Category: English language

How do native speakers pronounce the word Toronto?

Many native speakers pronounce the word Toronto as tərɑnoʊ (Torono), dropping the second “t” sound.  Other native speakers will pronounce the word as tərɑntoʊ, keeping the second “t” sound. Notice that in both pronunciations, the first “o” is reduced to the schwa sound /ə/.   When the word Toronto is followed by another word, as in the …

Elevate Your IELTS Writing: A Guide to Mastering Grammatical Range and Accuracy

By Christopher Rixon – September 11, 2023  One of the most challenging IELTS writing components to master is Grammatical Range and Accuracy. This is a measurement of your ability to use a wide range of grammatical structures without making a lot of errors. In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can demonstrate your proficiency in …

Improving your pronunciation of vowel sounds in seat and sit

The pronunciation of English vowel sounds in words like ‘dinner’, ‘river’, ‘image’ or ‘decision’ can be tricky to pronounce correctly. This is because the /ɪ/ sound doesn’t exist in most other languages. By comparing the /iy/ sound in ‘seat’, with the /ɪ/ sound in ‘sit’, speakers of any language can gain a greater understanding of how …