pronounced. Don’t drop your tongue at the end of the word: had nt

Listen again to the negative contractions:

hadn’t
didn’t
couldn’t

This also occurs with other negative contractions I didn’t use in the story:

wouldn’t
shouldn’t

It may take a while before you can hear the difference between the modal verb, and the negative contraction.

Listen carefully:
had / hadn’t
did / didn’t
could / couldn’t
would / wouldn’t
should / shouldn’...