Search results for 'tag:Vowels tag:Pronunciation tag:Accents' matching tags 'Vowels', 'Pronunciation', and 'Accents'

Re: Welsh accent (to be more precise, Tom Jones's)

colombo — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:04:19 GMT

Instead of worrying about perceptions (auditory phonetics), try to produce variations (articulatory phonetics): how to produce a fronted /u:/ ? That seems a very good idea. I think I might try to change from one vowel to the other by knowing whether I must make it more to the front, to the back, more open... But I don't know how I can know whether I'm producig the right vowel, or any other. Are there mp3 recordings of isolated vowels that are long enough so I can try to adjust the vowel I produce to the vowel I hear, and then maintain it for some time? I should try to save them in my computer so I can practice at home.

Re: Welsh accent (to be more precise, Tom Jones's)

raindoctor — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:45:14 GMT

Focus on the variation of vowels in various accents: phonetic differences. Sometimes, you can see phonemic differences as is the case between BrE and AmE. Most of the transcriptions are broad, like the ones we see in dictionaries. Mastering narrow transcription, which requires you to train your ears to notice all variations/subtlities, is the key to understand variatiations.

Re: General AM Eng-pronunciation of talk, caught and bought

freekarol — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:45:08 GMT

I thank you all for your effort to help me and of course for your time... I think my questions were answered. Especially a reply by Marvin A. completely answered my questions. What pronunciation to choose depends on what American accent you want to have. If you don't want to have a certain American accent then the best way to be understood by most Americans is to use pronunciation what most Americans use: the Open back unrounded vowel for all of those words.

Re: English and spanish phonetic sounds with their phonetic differences

anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:56:50 GMT

well the English D and T sound like a Spanish R (not double R but just R) - the Spanish J sounds like a English H - the Spanish L and English L don't sound alike (they are different sounds), and the same happened with the Spanish and English T (they are different sounds) - In English when one pronounce the letter "P" one relieses a puff of air, in Spanish you don't do that (that's what makes the Spanish and English T different too, by the way) - the English N and M's sounds are way longer than the Spanish ones - the Spanish Y and Spanish LL (or, double L) sound alike, and their sound is that of a English "J", unlike most people think, is the Spanish Y and double LL are not pronounce like an...

Re: Has anyone tried out AJ.Hoge"s course-EFFORTLESS ENGLISH.If so,How was it?

elena_osullivan — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:03:17 GMT

AJ Hoge's "effortless english" is a waste of money. I made the mistake of buying it for a friend who doesn't speak much English and she doesn't even use it. I don't blame her because it takes a lot of effort to learn with it, and there are much, much better materials available on the internet for free. My friend watched some of his videos wherein he sells his MP3's and she thought she found the magic answer thanks to AJ. He's a good salesman but a very mediocre teacher.

Re: Vowel [ʌ] in modern English

kooyeen — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:48:22 GMT

Hi (and welcome to Englishforums Smile), As I know, in modern English the vowel is no more pronounced as... ouch! The vowel must always be pronounced the same, since it's an IPA symbol that describe a sound. IPA symbols don't change, they are defined that way, and they remain so, so that we can describe some sounds. What happens is that dictionaries use a set of symbols even if they don't represent the real pronunciation, so you have a kind of "phonemic transcription", and not real "phonetic transcriptions". For example, from a dictionary you can understand that "bug" and "sub" have the same vowel, or that "teacher" and "better" rhyme, but it doesn't tell...

Re: Two dialects for me?

forbes — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:13:31 GMT

There is, I think, a difference between pronunciation and accent, though I am not quite sure what it is. Perhaps it is a question of degree. It is perfectly possible to pronounce words correctly but with different accents. Different accents may of course involve different articulations of vowels and consonants, but they also involve other aspects like pitch and intonation. Unless learned at a young age by immersion, most people have at least a trace of a foreign accent when they speak a foreign language.

