About the sound bank
Integral to engvocab.com is a sound bank that accompanies the vocabulary items. All you need to do is click on the entry and you can hear the word or phrase spoken by a native English speaker.
This facility gives you invaluable guidance about the correct pronunciation of the most common words used in contemporary English.
The entries are spoken by the author, Ceri Jones, who uses standard spoken English as currently heard in the United Kingdom. Please note that all native speakers of English, be they British or North American, have an idiosyncratic and personal way of speaking.
Where there are minor differences in pronunciation between the United Kingdom and the United States, the version used in the United Kingdom is favoured. For example, "law" (entry 73.6) is pronounced /l
:/ in the United States and /l
:/ in the United Kingdom and the latter is used in this vocabulary. Where there are distinctly different pronunciations (for example, the pronunciation of the letter "z" in the alphabet), both pronunciations are given.
The plural forms of nouns, when these are referred to in the text, are not included on the sound bank.
The time to download the individual sound file for each English word or phrase is usually minimal. This will depend to some extent on the speed of internet access you are using. Delays on broadband should be minimal whereas on dial-up connection some delay may be experienced.
In order to play the sounds you will need to have the Macromedia Flash player installed for your browser. This is available without charge from www.macromedia.com.
You can listen to the first section of the vocabulary free of charge. To hear the complete word list you need to subscribe to the website.
The sound bank will also be available on CD Rom to subscribers through the online shop in the near future.