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Simplified English Pronunciation | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5560 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 1 of 32 05 September 2013 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm always surprised, or even faintly aghast, when I look up the pronunciation of
English words in dictionaries (or text books for learners) by how complicated they seem to be. Obviously if you want a perfect accent, then you need to be able to reproduce that sort of thing, but I'm surprised no-one has ever come up with more straightforward versions. In British English, the standard is normally "RP" (received pronunciation), but a northern accent might be simpler to learn. The vowels of northern English and Scottish seem to be more pure and the "r" more often pronounced as a consonant. (This does mean that northern accents can sound a little harsh to southern English ears) Some suggestions: "th": Can be pronounced as "d/t". Five million Irish can't be wrong. It's a better option than the "z/s" normally chosen by French people, although a cute French accent is probably an asset anyway. "ae" as in "cat": Just pronounce it as a short "a", don't try and make it sound too much like an "e" as that is just more confusing. Could also make you sound like an upper class twit. "long o": The description seems to be some complicated dipthong going from mid-vowel through "o" to "u". Just pronounce it like a straight forward, pure long "o" ("das Boot" sounds a lot like "the Boat"). "mid-vowel" as in "fun" (short) or "fur" (long). I haven't got an ideal suggestion, but I have sometimes noticed, perhaps particularly among Spanish, that it tends to sound too much like "a". To me the German "ö" would be a good sound to use (I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to base your accent on it, as objectively, it is a completely different phoneme, but it might be something to try if you're struggling to make yourself understood). "vowelised "r" and tripthongs like "fire": Maybe it's just me, but somehow it being a tripthong makes it seem insurmountably complicated. Just pronounce it as a normal dipthong plus the "r" as a normal consonant. I've actully been thinking about this for while, but not very deeply, so if anyone has any better suggestions (or questions), feel free to share. Edited by schoenewaelder on 05 September 2013 at 7:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 32 05 September 2013 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many people just pronounce English with sounds of their own language.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 32 05 September 2013 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||
We already do these ones in Scotland :) Overall, our vowel system is considerably simpler than the standard English one you see in the dictionary, and slightly closer to the Romance language one. For example we have simple open and closed O and E which are very similar to those in French and Italian, and one A sound. I pronounce "day" as /de:/, and like your suggestions, "boat" as /bo:t/ and "cat" as /kat/. Although these final Ts might well become glottal stops if I'm speaking quickly... Not saying that learners should learn Scottish English of course! But it's just interesting since our pronunciation system is somewhat "simplified" compared to all the strange vowel combinations of RP, which even I find hard to get my head round, yet almost all English speakers still understand me just fine as long as I speak clearly. Edited by garyb on 05 September 2013 at 5:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 32 05 September 2013 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Scottish English is also by far the coolest.
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| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 5 of 32 05 September 2013 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Scottish English is cot/caught merged (just like Canadian English and 50 % of Irish and USA English) ;)
It's where the phenomenon started ;) On the other hand, Scottish English is wine/whine unmerged. Edited by Medulin on 05 September 2013 at 7:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 6 of 32 05 September 2013 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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There was a great programme on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, about this sort of thing:
Fry's English Delight It was actually about GB Shaw's plans for spelling reform, and the problems it would have faced, but definitely in the same territory. I fear the OP's proposal would be doomed. If he is British, he should surely know that a regional accent marks you out in British society (especially in England), and it's much safer to stick to RP, boring though it may be. Having said that, it might be fun to offer English learners packages based consciously on regional English (and of course very clearly labelled as such). They would have to be heavily audio based. No one can learn an accent from a book, and you certainly can't expect the average learner to learn IPA to the level that would be necessary, and even if they could, I doubt if it would actually work for them. "A New Range of Michel Thomas Courses in English:" "Learn thisen Yorkshire" "Get a grip on Cockney, Mate, know wot I mean?" "Calm down, calm down, we only speak Scouse 'ere...." ... ...etc 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4604 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 32 05 September 2013 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Just a bit of nitpicking: The VAST majority of Irish people don't pronounce "th" as a t/d. It is in fact a dental plosive, which comes directly from gaelic. I found an interesting piece on the subject here. That said, I agree that d/t is a valid substitute for the standard dental fricative. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 32 05 September 2013 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a simple way to pronounce English correctly. It is called Received
Pronunciation. Everything else is a quaint regional variation to woo the tourists. (the above is a joke by the way (although as a London inflected RP speaker I half believe it) :-)) Edited by Elexi on 05 September 2013 at 9:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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