How do I say this?

askshameer — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:07:57 GMT

I'm undergoing accent neutralization training. My instructor says that when a word ends with a vowel sound and if the next word starts with a vowel sound, then I'm supposed to add an "r" in between to read that out. I'm a bit confused now. Is this rule only for IPA (International Pronunciation Association)? or is it applicable to American Accent and British Accent? I'm not happy with his explanation. For ex: "idea of" becomes "idea r of" "law and order" becomes "law r andorder" /Sameer

Re: Which language is most difficult language for people to learn?

anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:44:26 GMT

I would strongly disagreee with Hoa Thai's assertion that French is relatively easy to learn and that is it spelled as it is sounded. It most certainly is not. There are loads of homophones in the language. For instance the 'ay' sound can be represented by the spellings 'ai', 'ais', ait', 'e' with an acute accent, infinitive 'er', 'es', 'et', 'ez' and probably some other combinations that I can't think of just now. If this isn't confusing and non-phonetic then I don't know what is. Also, the fact that most final consonants, even some final double consonants, are not pronounced must make for confusion, eg the non-pronunciation of the final 's',...

Re: Comments on my pronunciation needed

caedmon — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:39:06 GMT

Samuraifingers: I'm sorry if I made it seem like I was expecting a professional assessment of my pronunciation. I am really only looking for brief comments such as "this or that vowel has the wrong quality" or "too much aspiration" or "too little aspiration" - things that I suppose will strike a native speaker fairly immediately when he hears me speak. Here are some particular concerns I've been having, for instance: - The distinction between voiced and voiceless sibilants (eyes-ice, ridge-rich) does not exist in my native language. I noticed that I had been hyperarticulating these in English, and sounding somewhat pedantic as a result. - The secondary stress in compounds is still unclear to me. - I...

Re: How do you pronounce words like 'resources' and 'prices'?

missmandy — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:11:57 GMT

I think you're right on, Kooyeen. And thanks for the reply. I am a stickler in my pronunciation classes that students learn to say the -s (and -ed) endings correctly. Even though I do this, I know that native English speaking Americans rarely say that voiced endings as perfectly voiced, yet it doesn't sound like the unvoiced counterpart sound ( s sound and t sound , for these endings). I knew we said the vowel differently depending on the consonant that follows, but I didn't realize it was also changing the perception of the consonant as well. I think I will also pay attention to how my students are producing the vowels before the final consonant sound. Back to the original question, it must be correct, then, to point out...

Re: Easy as Pie, Almost!

anonymous — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:30:12 GMT

Frequently listen to English spoken by native speakers and repeat them. Watch English movies, listen to music, audio clips, BBC news and presentations. Control your rate of speech to get the correct intonation and rhythm of English. Use your dictionary.Familiarize yourself with the phonetic symbols used for different words in the dictionary and look up the correct pronunciation.This method helps in neutralizing an accent tremendously. Make a list of commonly used words that are difficult to pronounce. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes. Read English newspaper regularly. Work on how to pronounce the vowel and consonant sounds.Mostly vowel sounds play vital role for accent variation. Hence pronounce the...

Re: fair-haired

kooyeen — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:03:07 GMT

Do you know which accent is chosen by MW as the reference in the pronunciation keys. Is it General American? No idea. The audio files comes from several different speakers, but I think I've always heard "accentless" pronunciations from MW. So I guess it might me General American, generally speaking. 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...

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 ( / -e t /, / -e l /, / -e d /, / -e n / ), using / er / to indicate a different sound from / e / is not a good idea because you'll have problems showing the differences between / -e

Arabic-english accent

anonymous — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:35:37 GMT

Dear forum-ers, I was born in the UK and acquired the english language as a joint first language with arabic. My family moved back to our country when I was still a child, and although I always maintained a very high standard of spoken, and written english I unfortunately lost my accent. I moved back to the UK 2 years ago, and am working in a job that requires interaction with lots of people from different educational backgrounds. Everybody commends me on my excellent grasp of the english language, but they can easily tell that I am a foreigner. I don't want to be a sell-out, but I believe that, especially recently, an arabic accent is associated with a negative racial stereotype. The problem is I am getting very stressed, and...

Re: Curious about Comtemporary RP Accent**

tam sadek — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:50:13 GMT

According to John Wells at University College London: "I do not understand the proposed distinction between Mainstream RP and Contemporary RP (unless the writer thinks, wrongly, that ‘contemporary’ means ‘young’)." You can read more of what he says about it at: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0707a.htm Whereas according to the British Library's Accents and Dialects of the UK website in their section on London RP, the commentary says: "Michelle speaks with an accent most of us would immediately associate with a middle-class background. Many of the vowel sounds she uses have a traditional RP ring, but she also uses a number of pronunciations characteristic of contemporary RP . In other words she uses certain features...

