In Numbers^x, Vowels^x, Pronunciation^x

CalifJim wrote I read somewhere that Mario Pei the linguist tried to learn a different language every year He supposedly claimed that Vietnamese was the most difficult CJ I disagree with the linguist Mario Pei not because I am a Vietnamese It is because I have seen in my country a couple of TV...

According to John Wells at University College London I do not understand the proposed distinction between Mainstream RP and Contemporary RP unless the writer thinks wrongly that contemporary means young You can read more of what he says about it at http www phon ucl ac uk home wells blog0707a htm...

It s easy count the number of vowels in a word but pronunciation is what counts not writing and that s the number of its syllables

Thanks anon Without your post I would have missed this thread Goodman wrote Hi CJ What an impressive thread you have posted You have slowly made me a fan of yours Yep CalifJim wrote In any case the struggle for the learner is always making the conversion from computing utterances assembling them...

Saska wrote Guest wrote Why many foreign speakers have such problems with the English language I mean I came to the U S about two years ago and in the beginning I ve had problems with the language probably just like eveybody else but what makes English such a difficult language to learn Most...

I don t think there is a hard and fast rule here However If you have a two syllable word that ends with an a it s typical that the vowel in the first is short Like dada feta etc This is not a rule so much as a pattern that should be observed Following it the da in data should not be pronounced...

This is really badly off topic but I couldn t resist the temptation to comment on your correct observation I understand very well that native speakers of English mispronounce foreign words because foreign languages are not studied much in English speaking countries Well can you really blame us In...

To tell you the truth I ve never heard any foreigner unless they learned English when they were very young or had lived in an English speaking country for at least a decade and had extensive and personalized accent coaching ever be able to pull off either an American or British accent British...

In my opinion foreign students are taught the pronunciation of words according to the their first entry in the Pronunciation Dictionary John Wells Pronunciation Dictionary or Daniel Johns English Pronouncing Dictionary these two hold a good reputation in the field I believe that the first entries...

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 organized...