Ke Dawei's Daily Life in China

Stress and intonation.

Stress is very important in English.  English speakers speak with stress and intonation.  They stress the words that are important; that is, the words that carry the meaning of the sentence.  You can group meaning by the rules of grammar.  Stress words are nouns, verbs, predicates, adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, adverb phrases, adjective phrases and others parts of speech.  

Meaning is also gotten from the context of what is being said. It also helps you to determine which parts of speech should get more emphasis, which are important. 

Stress is done by saying a word or group of words with a little more volume than the other words to emphasize that word or group.  You also say words for a little longer time to "point them out" to the listener as more important than the other words.

For example, in a sentence where it's my turn to talk and I'm going to give my information I stress I as follows: I'm going to the movies.  

If the context is different for example everyone is saying what they will do this evening and it's my turn to speak I emphasize the place where I'm going as follows: I'm going to the movies.

Chinese speakers tend to say things without tone in a choppy way like:

I'm - going - to - the - movies, without emphasis, without stress and no flow.  "To the movies" should be said as a group.  In fast speech it is hard to detect the stress.  The following article is read a little slower than usual and the slight pauses in normal speech are given a little longer time so you will notice them and learn where to place pauses.  Pauses are important because they separate the parts of speech and make you more aware of meaning because of the grouping.

Read the segment out loud after you listen to it.  Then repeat the process focusing on the sounds and flow of the original.  Click on the highlighted box to play the segment.  Note: use skin mode on the File menu to reduce the size of the player so you can see the text easily.  Information about using the computer is below the article.

Title: Student raises $30,000 for orphans in Uganda

Lead: Norfolk, Virginia, America (AP) George Throw was visiting an orphanage in Kampala, Uganda, this summer when he turned a corner and was swarmed by a group of "double orphans" -- children who lost both parents to AIDS and were infected themselves.

All they wanted was to shake his hand.

"I couldn't stop smiling, but at the same time I felt really awful because I had my hand out and... I didn't have anything to give them," recalled Throw, a 21-year-old senior at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.

On Christmas morning, he plans to return to the Meeting Point Kampala orphanage with two friends from campus.  And this time he won't show up empty-handed.

Throw will surprise the children with gifts and school supplies bought with some of the more than $30,000 collected through a fund-raising project he created, Christmas in Kampala.

All of the 950 children, many of whom are double-orphans, also will get a holiday dinner complete with Coca-Cola, a luxury there.

About $8,000 will be used to put up a concrete building to replace the orphanage's bamboo schoolhouse, which has to be rebuilt several times a year because it gets eaten away by ants.  IF any money is left over, Throw hopes to set up a trust to take care of the orphanage's future needs.

Throw initially visited the orphanage through an internship with the United Nations World Food Programme, which fights global hunger.  He spent four weeks at the humanitarian agency's headquarters in Rome, then went to Uganda for two weeks.

When he went to Meeting Point Kampala and was ambushed by the kids, they took him to the schoolhouse and sang for him.  Throw asked the headmaster how much it would cost to build a school out of durable materials.  When she told him $8,000, he thought, "That's easy.  I'm going it.  There's got to be a way."

When he returned to campus this fall, he approached the school about raising money for the orphanage.  A web site explaining the project went up November 1, through the Dog Street Journal, an online college newspaper Throw founded.  Donors were asked to contribute $5 to "adopt" an orphan.

Donors include William and Mary students, faculty and staff and members of Throw's church in his hometown of Indianapolis.  His former co-workers in Rome raised more than $4,000, with many giving money they had intended to use to buy Christmas presents. 

Key Club International, a service program for high school students, donated $10,000 collected from its members.  That included $500 from a Key Club in Jamaica, which was hit hard by hurricanes this year.

"It's awesome to know that people who could use the money themselves were more than willing to raise the money for us," Throw said.

Notes about playing the article:

The articles are big so will take a while to load.  Once they load they play the next time quickly.

You may or may not get a slider bar which you can click on.  If not go to the file menu and expand the view.  

You can leave your mouse on the slider bar to repeat sentences for a start point more easily.  

If you only can open one window and hear one play then the click the opening box to start automatically.  From then on each click will bring up the sound without getting stuck.