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

Re: W is a vowel

Forbes — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:05:34 GMT

I am glad we agree about the sound /w/.

That leaves us with the letter <w>.

Letters of the alphabet must not be confused with sounds. By convention and for convenience, letters that represent vowel sounds are called vowels and letters that represent consonant sounds are called consonants. (In the rest of this post when I use the word "vowel" I mean a vowel symbol or letter and use "vowel sound" to refer to sounds.) This does not present any special problem for many languages, but for some, including English, difficulties arise when you begin to look into it. The complexities of English orthography arise, at least in part, because the way it is written is etymological rather than phonetic; that is, writing represents an earlier stage of the language.

Consider the words mat and mate. If asked, most people would have no hesitation in saying that <m> and <t> were consonants and <a> and <e> were vowels. A moment's thought, however, may lead us to ask what the <e> is doing in mate. It clearly has a function in that it changes the vowel sound between the <m> and <t> - mat and mate are pronounced differently. Even so, the <e> has no value on its own - you have to take the whole package of <a> + <C> + <e> = the vowel sound in mate, a fairly regular correspondence.

Consonants also influence the value given to vowels.

Take mating v matting. Here it is the doubling that changes the quality of the vowel sound. Are we justified in saying that there is some indication of "vowelness" in the consonants here?

The vowel sound of bath can be represented in several ways:

bath

harm

palm

etc

The <r> and <l> are not pronounced, but without them we have ham and Pam. Can <r> and <l> be said to be functioning as consonants?

Now consider the letter <k>. It is a consonant most will say. By what is it doing in knot? The <k> does help to show the pronunciation since not is pronounced in the same way. It is true that the presence of the <k> helps to distinguish the two words, but that is coincidental; it is simply the case that the <k> has not been eliminated since the /k/ stopped being pronounced. Are we justified in saying that in knot <k> is a consonant?

I have already noted above that <y> can function to represent (a) the sound /j/ (b) a vowel or dipthong and (c) an element of a dipthong.

<w> does not operate in quite the same way as <y> as (ignoring the rare borrowing from Welsh) it never operates on its own to represent a vowel or dipthong. It can :

(a) represent the sound /w/ in way

(b) combine with another vowel to represent a vowel sound as is law

(c) combine with another vowel to represent a dipthong as is cow

I therefore do not see the problem in saying that <w> has a dual function in writing - it is both a vowel and a consonant.

Re: How to distinguish the pronunciation of the vowels

Mister Micawber — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:11:49 GMT

.
You have a problem, but I can suggest little more than practice and concentration; I presume you have a tutor or teacher or acquaintance who can listen to and advise you. I hadn't noticed that Chinese students have much trouble with vowel sounds before-- I thought the consonants were more difficult.

While there are plenty of regional variations in English pronunciation, the pronunciation of e.g. the /e/ in egg is usually similar enough to elude the sensitivities of a learner. Practice saying and listening to (pronunciations are available at MERRIAM-WEBSTER ONLINE, for example) lots and lots of simple words with those vowel sounds:

apple, cram, fat, hat, rat, sat and bat, etc.

egg, eft, end, bend, send, fend, rend, et cetera.

by, sigh, guy, rye, die, fry, sky, etc.

How to distinguish the pronunciation of the vowels

mathewzhao — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:59:23 GMT

I always can't distinguish the pronunciation of some vowels in words,as follows:
apple(vowel 'a' ),egg(vowel 'e'),by(vowel 'y'),

and feel the pronunciation of the three vowels are NOT different!

I have tried to distinguish them ,and have listened many Mp3 about the vowels ,but I got nothing!
could someone give me a hand?
Thanks!

Re: a(n) university ??

Yankee — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:50:07 GMT

The use of 'a' or 'an' is based on pronunciation.

If a word begins with a vowel sound, you should use 'an'. For example:

- an apple
- an elephant
- an idea
- an orange
- an umbrella
- an hour
- an SOS

If a word begins with a consonant sound, you should use 'a'. This includes some words that have a vowel at the beginning. For example:

- a ewe
- a university
- a uniform
- a unique person

Re: Puzzle about the pronunciation of the word 'THE'

yizhivika — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:04:16 GMT

Hi Mathew,

Yes, as Mister Micawber says, native English-speakers instinctively know which pronunciation of 'the' to use before a noun (or an adjective + noun), but I can see that it may be a problem for some people learning the language.

As you have yourself noted, we generally use the 'thee' version before a vowel (as in 'the apple'), and the "theh' version before a consonant (as in 'the pen'), and the reason native English-speakers know which version to use, is because they read (or think of) the two words together, not separately!

From your name, I would guess that your mother-tongue is probably Mandarin Chinese (Ni shi zhong guo ren ma?), and if so, then you'll know that there's sometimes a similar situation in Chinese with tones (e.g. 'bu' meaning 'not' is normally pronounced as a fourth tone, but changes to a second tone when followed by another word that is pronounced with a fourth tone), and the only way you know which tone to use is by thinking of the two words together, not as individual characters.

By the way, there is an exception to the general rule of pronouncing 'the' as 'theh' before a consonant, but it's a special case, as the 'the' is being used less as a definite article, and more like an adjective. For example:

"Beijing is the (pronounced as 'thee') place to be this August!" (because of the Olympic Games!).

Puzzle about the pronunciation of the word 'THE'

mathewzhao — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:52:30 GMT

   The grammer books say 'the' has 2 kinds of pronunciation.I always have a puzzle,when I read a sentence from to right,for example,
   The apple is red.
   I first see the word 'The',but I can't affirm its pronunciation.I have to look at the second word 'apple',then I will look at 'The' again.,and will

know how to pronunciate 'The'.(Because a['apple'] is a vowel )
I feel the pronunciation of 'the' is so complicated,so I want to know native speaker how to affirm 'the' pronunciation at the different

situations(for instance,the apple,the pen)?

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

Re: the pronunciation of the word "the"

sumryan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:57:25 GMT

The word 'the' has the voiced /th/ sound. Before consonants the vowel has a schwa sound so 'the' sounds like thÉ, Before vowel sounds the vowel has an /iy/ sound like thÄ.

Re: the pronunciation of the word "the"

Kooyeen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:53:45 GMT

I agree with Jim, and that's the way I pronounce "the". Thuh car, Thee eagle.
However, I read somewhere that it's not always so, and something is changing. Do some people always say "thuh", even before vowel sounds? I have never heard something like that. I don't know if it's just because I never noticed it, but if that actually happens, it would sound odd to me. Anyone know anything about that?

Re: W is a vowel

Kooyeen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:47:39 GMT

I agree with those who say there could be several definitions.

Considering letters. Vowels: A E I O U (so W is not included here)
Considering sounds. Vowel sounds: all those in the IPA vowel chart. (so W is not included here either. "The" is pronounced "thee" and the article "a" becomes "an" before vowel sounds of this kind, so say "a wall" and "a university")
Considering sounds more broadly. I think dark l's (as in "wall"), r-colored schwas (as in the last syllable of "powder"), w-sounds and y-sounds ("wall", "year") can all have some points in common with vowels. That's why some people often consider W a semi-vowel.

In general, I usually don't consider W a vowel, for several reasons. Here's some that came to my mind:
the end - the winner <-- does not behave like a vowel when considering some changes in pronunciation
an oar - a war <-- does not behave like a vowel when considering those articles
at all - at work <-- does not behave like a vowel when considering tapped t's

That said, it's just my opinion, and there are lots of other different definitions of vowel that make sense.