Re: Pronunciation differences

raindoctor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:00:01 GMT

r after any vowel has a special place in english. oor usually end up as ʊɚ, ɔɚ, oʊɚ poor: pʊɚ moore: mʊ ɚ , mɔ ɚ , moʊ ɚ floor: fl ɔ ɚ , floʊ ɚ door: d ɔ ɚ d oʊ ɚ oo before any but r: boom: bum doom: dum hood: h ʊd good: gʊd wood: wʊd hook: hʊk food: fud proof: pruf school: skuo (the last o shud be transcribed as a satellite, since vocalized l shud be there). Now, you can notice the pattern.

Re: the pronunciation of the word "the"

anonymous — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:22:41 GMT

If you look in a dictionary: the 1 play_w2("T0146800") ( before a vowel; before a consonant ) Or, "thee" before a vowel and "thuh" before a consonant. It's not a rule we learn in school, but it's something we seem to "absorb". The reason for the different pronunciation is so that the language flows more smoothly. French does that a lot! For example, les tables (don't hear the "s"), but les enfants (you hear the "s" as a "z" sound to make it not hiccup!)...

Re: Try Saying the Alphabet...

peter groves — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:23:04 GMT

Native speakers of English don't, unless dictating to children. In ... or "handbag" (which in rapid speech is indistinguishable from "ham-bag"). I'm English and have just a vestige of a "d" in handsome and a subdued but audible one in sandwich, but a full one in handbag (hand-bag). If you utter a fully released /d/ in "handbag" (hand-bag) you're using a spelling pronunciation, which is normally a result of the word in question going out of daily use. I'm English too, but I live in Australia and while my students don't say "cup-board" because they use the word on a daily basis, they do say "waist-coat", "boat-swain", "grind-stone" and...

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...

"an eulogy" or "a eulogy"?

paul — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:13:57 GMT

As per phonetics theory, I've been told one should use the indefinite article "a" before words beginning with a consonant and "an" before words beginning with a vowel or a diphthong. And the sound "y" ( or / j / in phonetic script) as in "eulogy", "university", "European" etc. is to be treated as a consonant (though in certain contexts one would also call it a "semi-vowel"). Why is it that I still find "an" preceeding this sound in certain write-ups generating combinations such as "an eulogy", and "an university" ? Are these instances of incorrect usage? Paul.

Re: How to overcome tongue-tied pronunciation?

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 23:32:01 GMT

No you wouldn't. Pronunciation skills training is part of professional ... the 'Sounds of American' stress on that particular site. DC I would serously consider sending the student to a vocal coach who could help her to sing on the vowels. ... and vocal cords. Try it... By the way, I think you meant the "right" way - not the "write way". Well I think the poster behind me meant that, certainly. If the student wanted to waste money they could go to a vocal coach, or they could take ESL/EFL lessons with a competent teacher. DC

How to overcome tongue-tied pronunciation?

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 02:03:50 GMT

Hi, I need some advice regarding ESL instruction. I don't have any formal ESL training or certification, but I do tutor some foreign students in English - mainly written English. I've been approached by a Russian student who wants to improve her pronunciation, intonation and accent. She has trouble getting her tongue around English vowels. This clearly is beyond my capabilities. But I'm wondering what kind of tutor she needs. This seems to me to require working with a linguistic therapist in a language laboratory. Am I write in thinking that even someone with formal ESL certification would not necessarily have the skills needed to help her? Where would she look for this kind of tutoring? It doesn't seem to be available at...

Re: pronounciation before meaning

cybercypher — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:36:23 GMT

Enrico C wrote on 21 Nov 2004: One can always record one's own speech and compare it with a native speaker's rendition. On the contrary, I think one can improve a lot if others listen to him/her attentively and make him/her notice ... change the sound, even better if they can explain where their tongue exactly is when they utter a certain sound. Sure, but that's not terribly practical in most EFL classes. I do spend a bit of time on trying to teach my Taiwanese students that they have to close their lips to pronounce an (m), but most of them just pronounce words like "time" as (tain) instead of (taim). That's why I I don't think it's just an individual problem, as I noticed there are common issues for...

