The other thing that I was saying was that before /r\/, there is no contrast between tense and lax vowels in most definitions of General American and approximate accents. OK. But what I was saying was that what applies for /r\/ applies

Hmm. Sorry for the confusion. Now I'm a little confused too. I was saying two different things: 1) The "ay" in play, is pronounced differently in different dialects. Such as a monophthong or something like or other variations. Some dialects

Kooyeen, there is something that you should know. While it is true that North American English has tense-lax neutralization before /r\/, thus and are heard as the same, I would say that most speakers of General American English, use a vowel closer

I believe this question is best answered by someone who sees it from the former learner's point of view because natives don't have to go through the seemingly impossible phases that the ESL learners must go through. To put it in perspectives I

Hiya YC, It sure feels good that a native shows interest in how we perceive english... Let me try to understand the best I can... Specific elements of language posing problem : I'm comfortable with tenses and conjugation. I find myself

Being a Korean-Chinese (More Korean Blood), I find Chinese rather easy in a way, yet very difficult in the other. It's easy to learn for its simple structure. Chinese does not have a past tense - present tense - future tense law. For example:

It was a curious business. It made things very awkward for foreign businessmen who, when faced with a few stumbling words of French or German from their British counterparts, were put in the difficult position of deciding how to guide the

You mean, pronounced "usedta" and "hasta"? No, for "used to", I mean "useta" with the /d/ assimilated to /t/ (or, at least, to a voiceless (d), which isn't quite the same thing).. Good point, but

In regard to the comment on Americans not having the variety or plethora of accents present in the UK, I have a mixed response. Part of me wants to be angry because that is a pretty ignorant statement, but another part wants to agree with you for

Fonzie, might I convince you to help me raise objections to linguists' blithe and insulting decision to use the word "Philadelphia" to refer to the entire Upper Chesapeake pronunciation region? You think I don't know? I tell them