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

cvilla — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:30:00 GMT

Just some additional comments. CalifJim wrote: First of all, I didn't think it was awful. (I mostly listened, not watching.) The following are some observations. It think that depends on your taste. For some people it's awful; for others it's not. CalifJim wrote: 1. The stress pattern is slightly off. Slightly too much rising pitch at the ends of phrases, or perhaps a little too much lengthening (slowing down) there. Yep, that's true. Also, it seems that his intonation is flat on very long sentences, like on "When I was a baby my daddy wanted to take me to another..." You also need to take into account that the way he rises pitch is sort of weird. CalifJim wrote:

Re: Australian/British/American pronunciation differences

anonymous — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:44:51 GMT

Here are my comments. The parentheses indicate that something is not part of General American-like dialects or RP, but is found in certain regional dialects.. CA R ------ American R's are always pronounced, British R's are not. In General American vs. RP, yes, (but there are non-rhotic American dialects on the East coast, and rhotic British dialects.) N O -------- British is /əʊ/, American is /oʊ/ Some British dialects have /o/. Some American dialects have /o/. (Some American dialects have /əʊ/.) N O T ------ British is /ɒ/, American is /ɑ/ Actually in about 40% of the country "not" can have /ɒ/ or /ɑ/ used interchangeably. NO T ------ British final T's are released, American final T's are not. yeah L AW ----- In BrE it's /o/, in AmE...

Re: Is grammar essential for learning a language?

feathers — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:11:39 GMT

Thanks, anon. Without your post, I would have missed this thread. Goodman wrote: Hi CJ, What an impressive thread you have posted. You have slowly made me a fan of yours. Yep! CalifJim wrote: In any case, the struggle for the learner is always making the conversion from 'computing' utterances (assembling them by applying grammatical rules) to generating meaningful utterances spontaneously. The more role models the learners have, whether in terms of number of speakers they have contact with or in terms of the number of written and spoken resources they have available, the smoother the transition. At the extreme, if the learner is thrown into a sink-or-swim situation -- immersion -- it may be possible to...

Re: How can I learn to talk with a British accent?

brunate — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:32:04 GMT

I have mentioned this before on this website, but I hope it will help you. I am poet who has made available freely about 240 of my own poems on the internet, but I have also added my clear English voice to each poem to help both overseas students studying the English language and especially children of our own country who are struggling with reading. When you read words like: cough; through; though; bough and dough - you may not realize that they all have completely different vowel sounds, so listening and reading at the same time is an excellent way of improving both your pronunciation and spelling. Even the English realize that our language is difficult to others. I have been a teacher all my life, and for many years I have taught ESL...

Re: 'what' as 'hawt' & 'r' as 'rr' in Spanish Thanks

marvin a. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:06:18 GMT

Hwat for what is the original pronunciation and was the only form used in Middle English. In Modern English, many dialects lost the wine-whine distinction, and began pronouncing words spelled "wh" as simply "w", rather thn "hw". The original, conservative form is still around, and is considered standard in certain areas. In North America, many Southern accents preserve it. Elsewhere in N. America, it has almost completely died out, except in older speakers. However... people often hear others using it, and hear that it sounds old-fashioned and a little bit more correct, and thus add it to their own speech. I remember myself adding it to my speech for awhile. However, I've given up the habit. My grandpa has it, but I can tell that he must...

Re: He, she ,we

kooyeen — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:34:48 GMT

Thank you very much for your replies. But I noticed some strange things: CalifJim wrote: I don't make any change in the OO sound in you, you've, or you'd . Really? I thought "you" was not usually "yoo" (oo like in "too"). I also recently opened a thread about the pronunciation of "you" and "do". I think the vowel in "you" can vary from a schwa to "oo" as in "too", and since it can vary, it seems to me that is it halfway in between most of the times (halfway in between might be very similar to "oo" in "book", but it depends on your accent) CalifJim wrote: In the case of the R's, the effect is not restricted to contractions like we're and you're : beer, poor . I think it IS restricted to those cases. I pronounce...

Re: Changing accent when you move to somewhere else

marvin a. — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:38:38 GMT

Now on to the Texan that moved to Chicago. Like I said, Texas is a big state, with a huge accent continuum. The Westernern most part of Texas has a Western or Western-transitional accent, and thus sounds pretty well identical to a New Mexican accent. Eastern Texas has more of a Southern or Southern-transitional accent. In between, their is a unique Texas accent, which has the Southern vowel shift combined with the low back vowel merger. Not only that, but the major cities in Texas have received a huge influx of Northerners and Westerners who have brought their accent with them. Their is also a rural and urban divide as well. The rural areas (excluding Westernmost Texas) are likely to have more of an accent than the urban areas. So, if...

