In Vowels^x, American English^x

I don't think it's called intonation. It's allophonic vowel length: vowel phonemes are realized as longer vowel allophones before voiced consonant phonemes in the coda of a syllable. This is found in all dialects of American English. Some American dialects have some phonemic vowel distinctions...

Hwat for what is the original pronunciation and was the only form used in Middle English. In Modern English, many dialects lost the wine-whine distinction, and began pronouncing words spelled "wh" as simply "w", rather thn "hw". The original, conservative form is still around, and is considered...

Dear Cyndi:You have actually asked two questions in your posting: (1) Is the letter w a vowel? and (2) For how long have schools been teaching that the letter w is a vowel?Regarding (1), the answer is that w can be both a vowel and a consonant.Regarding (2), at least since 1861 in the United...

I think you would do well to listen to the words below at www.m-w.com to learn the pronunciation of the six R-colored vowels of American English. deer moorcare fur core tar These are the vowel-plus-R sounds used by most Americans. There are a few others...

Some people will even get a sort of neutral accent that has all of the unusual parts removed. The Western US accent was actually formed like that, because speakers from the North, Midlands, and South, all moved to the West, and their accents intermingled and the Western accent was sort of a...

General Canadian English is extremely similar to General American English. However, there are a number of differences between the two dialects. Firstly, GCE (General Canadian English) exhibits a linguistic phenomenon called Canadian Raising. Basically, the diphthong “ai”--as in "by" or "lie"--is...

/ɛ/ and /e/ (or /eI/ or other variations depending on dialect and position), generally contrast. Bet /bɛt/ and bait /bet/ are distinguished. However, before certain consonants such as /r\/, the distinction between tense and lax vowels is neutralized. Therefore any tense or lax vowel before...

>> PLAY - I always say /plei/, but here you can hear /plɛi/ > BEAR - I always say /ber/, but here you can hear /bɛr/ << According to Wikipedia, before /r\/, in American English " however--but that affects all my /E/'s.

most speakers of General American English, use a vowel closer to Why shouldn't a student use the pronunciation given in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary? (#3). CJ

Kooyeen, there is something that you should know. While it is true that North American English has tense-lax neutralization before /r\/, thus , so why did you decided to switch to #3 instead of #3? Btw, since you do have a Western accent, and many Westerners have the CVS, and those that don't...