Search results for 'tag:British English tag:Phonetics' matching tags 'British English' and 'Phonetics'

A dictionary

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:34:17 GMT

ãThis dictionary tells you about English words and how to use them in reading, writing and speaking English. It not only gives the meaning of words, it can also help you with spelling, word building, grammar and pronunciation.

ããTo use your dictionary correctly, you need to understand how the dictionary works. At the front of the book, you will find some exercises to help you make the most use of your dictionary.

ããIf you look up the word âcolourâ, you will find two spellings for this word. âColourâ is used in British English, while âcolorâ is used in American English. When such a thing happens, the dictionary shows it with the word âBrEâ for British English and âAmEâ for American English.

ããThe dictionay also helps you pronounce words correctly. It uses a special alphabet to show pronunciation. If you turn to the inside back face, you will see all the phonetic letters with some words to show you how they are pronounced. Just have a look this page when youâre not sure how to say a word.

ããThe most important reason for using a dictionary is to find out the meaning of a wordâits DEFINITION.

ããIn this dictionary, the definitions have been written using only 2000 words. This means that the definitions of even the most difficult words are simply explained and easy to understand.
ããWhen a word has more than one meaning, read all the meanings until you find the one that correctly tells the use of the word you are looking for

Re: standard pronunciation of American or British English?

Privateenglishportal — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:39:35 GMT

Hi,

It has been my experience that students become lost when consulting dictionaries with regard to phonetic symbols as many times each one uses different phonetic symbols. This has caused much grief and I just tell my online students to stay away from it and try to spell the pronunciation out in English.

Example:

worked ( t)

played (d)

motivated (id)

Now this does become more complicated with vowel sounds and vowel sound combinations(dipthongs), but be creative!!!!!!

e.g. 'about' ( the ' ou ' is just the same as saying cow or now)

If you intend to teach English or linguistics, then by all means please continue with the phonetics. If not, save yourself some time.

Regards,

Steve Ford

Online English Teacher

Private English Portal

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Marvin A. — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:55:37 GMT

and an ignorant American would look at British and pronounce practise (Br. spelling) like practize....

Highly unlikely.

Americans on the other hand, have been butchering it for centuries and should not be consulted when learning this language. It is, after all, English and not American.

Rubbish. North American English is in many ways much closer to Elizabethan English than British English, Australian English and New Zealand English.

Anonymous Australian.

Well, we could say that Australian English speakers are "butchering the language": for one thing, most of you have forgotten how to prononounce your r's; your vowels are quite different earlier forms of English, and your vocabulary has shifted quite a bit.

It is, after all, English and not American.

Well, it's not Australian either.

so it is logical that the more words one knows, the more thoughts one can have.

How is that logical? Other languages can also be quite expressive. Just because English "has" over a million words, you have to realize that many are simply restricted to medicine; others are not in common use and would be quite incomprehensible to most people. Just by possessing a copious amount of words (many of these so called "English words" are hardly native words, and are not understood by many people), doesn't mean that English is more expressive than other languages in all respects.

It (the spelling) was fixed 400 years ago

Yes, for the most part. But what I don't understand, is if someone wants to simply be able to speak English (and doesn't care about reading and writing), why don't they simply use a phonetic alphabet when learning English.

though I'm convinced once upon a time it really was pronounced "kuh-ni-git"

Actually in Old and Middle English, the "k" was pronounced (but there was no "uh" after it), and the "g" was pronounced like in the word "Loch" if you put on a Scottish accent.

Or meaby something from German: einhundertfunfundzwazig (125) - this is correct spelling, there shouldn't be any spaces!!!

Well, it's easy enough to break down, and is hardly harder than onehundredtwentyfive.

You say its easy, and yet you write 'learned' instead of 'learnt' - a classic example.

"learned" and "learnt" tend to be pretty well interchangeable.

Re: son vs. sun

Conchita57 — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:21:17 GMT

Marvin A. wrote:
>> Let me just add that, in standard British English, the pronunciation of both words is [sÊn], rather than [sÉn]. <<

I believe that in many dictionaries, the symbol <É> can represent both IPA /Ê/ and /É/, because dictionaries tend to use different phonetic alphabets.

Which makes it all the more confusing for students (and is, be it said in passing, a real pain in the neck for teachers!). Incomprehensibly enough, Merriam-Webster Unabridged, for example, uses the symbol '&' both for 'Ê' and 'É'!

Really, learners have to face enough hurdles as it is without each dictionary coming up with its own particular brand of symbols.

Re: son vs. sun

Marvin A. — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:01:25 GMT

>> Let me just add that, in standard British English, the pronunciation of both words is [sÊn], rather than [sÉn]. <<

I believe that in many dictionaries, the symbol <É> can represent both IPA /Ê/ and /É/, because dictionaries tend to use different phonetic alphabets.

