Q1.
Your teacher will say aloud the following words. Listen carefully and repeat after the teacher.
cushion ration fashion tension
mention attention nation vocation
Answer
All eight words end with the very same sound — “shun”. They are spelt in three different ways, but your mouth does exactly the same thing at the end of each one.
| Word | Say it like this | The ending is spelt | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| cushion | CUSH – un | –shion | A soft pad you sit on or lean against. |
| ration | RA – shun | –tion | A fixed share of food given out to each family. |
| fashion | FA – shun | –shion | The way of dressing that is popular just now. |
| tension | TEN – shun | –sion | A worried, tight feeling. |
| mention | MEN – shun | –tion | To speak of something briefly. |
| attention | a – TEN – shun | –tion | Careful looking and listening. |
| nation | NAY – shun | –tion | A country and its people. |
| vocation | vo – KAY – shun | –tion | The work a person does. This is our chapter’s own word. |
The sound rule: In English the letters –tion, –sion and –shion nearly always say the same thing: “shun”. So nation is not “na-tion” with a hard t. It is “NAY-shun”. Once you know this, you can say hundreds of new words correctly the first time you meet them — station, action, question, decision, direction.
Where the beat falls: The “shun” part is never the loud part. The loud beat comes just before it — NA-tion, MEN-tion, FA-shion, at-TEN-tion, vo-CA-tion. Tap the desk on the loud beat as you say each word.
Practise like this: Say the eight words down the list. Then say them again, but say only the ending — “shun, shun, shun …” — and notice that your lips and tongue do not change at all. Then put the beginnings back on.