| Thought Groups
|
In written English, we use
punctuation to show where the pauses in the sentences should
be. When we speak English, our listeners don't see the
punctuation, but we don't generally run all the words
together in a stream of equally-emphasized words either; we group words
by their meaning, and pause between them. This allows us to
speak in phrases or thought groups, and to pause
just after important information that we emphasize.
If we are speaking slower and clearer, the phrases are shorter, but if we are speaking fast, the phrases are longer and we don't emphasize as many words. It's important to know where to put the pauses in the sentences so that you can sound more like a native-speaker. |
Click on the 
to hear an example.
Thought groups are
generally formed by the grammar. Here are some examples:
| Noun phrases: | the obsolete software
Amy and Peter |
| Short subject and verb: |
Mary walked
The boy smiled |
| Verb phrases: |
jogged joyfully
seemed correct |
| Prepositional phrases: |
in the laboratory
with the hammer
to the mall |
| Relative Clauses: | ...woman who wore glasses,
was... ...book
that I read, is... |
| Parenthetical remarks: | phrases (or thought groups)
are... this is, in fact, an
example. |
Between
each thought group,
the speaker needs to pause. There are some pauses that are
longer and
more important than others. These would be marked with commas
","
semi-colons ";" colons ":" and
periods "." in writing,
and will ALMOST ALWAYS be pauses, no matter how fast the person is
speaking.
The other pauses will be there if it's slower speech but might not be
if
it's faster speech.
Sometimes if you can imagine the punctuation that
would be there in writing, it helps you know where to pause for a breath.
(click on each
sentence to hear it)
Finally, // each time you prepare the solution, // you should take into account / the temperature of the liquids. // Don't mix these two liquids together / unless they have the same temperature: // room temperature. // After they reach the same temperature, // then you can mix them together / and get the starting temperature.
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