Re: Cote D'livore

Conchita57 — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:08:17 GMT

Marvin A. wrote:
>> Now, said with a Southern French accent, it becomes [cot] <<
>> The sound I meant is [o:] as in RP or Standard British English. <<

Now you're really confusing me. Are you using IPA, or similar system for transcription? The letter "c" in the IPA, X-SAMPA, and Kirshenbaum transcription systems is a voiceless palatal plosive, that is only found in Hungarian. The letter "o" in IPA is the "o" sound in the word "coat" in North Central dialects of NAE--most dialects of England English use a diphthong for the "o" sound. The vowel that is used to transcribe the "au" in "caught" in RP is not /o:/, but is /ÉË/, the long open-mid back rounded vowel.

[cot] (I'm assuming /kot/), would be how someone from Minnesota pronounces the word "coat". It is not how an RP speaker pronounces the word "cot".

The [ ] and / / marks represent IPA or X-SAMPA transcription.

I would pronounce "cote d'ivoire" as /kot divwA/.

Except for the , which should indeed be a , Iâm using the phonetic symbols Iâve used all my life, as I learnt them 35 years ago from the Oxford Progressive English Course, by A. S. Hornby (EFL/ESL coursebooks have come a long way since then!). If you replace my âoâ in and [o:] with [ ] and [ÉË], it should be less confusing for you.

The French âoâ in âCÃ´teâ isnât a diphthong â it rhymes with âcaughtâ in RP. The ProvenÃ§als, however, say it as âcotâ in RP.

Re: Speaking Teaching Books

Kooyeen — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:06:40 GMT

Hi,
yes, there are books that deal with stress, intonation, and pronunciation.

I've read "American Accent Training" by Ann Cook. There's really a lot of stuff in that book (and on the 5 CDs). I haven't tried any other books anyway, so I can only tell you about that one. It treats American English, not British English or any other variety. Generally speaking, it's a really good book and I would recommend it.
Some points (just my opinion):

She (Ann Cook) makes you notice almost all the features of English that you've never noticed (stress, intonation, liaisons, word reductions, contractions, vowels, tapped t... )
Five CDs for audio lessons (she reads most of what's in the book, so you can listen while reading). Plus, she speaks very clearly.
She said you will learn standard American English, but in my opinion her accent is not standard, I guess it could be Californian (not sure though, I could be totally wrong). Plus, the book doesn't consider the difference in pronunciation between "cot" and "caught", so the variety taught has the cot-caught merger.
There's some confusing stuff in the book, learners should be careful. She sometimes tells you to do something he doesn't always do, and sometimes phonetic transcriptions don't match what she says.
Exercises are sometimes boring, but that's normal, isn't it? Some parts and some exercises are really silly and not useful at all, in my opinion.
The book is not for basic learners, IMO (but I see you can already write good English, so don't worry).

Conclusion: even if it's not perfect (nothing is perfect in the world), I learned almost everything I wanted to know and I was amazed how many features I'd never noticed. My result: "comprehension +80%", more or less (which means that after the course I could understand almost double what I understood before, in speech).

Here's some stuff from Ann Cook's book, on a unofficial website (it's not Cook the one who speaks here)
http://www.5minuteenglish.com/pronunciation.htm

This is the official website:
http://www.americanaccent.com/

Best wishes

Re: phonetic transcribing (British English)

Lil' Ruby Rose — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 17:02:09 GMT

Richard24545730 wrote:

It had been a hot summer and I was expected a bumper crop...

Should be "I was expecting"?

Re: phonetic transcribing (British English)

Lil' Ruby Rose — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:56:21 GMT

Iâm a native British speaker. I would tend to transcribe the same vowel in âtrainâ and âdangerâ â [eÄ±], and would also use this for [gÉ¹ eÄ±Ê] and [l eÄ±Ê]; âmissingâ would finish with [Å] unless youâre aiming for a strong London accent, and pity would have a [t ] rather than the American tap [É¾].

In my accent, which Southern British Standard, the initial /t/ of train is not affricated â typically the ârâ is quite retracted, but if there's anything fricative-like there it's more [t^s]. Also, in connected speech many of the word final âtâs would be unreleased rather than glottal stops except for a strong London accent.

I would transcribe ânewâ as [n^ju:] or [nÅ©:] unless, again, itâs a strong London or Estuary accent, in which case [nu:] would seem right. In my accent, I hear [wÊz] or [wÉz] for âwasâ unless itâs the nucleus, in which case, I would say [wÉz].

Others may differ?

Edited to get rid of a phone icon that appeared in place of [t ]!

Re: phonetic transcribing (British English)

Marvin A. — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 05:17:26 GMT

I would recommend clicking on it and saving to disk so you can see it better.