Re: which pronunciation for clarity is more popular?

marvin a. — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:23:43 GMT

Nope, a complete vowel merger means that you can neither produce nor perceive a difference between two or more vowels in a certain environment or all environments. In my dialect, the vowels and are merged in all environments so I cannot produce nor perceive any difference between them. If someone said the word "father", they could say it as or even and they would both sound the same to me and would be both perfectly acceptable pronunciations of that word. A Shibboleth between the Northern and Midlands dialects is that Northerners pronounce "on" as (or even ), with the same vowel as in "cot" whereas people from the Midland pronounce it as something like , with the same vowel as in "caught". However, for me, since the vowels in...

Re: which pronunciation for clarity is more popular?

califjim — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:01:27 GMT

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 equally for /I/. Is there anything wrong with this? I'll state it below in full: Before /I/ there is no contrast between tense and lax vowels in most definitions of General American and approximate accents. What is mistaken, if anything, about that statement? Thanks. CJ

Re: which pronunciation for clarity is more popular?

marvin a. — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 05:32:25 GMT

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 (such as my own) pronounce "ay" differently depending on the environment. Thus the "ay" in "play" is slightly different than my "a" in brave". Other dialects are more consistent. I was merely pointing out that there are many acceptable pronunciations of "ay". 2) 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.

Re: which pronunciation for clarity is more popular?

califjim — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:14:37 GMT

most speakers of General American English, use a vowel closer to , so why did you decided to switch to #3 instead of #3? Btw, since you do have a Western accent, and many Westerners have the CVS, and those that don't have it seldom notice it in others speech, #1 would also be acceptable. But for General American, I would say that the best option is probably #2. Why shouldn't a student use the pronunciation given in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary? (#3). CJ

Re: which pronunciation for clarity is more popular?

marvin a. — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:13:08 GMT

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 to , so why did you decided to switch to #3 instead of #3? Btw, since you do have a Western accent, and many Westerners have the CVS, and those that don't have it seldom notice it in others speech, #1 would also be acceptable. But for General American, I would say that the best option is probably #2.

Re: How would you pronounce these foreign names?

colombo — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:40:22 GMT

I suppose demicjusz is interested in how those words are pronounced by people who speak English, so I don't think my opinion here would be useful, since my spoken English doesn't contain many sounds apart from those that belong also to Spanish (so you can imagine my accent). With my nil knowledge of phonetic transcription, if I wanted to tell you how I'd pronounce the words in demicjusz's list (with my Spanish accent, remember), all I'd have to do is copy the list again, perhaps with a couple of changes here and there. Besides, an English-speaking person would not pronounce my transcription as I'd do, so I'm afraid it's no use my writing it. However, I'd like to make a comment about "Fortaleza", which is a Spanish word. Demicjusz...

Re: American accent

kooyeen — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:09:05 GMT

Hi Jeffrey, it depends what you need help with. Is it the vowel sounds that you don't know how to pronounce? Or you know how to pronounce a single word but you can't join different words together in a sentence? Much depends on your native language, also. Often Asians have trouble pronouncing r's, but for most Europeans that's not a big problem. I read a book on American accent not long ago, to try to reduce my foreign accent, and it really helped me a lot. But, depending on your particular problems, it might not be the right book for you. So let us know what your problems are in particular, then we will see. Americans speak fast? Well, let's say that the more I listen to Americans speak, the more they speak slowly. In other words, to us...

Re: Speaking Teaching Books

kooyeen — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:06:40 GMT

Hi, yes, there are books that deal with stress, intonation, and pronunciation. I've read "American Accent Training" by Ann Cook. There's really a lot of stuff in that book (and on the 5 CDs). I haven't tried any other books anyway, so I can only tell you about that one. It treats American English, not British English or any other variety. Generally speaking, it's a really good book and I would recommend it. Some points (just my opinion): She (Ann Cook) makes you notice almost all the features of English that you've never noticed (stress, intonation, liaisons, word reductions, contractions, vowels, tapped t... ) Five CDs for audio lessons (she reads most of what's in the book, so you can listen while reading). Plus, she speaks very...

