ESL (English as a Second Language) question - looking for a poem that includes all letters, but especially sounds of the English language?

I came across this one here when I was trying to find something that might cover that that aweful “gh” issue in English, as in “daughter” v.s. “laughter.” Is it the kind of thing you’re looking for? Or is it too much?

Poem of English Pronunciation

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhymes with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation—think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!

Gerard Nolst Trenité

Some good ones here.

I don’t think this question is about English spelling at all, is it? Am I misunderstanding? I don’t think it’s asking all the ways to spell a sound or all the ways to pronounce a letter, but rather (a) all the letters of English spelling (that’s easy—we know the 26 of them) and (b) all the sounds of English speech, quite a different matter altogether. I don’t know how many there are, but I’d be amazed if they can all be found in any one poem.

By “special sounds” I am thinking you mean not only diphthongs—for example, ch, sh, and th—but all the vowel sounds (regardless of spelling). The sound /uf/ is just the sound /uf/, whether it’s written ough or uf or uff or uph or any other way, and counts as just one sound, right?

@Jeruba Perhaps our dear Zen should step in and clarify. While I see your point and I do remember learning the sounds of various letters and letter combinations as you describe, presenting them in that way, out of the context of the words in which they appear, in a poem, would make for one god awful poem, in my opinion, as you allude to in your answer. So what does Zen really want? He needs to make an appearance here, I think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/
If you re trying to teach letter sounds try alphablocks it is very good for children. Not a poem I am afraid but very good ;) Think you can get them on you tube too
Look at the fox episode that has the quick brown fox jumps.over the lazy dog (all LETTERS) of the alphabet as a song!

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.

@sakura Actually that would’ve been helpful but alas, it’s not available in my area – like many things on the web. I cannot access them.

I am looking for ideas as much as anything else. I loved Lilly’s poem – very helpful. Jeruba is correct in her assessment.

It’s very difficult to teach ESL to children – and come up with a curriculum, which is what I am attempting. For the special sounds in English, which do not occur in Hebrew at all (Sir, Ball) – I was looking for a children’t poem or rhyme that has these and all sounds in English.

I was thinking it might exist – a simple poem that can be memorized – and once pronounced correctly, know that one has succeeded in pronouncing all the sounds in English.

Help me out here, guys.

Zen is talking about Engligh Phonology

This is a complicated subject and not condusive to being described in one simple (or, for that matter, one complicated) poem.

Like all students learning a foreign language (I have both learned and taught same), the ESL kids will pick this up gradually and specifically.

Lily’s poem is wonderful, but if I were studying a foreign language,say Hebrew or Greek, and my teacher presented me with that poem and suggested I memorize it, I would be overwhelmed. and probably switch to a class in organic gardening or auto mechanics.

@zensky; Perhaps have your advanced students learn two lines at a time; it would make a very tidy lesson plan.

Or the tried and true way;

Sir, burr, whirr, stir, cur, blur, occur, fur, fir, grrr, her, murmur, purr, shirr, turn, urn, fern.

I taught (*thought, fraught, bought, caught, wrought, naught) ESL to a wonderful woman from Bellorussia. We used French as our lingua franca.

Just now, I had to check the spelling of all of my ought, aught words. They all started to look strange.

Good for you. It is a wonderful thing to teach.

@gailcalled In looking at some of the poems on the page I linked, I noticed that it’s very hard to read words that look alike, but sound different… I agree that it is probably much harder to learn a poem of that nature than the strings of homophones with different spellings that you listed above. It’s an interesting subject. :)

simple nuresry rhymes do have sounds in that are useful….
twinkle twinkle little star
humpty dumpty
jack and jill
lots of double letters and different sounds xx
can you not get You Tube? there are defo episodes on that.

I have some resources at work if you are teaching english to children, I will dig them out at work tomorrow and send some suggestions xx

@sakura Yes, nursery rhymes and songs are used. But I was hoping to fid one that had all the sounds in it.

I can access Youtube, but prefer to teach old school – with a guitar. They can access the internet on their own free time.