Listen and answer the question - improving english skills

Listening Skill

Listen to the extract from Nehru’s funeral oration delivered a few hours after the assassination of Gandhiji on January 30, 1948.




Answer the following questions:
1. While reading the extract, did your teacher pause or stop anywhere?
2. Where did he/she pause?
3. Why did he/she do it?

How long can you hold your breath? 10/20/30 seconds?

Read the following sentence. Listen carefully. (Reads without any pause or stop.)

“As Caesar loved me I weep for him as he was fortunate I rejoice at it as he was valiant I honour him but as he was ambitious I slew him”

When anyone read without any pause did it sound meaningful to you?

We realise that pauses are essential because we need to breathe. But these pauses have to be intelligent and meaningful. In other words, we cannot pause or stop arbitrarily, i.e., wherever we
like. We should pause at the right places so that the meaning is conveyed clearly and properly. To help us to read lengthy sentences meaningfully we divide them into tone-groups.

Now read the same sentence (from ‘Julius Caesar’) with enough and appropriate pauses.

As Caesar loved me,/ I weep for him;/ as he was fortunate,/ I rejoice at it;/ as he was valiant,/ I honour him;/ but, as he was ambitious,/ I slew him./

Did you notice the pausing wherever there was a punctuation mark? Slashes have been made to indicate the tone groups.

Note: There are 8 tone-groups in this sentence.