Search results for 'tag:Phonetics tag:Students' matching tags 'Phonetics' and 'Students'

I've been..... do you pronounce "v" and "b" or just "b"?

jossx — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:43:33 GMT

Well, for a spanish speaking person, there's almost no difference between "v" and "b" and itos quite difficult to imagine that we gotta pronounce "v" and "b" together to get the sound right? Is there any problem to other ESL students to pronounce so complicated consontant clusters? Do you say /aivbIn/ or /AIbIn/ just omitting the sound in between? Thanks in advance for your time! Joseph from Chile.

(phonetics ) one sample sentence for all vowels

soekothu — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:39:01 GMT

Hello everybody! Please help me . Now I'm learning English Phonetics. I found learning consonants easy as i know the following sentence. Quick frozen fox jumps over the lazy dog. However,in learning vowels sounds,I found it difficult. I want to get one sample sentence which includes all vowels sounds and must be meaningful like the above sentence. If there ,please send it to me outright. If there's not ,Please create it cos it is beneficial not only to me but also everybody. And then ,it will be last forever.

Re: How to get rid of accent?

jossx — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:55:33 GMT

Try learning English phonetics!

Re: Dark L or Light L after final L + new word

dokterjokkebrok — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:40:12 GMT

Hi, Thank you both. I asked this because I thought the aswer to it would be pretty straightforward. But, as it turns out, it is slightly more complicated. Good information though. Why I want to know this? Partly because I find it interesting, but in the past, I also found it to be very helpful for my accent – including the complicated stuff. Besides, it's also helpful to know about the underlying theory for the classes I have to teach: I'm a student teacher of English, and, occasionally, if one of my pupils has difficulty pronouncing a sound, it's very convenient to know about this. I've acquired a basic/intermediate knowledge on the subject, but now I'm kind of stuck. Perhaps I'll buy some books on advanced...

Re: Mispronouncing words and unstressed them

raindoctor — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:02:51 GMT

I think the only reason you can't learn like babies do is because you don't have the time... I believe there's nothing more artificial than learning a language, no matter at what age. I'm also learning English as a second (or third) language. I find phonetics (both Spanish and English) very useful because it helps you analyze how the many different parts of your mouth, tongue, etc. work when you speak. Certainly, that is something a baby can't learn... so I don't think there's much difference anyway. No one was denying that one has to invest time in order to learn. What I hear from many ESL researchers is this: after some age, it is very hard to get rid of accent. There are some folks in ESL who say...

Re: Mispronouncing words and unstressed them

andrewthepiper — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:14:08 GMT

Re: Program or programme

kimlrobles — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:29:59 GMT

From the Cambridge Dictionary: programme (PLAN) UK , US program Show phonetics noun a plan of activities to be done or things to be achieved: The school offers an exciting and varied programme of social events. The rail system is to put twenty million pounds into its modernisation programme. I'm running three mornings a week - it's all part of my fitness programme.

Re: British transcription

alpheccastars — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:38:53 GMT

Hy everyone I have a big problem because I cannot differ entiate some sound s and pronunciation s in English. Can anyone explain to me when ð and when θ sounds are pro n ounced? And also how can I differ entiate the sounds ə and æ sounds are transcribed ? I need this to know the phonetic transcription of English words. Hi Just Student: If you go to www.dictionary.com , you will find everything that you need. Here is the entry for "thesis." If you click on "show IPA", you will see the phonetic transcription. If you click on the speaker symbol, you can hear the pronunciation. the⋅sis / ˈθi sɪs /

einde o'callaghan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:16:44 GMT

As per phonetics theory, I've been told one should use ... "an university" ? Are these instances of incorrect usage? Paul. A lot of people write 'an hotel', which always surprises me. Do they say it without the 'h'? I think 'a eulogy' and 'a university' are preferable. The pronunciation of the "h" in words like "hotel" and "history" is quite recent. These words are of French origin and the "h" isn't pronounced initially in French. In the case of some words of French origin such as "hour and "honest" the "h" is still not pronounced. And in the case of some other words both pronunciations are possible e.g. in "herb"...

"an eulogy" or "a eulogy"?

paul — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:13:57 GMT

As per phonetics theory, I've been told one should use the indefinite article "a" before words beginning with a consonant and "an" before words beginning with a vowel or a diphthong. And the sound "y" ( or / j / in phonetic script) as in "eulogy", "university", "European" etc. is to be treated as a consonant (though in certain contexts one would also call it a "semi-vowel"). Why is it that I still find "an" preceeding this sound in certain write-ups generating combinations such as "an eulogy", and "an university" ? Are these instances of incorrect usage? Paul.