Re: pooberty

bob cunningham — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 17:38:12 GMT

On 28 Aug 2004 08:35:31 -0700, R H Draney Jon Miller filted: * I assume Sara meant to write "pooberty" there. I've never had much occasion to use the word, but it would not have occurred to me to pronounce it any other way than ('pu:b@rti:) ("pooberty"). Now that I'm alerted, though, I'll be listening to see if I hear anyone pronouncing it another way. The (pu:) ("poo") pronunciation is common enough for Webster's Third New International Dictionary ( W3NID ) to show it as an alternative, albeit tagged with "sometimes". By the way, note that by itself the pronunciation spelling "poo" is at least ambiguous. "oo" can be as in "food" or "good"...

Re: -ire words

jonathan jordan — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:45:53 GMT

I have come to the sudden realization that I don't pronounce all"-ire" words alike. Some have (ajr), with the same ... in the(ajr) class are "learned words" in one way or another for me, but "wire"isn't and I can't say (wVjr). I don't think I have this distinction - my "tire" and "tyre" (which of course I spell differently) are homophones as far as I can tell. However, I've seen a description of a Northern Irish accent which does seem to have a similar distinction: see http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/w.n.maguire/SwTE.htm and click on the "phonology" link - the page uses Wells's word classes, so you're looking at PRICE. There are a couple of cases where...

Re: rhotic/non-rhotic puzzle [WAS: Gershwin says "ersters" and I say baloney]

dr robin bignall — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 22:57:51 GMT

(wrt "um") 'erm' Not the same sound at all for me: it's "perm" without the p. I even say both (although 'um' is more likely). Weird. It depends so much on how one learned one's accent. My mother's mother was a Londoner (don't know from which part) who moved to Nottingham on her marriage to a master tailor who had delusions of gentility until alcohol made him a pauper, so his 11 children (7 made it to adulthood) had a sort of refined accent beaten into them. My father was from a very rough neighbourhood, but he had been worked over by my mother, as far as pronunciation was concerned, long before I came along. So, possibly like many others, I spoke gutter Nottingham at school and a...

Re: Methods of Polite Instruction

areff — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 22:43:24 GMT

When people write to me addressing me as "Graham", I usually reply with "who?" That might work for the spoken name, too. Have you tried that on US speakers that call you "Gram"? Or is that pronunciation only used when talking about the crackers? I know dialects and idiolects differ on this pernt, but in my dialect "gram" and "Graham" and "graham" and, I guess, "Graeme" all have the same pronunciation, rhyming with "spam" and "jam" and so forth. Strangely enough, and I've remarked upon this before, I heard my sister some years ago pronounce "Graham" (as in the cracker) as "grayum" /greI@m/, two syllables, which I gather is...

Re: Pronunciation of "actor" and "theatre" (was: Trilled r)

aaron j. dinkin — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 02:07:25 GMT

I think (V) - as it's conventionally used, not as ... mean the latter here to correspond to IPA "turned a". Isn't the conventional use of (V) just to describe whatever vowel sound occurs in "cut" in the variety of English in question? Not at all (though that may be the use of /V/). The conventional use of (V), at least with respect to English, is to represent a central unrounded vowel higher than (a) and lower than (@) - which, as it happens, is the vowel used in "cut" in the most conventionally standard varieties of English. The official definition of (V) is as a back unrounded vowel of the same height, and after a year of grad school I think I have understood why: It seems that typical theories of...

Re: guess/gas

peter moylan — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 01:15:56 GMT

rewboss infrared: In American English there are fairly significant differences among different accents in how /&/ and /E/ are pronounced. And for many foreign students (Germans certainly) the difference is infinitesimal. In a long-ago thread on the pronunciation of Händel we were told that the German ä was pronounced /E/ in mainstream German but /&/ in some regional dialects. That sort of observation might well make it easier for Germans to remember the difference between the two English vowels. (Assuming that somebody knows which regions are involved.) Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)

Re: Pronunciation

irma — Fri, 21 May 2004 06:00:50 GMT

As a native Spanish speaker I have a hard time to distinguish the difference between the vowels in * cut * cot * caught Are there any clues on how should I shape my mouth/lips/tongue/vocal chords/whatever to pronounce these vowels correctly? Hola Fernando, I am a native Spanish speaker, and I have this and some other pronunciation problems as well, unfortunately. I have improved my pronunciation a little, by listen to BBC words in the news. They are short paragraphs you can listen several times and try to repeat with the proper pronuntiation. BBC Learning English has as well new pronuntiation lessons. They are quite good. Espero que esto te ayude. Mucha suerte! Irma.

