Search results for 'tag:Spelling tag:Vowels' matching tags 'Spelling' and 'Vowels'

Re: WHEN IS "w" A VOWEL

MissMandy — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:02:28 GMT

This debate really seems to be about two different things, spelling and pronunciation. The letter w (and y) is often used with other vowels (and sometimes alone as well) in spelling to reperesent a vowel sound. In the words hi and by, the letter i and the letter y are representing the same sound. To add to the confusion, English has many diphthongs, or two-sound vowels. Two-sound vowels often begin or end in a sound very similar to a w sound or y sound. The easiest to here are oy (boy) and ow (cow), which can also be spelled oi (coin) and ou (house). So, it is very clear, that in spelling, w and y are like vowels. Our educators have found it much easier to just tell our kids that those letters are vowels because they are so often part of a vowel sound's spelling, and because we so often hear sounds so similar to them when we speak due to diphthongs and sounds like the oo sound (in the word soon).

However, the one of the linguistic characteristics of vowel sounds (not spellings) is that a syllable will occur when we have a vowel sound. Some of these vowel sounds become very much reduced in the schwa sound, and so we barely say them, but they are still linguistically there. In this reagard, w and y are not vowels, because they do not cause us to add another syllable to a word. We can easily hear that w and y don't create syllables in words that begin with a w or y and are only one syllable long. For instance, the word "way", according to the a-e-i-o-u-and-sometimes-y-and-w rule, has 3 vowels, but it is only one syllable, so, according to the linguists, actually only has one vowel sound, and I doubt any linguist would consider the w or the y to be that sound.

All of these ambiguities are why linguists have created the catagory of "semi-vowel" just for the w sound and y sound. They acknowledge that these letters have some characteristics very similar to vowels, yet not enough to be considered a full-fedged vowel.

It makes sense to me that teachers choose to keep it simple and tell the kids what will make it easier for them to read and spell, no matter what the perfect linguistic categorization of that letter is. A five year old doesn't care that "cow" is spelled with a traditional vowel, and a w, yet is only one syllable long, and learning to read is hard enough that teachers certainly wouldn't bother telling these kids that w and y are semi-vowels. The teachers will do whatever they think makes it easiest to learn.

When I am teaching non-native English speaking adults, I tell them that w and y can represent vowel sounds, but that they are not truly vowels because my students are aware of, and often struggling with, syllables. So if I tell them that w and y are vowels, they will (and do) question why they do not cause the word to have more syllables. With kids learning to read in a native English speaking environment, it is a completely different learning situation.

All I ask of the confused parents out there is not to tell your kids something different than they are learning in school; it will make things very confusing for them.

That's my two cents' worth.

~Miss Mandy

Re: Consonant cluster reduction

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:54:33 GMT

Hi. On TV you may not hear the sounds, the tongue-play within the chamber of the mouth and the tiny air stops, etcetera that occur when people speak. You need to be face-to-face with your pronunciation coach.

I can well see how you "hear" FAX for facts, because the sounds are about identical in those two words. You know from the context when someone tells you to send them a FAX that they are not talking about the "facts." That is the context or the syntax of the language.

GIFTS is spelled that way, but, actually when you pronounce it, you DO HEAR "GIFS." The ortography of words is a clue to their meaning, so the spelling is important when you are reading.

ASKED. Pronounce ASK. Feel and hear the little "kick" when you produce the "k." Now, add the past tense syllable, "ed." In this particular word, "ed" is pronounced as if it were a "t." Your mouth cannot go from the "K" to the "T" without trouble, so the "K" gets forgiven, softened, blurred in pronunciation..it just about disappears totally so that your tongue is able to touch the alveolar ridge just behind your front teeth. That is the positioning of the tongue within the mouth that causes this particular phenomenon. KICKed...see above for "asked." These kinds of sound changes are required due to the placement of the tongue.

On that subject, I might point your interest to the pronunciation of "a" or "an." Before a consonant you use "a" and before a vowel you use "an."
Try it. A dog. A cat. A shoe. A house. Now consonants.....An elephant, An egg, An old man, An idiot. If you were to reverse this speaking pattern, you'd quickly feel the ugliness and difficulty forced into your tongue movements.

An dog; an cat, an shoe; an house..a elephant; a egg; a old man; a idiot.
Carole in Umatilla, OR

Words with double consonants

Matsko — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 06:33:47 GMT

I was wondering what is the rule for the spelling of words that contain double consonants?

For example:

Do I spell the word "recommended" with two Ms or just one? (I am aware that its one M, but why?).

Most of the time you can sound out a word to figure out a repeated consonant or vowel or you can target the syllables. However, since the English language is not a one-to-one phonetic language, then not every scenario is accurate.

What's the golden rule?