Re: Shakespearean curses

dave fawthrop — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:17:04 GMT

Hello everyone, I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems to me very promising to raise the students`s interest. You need to know the cultural/phonetics of a language to understand a curse, for instance my daughter uses "Oh! Sugar" as an expletive. I leave it up to the reader to work out what she is *not* saying, because it may be considered rude ;-) Dave Fawthrop Google Groups is IME the *worst* method of accessing usenet. GG subscribers would be well advised get a newsreader, say Agent, and a newsserver, say news.individual.net. These will allow them: to see only *new* posts, a killfile, and other goodies.

Re: ay

credoquaabsurdum — Mon, 15 May 2006 00:18:50 GMT

I've noticed that the indefinite article "a" is often pronounced "ay" in speeches and on radio and TV. What's that about? Svatopluk Svatopluk, I don't think your post was clear enough to be sure of what you wanted to know, but this is what I think you are asking about. In normal speech, the indefinite article is pronounced as what is called the schwa, which is represented as an upside down "e" in the International Phonetic Association. phonetic alphabet. You were probably told this at some point during your English language schooling. The sound represented by that schwa sound is the most common sound in the English language. If it helps, it is exactly the same sound as a sounded "mute...

Re: Board work

jan — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:45:41 GMT

Django asked about 'phoneme swatting': here is how it works: - Write up a set of phonemes on the board, either as phonetic symbols, or minimal pairs, or however your students recognise them. - Divide the class into two teams (two is best for the two sides of the board). - One person from each team stands on either side of the board wielding a fly swat. - On an oral prompt (from you/from a student), the two team members have to swat the thing that matches on the board. You may need an independent judge for the scoring (!), though it's pretty clear who swatted first with the fly swats. - you need to decide how to rotate the team members so everyone gets a chance. This is how this game began with me but it's actually useful...

Re: Board work

jan — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 07:02:35 GMT

Is this what you're after? Maybe be too TEFL-ey/basic for your audience (sorry if you've thought of these already) - clean up our board: after a particularly messy lesson, work with students to organise the board into a set of clear notes down the side, progressively rub off the mess. Good for revision at the end of a topic/lesson. - memorising: as students repeat a boarded text over and over, progressively rub off more and more words. - remembering vocabulary from a boarded list: point to a word and students repeat, jump around in the list (not top-to-bottom). Then begin rubbing out one word at a time, but still point to the empty space, until you are just pointing to empty bits of the board. (works for short-term memory) - are...

Linguistic File

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:52:29 GMT

Hello! I'm an undergraduate student and I'm obliged to deliver a so called "linguistic file" which shall provide rudimentary examples of applying linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax; three examples each) to everyday speech, literature, lyrics. I have, however, great troubles finding adequate examples whereas everything I come up with seems to by way too complicated and leaving me in the trouble of being unable to analyze my examples. Something I came up with was "fran-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock", concerning onomatopeia and extension of word meaning but apart from that I'm really having trouble here. Deadline's coming soon :( I'd appreciate any suggestions/comments or just plain examples......

Linguistic File

ricardo — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:10:17 GMT

Hello! I'm an undergraduate student and I'm obliged to delivering a so called "linguistic file" which shall provide rudimentary examples of applying linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax; three examples each) to everyday speech, literature, lyrics. I have, however, great troubles finding adequate examples whereas everything I come up with seems to by way too complicated and leaving me in the trouble of being unable to analyze my examples. Something I came up with was "fran-tick-tick-tick-tick-tock", concerning onomatopeia and extension of word meaning but apart from that I'm really having trouble here. Deadline's coming soon :( I'd appreciate any suggestions/comments or just plain examples......

Re: Phonemic notation: Boo. [was: Re: "long" vowels and "short" vowels]

areff — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:23:15 GMT

What I'm trying to say is that: a) There is ... Richard's terms, my dialect is CINC and yours is CIC. All of that sounds reasonable, as far as it goes. But I had the impression you were originally defending the idea of using a single phoneme symbol to embrace the entire cross-dialect "aw" class. I would defend such a thing. Why not? Every English dialect has an "aw" class, call it "THOUGHT" if you like, and there's agreement on a core set of words that it covers. We can refer to this as "aw", or THOUGHT, or /O/, without being too misleading. I don't see how your discussion of the THOUGHT and LOT classes relates to using phonemic notation to say how words are pronounced. I think we...

