Laura Rupp
I am a Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. My research is in grammatical variation and change. I teach courses in Global English and English pronunciation.
Location Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Activity
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Laura Rupp replied to Rajesh Shrivastava
Let's work in it together Rajesh Shrivastava!
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Laura Rupp replied to simona borsani
That is great Simona Borsani. We hope that you will continue enjoying the course.
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Laura Rupp replied to Claude Claude
Claude Claude, you made me laugh :-) You show awareness of things that are difficult for you, which is a great start! All of them are addressed in Weeks 2-4; we hope that it will be helpful.
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Laura Rupp replied to reza malakoutikhah
Very well said, Reza Malakoutikhah.
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Laura Rupp replied to Gessie Rolland
That is very nicely said, Gessie Roland.
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Laura Rupp replied to nestor almada
I admire you three for it! While this is an online course, we hope that you will be able to communicate with other learners.
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Laura Rupp replied to Abdul-Bari Mohammed
Dear Abdul-Bari Mohammed, we will try to help you achieve your goals!
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I think that is well said.
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Dear Giovanny Campos Chaviarria, we hope that we can help you overcome some of your fear and not crash with the wall!
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Laura Rupp replied to Amour Nona
We hope that we can help you overcome you fear a little, Amour Nona.
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Laura Rupp replied to Pawar POPAT
Of course that is a perfectly good aim, Pawar P.J. We all have particular aims.
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Laura Rupp replied to Reema Bhagat
We hope that we can help you further develop your pronunciation skills, Reema Bhagat.
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Laura Rupp replied to NAVEED ASGHAR
@NAVEEDASGHAR Thank you! We hope that you will continue enjoying it.
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Laura Rupp replied to Nasche Yoosuf
We are looking forward to learning with you, Nasche Yoosuf.
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Laura Rupp replied to Cruz Castillo
That is a good analysis, Cruz Castillo. I hope that you will find Week 2 on vowel sounds in English useful.
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Laura Rupp replied to Nushaba Abdullayeva
Thank you for joining Nushaba Abdullayeva!
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Laura Rupp replied to Sandra Espindola
Thank you for joining, Sandra!
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Laura Rupp replied to Ko Ko Aung
Dear Ko Ko Aung, we will try to help you avoid them. Could you give an example of a communication breakdown that you have faced?
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Dear Jose Silva, we will try to help you become more confident.
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Laura Rupp replied to Jusu Bafalie
Dear Just Bafalie, we will try to help you improve.
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Laura Rupp replied to Mahmoud Muhammed
Dear Mahmoud Muhammed, that is well said. We will try to help you improve your pronunciation skills.
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Laura Rupp replied to krishna priya
@krishnapriya and Alberto Moragon, we will hope that you will feel more confident by the end of the course.
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Dear Leidy Johana Celis Pinzo, it is a shame that you should feel nervous. We will try to help you feel more confident.
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Laura Rupp replied to Geidys Villalaz
Dear Geidys Villalaz, we will try and help you achieve that! Could you give a concrete example of their understanding and your not understanding?
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Laura Rupp replied to Lucas Pontoriero
We will try to help you achieve that, Lucas!
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Laura Rupp replied to Claude Claude
Dear Claude, can you give me an example of what in your pronunciation they do not understand? (a concrete example of a word, for instance).
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Laura Rupp replied to Yuliana G
:-) step-by-step; this applies to educators also ...
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Laura Rupp replied to Ashish Kalas
That is perfectly fine, Asish, you can work on British English accent features in the course.
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Laura Rupp replied to Mikaela Mesquita
@MikaelaMesquita I agree that it might be useful to be able to speak with different accents, suited for particular occassions.
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Laura Rupp replied to Katrin Lichterfeld
Thank you for your comment, Katrin. This is very true.
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Laura Rupp replied to Nadine L.
I perfectly agree, a teaching model along these lines still needs to be worked out more fully.
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Laura Rupp replied to Daniel A
Point taken
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Laura Rupp replied to Ghiath Ghanem
Wow Ghiath, I admire you. That is very complicated. I like your analysis that you might end up speaking English with a Dutch accent!
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Laura Rupp replied to Muhammad Arshad
You formulated it in a beautiful way, Muhammed.
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Laura Rupp replied to María José Bosque
I very much like the way in which you have phrased it, Maria.
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Laura Rupp replied to Gabriella Colombo
Dear Gabriella, you have put it in a beautiful way! I couldn't have expressed it any better.
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Laura Rupp replied to mariam kamal
@mariamkamal What is 'to be good' at English pronunciation? Is it to speak English like a native speaker? This is one view, but another is to speak English in such a way that it enables you to communicate with and understand other speakers of English. It is a different concept of advancedness. Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that people may be assessed on...
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Dear Giovanny, thank you for your comment. I hope that the course will help you develop your pronunciation skills.
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Nice analysis
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Dear Maryalice, part of the course, indeed, aims to help us understand features of each other's accents.
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You said it well, Ying Tung Fung!
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Dear Claude, I agree that pronunciation isn't always funny? Can you say why you think that the video wasn't funny?
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Dear Simona, that is a very good question. There certainly is a sort of 'standard English', for example the English that is taught in schools. Since English is used in communication all over the world, linguists have started debating if that standard English should continue to be native (British or American) English, or what other form could function as a...
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What is that message, Akila?
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Dear Dayana, thank you for sharing! We hope that the course will help you this!
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@FernandaCorazziFonseca That is certainly true, Fernanda. Pronunciation is one aspect and this is what the course is focussing on.
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Dear Isabel, I think it is important that we speak a kind of English that suits us an is appropriate for our purposes (e.g. understandable communication with other speakers of English).
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Good point!
