If vowels in a language are few,then it is hard to understand that language. and as I said "Because the consonants are mostly pronounced loose that makes it hard to recognise the words." No, because "few vowels" means there

I've heard him do that too. Yes, it is wrong and pretty jarring to the ear. Fawning by the press notwithstanding, I think we can all agree that he's not exactly a good extemporaneous speaker. My guess is that when he does that he has (in

The English Alphabet is a complete mess. The general formula behind it appears to have been to assign a unique character to each consonant and each vowel sound that the human voice is capable of making (Genius! It really is!), however: 1. For

I just read through this quickly. Seems like everybody missed the critical point. Whether or not a final "s" is required depends on whether the terminating s in the name is preceded by a vowel sound or a consonant sound. The s

I "feel" someone is trying to contact us. Are you trapped? Tap on the monitor if you can read this... Wait a minute, I'll go get the ouija board... No, no, no RonB! I'm trapped in a virtual world so you need a virtual ouija board

Hi All, OK, this is my last attempt at posting to mwsm. Maybe. I "feel" someone is trying to contact us. Are you trapped? Tap on the monitor if you can read this... Wait a minute, I'll go get the ouija board... If this works, you (I)

If 'y' is a Greek vowel, why do you say it is only used consonantally? No, ypsilon is the Greek vowel. 'Griekse ypsilon' is the Dutch letter. Unsurprisingly, since Greek and Dutch are different languages, the letters are used in

Agreed, if such coursebooks claim to be representing American pronunciation. They are incorrect even when representing RP. Apparently length is indeed an inherent part of vowel phonemes in several important British dialects, where /i/ ~ (i:) is in

^ (= How?) That bizarre mistake was because I was writing on a PDA with a stylus (as I am now). Naw, that's how Somerset pronounces it. Do you mean Somerset "Mawm" or Somerset the English county? Americans say /ma:m/ (with a

I stopped reading Katherine Kerr when the same mistake was perpetuated in her 3rd or 4th book: she gave 'thin' ... of an o - I like to call it a smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in