Re: Pronunciation

dylan nicholson — Fri, 21 May 2004 04:55:32 GMT

As a native Spanish speaker I have a hard time to distinguish thedifference between the vowels in * cut * cot * caught Are there any clues on how should I shape my mouth/lips/tongue/vocal chords/whatever to pronounce these vowelscorrectly? Even many English speakers, especially US ones, don't distinguish cot/caught (or even cart for that matter - providing they're non-rhotic). 'Cut' is quite similar to how you would pronounce 'cat' in Spanish, although it's a little less rounded, and futher back in the mouth. 'Cot' according to my pronunciation is basically identical to what the Spanish pronounciation would be, but the US pronunication is noticeably different. Caught is very similar to cot, but is...

Re: the pronunciation of 'hyphenation'?

jonathan jordan — Tue, 11 May 2004 19:34:33 GMT

The maximum onsets principle isn't universally accepted. See http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/syllabif.htm which ... /n/ goes in the third syllable because of stress.) Jonathan Who is Wells? Professor of phonetics at University College London, who wrote the article that I mentioned above. I was taught that a long vowel could end a syllable. I'm sure it can. However Wells's suggestion is (roughly - read the article for more detail) that consonants tend to be attracted to more strongly stressed syllables; hence the /f/ goes into the first syllable. Jonathan

Re: Comprehensive list of allophones of all English phonemes

peter t. daniels — Sat, 01 May 2004 17:46:19 GMT

If you think about the meanings of "allophone" and "phoneme," you'll realize this is an impossible request. What "others"? Hmm, sorry if my request was unclear. By "others," I meant what are the possible allophones of other phonemes besides ... I ask more questions on these newsgroups, I need to go start working on my PhD in linguistics! Oh well... Be sure to note the remark in Evan's quote from Ladefoged that "These rules are far from a complete set." Phonetics is like fractals at some point you have to be satisfied with the level of detail, and you also have to let common sense take over certainly the stop in "ghee" will sound different from the stop in...

Re: English public school lingo

areff — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:31:33 GMT

No, sorry. Will La Salle do? This is a common toponymical element in the Chicago area. Probably some French explorer/fur trader or such. The proper AmE pronunciation is /l@'s&l/ ("la Sal") (as in Didn't need no welfare state Everybody pulled his weight Gee our old LaSalle ran great Those ... were ... the ... days (Applause) ) For a while, though, I assumed that the Chicago pronunciation of "LaSalle" was "la sail" /l@ 'seIl/. This was just a confusion on my part due to the Upper Midwestern vowel shift, coupled with the New York realization of /eIl/. Now I know that those Chicago people aren't saying "la sail", as *they* perceive it.

Re: I'm looking for a native speaker

patrick lecordier — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 17:38:14 GMT

"Molly Mockford" (Email Removed) a écrit dans le message de : Why is it a university, but an umbilical cord? Because of the pronunciation, not the spelling. University is pronounced Yooniversity (i.e. a consonant-sound rather than a vowel-sound), which means ... as the second person singular. I fear that this may confuse rather than assist, but the intention is to help! "I don't need time. What I need is a deadline." - Duke Ellington websites: http://www.erp.oissel.onac.org/anglais/ - http://perso.wanadoo.fr/patrick.lecordier/

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

bob cunningham — Mon, 23 Feb 2004 13:54:30 GMT

I think it might be an idea to have something on the website about "short" and "long" vowels, because there does seem to be some confusion about this. Long and short vowels (in the layman's sense of "long" and "short") are illustrated to some extent on the AUE Web site at http://tinyurl.com/eggg *. The confusion arises because there are two disparate meanings of "long" and "short" vowels: the meanings given to the terms by phoneticians and the meanings many of us learned when we were learning to read in elementary school. In the phonetics meanings, "long" and "short" refer simply to the actual durations of pronunciations. It's natural to be puzzled...

Re: I'm looking for a native speaker

molly mockford — Sun, 22 Feb 2004 09:07:09 GMT

: So how does the rule on "u" and "a" or "an" work (or all the vowels for that matter)? Why is it a university, but an umbilical cord? Because of the pronunciation, not the spelling. University is pronounced Yooniversity (i.e. a consonant-sound rather than a vowel-sound), which means that "a university" is easy to say. By contrast, "a umbilical cord" is almost impossible to say, which is why the "n" is added to the indefinite article. Similarly, the pronunciation of "the" changes subtly, depending on whether it is followed by a vowel or a consonant. "The pear" and "the apple" would be pronounced rather like "th'pear" and "thee...

