Search results for 'tag:Difference between tag:Accents' matching tags 'Difference between' and 'Accents'

Re: How do you pronounce words like 'resources' and 'prices'?

MissMandy — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:11:57 GMT

I think you're right on, Kooyeen. And thanks for the reply. I am a stickler in my pronunciation classes that students learn to say the -s (and -ed) endings correctly. Even though I do this, I know that native English speaking Americans rarely say that voiced endings as perfectly voiced, yet it doesn't sound like the unvoiced counterpart sound (s sound and t sound, for these endings).

I knew we said the vowel differently depending on the consonant that follows, but I didn't realize it was also changing the perception of the consonant as well. I think I will also pay attention to how my students are producing the vowels before the final consonant sound.

Back to the original question, it must be correct, then, to point out that the schwa sound in the final syllable of "prices" and "resources" needs to be prominent enough to make the final z sound be perceived as a z sound, even if it ends up being unvoiced. Otherwise, it will sound like an s sound, which native English speakers can tell the difference between. It wouldn't cause a miscommunication to say it as an s sound, it is just telling of a foreign accent.

~Miss Mandy

Re: Mimicking an actor's accent

Kooyeen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:27:59 GMT

Hi,
yes, I remember you asked about him. I'm not an expert at all, but I can tell you my opinion, as a learner.
I agree it's a good accent for those who are interested in British English. I don't find any annoying features in his accent (=features I don't like). It doesn't sound posh to me, his intonation seems to be normal and not exaggerated like in annoying posh accents.

3:54 - That is strange, yes. <-- Tapped T in "that is". I don't know how many accents have this feature and to what extent because I don't really know enough about British English.
3:57 - Yeah, that's a little weird <-- Glottal stops in "little". But they are not everywhere... either he's changing hir accent while he speaks, or those glottal stops are only found in certain special cases in his accent.
He doesn't release final T's. - Notice the difference between his final consonants and the hosts' ones, especially the woman's (the hosts sound like they overpronounce final consonants to me, since I'm mainly used to American English).

Just my non-native opinion, though. I don't know how difficult it is for a learner to pick up such an accent, because I don't know how widespread those kinds of accents are in the UK and in the media in general. Good luck.

Some questions to ask

Belly — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:02:03 GMT

I want to ask 2 questions about pronunciation first:

1) Do Americans say /use-d/ or /use-t/ in used to?

2) I saw Ann Cook wrote this in American Accent course:

If the first consonant is voiced, the next one will be as well. If the first one is unvoiced, the second one will sound unvoiced, no matter what you do.

Then she gave out examples:

After a voiced sound: He had to do it /he hae (d) d' du(w)'t/

After an unvoiced sound: he got to do it / he ga(t)d' du(w)'t/

a)(note that the words in bracket (d) (t) (w) are small and stand upper to others, I wonder whether we pronounced them)

b) How do those examples support the cause she gave, but I've seen no reason why. After t( unvoiced), we still pronounce: 'd, and so does after (d), so what's the difference?

3)What is the difference between rate and incidence?

4) "Lifting bar bell helps your pectorals expand" or ""Lifting bar bells helps your pectorals expand"

Re: that that

Kooyeen — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:53:49 GMT

Well, I usually hear it that way, and Ann Cook in American Accent training told me to do so, so I think I'll go on pronouncing them that way. I could upload the short audio examples she uses to teach the difference between those two kinds of "that", but I don't feel like it now. If you are interested or curious I might post them in the pronunciation section one day...

Re: Have a question about British accent.

nona the brit — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:34:27 GMT

In the same way that I (and many others) cannot tell the difference between American and Canadian accents. I know it drives the Canadians bonkers! It is obvious when you are local to that part of the world but difficult for others. I also cannot tell the difference between Australian and New Zealand accents. Again, it's probably totally obvious to locals but to others, the similarities are more striking than any differences.

Re: The difference between progress and to progress

Grammar Geek — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:48:09 GMT

The noun, in the first sentence, has the accent on the first syllable. PRAW-gress. (American pronunciation)

The verb, in the second sentence, has the accent on the second syllable. pruh-GRESS. (Also American)

Did you mean pronunciation, or did you mean something else?

Re: I WANT A SCOTTISH ACCENT

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:47:20 GMT

Scottish accents are nice, but Glasgow accents are horrific!!! I personaly blame Glasgow for other countries mocking the Scottish accent. All of Scotlands popular media has come from Glasgow so people in other countries come to recognise the Glasgow accent as being the Scottish accent, which of course it is not. Glasgow accents make me want to kill myself, especially the nasal ones that neds speak with and the deep rough Glasgow accent of some over weight mother shouting at the kids.

