In Vowels^x, Phonetics^x

These are four different sounds: /s/ /z/ /S/ /Z/ You heard correctly: derision and vision have the /Z/ sound. mansion and pension have the /S/ sound. The "s" is intervocalic in the first two of these (between vowels); the "s" is between the consonant "n" and the vowel "i" in mansion and...

Wow! Thank you very much, CalifJim! I know scarcely anything about phonetics, and I mean not only theory, but also speaking or understanding spoken English, but by reading your explanation while listening to the pronunciation of the words cited as examples, I think I've been able to identify the...

Tallulah Tam wrote:I feel that Alan Jay Lerner was not so concerned about his own grammar when he wrote the song, he insults the intelligence of the audience by using the word "hung" incorrectly, especially when putting the words into the mouth of Professor Higgins who as I said, should, and...

I understand that vowels in the unstressed syllables are often pronounced /ə/ or /I/ . My question is: how do I know when to use /ə/ and when to use /I/? The vowels in unstressed syllables are collectively referred to as schwas, or simply as schwa. When you see a schwa symbol in...

I've surfed the internet but couldn't find all the rules on S sounding. All I get is the -S ending sounding rules, which I already know. Anyone one? And while we're at it, do you know of an online site with complete lessons on phonetics, with rules on all vowels and consonants?

I'd like to know whether there is a way to know how to divide a word into syllables, other than by practice, by seeing them divided once and again. None of my two dictionaries show these divisions, and in almost every book I read the text is justified in a way that avoids breaking words. So, if...

The appropriate pronunciation of the plural ending depends on how the word ends, phonemically. The rules are as follows: * For words ending with a vowel sound or a voiced consonant sound, the correct pronunciation of the plural ending is /z/ * Words ending with a voiceless consonant sound the...

British English has around 44 sounds (24 Consonants + 7 short vowels + 5 long vowels + 8 diphthongs). I wonder, how many sounds are there in Standard (i.e. ignoring any regional variation) French, German, Spanish, Hindi & Chinese ???Lastly, which language in the world has the least & most...

Su Cheng Zhong wrote:During the long linguistic history, I can only find three models of language. These do not seem to be models of language to me, but instead models of writing systems. Do you really believe that Semitic languages do not need or use vowels? Semitic languages are highly...

In some texts, it was noted that their are 5 (a, e,i,o,u) vowel sounds; whereas, in some texts, in was noted that there are 27 vowel sounds (as in the phonetic chart) . Can you help me to know what they are?