Re: writing - riding

ville_maddengurl — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:38:54 GMT

Kooyeen wrote: Hi, what's the difference in pronunciation between "writing" and "riding"? I once heard that some people distinguish them by the first vowel. Who distinguish them and how? Who doesn't? Thanks Their pronunciations are same for me : ) From time to time my friends distinguish them. Have you tried the test which determines your accent, Kooyeen? I really wonder if you have North Central accent too ...

Re: Trading accents

marvin a. — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:41:33 GMT

Lesson 1: Basic Pronunciation The following will make you sound Southern to non-Southerners: Pin pen merger: Pronounce "pin" and "pen" both as pin . Any /E/ followed by an /n/ should be sounded as /In/ No yod dropping: therefore " No wine-whine merger: Pronounce words such as "whine" "white" whales" with an "hw" sound. Pronounce /aU/ as : down -> dayoon Pronounce /aI/ as except before voiceless consonants (p,t,k,f,theta,s). For those, use . Distinguish /ær/, /ɛr/, and /er/ in "marry" "merry" and "Mary" Before "l" make all vowels lax: thus feel->fill fail->fell Many nouns are stressed on the first syllable that would be stressed on the second syllable in other accents. These include police, cement, Detroit,...

Re: Have a question about British accent.

anonymous — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:50:20 GMT

Xam0 wrote: There is definately an upstate NY accent. The vowels in the middle of some words are either changed or pronounced as dipthongs. Ill put the normal spelling of some words followed by the upstate NY pronunciation.. and then the north jersey pronunciation (where im from) which is fairly neutral compared to upstate ny. Dog -- dwog -- dog Frog -- frohg --frog Cat -- keeyat -- kat Mat -- meeyat -- mat Walk -- wooawk -- wahk Map -- meeyap -- map Hat -- heeyat -- hat Creek -- crick -- kreek Water -- wuohdr -- wahdr Ball -- bowul -- bahl Fall -- fowul -- fahl Hair -- hayer -- hare Fair -- fayer -- fare Have -- hyav -- hav Has -- hyaz -- haz Also, upstate NY, like NJ does not make a distinction in pronunciation between "Mary,...

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

kooyeen — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:46:28 GMT

Anonymous wrote: The American pronunciation of “o” in your next example wouldn’t be found in any regional accent of British English that I can call to mind immediately, though there is considerable variation in the pronunciation of this sound – for example, in Scotland, Liverpool and the West Country. Similarly, there are variations in the pronunciation of the “talk, walk, call” vowel and the “no, so, low” diphthong from region to region – but none that I can think of that are close enough to the American pronunciation to be considered the same. The tap/flap is quite a distinctive feature of American English. It’s not in the standard British English inventory, but you might hear it in some Irish accents. I've heard...

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

anonymous — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 09:20:09 GMT

It’s rather hard to work out quite what you are looking for here. Some of these features – as Marvin A was pointing out – are not specifically American English pronunciation, but the allophonic variation that occurs in connected speech. That is, the pronunciation of some sounds is influenced by the sounds around them because of the way you have to move your lips, tongue, velum and so forth to get from one sound to another. Thus, your first four examples show the impact of the following “y” /j/ sound, and this is not specific to either a British or American accent. The American pronunciation of “o” in your next example wouldn’t be found in any regional accent of British English that I can call to mind immediately, though there is...

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

califjim — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:30:05 GMT

since I'm learning American English, I wanted to know why that standard American Accent was awful First of all, I didn't think it was awful. (I mostly listened, not watching.) The following are some observations. 1. The stress pattern is slightly off. Slightly too much rising pitch at the ends of phrases, or perhaps a little too much lengthening (slowing down) there. 2. The word junctures are occasionally unidiomatic. The use of too at the end of one sentence was not phrased right. The use of today at the beginning of another had the same little problem. In my opinion, it should have been todayI almost as one word rather than with the pause after today and then I . 3. The lax vowels, especially the stressed ones, were...

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

anonymous — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:21:53 GMT

Well this conversation is ancient, but maybe you get a tickler when someone replies adn will find this. The guy's accent is crap. I'm Canadian but I'm from Toronto where our accent is *almost* standard American (or what we called in the film business Mid-west Flat) and I can tell you a few specifically crappy things about it. I'll focus on the first couple of sentences, there is more than enough wrong with it. Also I agree with the commenter who said it sounded vaguely Russian. "Standard American English. Hello my name is Paul and, the reason why I'm recording this video is to show you the way I talk. I will tell you a little story too." Apart from the specific pronunciation problems, the rhythm is off. That's a very...