Many Thanks.

the ~ thee

Philip — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:47:49 GMT

Native speaker here, asking for perceptions of other native speakers, especially those who have a basic knowledge of linguistics.

Of course, I know the rule about pronouncing 'the' as 'thee' before vowel sounds: thee afternoon, thee apple, thee orange, thee hour. However, how about when the first vowel sound of the word is 'eee'. I would say the utopian concept, the usual suspects. I believe this is standard. Keep in mind that the first vowel sound of these words is eee rather than u. [Keep in mind I'm using standard English spelling to represent the sounds rather than the International Phonetic Alphabet.]

The real question now: do we actually say thee evening, thee even numbers, thee eventuality or do we say the before these words? I've tried to evaluate my own speech patterns, and I think I use the. Just wondering if I'm alone. Thanks for any ideas.

Re: fair-haired

Pter — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:02:06 GMT

Yes, there are regional variations in American English. Do you know which accent is chosen by MW as the reference in the pronunciation keys. Is it General American?

My problem is that, as I have mentioned before, they are indeed denoted differently in British English. The first one is a simple vowel while the second one is a diphthong / e /. The question is whether the diphthong / e / ONLY occurs before an R. If it occurs before some other consonants, such as D, L, T, N ( / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / ), using / er / to indicate a different sound from / e / is not a good idea because you'll have problems showing the differences between / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / and / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / respectively.

Certain combination of sounds just do not exist in English and that's why they don't need to use diacritic to indicate that the P in SP is non-aspirated whereas an initial P is aspirated. The bottom line is that the pronunciation keys have to be non-ambiguous. This is the same reason why they don't need to use diacritic to indicate tapped intervocalic T or final dark L. (Clear L at syllabic final position does not exist.)

I did a search in my pronunciation dictionary and found that the combinations / -et / and / -el / do not exist. / -ed / and / -en / only exist when the spelling has an R between / e / and the following consonant. Since British English is non-rhotic, the corresponding American pronunciation would have an R before that consonant, resulting in / rd / and / rn /. So, / e / ONLY occurs before an R! As a result, using / er / in American English to represent the counterpart of the British English / e / is non-ambiguous after all!

After going through all these discussions, I finally found out the reasons.

Kooyeen, many thanks indeed for discussing this issue with me. Without your insights, I would not have been able to find out the underlying issues that has been troubling me.

EDIT:

It appears that / e / was the result of the influence of the following R sound on the / e / sound. It is therefore actually the equivalent of / er / in American English. However, because British English is non-rhotic, the R influence results in the / e / becoming a diphthong, i.e. a schwa is added after the / e / to become / e /.

EDIT 2:

While adding the above EDITed text, I just found that what I guessed was probably right.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/received-pronunciation/london/

The vowels of youth
Listen first to the vowel sound she uses in the words air, there, their, where, somewhere and parents. In traditional forms of RP, they would be pronounced with a diphthong â that is two vowel sounds. Older RP speakers would start with an <e> sound â as in bed â before drifting into a weak vowel rather like the initial sound in about. This type of pronunciation, also applied to words such as dare, hair and bear, was until relatively recently common in many English accents. The diphthong emerged once speakers began to omit the <r> sound at the end. Speakers throughout the UK once pronounced this <r> sound, but it is increasingly restricted to speakers in the West Country and far South West of England, a small area of Lancashire and most of Scotland and Ireland. It is also present in most US English accents. The <r> sound was initially replaced by the weak vowel at the end of the diphthong, but nowadays most younger RP speakers omit this final part of the diphthong and simply use a long <e> sound â thus shared is pronounced with exactly the same vowel as in shed, only the vowel is noticeably longer. This demonstrates perfectly how successive sound changes can radically alter the pronunciation of a set of words. Most RP speakers, like Michelle, now only distinguish between pairs such as fairs and fez or flared and fled simply by vowel length. Older speakers tend to use a diphthong for the first word in each pair.

It means that the Received Pronunciation that I have been learning (and indicated on all the dictionaries) is only that of the older generation! What a surprising finding from this simple question of fair-haired!

Re: ow/ou - easy way of teaching 6 yr old the difference

Anonymous — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:24:32 GMT

I think focusing on these spelling differences at this young an age can stunt a child's desire to write. As your son has more natural experiences (not forced lessons) with reading, word families and vowel tendancies-he will adopt specific spellings. I know its tough to watch your child mispell things, but try to focus more on writing ability not spelling. Spelling will come with age.

Re: HELP need urgent answers to my English questions

Goodman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:04:25 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

Hello...can someone plse help me asap, the following are my questions....

1. Why is the letter ' t ' not doubled in the word benefiting?

2. What rule or feature of English spelling appears in each of the following words? e.g. tape - the silent e makes the previous vowel long. pledge, starve, happier, guest.