I was born in the Highlands near Inverness and i can tell you that Glaswegians can have a very nasty sarcasm towards other people they hear are not from Glasgow. I hate Glasgow, the city its self is a dump, a horrible dark place with reminders of industrial decline and poverty just about everywhere you look. Only in Glasgow do people still call themselves "Socialists" and treat anyone who has made a good living for themselves like ***. Glasgow is the home of sectarianism hardly seen else where in Scotland so it annoys me when the politicians call it Scotlands shame, when in fact it is Glasgows shame. Glasgow is beyond repair, i would just demolish the city entirely and start again. Glasgow has nothing going for it, it is the poorest city in western Europe, it rains every bloody day and the people are so glum. Did you know Edinburgh has the same annual rain fall as Rome??? Amazing isnt it, the difference between the west and east coast. The west is miserable, dark, wet and windy, the east is brighter, dryer and richer.

Glasgow accents make me vomit just like Birmingham accents and Cockney hard man accents. They Cockneys think they sound hard, but they sound laughable and people do laugh. If some Cockney thug in a leather jacket came up and threatened you, you would just laugh, put on a deep Scottish or Irish accent then watch him back off.

Re: How's and House - are they pronounced differently?

Kooyeen — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:11:45 GMT

Hi, those two vowels are the same to me. The only difference between "how's" and "house" is the final consonant. I think this is true for both General American and the kind of British English that is usually learned. I don't know if there are people who make a distinction or situations where a subtle difference might be noticed... There probably are. You know, there are so many accents. But I've never noticed something similar to this so far.

Re: Canadians and their English

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:56:02 GMT

Well, you are supposed to write about the *new* trends in Canadian English. Not the history of CE. I think that the Canadian Shift would probably be your best bet--it is a very recent innovation, and thus is one of the few features of CE that could be considered new. It also has many interesting Sociolinguistic variables associated with it--for example, young women are leading the change, whereas males, older women, and young children are much more conservative. You could include information on the early interviews--e.g. where they first discovered it. It is also interesting because this shift moves the vowels in the opposite direction from that of the Inland North dialect in the US. The Canadian Shift also affects some speakers in the Western US. There is also a related shift in California as well that contains many of the same features. The Canadian shift is thought to be triggered by the cot-caught merger. This is because, the merger of "cot" and "caught" leaves a hole in the vowel system, and many other vowels have to move around to maximize the difference between them. The cot-caught merger is an innovation in certain North American dialects. What is does is to cause speakers that have it to make no distinction between the vowels in words such as "cot" and "caught", or "bot" and "bought" or "tot" and "taught". They still have both vowels, but they apply them indiscriminately to those words: so if they were speaking to someone without the merger, and they said the word "cot" the non-merged individual would sometimes think that they were saying "cot" and at other times think they were saying "caught". Fortunately this rarely causes confusion, because most of the words are not able to be confused: e.g. because of context, it's impossible to confuse the words "cot" and "caught". The c-c merger is one of the mergers that is an innovation in North American English. It affects all of Canada. It is unknown exactly why. One hypothosis was that it was imported from Pennsylvania (which also has some c-c merged individuals). The merger is also universal in the Western US. The Midwest however, is predominately unmerged--most Midwesterners still have a distinction between those vowels. Several decades ago, there was no such thing as the c-c merger, but since then it has spread to cover a large section of North America. However, due to the configuration of vowels in other dialects, such as in much of the Midwest, it is unlikely to spread to those areas. This means, that crossing the border in many places between the US and Canada will immediately change dialects. The most extreme case is that between Detroit (US), and Windsor (Canada). Although they are so close geographically, the accent changes immediately, with no transitional area right at the border. Detroit is affected by the Northern Cities vowel shift, which is triggered by the fact that the "a" in "cat" is raised and is diphthongized. Detroit is completely c-c unmerged as well. Windsor is completely merged. The Northern Cities vowel shift (US) shifts many vowels in opposite directions as that of the Canadian shift. Thus the word "mop" in Detroit, sounds like how someone from Windsor would say "map". I even remember reading someones blog (that was from Windsor), and what happened when they asked for a "map" in Detroit. Just a few decades ago, when neither shift existed, this confusion would be impossible. You can read more about the Canadian shift, by going to Wikipedia. Go the the article on the English Wikipedia entitled "Canadian English", and find the section called the Canadian Shift. It then links to an article that contains a technical description of the shift. In fact this is one of the only places on the internet that contains info on the shift. And because it is such a recent innovation there are very few books on it. Then check out the Bibliography in that Wikipedia article. Then if you go to scholar.google.com you can type in the Bibliography items and in many case read the full text of the actual studies on the CVS!

Re: How important is it to pronunce the ending 'accent' in words?

Anduy — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:16:23 GMT

Dear Dusklight,
Consider your sentence "I'm the first to arrive", it doesn't matter if you pronouce the word first like firs, because you will pronounce the sound /t/ of the word to. This is called "prepare and link (according to my book)." If the final consonant sound of a word has the same pronunciation as the initial consonant sound of the word following (or the only difference between them is voiced or unvoiced), you only pronounce the second sound.

Some examples:
- help pack
- stick close
- this zone
- dark gray
- sit down

Hope that helps