Re: Dialogue

marvin a. — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 06:45:46 GMT

Feebs11 wrote: It's demonstrating a particularly exaggerated mode of speech: Air = Ah/Oh; Hair Lair = He llo. Sloane Rangers characteristally spoke this way, with an affected, strangulated and slightly nasal pronunciation. Sometimes also described as the Oxford accent. It's a sideways insult for Sandhurst as being the place that the brainless upperclass nitwit ends up. So are you saying that "air", "hair", and "lair" have different vowels? It sounds like to me, so it's almost impossible to imagine it even resembling "ah hello". Even if I prononounce them without the r's, it just sounds like eh-heh-leh--and there's no way I could get "ah hello" out of that--it sounds Hawaiian.

Re: non-native accents

marvin a. — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 03:40:21 GMT

This is really badly off topic but I couldn't resist the temptation to comment on your correct observation. I understand very well that native speakers of English mispronounce foreign words because foreign languages are not studied much in English-speaking countries. Well, can you really blame us? In order to pronounce all of the foreign names we're faced with, we would have to know hundreds of different languages--which not many of us do. Also, we would have to know how certain names are Anglicized that were written in different scripts, such as Cyrillic or Greek. We'd also have to know the nationality of the name as well. Also some spellings are altered when written in English. We'd also have to adapt the name to fit English rules,...

Re: Is American English lazy English?

marvin a. — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 16:57:56 GMT

Englishuser wrote: What's interesting is that these changes are led by younger female speakers. Older speakers and male speakers adopt these kind of changes later. Yes, that really is interesting. Why are the changes led by younger female speakers in particular? What about younger male speakers? Englishuser Yes, that is an interesting question. Here's what I could find: http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=43356 "...sound changes that are not stigmatized are led especially by young women who are the 'movers and shakers' in the community, people with energy and enterprise. Such young women, at the same time, are conservative with respect to sound changes or stable linguistic...

Re: Canadians and their English

marvin a. — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 20:15:24 GMT

The Western and Central Canadian English dialect does have several differences from conservative General American, although many dialects in the US have some or all of the same features that are found in Western/Central Canadian English. Western/Central Canadian English is actually closer to General American than most dialects spoken in the US are, due to recent vowel shifts. General American used to be the standard for news broadcasts, etc. in Canada, but is now being displaced in favour of a Western/Central accent (not that many people can really tell the difference). Many people in Canada as well as many regions in the US believe that they are "accentless"--meaning they believe that they have no accent of any kind whatsoever. It's...

Re: Defining American English

marvin a. — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:27:39 GMT

So what's your definition of American English (or North American English, as some prefer)? I would probably define it mostly by its phonology. It would be pretty hard to define. Or why not just say, any dialect of English spoken in North America? Is there a standard for American English? Not really. It's defined many different ways, and no one seems to agree. In it's broadest definition it's simply any dialect of North American English that contains no stigmatized features. William Labov defines in his Phonological Atlas of North American English as being Western US, Midland, and Western and Central Canadian English. Wikipedia has a (controversial) article on "General American" which states that "The General American accent...

Re: Am I all alone?

kooyeen — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:50:26 GMT

Hi Marvin, my reaction is: I noticed your particular pronunciation in your previous posts, the way you described your accent was so strange that I had to ask where you were from. You sure have an interesting accent, a lot of mergers and some vowel-shifts, but also a lot of exceptions. I really don't know what to say (as I already told you, I'm not an expert on accents), but I think that if I had to talk with you, I don't know if I would be able to understand you most of the times (but of course you should consider that I'm not a native speaker of English). Do people around your area speak that way too, or in a similar way? Are there a great variety of accents in that part of Canada?

Re: help with æ

marvin a. — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:45:20 GMT

No, I don't speak a Southern dialect or Ebonics. I have a Western accent. I'm from the Tsawwassen peninsula. Not everyone merges all of those words here, but everyone pronounces them at least close. Certain areas in Northern Wisconsin and the Upper peninsula of Michigan as well as some speakers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba also have the bag-bang-beg-vague merger--so it exists in other areas too. A common phenomenon throughout the West is to pronounce /E/ before /g/ as , thus making "beg" and "vague" sound the same. Another phenomenon that occurs mostly in the North Central and Northwest is raising ash before /g/ to or something close to it. Interestingly enough, in California, the California vowel shift causes /æ/ to shift to ,...