Towards Better Davening and Torah Reading

Review: T'LISHA G'DOLA and T'LISHA K'TANA
Some call then magnifying glasses, some call them lollipops. They are officially known as: T'LISHA G'DOLA and T'LISHA K'TANA
hereafter referred to as TG and TK. The TG is a "minor" MAFSIK, requiring a (short) pause after the word, before continuing with the next word. The TK is a M'SHAREIT, which links the word to the next word without a pause. TG is always placed on the first letter of the word, pointing backwards, regardless of what letter is accented. TK is always on the last letter, pointing forwards, regardless of what letter in the word is accented. That means that officially, a T'LISHA does not help with accenting, in contrast to most TROP marks that do. Many Chumashim place a second T'LISHA symbol on the accented letter, if it is other than the one that the T'LISHA is on.

B'NEFESH • V'CHIBES
In B'NE-fesh, the TK over the SHIN is the official TROP mark; the additional TK over the NUN marks the accent.
Similarly, in v'chi-BES, the TG over the VAV is the real TROP mark; the additional one over the BET marks the syllable to be accented.
The chant of TG is longer than that of TK, although many amateur BKs (baalei k'ri'a) fail to distinguish between TG and TK. At least the pause should.

For your information, S'FARADIM call TG TALSHA and TK TARSA.

For TEIMANIM (Yemenites), TG is TILSHA YAMIN and TK is TILSHA S'MOL.

Okay, now for a tricky fact about TK followed by KADMA V'AZLA (that's AZLA G'RISH for S'faradim and AZEIL V'ATEI for Teimanim).

Let's take the "regular" situation first. In this week's sedra we find:
V'YIKCHU EILECHA FARA ADUMA TEMIMA
And you shall take to yourself (no pause) a red cow (slight pause), complete (in its redness)... The words with the KADMA V'AZLA (PARA ADUMA) are more connected than the word with the TK (EILECHA). This is what we would expect.

However, sometimes, the word with the TK pulls to itself the word with the KADMA, and the word under the AZLA is slightly more separated from the KADMA word. Example, also from this week's sedra:
B'MEIT B'NEFESH HA'ADAM ASHER YAMUT
B'NEFESH HAADAM is more connected than HAADAM is to ASHER YAMUT. Or this example from Vayeitzei:
VA'YASAR BAYOM HAHU ET HA'TYASHIM
In these situations, which are not uncommon in the Torah, it is extra important not to pause at all after the TK, so that the meaning of the words do not get distorted or changed at worst, or simply come out awkward-sounding at best.
Here's another example, where a pause in the wrong place actually changes the meaning of the pasuk. Parshat Eikev:
V'CHOL MADVEI MITZRAYIM HARA'I,

If this phrase is read: V'CHOL MADVEI (pause) MITZRAYIM HARA'IM... it would mean: and all the maladies of evil Egypt - and even though calling Egypt evil is not off the mark, that is not what the pasuk means. HARA'IM is not modifying Egypt here, it is modifying Egyptian maladies. Here it is MADVEI MITZRAYIM that are bad. It's the old big truck driver - is the driver big or is the truck he drives big? Depends where you pause.
To an amateur BK, a TK invites a pause. Avoid it. KADMA V'AZLA invite keeping the two words together and distinct from neighboring words. Sometimes this is correct; other times it is problematic.
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Rare two SH'VA NACHs in a row. Easy to mispronounce a few different ways. VAYISHB, not VA-YISHP, not VAYISH-B', a B sound, voiced but no vowel sound.

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