3. Mark any phonograms of two or more letters by underlining them in the following words (which I guess is a bit hard when you are on line) e.g. shed (sh) start (ar) - the phonograms being the ones in brackets of course. whine, employer, drought, choking, floated, growth, stripes, college.

Thankyou to whomever answers me I will be very grateful. (P.S. I am in Australia)

I think this kind of questions are difficult to answer because the rules donâtâ seem to hold true all the time as there are exceptions and difference between BrE and AmE.

Rule says: One vowel + one consonant (but NOT w or y) Double the consonant, then add âED

i.e. tap â tapped, commit â committed , However, many other verb donât follow this rule, just like âbenefitedâ

In the US, âtraveledâ is spelled with one âlâ and I learned recently âtraveledâ is spelled with two âlâsâ on the other side of the pond.

I am afraid we just have to memorize them.

HELP need urgent answers to my English questions

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:19:28 GMT

Hello...can someone plse help me asap, the following are my questions....

1. Why is the letter ' t ' not doubled in the word benefiting?

2. What rule or feature of English spelling appears in each of the following words? e.g. tape - the silent e makes the previous vowel long. pledge, starve, happier, guest.

3. Mark any phonograms of two or more letters by underlining them in the following words (which I guess is a bit hard when you are on line) e.g. shed (sh) start (ar) - the phonograms being the ones in brackets of course. whine, employer, drought, choking, floated, growth, stripes, college.

Thankyou to whomever answers me I will be very grateful. (P.S. I am in Australia)

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:49:26 GMT

Anonymous wrote:
Hmmm. If you think that english is difficult - YOU ARE WRONG!!! It is the easiest language! I'm Pole, have you ever tried to say the simplest word in Polish e.g Åazienka (bathroom) I'm sure that 90% of English wouldn't be able to pronounce it correctly!!! Or meaby something from German: einhundertfunfundzwazig (125) - this is correct spelling, there shouldn't be any spaces!!! It is normall that you are not as fluent as natives - it is impossible, there are always differences in pronunciation or in degree of complexity of vocabulary. Only thing which can cause real problems are pronunciation such vowels as 'th' (thing, those). These "dentals" don't occur in other european languages at all. The other things are tenses - twelve of them - most languages have only 3 (past, present and future)... But all of it is not important!!! We learn foreign languages to comunicate, we are able to communicate in English if we know 1000 words. IT IS THE EASIEST LANGUAGE!... The language of the future.

take care
Adam

I agree. Many natively english-speaking people think/assume that english is one of the most difficult languages to learn, but its not.

Re: Should I pay attention to syllables?

Avangi — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:31:12 GMT

Hi Kooyeen,

Sounds like a good question for CJ. I haven't been to MW but plan to go. Mr. M got me some information there which I'd been unable to find elsewhere. I gather from your examples they use what I've heard called phonetic spelling, rather than the phonetic symbols I've seen on this site, and in my own American Heritage, which I like.

I usually consult for accent, or stress marks, which sometimes turn out to be regional. The syllable break points are useful when you need to break a word at the end of a typed line. You've pointed out what I'd consider some very fine distinctions. How do they treat double consonants, as in pat-tern? I guess the phonetic spelling doesn't have to resemble the actual spelling.

Your coo-lish example calls to mind choral group singing, in which we struggle to retain the open vowels til the last possible instant, and always stick the consonants and dipthongs on the next [note] syllable. Since we almost always elide the syllables together in speaking, I expect only the most serious students would be interested in whether a letter goes at the end of one syllable or the beginning of the next one. (I guess it's important in understanding where the stress falls.)

I believe you're saying your different treatment of pam and pan is not necessarily echoed by MW. And you wonder if you should pronounce the a in pa-nache' differently than the a in pan'-da. My dictionary says you should, but it gives different symbols.

I'd suggest searching for specific examples to see if MW actually answers your question for you. I don't think the a-meter example is a good one. Obviously you can't say meter in one syllable. There's something curious about that format. I'd certainly say amplify and ammeter the same way, especially since the accent falls on the first syllable.

Best wishes, - A.

Edit. Oh @?#&$ ! I misinterpreted "before M or N differently." Is that logical and, or what? Sorry.

P.S. My dictionary lists only five pam/n's with a syllable break after the a. All stress the second syllable and pronounce the a as in about. One is a biological term and the rest are foreign. All the others pronounce a as in pat. Ammeter breaks between the m's, stresses the first syllable, and pronounces a as in pat. Your MW ammeter seems to be an anomaly.

If you choose to pronounce pat and pam differently, why would you let a change in the syllable break stand in your way? I guess it's like asking a cop for advice on when you should break the law.