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

raymond s. wise — Sat, 21 Feb 2004 07:22:30 GMT

the of helps, This is true, but it complicates matters. For example (here I'm using ASCII IPA to represent IPA), the Collins dictionaries, Cambridge dictionaries, and the OED all use (@U) to represent the British (Received Pronunciation) version of the "long 'o'" (as an American would refer to it). But for the British version of the "short 'a,'" and the "long 'i,'" the newer dictionaries from the Oxford University Press (and the newer definitions in the online OED) use, respectively, (a) and (VI) while the Collins and the Cambridge use (&) and (aI), the same symbols which I would use to represent the American pronunciation of the vowels in question. And let's not even...

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

meg anne — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 04:19:13 GMT

I have no regional accent that I'm aware of - ... believe it's a regional thing that's causing me this dispute. It's not quite as simple as that. There isn't one, uniform general American accent. There's plenty of room for variation, even if you don't have a specifically regional accent. Thanks for your feedback. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I speak like national personalities such as Tom Browkaw, Katie Couric, Jane Pauley and Diane Sawyer. Whatever their dialect is, mine is very much the same. Is their a name for their accents? (i.e., a standard broacasting/network dialect of some kind?) Anyhow, to me, they all sound very much alike. I personally think of this as just plain American - no...

Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

meg anne — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 20:17:04 GMT

My fellow court reporting students and I are in disagreement over the vowel sound that occurs in words such as the following: bank, blanket, bang, tank, tango, rank, blank, thanks, etc. One group adamantly believes this to be similar to a LONG A sound, while the other group thinks it's the SHORT A sound. We have found conflicting information on this topic when consulting various dicationaries and pronunciation guides. Is it possible that the sound is neither the short or long A and might have a phonetic sound/category of its own? Personally, I feel it is much closer to a long A than short A, but it seems to be kind of an individual thing (you hear it the way you hear it, regardless of what others say or what the dicationary says...)...

Re: The pronunciation of 'Mach' [Was: After my investigation--The Truth About Bun Mui Revealed:]

dr robin bignall — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 21:41:15 GMT

barrier'. Pronounced "mock", the Mach number is the ratio of the speed of a fluid, or of This would appear to be a case where pronunciation spelling doesn't do the job. I'm going to avoid ... British pronunciation of "Mach," the technical term, rhymes with the American pronunciation of "mock" but *not* with the British pronunciation! I didn't want to make heavy weather of it, Raymond, but I was 8 when Yeager broke the sound barrier, and remember that it was a hot topic at school. 'Mach' is always pronounced with the vowel sound of 'cat' in my BrE experience, a very short 'a'. wrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England

Re: ['i:NglIS] vs ['INglIS] [was: Re: Interesting article from the AUE's first day:]

raymond s. wise — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:25:11 GMT

Did you people *never* learn short and long vowel sounds? "Tin" is short "I"; "teen" is long "I". The way it's usually taught in school is that "tin" is short "i" and "teen" is long "e". In ASCIIPA, "tin" is (I) and "teen" is (i). Mike Hardy And in the traditional American system of representing pronunciation, the sounds are indicated as follows (followed by the ASCII IPA equivalent): "long 'e'": e with a macron, /i/. "short 'e'": e with a breve, /E/. "long 'i'": i with a macron, /aI/. "short 'i'": i with a breve, /I/. See...

Re: pronunciation of stop consonants

iwasaki — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 16:55:48 GMT

I don't know from linguistics and phonetics (we're sending Young Aaron to grad school for that), but I think the ... context where there's a closely linked following word beginning with a vowel, however, it turns into a flap sound (*) In that case, "at the sight of" and "at the side of" become exactly the same pronunciation? except for the combination, where I think it's more of a (t). (In the latter case, other Americans might ... of this, listen to Michael Hamm's recent recording where, as I recall, he artificially aspirates the final -t of "cat".) Thank you for the explanation. I listened to his "cat" at http://www.math.wustl.edu/~msh210/recording.html If that "t"...

