What about The United States (of America)? Thuh or Thee? Some say that when U is pronounced as "you", then the consonant rule applies, and when the U sounds like "uh", then the vowel rule applies. Is this a grammatical rule, or

What's your point? I made an implicit point: it is not cognitively productive to remember pronounciation for every word. What learners should be taught: a set of heuristics to find possible pronunciations for a word. Mastery of phonetics (or

I don't recommend that site for any one. It is full of crap when it comes to AmE. Use either M-W and reference.com dude in AmE = 'dud Notice the yod-dropping, that is, no /j/ (in IPA) after alveolar consonants. What do you mean? I

The consonant cluster kj is not permitted in english. Since it is not in the middle of a word, k becomes silent. ˈdʒɑs is how you pronounce it.

Using “a” and “an” Before Words Raphael asks: When should I use “a” and when should I use “an” before the different words? For example, should I say “a hour” or “an hour?” I stumble over this everytime and dont’t know if I’m getting it right, as

I won't argue with you, of course you're right, you're a native Italian! You can argue! After all, Italian has many variants and I can speak only for mine. After doing some search on the internet, I've found this dictionary where

I don't know of a webpage that drills these ideas, but here is some written material that may help. There are, in American English, five types of verb with regard to the pronunciation of the regular past tense. (The spelling rules are

It is just convention. English spelling is not 100% consistent or regular. There have been many attempts at spelling reform, but none so far has gained any traction. There is no "academy" for English, as there can be for other languages.

According to Merriam-Webster, the syllables beginning -tu- in opportunity, attitude and prostitution may correctly be pronounced as -too- (preferred or primary pronunciation) or -tyoo- (alternate or secondary pronunciation). Either is correct.

As a learner of the Polish language I've come to accept that all consonant combinations are possible with enough practice. Ksenofobia is the Polish word for Xenophobia, pronounced exactly as it would be in English if a word-initial