Re: Phonemic notation: Boo. [was: Re: "long" vowels and "short"

carmen l. abruzzi — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 08:11:32 GMT

The concept of "allophones" belongs to phonemics, not phonetics. An ... You're talking about more precise phonetic notations, not about allophones. Those remarks seem to verge on being contradictory. An allophone is a phonetic realization, but it's not right to say you can use phonetic notation to represent an allophone? OK. I seem to have misunderstood what you were saying. Of course it's right to use phonetic notation to distinguish various allophones of the same phoneme. I was somehow thinking that you meant that any given precise phonetic notation was "an allophone", which it doesn't appear was the case. Sorry. I wish I knew what your academic credentials are in this field. Then I would know...

Re: My latest haha

anonymous — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 22:46:23 GMT

I am puzzled by this last statement: is it meant ... didn't, or why does no one opine that they did? Aha! First, this is a somewhat roundabout way learn the basics of Latin pronunciation. You should, of course, check first Allen's Vox Latina Excellent! Just what the doctor ordered. (which I take perverse pleasure in callin /vaks lAtajn@/ where I represent the vowel sound of English "hat" by /A/, and schwa by /@/). A certain gentleman would have you polish the (p&tajn@) off your tongue:-) He's an alumnus of Latin School in Boston and pronounces it as (l&tn) (syllabic n). There's a Marine Drive in Cochin; my pronunciation ((Email Removed):n dr.ajv) ((aj)=drawled (aI)) evokes mirth since the road sign is...

Re: "long" vowels and "short" vowels

bob cunningham — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 07:21:57 GMT

On 28 Jan 2005 20:09:37 -0800, R H Draney Bob Cunningham filted: When we were in elementary school, the teacher taught us ... the vowels in "peck", "pick", "pock", and "rut" were short. That's "root" rhymes with "toot", not "root" rhymes with "foot" (a different short counterpart)...nor is it "root" sounds like "route", ... when you need the "caught" (aka "lawn" for the CIC) vowel...or the "father" (or "swat") vowel either for that matter..r I suspect you didn't read and understand the entirety of my posting. The idea I tried to convey was that the "long" vs "short"...

"long" vowels and "short" vowels

bob cunningham — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 01:55:42 GMT

Some remarks from different posters in recent days suggest that it's time to discuss again the conflict between two different meanings of "long" and of "short". When we were in elementary school, the teacher taught us that the "a" in "rake" was "long a" and the "a" in "rack" was short "a". And the vowels in "peek", "pike", "poke", "root" were long while the vowels in "peck", "pick", "pock", and "rut" were short. There is another meaning for each of "short vowel" and "long vowel", and it's the one phoneticians are most likely to have in mind when they...

Re: phonetic systems...

raymond s. wise — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:28:51 GMT

As always, Americans use their own system. The good dictionaries from Oxford, Cambridge, the bilingual ones here in Germany and specialized pronunciation dictionaries almost exclusively use the IPA notation. I may have mentioned this before in this newsgroup, but I've found a very odd usage of one IPA symbol in *The Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary, French-English, English-French,* Oxford University Press, (C) 1994. For some reason unknown to me, the vowel in "bed" is represented in English pronunciations as /e/, while in the French pronunciations, /E/ (a small epsilon) is used instead. As a result, the pronunciation of the word "sec" in the English section (as in "hang on a sec") is represented by...

Re: phonetic systems...

raymond s. wise — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:13:15 GMT

the IPA phonetics symbols seems popular on the web. However, most dictionaries don't use it. Why is that? Because they don't expect most readers to know it. It's only American dictionaries which tend to avoid IPA. British and Australian dictionaries tend to use it, and I would expect dictionaries written in other varieties of English (with the possible exception of Canadian English) would tend to use IPA as well. For example, my software versions of American Heritage Dictionary and Merriem-Webster Collegiate Dict each uses their own. (and what system do they use?) You answered your own question they each use their own system. In computerized contexts, such dictionaries often use a novel system. This is because the...

