Search results for 'tag:Images tag:Vowels' matching tags 'Images' and 'Vowels'

Re: How to correctly pronounce the word "THE"-it evades me always.

Jhumjhum — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:10:43 GMT

The =stressed thee; unstressed before a consonant thuh; unstressed before a vowel thee

Re: Unreleased final consonants

Orpheus — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:28:52 GMT

Now I'm thoroughly puzzled. Is British o (dog) the same as American au (taut)? I've never heard that before. I've always been told that we do not have the British o (dog) in AmE.

British o in dog is very similar to American au in taut, but I don't think they are the same. I have always thought that American au is a bit longer than British o, and that British au is more open than American au. But I'm starting to get confused too now

And while we are at it, the word pure the way it is pronounced on that website sounds to me more like /pjo:/ than /pju/. I understand that some Brits pronounce pure like that, but I don't think it is representative of the diphthong /u/. I'd say that the way it is pronounced on that site is closer to the vowel /o:/ instead.

Re: Question about how to pronounce Europe

Orpheus — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:10:01 GMT

I'd say that there is a slight difference between the US and UK pronunciation of the word. The first syllable of Europe in British English is generally pronounced with the diphthong // while in American English it is simply with the vowel //. The diphthong // is a characteristic of British English and is not found in American English; American English in corresponding places would have the simple vowel // followed by /r/.
The first consonant sound /j/ on the other hand is pronounced exactly the same in both American and British English. It is the same /j/ as in 'you'.

Re: How do you pronounce 'sang'?

Conchita57 — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:11:18 GMT

I pronounce the vowel in 'sang' as .

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: The Pronoun I

rvw — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:01:37 GMT

The following is from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

I 12c. shortening of O.E. ic, first person sing. nom. pronoun, from P.Gmc. *ekan (cf. O.Fris. ik, O.N. ek, Norw. eg, Dan. jeg, O.H.G. ih, Ger. ich, Goth. ik), from PIE *ego(m) (cf. Skt. aham, Hitt. uk, L. ego, Gk. ego, Rus. ja). Reduced to i by 1137 in northern England, it began to be capitalized c.1250 to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts. The form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c.1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. The dot on the "small" letter -i- began to appear in 11c. L. manuscripts, to distinguish the letter from the stroke of another letter (such as -m- or -n-). Originally a diacritic, it was reduced to a dot with the introduction of Roman type fonts. The basic word for "I" in Japanese is watakushi, but it is not much used. Words that boys usually use are boku (polite) or ore (OH-ray), a rougher word, which can be rude depending on the situation. Girls usually use atashi (a feminine-sounding word) or the neutral watashi, but a tomboy might use boku like boys do.

Re: e and a

Orpheus — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 02:10:53 GMT

I think this is another US/Brit division.
There are three diphthongs / / that are found only in British English. American English in corresponding places would have a simple vowel followed by /r/ so vary in BrE is pronounced // while in AmE it is either // or //.

Re: What does this sentence mean ?

LanguageLover — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 14:36:13 GMT

About the first two symbols, is pronunced the same as epsylon, the only difference is the shape of lips, you have to form round lips to have that sound, the same as you do in pronuncing /o/ or /u/. is pronunced the same as /e/, just with round lips. Just shape your lips to a round form and you'll have the sounds.

As for the nasalised vowels, try to attach a nasal sound (/n/, /m/)to the plain vowel (I do not know what keys on keyboard to push to have those signs!), and just pay attention to the change when they are adjacent to nasals, and then try to eliminate the nasal sound but keep pronuncing the same vowel. Then you'll have it. I know it is very difficult to explain how to pronunce a sound, and it is even more difficult to understand the explanation. But just continue trying, and you would eventually succeed!

This chart may comes handy, have a look: http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/vowels.html , you can hear the sounds by clicking on them. Good luck,

Re: English is a crazy language

pemmican — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 22:12:56 GMT

>>I've never fully appreciated the noun gender rules. Is it a case of when you are young you have to study the gender of each noun (das haus = neutral noun) or are there patterns that you follow?

No, unfortunately there are no rules - at least not for the "simple" words.
There are some memory hooks for words ending in special suffixes (which also have exceptions though) eg.
- words ending in -ung, -ion, - are usually feminine
die Achtung (caution), die Warnung (warning), die Nation (nation), die Konstruktion (construction)
- words ending in -chen, -nis are usually neuter
das BrÃ¶tchen (bread roll), das Ereignis (happening)/ exception: die Finsternis (darkness)
etc.
but you can never take them for granted! You have to learn most of the nouns' genders by heart... sorry.

>>Question Pemmican!
>Is there a rule in German when it comes to a double 's' a different symbol is used? I've been told that this 'symbol' is optional and up to the user? (The symbol looks something like an overstretched letter B!)

Are you learning German?!

Yes, here there are rules - those depend on what spelling you're learning or have learned:

If you're going to follow the New spelling rules from 1996, then it is quite easy to explain:
Is this -sound following a long pronounced vowel or a diphthong, then you write it as "Ã", in all the other cases you use "ss":

-der FuÃ (foot), grÃ¼Ãen (to greet), die StraÃe (street), groÃ (big, tall, large), der SpaÃ (fun)...
-der Kuss (kiss), das KÃ¼sschen (little kiss), mÃ¼ssen (to have to), ich muss (I must), ich habe gemusst (I've had to), das Wasser (water)...

If you're going to follow the old spelling rules (mainly from 1901), then it's a bit more complex:
A word can only end in -s or -Ã, not in -ss.
Is the -sound within the word following a long pronounced vowel or a diphthong, then you write "Ã", is it followed by a short pronounced vowel, then you spell it "ss", except the s-sound is the last sound of the word, the last sound of the stem part of the word or is (mainly in inflections) immediately followed by a t:

-FuÃ, grÃ¼Ãen, StraÃe, groÃ, SpaÃ...
-KuÃ, KÃ¼Ãchen, mÃ¼ssen, ich muÃ, ich habe gemuÃt, Wasser...

In Switzerland, however, you actually always spell it "ss". "Ã" hardly occurs.

Even if you're using the new spelling, you should keep the old rules in mind, too. You don't have to use them but most of the Germans dislike the new spelling rules as they are very confusing and go on writing with old spelling rules. Even lots of newspapers, after discovering their readers don't want to accept the new rules, changed back to old spelling.

Soon after the New rules (which btw don't just affect "Ã" and "ss", but also a lot of other grammatical and spelling stuff) came out, lots of people were disappointed by the chaos the linguists produced by their changings and now just avoid the new spelling.

"Ã" is called either "sharp s", because it is always pronounced as the strong -sound, never like , or also (this one is more popular) "Eszet" - which occupy the origin of the actual letter "Ã": It has been formed by putting together the ancient German handwriting "s" and "z".

Here you can have a look at the old handwriting:

The ancient "long s" (2nd letter in 3rd line) and the ancient "z" (2nd letter in 4th line) form the letter "Ã" (4th letter in 3rd line).

Hope I could help you out.
Greetings from Germany
Pemmican