Help needed on listening comprehension activity

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ESL forum > Ask for help > Help needed on listening comprehension activity

Help needed on listening comprehension activity

NanG

Help needed on listening comprehension activity

Hi Everyone!

I need some help on this.

I �m checking a listening comprehension activity in which the recording says :

"The beaches were fantastic. There were many people at all" ( It doesn �t say " weren �t ")

And one of the options of the True and False activity is:

"There were a lot of people on the beaches."

Now, my question is : Is this True or False?

As far as I understand it should be False.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance!

Nancy

2 Oct 2015

12bprecise

It should say, "There weren �t many people at all." You can �t use "at all" with a positive statement. In natural pronunciation, "weren �t" would sound almost the same as "were." At the end of words, we pronounce "t" in the throat (with the glottis). You can �t hear it very easily. We would use the context to figure out whether it �s positive or negative. It �s false. If the beaches are fantastic, it �s because there weren �t many people.

3 Oct 2015

Tapioca

Hi Nancy,

12b is right and I sympathise because it �s a tough one.

It will sound almost EXACTLY as if the speaker is saying �were � and only the context/logic will help. Both the �n � and the �t � are lost. The vowel sound after the �w � is slightly longer than it would be if the speaker were saying �were � and probably the tone is a little higher and that should tell you that a negative is being emphasised, even if it doesn �t sound like one otherwise. Technically (if you �re interested!) it �s called glottalization. You can Google it.

Have a look at page 120 of �Transcribing the Sound of English: A Phonetics Workbook for Words and Discourse � By Paul Tench, section 7.103 "We weren �t coming"

The best beaches are empty beaches... :-)

Tap

3 Oct 2015

NanG

Thank you very much for yor help !!!

3 Nov 2015