Re: What's in a name? [was: Re: Whence "concise"? [was: Re: - No such word as 'oftener']]

bob cunningham — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 06:55:36 GMT

{See Oxford University Press's name for the micrographically dddreduced second ... ( OED ) at) http://tinyurl.com/45yry , or http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Reference/EnglishDictionaries/?ci=0198612583&view=usa . ` That page, from Oxford University Press, which is evidently trying to sell us the book, mentions that "Herbert Mitgang, in ... the English language as it is read and spoken all over the world.'" This seems to me to be misleading. It's worse than misleading. It's downright wrong in its probable intended sense, as Raymond explains here: Some dictionaries of the Oxford University Press are arguably "arbiters of the English language" in the sense that they give ... just about...

Re: pronounciation before meaning

enrico c — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:15:55 GMT

Enrico C wrote on 21 Nov 2004: Should have been "provides either". That could be said for virtually anything: you can find the meaning of words on dictionaries and grammar rules on grammar books. If you want to be absurd and you are being absurd, you know please limit your posts to alt.absurd.replies. What do you find so absurd in my reply? Yet, teachers are still useful, aren't they? A pronouncing dictionary should be sufficient; a phonetic transcription might not be, so, yes, a teacher might be useful. Definitions and grammar rules are much more difficult to interpret, especially for beginners and lower-level language students. Pronunciation can be damn difficult to interpret too, for those students. Usage examples...

Re: pronounciation before meaning

cybercypher — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 17:44:18 GMT

Enrico C wrote on 21 Nov 2004: Anyone with a dictionary that either providesShould have been "provides ... to acquire the correct pronunciation without needing a teacher's help. That could be said for virtually anything: you can find the meaning of words on dictionaries and grammar rules on grammar books. If you want to be absurd and you are being absurd, you know please limit your posts to alt.absurd.replies. Yet, teachers are still useful, aren't they? A pronouncing dictionary should be sufficient; a phonetic transcription might not be, so, yes, a teacher might be useful. Definitions and grammar rules are much more difficult to interpret, especially for beginners and lower-level language students. Usage examples...

Re: pronounciation before meaning

cybercypher — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 05:27:23 GMT

Don Myers wrote on 20 Nov 2004: Teachers tell students to practice reading. Students then run across many words they've never heard pronounced. As they see the ... quickly pick out the word in a list be helpful even though there is no meaning associated with the word? I think there is no point in teaching students how to spell or pronounce words without providing their associated meanings. I also think there is no point in teaching vocabulary lists in which the words are defined out of the context of a piece of discourse being studied in the class. A list of the most common English spelling/pronunciation anomalies would undoubtedly be helpful to enough EFL/ESL students to make the time spent worthwhile, especially if the list were on...

Re: BBC in monochrome

mark barratt — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:24:22 GMT

Isn't this Oxford accent just what is usually called "old RP" the "orf" for "off", "huntin' shootin' and fishin'" one? I'll leave the above as it appeared as a warning to those who believe that Quotefix is the answer to Outlook Excuse's deficencies. This is why I mentioned that "hyper-posh" isn't the same as "RP". But I don't associate the old refined speech ... come to that the Dragon School sound of some of my contemporaries, with the distortions used by the "county" crowd. This is all rather woolly and vague - I'm sure you know enough about phonetics and phonology to tell us engineering types what you mean. I, for one, would be...

Re: ESL vs ELS

django cat — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 20:58:51 GMT

Thanks for that. Very interesting. A very clear rebuttal of Jenkins' proposals. I've read that Jenkins and an Austrian colleague ... those aspects of the different Englishes that cause the sorts of problems you describe above (when different national errors collide), Mmm, OK. I think these things are organic and just happen. There are probably more people in the world right now who think that 'funny' means 'of or pertaining to having a good time' rather than 'makes you laugh'. Maybe Jenkins and her Austrian mate could get a bunch of people to go round explaining why this should or should not be part of the naturally evolving ELF. Maybe they could call such people... teachers. I suppose the question is...

Re: ESL vs ELS

mickwick — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 14:40:31 GMT

What about the übercorrect ELF (English as a Lingua Franca)? Never heard of it chuck. You've got anuvver fing coming, ven. ELF might mark the end of dental fricatives as we know vem. What's more, you might be out of a job if it catches on. Some ELF enthusiasts reckon that native speakers, who have been immersed since birth in notions of grammatical and phonological correctness, are constitutionally unsuited to the teaching of ELF. ELF will be based on a reduced set of taught skills, the Lingua Franca Core. If it's not in the LFC, there's no need to teach it. Local custom will evolve to fill in the gaps. The sole aim is mutual intelligibility between non-native speakers. Thus the LFC includes basic sounds (the phonology?...

