This is an English lesson designed to help you practice and improve your English listening and pronunciation skills. The listening lesson is a short story about something that happened in my life in Canada. There is also a short pronunciation explanation about a word or sound I used in the story.

Story: How I attempted to assemble a chair!
Pronunciation explanation: How to pronounce ‘comfortable’!

If you have trouble with your listening skills, here’s something that may help:
How to practice listening

Listen to the podcast:
*Try to listen at least once without looking at the words!

Download the podcast in .mp3 from Podbean.com or itunes!

Listening Comprehension Questions:

1. Why did I want a chair?

2. Why did I think I could assemble the chair easily?

3. What did I do wrong?

4. Who finally put the chair together properly for me?

Transcript

(*Click on the links to learn more about the grammar, vocabulary and expressions used in the story!)

How hard can it be to assemble a chair?

This summer, I really wanted a nice, comfortable chair to sit in on the back deck – the kind of chair you can fall asleep in. I wanted to enjoy the fresh summer air and beautiful view from the deck. After much searching, I finally found 2 perfect chairs at the home improvement store Lowe’s.

The two chairs (plus cushions) came unassembled in a huge box. A sales associate kindly lifted the box onto a cart for me, so I could wheel it to the cash desk and then out to my car, because there was no way I could carry it. There was also no way that box was going to fit in my little car, so at the cash desk I asked the cashier to cut the box open for me. I took all the pieces out of the box and loaded everything into the trunk and backseat of my car, piece by piece.

I took a look at the instructions to assemble the chair, and they seemed straightforward. I was very confident in my ability to put the chair together. Do you have any furniture from IKEA? Most of the furniture in my bedroom is from IKEA. Their furniture is so easy to assemble and I consider myself a pro at assembling stuff from IKEA.

If I hadn’t been so overly confident and if I had paid more attention to the instructions, I would have realized that I was doing it all wrong. Somehow I managed to put the back of the chair on backwards. I thought it was odd that all the holes were not lining up properly and that some of the screws were very difficult to get in, but I’m quite stubborn and I never once doubted that I could do this properly.

As soon as I sat in the chair, I knew something was wrong because it was so uncomfortable. I had to unscrew the back, turn it around and then try to put it on properly, but I didn’t want to take apart the entire chair. I finally gave up and called my dad. My hands were sore and had scratches all over them because the chair was mostly wicker. My father patiently read the instructions, examined my work, and then proceeded to put the chair together properly.

Now, I have the most comfortable outdoor chairs ever!

Discussion Questions

Do you like to assemble things – like furniture – yourself?

How do you like to relax in the summer?

Let me know in the comments below!

Pronunciation – How to pronounce ‘comfortable’

There are actually 2 different ways to pronounce this word.
You can say … /ˈkʌmpf.tɚ.bəl/ … or …. /ˈkʌmp.fɚ.tə.bəl/

I’ll go through each way syllable by syllable.

The first syllable is stressed in this word. The ‘o’ is pronounced / / /, so the first syllable is pronounced /kʌm/, like in the words …
come
comfort
company
compass

Then you have to move from the voiced /m/ in ‘com’ to the unvoiced /f/ sound, so it almost sounds like there is a /p/ between the sounds. Listen carefully:
/kʌmpf/

Some people, like me, skip the ‘or’ altogether and replace the ‘orta’ with the sound ‘tɚ’
/’ kʌmpf.tɚ/

In this pronunciation, the final syllable ‘ble’ is pronounced /bəl/. It’s an unstressed syllable.

Now put all the syllables together:
/’kʌmpf.tɚ.bəl/

Other people pronounce the second syllable ‘for’ NOT ‘four,’ but with the vowel r sound ‘er’, like in the words …
fur
forget
forbid
forgive
comfort

Although the last syllable looks like the word ‘table,’ both syllables are unstressed, and the two syllables are pronounced:
/təbəl/

This is true for most words that end in –table, for example:
vegetable
acceptable
collectable*
portable
suitable

*’collectable’ is also spelled ‘collectible.’

Now put all the syllables together:
/ˈkʌmp.fɚ.tə.bəl /

So the two different ways to pronounce this word are:
/ˈkʌmpftɚbəl/ … or …. /ˈkʌmp.fɚ.tə.bl/

Vocabulary

to assemble
How hard can it be to assemble a chair?
= to put something together by connect separate pieces

a home improvement store
I finally found 2 perfect chairs at the home improvement store Lowe’s.
= a store that sells everything you need to make repairs to or build something new in or around your house; it sells things like paint, tools, appliances, wood, plants, and outdoor furniture

a sales associate
A sales associate kindly lifted the box onto a cart for me…
= someone who works in a store and whose job it is to sell the store’s products

wicker
…the chair was mostly wicker
= thin strips of wood woven together (to make furniture or baskets)