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Australian English Transcription
Practice Exercises

Felicity Cox and Robert Mannell

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EXERCISE 1.

Make both a broad and a narrow transcription of the following words.

1     car 26     taps
2     eat 27     link
3     map 28     caused
4     role 29     spliced
5     boy 30     script
6     fine 31     scrunched
7     thought 32     bulged
8     purse 33     crusts
9     youth 34     sixths
10     beige 35     strength
11     jog 36     helm
12     then 37     robbed
13     cheers 38     cash
14     tin 39     you'll
15     dare 40     grasp
16     shove 41     slow
17     hang 42     flare
18     mouse 43     tired
19     wash 44     wink
20     fade 45     frowned
21     tax 46     loins
22     tenth 47     stewed
23     pride 48     square
24     creep 49     welsh
25     dwell 50     hinged

EXERCISE 2.

Make both a broad and a narrow transcription of the following words.

1     begin 11     quality
2     wrecker 12     archbishop
3     aero 13     sixtieth
4     delegate 14     macrobiotic
5     impose 15     eulogy
6     fallacy 16     Asia
7     nocturne 17     octopus
8     defamatory 18     exempts
9     viaduct 19     reoccupy
10     scowling 20     antidisestablishmentarianism

EXERCISE 3.

Make both a broad and a narrow transcription of the following words.

1     regard 11     sixteenth
2     inert 12     encapsulate
3     dancer 13     biology
4     expect 14     interpretation
5     baggage 15     triathlete
6     phonetics 16     polyunsaturated
7     music 17     unexpectedly
8     caramel 18     anecdotal
9     Macquarie 19     microphones
10     buyer 20     supercalifragilisticexpialedocious

EXERCISE 4.

Make both a broad and a narrow transcription of the following words.

1     ear 26     cube
2     arch 27     twin
3     tea 28     depth
4     yacht 29     crashed
5     on 30     glimpsed
6     young 31     sculpts
7     axe 32     dune
8     clay 33     skew
9     pew 34     bark
10     steak 35     east
11     hinge 36     rare
12     scratch 37     how
13     muse 38     thwart
14     splashed 39     strength
15     teak 40     bulged
16     ninth 41     hue
17     squashed 42     shrieked
18     acts 43     thrilled
19     scorched 44     swoon
20     mink 45     texts
21     strong 46     belched
22     worlds 47     filmed
23     wedged 48     growl
24     thanks 49     school
25     crafts 50     are

EXERCISE 5.

Make both a broad and a narrow transcription of the following sentences.

  1.     Cats and dogs need to be loved and walked every day.
  2.     I lugged the suitcases all the way from the polished vestibule to the flats' antiquated old lift.
  3.     The atmosphere of the cosy studio was not at all conducive to the sort of thing the Armenian teenager had in mind.
  4.     The special vision which ocean birds have enables them to inspect chasms which we would miss.
  5.     The little nurse drew a deep breath,     wiped the tears of merriment from her eyes and began to make her preparations for giving the patient his injection.
  6.     Maddened and angry they were leaping and howling round the trunks,     and cursing the dwarves in their horrible language, with their tongues hanging out and their red eyes shining as red and fierce as the flames.
  7.     Somewhere behind the grey clouds the sun must have gone down,     for it began to get dark as they went down into the deep valley with a river at the bottom.
  8.     Far away I hear the distant drumming of my father as he begins practicing for a local band competition.
  9.     Students seeking guidance thought his sudden absence was quite rotten.
  10.     The inner illumination was swallowed up in another kind of light.

EXERCISE 6

Make both a broad and narrow transcription of the following passages.

Passage 1

    The sun was just rising as Dr Robert entered his wife's room at the hospital.     An orange glow     and, against it,     the jagged silhouette of the mountains.     Then suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between two peaks.     The sickle became a half-circle and the first long shadows,     the first shafts of golden light crossed the garden outside the window.     And when one looked up again at the mountains     there was the whole unbearable glory of the risen sun.

Passage 2

    I was thinking of two people I met last time I was in England.     At Cambridge.     One of them was an atomic physicist,     the other was a philosopher.     Both extremely eminent.     But one had a mental age, outside the laboratory,     of about eleven     and the other was a compulsive eater with a weight problem that he refused to face.     Two extreme examples of what happens when you take a clever boy,     give him fifteen years of the most intensive formal education     and totally neglect to do anything for the mind-body     which has to do the learning and the living.

Passage 3

    Up jumped Bilbo,     and putting on his dressing-gown went into the dining room.     There he saw nobody,     but all the signs of a large and hurried breakfast.     There was a fearful mess in the room, and piles of unwashed crocks in the kitchen.     Nearly every pot and pan he possessed seemed to have been used.     The washing-up was so dismally real     that Bilbo was forced to believe the party of the night before had not been part of his bad dreams,     as he had rather hoped.     Indeed he was really relieved after     to think that they had all gone without him,     without bothering to wake him up (     'but with never a thank you' he thought);     and yet     in a way     he couldn't help feeling just a trifle disappointed.     The feeling surprised him.

Passage 4

    Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum,     a small slimy creature.     I don't know where he came from,     nor who or what he was.     He was a Gollum -     as dark as darkness,     except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face.     He had a little boat,     and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake;     for lake it was,     wide and deep     and deadly cold.     He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side,     but never a ripple did he make.     Not he.     He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish,     which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking.     He liked meat too.     Goblin he thought good, when he could get it;     but he took care they never found him out.     He just throttled them from behind,     if ever they came down alone anywhere near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about.     They seldom did,     for they had a feeling     that something unpleasant was lurking down there,     down at the very roots of the mountain.