...in Japanese and Chinese there are a lot of words which...

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Jackson6612  #425160  Sat, 29 Sep 07 02:56 PM

There are certain English words which have to be pronounced differently depending on their function. If ''use'' is used as a noun, then it will be pronounced as ''u-ce'' where ''-ce'' sounds as in juice. On the other hand if ''use'' is used as a verb, then it will be pronounced as ''u-zed'' where ''-zed'' sounds as in oozed. Fortunately there are few words of this type in English language.

Once someone told me in Japanese and Chinese there are a lot of words which are pronounced differently to mean different things. This is in contrast with the different pronunciation of the same word in English language, where different pronunciations merely signify different function of the word. Am I correct?

  
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Philip  #425188  Sat, 29 Sep 07 04:42 PM
 Jackson6612 wrote:

There are certain English words which have to be pronounced differently depending on their function. If ''use'' is used as a noun, then it will be pronounced as ''u-ce'' where ''-ce'' sounds as in juice. On the other hand if ''use'' is used as a verb, then it will be pronounced as ''u-zed'' where ''-zed'' sounds as in oozed. Fortunately there are few words of this type in English language.

Once someone told me in Japanese and Chinese there are a lot of words which are pronounced differently to mean different things. This is in contrast with the different pronunciation of the same word in English language, where different pronunciations merely signify different function of the word. Am I correct?

You may be alluding to the tonal aspect of Chinese and several other lanugages in the world.  The inflection (up, down, straight, up-and-down, down-and-up) produces quite different meanings altogether.  I believe the only New World tonal language is Navaho.

I can't right off the bat think of words in English that actually change meaning by the difference in pronunciation.  That doesn't mean there aren't any, of course.

  
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