Re: pronunciation of stop consonants

r f — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 16:13:44 GMT

"In final position (t) is aspirated and shortens the vowel before it, whilst (d) is particularly weak and makes only ... do you pronounce the "t" sound when it's in the final position of the word, like "cent", "heart", or "sight"? I don't know from linguistics and phonetics (we're sending Young Aaron to grad school for that), but I think the AmE speaker was right. The final in those words is realized as some sort of glottal stop by me when pronounced in isolation. When pronounced in a context where there's a closely linked following word beginning with a vowel, however, it turns into a flap sound (*) except for the combination, where I think it's more of a (t). (In the...

Re: Long vowel before "ll"

donna richoux — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:44:11 GMT

This is news to me. I've heard a strong "ko" ... and they have "k@". Kuh-LIN-ee-er, kuh-LATE. Almost klinear and klate. I'm puzzled. When you say "Merriam-Webster", what dictionary are you referring to? Both the tenth and eleventh editions of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate have five pronunciations for "collate". I'm glad to hear it, since, as I said, I was surprised by Joe's indication that the pronunciations I knew were strange. I was referring to the edition on-line at m-w.com, which is the 10th. I assume you mean you checked the print edition. I'm surprised they differ. (See below) One of them has the vowel that our grade-school teachers taught us to call "long o",...

Re: Long vowel before "ll"

bob cunningham — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 01:20:25 GMT

"collate", ('koU,leIt). From the usual pattern for such Latin-derived verbs ... people pronounce "collinear" (,koU'lIni@r), and some even spell it "co-linear". This is news to me. I've heard a strong "ko" in "collinear" and "collate" all my life, including from math ... agrees with you; it has only one pronunciation for each, and they have "k@". Kuh-LIN-ee-er, kuh-LATE. Almost klinear and klate. I'm puzzled. When you say "Merriam-Webster", what dictionary are you referring to? Both the tenth and eleventh editions of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate have five pronunciations for "collate". One of them has the vowel that our grade-school...

Re: Speling Refohrm

skitt — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 04:23:33 GMT

Really? I recognize it, and I went to school here. Of course, I'm different ... Could it be that the distinction is recognized in Latvian? That would explain a lot. Different ballgame altogether, but in general, each vowel or a particular vowel combination has its own pronunciation, and it is not influenced by the surrounding letters. What might come into play for the cot/caught thing is my desire to be clearly understood when speaking. Skitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/

Re: ah = ar, aw = or, aw =/= ah / ar

woody wordpecker — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 21:08:10 GMT

To what extent is this influenced by the initial consonants ... for these vowels, both issuing from the same lip shape. Having looked in a mirror, I agree with Matti: whatever internal movement of the tongue produces the two distinct RP ... of artificial actorish demonstration of the words, there is a rounding for "cot" and "caught" not visible in normal speech. All you're saying is that you don't use (A.) in the pronunciation of any of the words you've mentioned. You use some other vowel(s). So your pronunciation doesn't agree with that shown in Oxford University Press dictionaries and in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary ( http://tinyurl.com/r7hm ). I have no complaint about people...

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

Re: Pronunciation differences

Re: the pronunciation of the word "the"

Re: Try Saying the Alphabet...

Re: WHEN IS "w" A VOWEL

"an eulogy" or "a eulogy"?

Re: How to overcome tongue-tied pronunciation?

How to overcome tongue-tied pronunciation?

Re: pronounciation before meaning

Re: pooberty

Re: -ire words

Re: rhotic/non-rhotic puzzle [WAS: Gershwin says "ersters" and I say baloney]

Re: Methods of Polite Instruction

Re: Pronunciation of "actor" and "theatre" (was: Trilled r)

Re: guess/gas

Re: Pronunciation

Re: Pronunciation

Re: the pronunciation of 'hyphenation'?

Re: Comprehensive list of allophones of all English phonemes

Re: English public school lingo

Re: I'm looking for a native speaker

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Re: I'm looking for a native speaker

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Re: The pronunciation of 'Mach' [Was: After my investigation--The Truth About Bun Mui Revealed:]

Re: ['i:NglIS] vs ['INglIS] [was: Re: Interesting article from the AUE's first day:]

Re: pronunciation of stop consonants

Re: pronunciation of stop consonants

Re: Long vowel before "ll"

Re: Long vowel before "ll"

Re: Speling Refohrm

Re: ah = ar, aw = or, aw =/= ah / ar