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That is a really nice analysis, Javi.
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The course also aims to help you understand the features of other English accents.
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Dear Benzeghiba, we hope that the course will help you develop your pronunciation and understanding! As you saw from Fiona's comment, other speakers may feel the same. In a world where many speakers are using English, we should try to accommodate to one another.
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You said it well, Marco.
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That is a very good point, Maria, and the answer is that we don't know. It is important that we keep some 'benchmark, even if it is not necessarily standard native English.
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Very true, Yuliana!
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@VeroBertorello Thank you, that is is interesting. Week 2 of the course is about vowels. See if you can figure out from the discussion about vowels why it is that people may not understand you, and let me know if you were ale to work it out or not. I think the matter regarding your name may (also) have to do with different stress patterns that obtain in...
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Dear Pawar P.J. That is interesting. Could you give a concrete example of what it is in your and their pronunciation that makes it difficult to understand one another?
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Dear Osama, thank you for sharing! I hope that this course will contribute to your overcoming your fears.
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Dear Claudia, could you give me a concrete example of what made it difficult for you to understand what he was saying? I totally agree with you that language variation should be part of the curriculum.
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Dear Nasche, that is interesting. Could you give me an example of what people might not understand in your English pronunciation?
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That is great, Alexsandrios. If you could provide me with some real life examples from your profession, I would appreciate it..
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Dear Mesyia, we hope that the course will help you achieve just that!
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Dear Agnese, thank you for your insightful comment. We hope that the course will both help you improve you intelligibility and understand other accents.
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Dear Cruz, thank you for your insightful comment. We hope that the course will help you improve your English pronunciation.
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Dear Habibou, thank you for your comment! We hope that the course will help you improve your English pronunciation.
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Dear Sandra, thank you for your comment! We hope that the course will help you improve your English pronunciation.
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Dear Gonna, thank you for your comment! I agree that we need to practice a lot when speaking a foreign language but I also think that we can have a personal accent that is understandable.
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@DiptiTrivedi Thank you, Dipti, I hope this course will help you achieve your goals.
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Dear Yosra, we will try to help you improve your pronunciation. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise. I agree that pronunciation matters can have a great impact on learners.
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Thank you, Rosane! We hope that it will live up to your expectations. Please give us feedback on components that you think could be improved/are missing etc.
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@JudithJürgens I think that RP has been losing its status as a benchmark. Linguists are working hard on proposing an alternative. But what might it be? Mutual understanding has been proposed as an alternative; however, as you are suggesting, it may depend on a number of factors as to whether or not misunderstandings arise; for example, context, the first...
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@FionaJones The course also aims to provide insight into features of accents of English that are different than our own. I hope this will help further your understanding.
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Dear Veronica, that is great. It is interesting that you're saying that in Spanish-speaking countries, people have no problem understanding one another. We will help you develop your English pronunciation. Could you give an example of what people may not understand when you speak English?
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Good analysis.
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And that is perfectly alright.
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Dear Carlos, that is great. We will help you try to improve your pronunciation in the next few weeks. You're saying that sometimes they can't understand what you are saying - could you give an example?
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Thanks Philip, I appreciate your comments and feedback.
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I think you very right Maria. Therefore we should develop our pronunciation up to a level that we can feel confident, whilst maintaining personal accent features that are part of who we are.
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In the following weeks we will help you develop your pronunciation skills the best we can!
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Dear Saddam, speaking English as a native language will actually be difficult, for all non-native speakers, but we will help you developing your pronunciation skills the best we can!
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@LuziaMorgato I also hope that you will in the next few weeks!
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@GabriellaColombo You already had some encouraging comments from Philip I see. I agree that English accents can lead to situations that actually aren't funny at all. We will help you to improve your pronunciation skills. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise.
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Dear Margarita, you shouldn't feel embarrassed about your accent because our accent is part of who we are. However, we will help you improve your pronunciation skills. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise.
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Dear Uche, we will help you to improve your pronunciation skills. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise. See how it goes!
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A good analysis.
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Dear Elhadi, will help you to develop your pronunciation skills. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise.
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I am sure that it sounds nice, Martin!
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We explained this in other activities in this week: intelligibility, comprehensibility and speaking with an accent that suits your identity.
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Hello Justus, I am certain that you Kenyan accent is very nice, but in the following weeks we will of course help you in areas where it leads to misunderstanding.
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Yes, or even non-native varieties of English, like Ghanaian English?
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We also hope that it will help you, Mariana!
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@gaylen Could you give an example of such a misunderstanding?
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Dear Paula, we will help you to improve your pronunciation skills. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise.
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Dear Madhavi, we will help you to improve your pronunciation. In the following weeks there will be many opportunities to practise.
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@FaisalGull You are right that the text was unclear on this point. I have now added the following passage:
These lists will be presented in Week 2 (Vowels), Week 3 (Consonants) and Week 4 (Suprasegmental features) of the course. Depending on your accent and your individual needs, you can select a number of these features in your pronunciation goals as we... -
@HungNingling we will help you working on these goals.
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That is really interesting and a good illustration of the way in which the use of English is developing @CristinaBustos
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And as for African American Vernacular English (AAVE), the South of the U.S., where AAVE originates (for the reasons we all know), has - interestingly - traditionally been non-rhotic. This is, indeed, also true of the Northeast, where, it has been argued, settlers held the strongest relations with the homeland.
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Dear Philp and Alonso,
You’re showing very advanced thinking …
You are right that, like the United States, Australia/New Zealand had large groups of settlers from Ireland and Scotland. In both the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand, a so-called situation of koineization or ‘dialect mixing’ obtained between speakers speaking different dialects. The outcome...
