Pronunciation Challenge: The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité (read by Heather Hansen)

1. Listen to the Pronunciation Challenge: The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité performed by Heather Hansen.

2. Using the online transcribibg services (e.g. http://lingorado.com/transcription) transcribe the  verse and learn to raed it!

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

Dearest creature in creation ˈdɪərɪst ˈkriːtʃər ɪn kriːˈeɪʃn̩

Studying English pronunciation,

  I will teach you in my verse

  Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

  Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;

  Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

  Just compare heart, hear and heard,

  Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain

(Mind the latter how it's written).

  Made has not the sound of bade,

  Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

  But be careful how you speak,

  Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via

Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;

  Woven, oven, how and low,

  Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.