For the third person singular, use s . It's pronunciation will depend on what comes before it: voiced consonant or vowel /z/; unvoiced consonant /s/. animals, cows; pets For a word ending in /s/ or /z/ sound , use es

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 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.

syllable Segment of speech usually consisting of a vowel with or without accompanying consonant sounds (e.g., a , I , out , too , cap , snap , check ). A syllabic consonant, like the final n sound in button and widen , also constitutes a syllable.

I think the terms you are looking for are called 'vowel length' and 'vowel duration'. As it has been mentioned, vowels before fortis sounds tend to be shorter because the fortis sound needs more power, that is, it is aspirated.

I must be slow this morning, but I got there in the end. You are not the only one, even I did not get it straight away. As John seems to have noticed, in day to day life I am John Lawler. But when I first started posting to this group and

At 19:22:12 on Fri, 4 Mar 2005, HB (Email Removed) wrote in : Forgive my ignorance, but can anyone name a few English dialects? We always learned (translator school in Flanders) that English had many accents, not dialects, the only dialect we ever

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

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