Re: Asian languages vs. European languages

mark barratt — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 08:26:04 GMT

Great! Am I right to believe that people from Asia ... Chinese or Japanese or Mongolian I would be completely lost! Actually, I believe both Chinese and Japanese (I don't know about Mongolian) are much easier languages than English. Especially the ... American will leave out dozens of letters, and merge every word with those around it in hundreds of different ways.) "Leaving out letters" is the wrong way to think about it. The written language represents (however imperfectly) the spoken language, not the other way around. The Japanese use a sound system which is even easier for a westerner to learn than those of most, if ... combine them only in the form of a consonant and a vowel; they have no concept of loose consonants...

Re: Asian languages vs. European languages

v zhang — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 03:48:01 GMT

Hi, I'm a Chinese. It's both hard and easy for Chinses to learn English. Millions of Chinese students spent about 13 years to learn English. But I think the grammar of English is regular and simple. The really hard to Chinese is the large and growing vocabulary of English. Japanese comes from Chinese. Thousands years ago, Japanese had not character system. There came China, Tang Dynasty, and learnt Chinese. So There are many Chinese characters, which pronunciation are same as Chinese too. For example Tofu (Jp.) is known as Japanese food. Actually, it's a traditional Chinese food. Maybe the European know it from Japan first. It's said the Japanese pronunciation have two origin from China. One is from Chang An,Tang Dynasty,...

Asian languages vs. European languages

sytse wielinga — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:55:38 GMT

Great! Am I right to believe that people from Asia have to make an effort bigger than Europeans to learn ... In that, I admire Asians. If I were to study Chinese or Japanese or Mongolian I would be completely lost! Actually, I believe both Chinese and Japanese (I don't know about Mongolian) are *much* easier languages than English. Especially the phonetic systems are much, much simpler. The Chinese phonetic system is actually very hard for us to learn, because it's totally different from any of the european languages, being a tonal system; still, the number of syllables is very limited and there are almost no contractions, let alone irregular ones (just think about it; in every english sentence a native Englishman or American...

Re: PPS vs. PPC

django cat — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:35:20 GMT

Students from the Far East have to start by learning ... have always been exposed to advertising which uses written English Does this make any difference? I must have seen many thousands of Chinese characters in my life, but because I've ... just funny squiggles to me. I don't see how having seen English characters (without knowing anything about their meaning) helps. I think that knowledge probably goes beyond funny squiggles, and that coupled with maybe a little junior school learning, or even knowing how to say the cool slogan on their tee shirt, many people would have a head start on the rough phonetic significance of the letters of the alphabet and possibly pronunciation of letter names. But this is just an example. In my...

Re: Final "s"

mark barratt — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 21:39:23 GMT

it, >> for example, in the word "report", which I would render /ri'pO:t/ >> in ASCII IPA. I hadn't before ... For me, this is a schwa. >> you're >> rhotic, but how would you characterise your pronunciation of >> these? I'm a rhotic speaker, being from Ireland. However this isn't ... and all my textbooks use this notation. Regards, Einde O'Callaghan In the same way that they all give the alternative pronunciations of -ed as t, d and id, the last with i not /@/. Hmm. I'm going to have to watch out for this, I can see. I don't as yet recall seeing an -es or -ed ending represented phonemically in a course book (my TEFL experience is yet limited, and the course books...

Re: 3rd debate Bushspeak

areff — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:01:17 GMT

The schwa is by definition syllabic, though - to tell whether it's present in Bush's "prioritize" just count the syllables that you hear. But is the schwa a purely objective thing? I don't know from Bush's dialect, but I'll bet that he *thought* he was using a schwa, since, after all, "prioritize" is four syllables in, so far as I know, every dialect of American English, and it's not a word where there's a known three-syllable variant the way that "nucular" is a known (if substandard (ATAOUERW)) variant of "nuclear". Just because you don't hear a schwa doesn't mean it isn't there. Lookit, Bob Cunningham can't hear the difference I make between...

Re: "Missouri": river vs state [was: Re: 2nd Debate ObAUE'd: Pronunciational prelude]

bob cunningham — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 05:55:36 GMT

They both said the pronunciation of the river's name was ... unequivocal about the state and the river both being (m@'zUr@). I would personally appreciate it if you would add the phonetically spelled version when you use the above style. First, (m@'zUr@) *is* phonetic spelling. But when you say "phonetically spelled", you're presumably asking for the sort of thing where ad hoc symbols are used to represent pronunciation and those symbols may or may not mean the same to you as they do to the writer. A striking example of this is the silly "aw sound" vs "ah sound" that certain alt.usage.english posters insist on blathering about. A huge advantage of ASCII IPA* over ad hoc phonetic spelling is...

