how can I know what pronunciation to choose? I would recommend that you use the Open back unrounded vowel for all of those words. I would recommend the same. There is very little to be gained by mastering the subtle distinctions that mark the

fur mee, note the long vowel in the second syllable: fɝr mi

I know new separately is pronounced the same way as gnu . But Merriam-Webster’s pronunciation guide says the following about the pronunciation of new: " in place names usually (ˌ)nu̇ or nə or (ˌ)ni\ " Those would be the same vowels as in

The pronouciation of "the" depends on if it preceeds a vowel or a consonant. You say "thee" in front of vowels and thuh in front of consonants. You never EVER say thuh in front of a vowel sound! So it is: The apple is

AJ Hoge's "effortless english" is a waste of money. I made the mistake of buying it for a friend who doesn't speak much English and she doesn't even use it. I don't blame her because it takes a lot of effort to learn with

It is not a rule you must follow; it is an observation of how most native speakers vary the pronunciation depending on the following sound. If the following sound is a vowel sound, then the pronunciation is usually / ði: /; otherwise, it is / ðə

; it is not cognitively productive to remember pronunciation of 1000's of foreign words. The easy way ...
to give up after a year, as it is very hard to remember pronunciation of 1000's of words

You are witnessing what linguists refer to as 'assimilation', when the pronunciation of a letter is affected by something surrounding it. In this case, /k/ (unvoiced) is the pronunciation we start with, but because the vowel following it

I originally talked about a 'neutral vowel sound', which to the best of my knowledge is only one and occurs where there is an extremely strong reduction. Its symbol is the so-called 'schwa' (an upside down e symbol). There are

Dipsik, Check M-W, Jones and Wells dictionaries, see whether 'seg' in segment does have a reduced vowel. I am not a fan of rule; however, I would like to look for an explanation that accounts many disparate pronunciation phenemona.