This is a download from BBC Learning English.
To find out more, visit our website.
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute Vocabulary with me, Neil.
And me, Catherine. And today we're talking about how to pronounce words that begin with the letter c.
We'll look at lots of examples.
We'll give you a quiz and we'll leave you with a top tip for remembering new English words.
So, to start off, let's listen to Maria.
She works in a circus.
Now, do you like circuses, Catherine?
When I was a kid, I think I wanted to join a circus and these days I'm not so sure.
Performing animals is not my thing really.
OK, well, Maria is a circus performer.
She's not an animal and we're going to hear her talking about how she started in the job.
And here's a question to think about while you listen.
What didn't Maria do at weekends?
Here she is. I started performing in my family's circus when I was nine years old.
I loved it! At the weekends, me and my sisters didn't go to cyber cafes or the cinema, or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers.
We practised performing.
I celebrated my 16th birthday by learning to ride a cycle that was only 20 centimetres high.
My brother's bike was so high it reached the ceiling!
So, Maria had an interesting childhood, didn't she?
We asked you what didn't she do at weekends.
The answer is she didn't go to the park or the cinema like other kids.
Catherine No – she practised performing.
And cinema is an important word in the show today because we spell it with the letter c but we pronounce it with a st sound.
So we don't say kin -uh -mar – it's cinema.
A lot of words that start with the letter c are pronounced with a k sound like cake, crime, count, my name Catherine, card, lots of them.
But most words that start with the letters ci are pronounced with a s… sound.
Words like cinema, cigarette, circus.
That's rule 1. Now listen again.
I started performing in my family's circus when I was 9 years old.
I loved it! At the weekend, me and my sisters didn't go to cyber cafes or the cinema, or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers!
Good. Now, let's see how we pronounce words that start with the letters CE.
Listen to this clip and see if you can spot those words.
I celebrated my 16th birthday by learning to ride a cycle that was only 20cm high.
My brother's bike was so high it reached the ceiling.
So, we had three CE words there and they were all pronounced with a S sound.
We had celebrate, centimetre and ceiling.
And that's our second rule!
And perhaps you spotted our third rule in that last clip?
Yes, well done if you've already noticed that words like cycle and cybercafe are pronounced with a sound even though they are spelled with cy and here's the whole clip again.
I started performing in my family circus when I was nine years old I loved it!
At the weekends me and my sisters didn't go to cyber cafes or the cinema or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers.
We practiced performing.
I celebrated my 16th birthday by learning to ride a cycle that was only 20 cm high.
My brother's bike was so high it reached the ceiling.
And we're talking about how to spell words that begin with the s sound.
sound. When a word starts with the letters c e, c i or c y we usually pronounce it with a s sound.
Right, and it's quiz time.
How many words in these sentences are spelled with a letter c at the beginning?
1. Listen carefully.
I can't see my cycle anywhere.
And there were two words with c at the beginning, can't and cycle.
Excellent. Number 2.
Christopher has gone to the cinema, but Colin is coming to the cyber cafe.
Right. There were five that time.
Christopher, cinema Colin coming cyber cafe.
OK, and get ready for number 3.
Ready? Crazy coloured circus clowns create chaos in cinema circles!
And that was a whopping eight words, beginning with the letter C, crazy, coloured, circus, clowns, create, chaos, cinema circles.
And congratulations if you got them all right.
That's the end of the quiz.
And here's a top tip to help you with new vocabulary.
When you learn a new group of words, try to put them together in one long Some crazy sentence like you heard earlier.
It'll help you to remember them.
Top tip, Neil. There's more about this at bbclearningenglish .com.
Join us again for more Six Minute Vocabulary!
Bye. Bye.
