As a native Spanish speaker I have a hard time to distinguish the difference between the vowels in * cut * cot * caught Are there any clues on how should I shape my mouth/lips/tongue/vocal chords/whatever to pronounce these vowels correctly? Hola

As a native Spanish speaker I have a hard time to distinguish thedifference between the vowels in * cut * cot * caught Are there any clues on how should I shape my mouth/lips/tongue/vocal chords/whatever to pronounce these vowelscorrectly? Even

As a native Spanish speaker I have a hard time to distinguish the difference between the vowels in * cut * cot * caught Are there any clues on how should I shape my mouth/lips/tongue/vocal chords/whatever to pronounce these vowels correctly?

Let me add one thing more. If any of the vowel sounds from the words mentioned above are made as "o" in dog or fog, they might be intended for some specific effects in specific situations. However, the standard pronunciation of the words remains

As it should be. I really don't want to get involved in Talmudic/ Jesuitic/cacademic hairsplitting but disagree that "im-pol-i-tic" does ... would be "im-pol-litic" or "im-pollitic" rather than

The maximum onsets principle isn't universally accepted. See http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/syllabif.htm which ... /n/ goes in the third syllable because of stress.) Jonathan Who is Wells? Professor of phonetics at University College

Who is Wells? I was taught that a long vowel could end a syllable. According to AHD, the word is divided thusly: hy-phen-a-tion. My pronunciation? ,haI f(@)'neI S@n Cece

In those dialects, then, I'd say that there is a ... from my parents who learned it that way from theirs. BTW, the New York pronunciation of "forehead" is interesting: /fArhEd/ ("far-head"). As in "orange", the

"Syllable" like "word" means whatever we wants it to mean to best suit our prejudices. FWIW, I agree ... breaks according to that, where sense must prevail over sound, so if I had to split it, it'd be

I've now noticed that Agatha Christie also had some strange ideas about how Americans talk. In her The Big Four She has a highly successful and otherwise well-spoken American businessman ... and put them where they should be round the table. I