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Table of contents
  1. Example Passages
    1. Speech-like passages
      1. Speech-Like
    2. Non-speech-like passages
      1. The rainbow passage
      2. The crate passage
      3. Nasality Tests
    3. Weird passages
      1. Turbo Encabulator
    4. Other resources

Example Passages

Here are some things to read! Getting actual conversation practice is important, but sometimes we just want a script to try things out during a practice.

You can benefit from reading any passage you like, but there are some passages that are better at helping us discover potential weakness than others.

Speech-like passages

Speech-like passages are more realistic. These sound closer to something you might say when talking with a friend. They are helpful for testing intonation and other complex qualities of speech.

Speech-Like

  1. Wait so they went anyway? I thought the weather was going to be bad so I cancelled it all on my end. How are they even going to get there aren’t the bridges closed?
  2. Well yes, but also no. I haven’t been there so I don’t know if they still sell it. All I know is they don’t ship internationally unless you pay like, 100 bucks.
  3. What the hell was that!? They just spawnsniped the whole damn team like 5 times in a row all with headshots. This has gotta be hacks.
  4. So I haven’t introduced you two yet have I. I’ll have to invite you both on the weekend, you’ve got tons in common, I reckon you’ll get on great.
  5. Did you ever get that flashlight I told you about? Mine’s so powerful I used it to cook a bit of beef haha. It’s so bright, I think like 4000 lumens or something crazy like that. Gotta make sure you get the right batteries though otherwise they’ll burn it out.
  6. I couldn’t sleep last night… I ended up getting up and having a cup of tea. I don’t know why, I don’t usually have trouble sleeping but for some reason my eyes were just wired open. You ever get that?
  7. Oh my god the dinner last night was so amazing! You had the tacos too right? That sauce on it was incredible I just want like 100 liters of the stuff so I can put it on everything.

Non-speech-like passages

These are read somewhat like a script, and as such are less speechlike.

The rainbow passage

This passage is very common and useful for starting out. It’s a good example of a passage that can be read both as speech and as a script.

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The crate passage

The phrases in this passage are shorter, which can help when trying small modifications many times.

  • Open the crate but don’t break the glass.
  • Oak is strong and also gives shade.
  • Cats and dogs each hate the other.
  • The pipe began to rust while new.
  • Add the sum to the product of these three.
  • The ripe taste of cheese improves with age.
  • Act on these orders with great speed.
  • The hog crawled under the high fence.
  • Move the vat over the hot fire.

Nasality Tests

We can use these to test nasality. If we block the nose by pinching it and read the non-nasal passages, it should sound exactly the same as if we didn’t block the nose.

Non-nasal:

  • Please take these glasses with the plates to be washed below the tap.
  • The sea was as rough as it was dark.
  • The lights of the city glowed brightly below us.
  • You could be surprised at that aspect of his character.

Nasal:

  • The wind blew strongly and bent trees over in a show of staggering natural strength.
  • Many, but not all plants, flower in spring.
  • She longed to dance beneath the moonlight.
  • Finding nothing in front they muttered to themselves about something inane.

Weird passages

These passages are fun, confusing, or just plain weird. You can use these if you’d like to spice up your practices!

Turbo Encabulator

Source

For a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such an instrument is the turbo encabulator.

Now basically the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance.

The original machine had a base plate of pre-famulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented.

The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters.

The turbo-encabulator has now reached a high level of development, and it’s being successfully used in the operation of novertrunnions. Moreover, whenever a forescent skor motion is required, it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm, to reduce sinusoidal repleneration.

Other resources