Re: Sound files for the IPA Handbook

evan kirshenbaum — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 07:26:27 GMT

Would you accept "simpler than languages that have more baroque ... least relatively) "simple", I'm not sure what definition you're using. In fact, when I first discussed this subject in fr.lettres.langue.anglaise , I used the term "relativement simple." I subsequently regretted ... and useless complexities," but I would avoid either "relatively simple" or "simple language" when speaking of a complete human language. So since they have "the least" such stuff, presumably they are "simpler than any others". I guess what I'm havig trouble with is the notion that it's acceptable to consider a language full of "useless complexities" or...

Re: Sound files for the IPA Handbook

bob cunningham — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:35:26 GMT

(about sound files for the speech examples in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ) Of immediate interest is the fact that the AmE representative is MIMIM. Professor Peter Ladefoged, the author of the American English piece, says in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (1999 edition page 41) The speech in the recording on which the transcription is based is that of a 21-year-old speaker who has lived all her life in Southern California. He goes on to say Speakers from other parts of the United States, such as the East coast and the Northern cities of the Mid-West have different dialects, nearly all of them being more conservative, with a greater number of vowels. About "all her life": the...

Re: Is pronouncing the "g" in "sing" regional or cultural?

jonathan jordan — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:20:24 GMT

In Lamerica it's a feature that has been associated with ... except among speakers who already had very strong regional accents Aha! My phonetics teacher when I took phonetics in college, a grad student, insisted that no one pronounced the , ... still think I do. (Perhaps interested parties can check my recording, http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/recording.html , and see whether they too think so.) There's definitely a (g) in the second "long". It's a bit less obvious in the first one, but I think there's something there. Do you think you always pronounce a (g) (or a (k)) after (N), or is there some variation? I don't think you'd pass as a Brummie, though - the vowels are all wrong. Jonathan

Re: Is pronouncing the "g" in "sing" regional or cultural?

michael hamm — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 17:57:06 GMT

This late afternoon GMT, Areff (Email Removed) wrote, in part, regarding /Ng/: In Lamerica it's a feature that has been associated with some Ashkenazic speakers in the New York City area (Largest ... have noticed it, but I don't think it's extremely prevalent except among speakers who already had very strong regional accents Aha! My phonetics teacher when I took phonetics in college, a grad student, insisted that no one pronounced the , so I don't. (That was his clear meaning: since no one does, I don't.) I, at the time, insisted that I do; I still think I do. (Perhaps interested parties can check my recording, http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/recording.html , and see whether they too think so.) Incidentally, RF, what is...

Re: RP - what a Rehearsal in Pretension !

robert bannister — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 01:40:32 GMT

they're no That is really what I have been saying all along. The speech of a minority group was 'chosen' as being representative of southern English speech by the university professors who were interested in phonetics. They naturally assumed that their way of speaking was "received". Rob Bannister

Afrikaans, Dutch and English (was: Re: Grok Legitimized)

steve hayes — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 02:31:58 GMT

Afrikaans only became an official language in the 1920s, and trek entered English long before that. Of course, but it didn't come from the Dutch spoken by academicians in the Netherlands; it came from the Dutch spoken by farmers in South Africa. A form of Dutch recognizable as the forerunner of Afrikaans was surely spoken long before the 1920s. Perhaps, but a better comparison might be with farmers in the Netherlands. My Dutch-English dictionary has, for example, "trekpaard" for draught horse. And for trek it gives the following meanings, "pull, draught, stroke, feature, trait, inclination, migration" Perhaps the word "trek" entered Dutch through Afrikaans, of course, but if so, what word did the Dutch,...

Re: No [d] in my speech?

andrew gwilliam — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:50:47 GMT

"'Plosive' is a relative term" means that there's no reason ... one time to another over a continuous range of values. It can't do that because if consonants were that loosely defined they'd be indistinguishable. It can vary over a range, but it cannot completely overlap the sounds of other consonants. See here now, you seem to be confusing phonemes with phones. Or, you're failing to consider that Bob's set of phonemes, and their use, could be different from yours. I would expect to find they're typical of the speech communities I've lived in. Perhaps those communities are anomalous as well, particularly if they are small or isolated or not very mobile. How can a speech community be...