How to learn English pronunciation? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

How to learn English pronunciation?
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35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 Next >>

maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish^B2, French^B2
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Studies: Urdu

Message 25 of 35

15 August 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged

ZombieKing wrote:

Maybe you could pick one accent you like and try and only focus on that when it comes to speaking practice.

There are dozens of different accents and the vowel sounds are often the key, obviously not in all cases.
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 26 of 35

15 August 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

Марк wrote:

i would write both words "nait". One can abolish all those
silly "oo" and write
simply "u" as all the people on the planet.

And that's what I mean by "barbarity"...

Do you want to return the prerevolutional spelling in Russian?
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Josquin
Heptaglot
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Germany
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Message 27 of 35

15 August 2012 at 5:12pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

Do you want to return the prerevolutional spelling in Russian?

That was all about abolishing redundant letters and political agendas. I don't need a hard sign at the end of every word to tell me the consonant is hard. The other letters didn't have a real function either: Yat' (ѣ) had become the same sound as 'e' and all the other letters were only used to indicate relations to Ancient Greek and Old Church Slavonic spellings. And of course, the Communists wanted to make a cut with Czaristic customs.

I am not for reintroducing the old spelling - what is done is done -, but I can see good reasons why educated Russians might have stuck to it. E.g. міръ ('peace') and миръ ('world') became both мир, and a lot of etymological information was lost. On the other hand, the soft sign was kept in grammatical endings for etymological reasons, and you still write и after sibilants although you pronounce it ы.

Once again: I also think English spelling is a bloody mess, but I'm not a fan of a purely phonetic spelling that would neglect all English pecularities. You want English to be written like Spanish or like IPA, but that would make the language irrecognizible. Instead of 'I see you', I would write something like 'Ai si ju'. Excuse me, but that's simply ridiculous.

Why does French keep its orthography, which even has grammatical rules that don't exist in spoken French anymore? Why do Russians write with Cyrillic letters? Why does Mandarin have Hanzi and Japanese even three kinds of writing systems? Because they have done so for centuries and the writing systems have stood the test. Utilitarian solutions are not automatically good solutions.

Edited by Josquin on 15 August 2012 at 5:17pm
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Heriotza
Groupie
Dominican Republic
Joined 4681 days ago
48 posts - 71 votes

Speaks: Spanish*

Message 28 of 35

15 August 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

But these are only etymological trifles. The real problem would be to find a way to write phonetically, because English has to many phonemes. Should one use diacritics or silent letters (but then it wouldn't be phonetical again)? And how to write loanwords from French or Latin? Phonetically or etymologically?

Don't get me wrong. English orthography is a bloody mess, but I don't know if a phonetical spelling would be the best solution. Ha, good word! How would you spell 'solution'? 'Solooshen'??? See what I mean?

There are definitely ways to write English phonetically, even though it has more phoneme than, for example Spanish. Diagrams is a way to do that (French spelling is base on them: au- eu- ai- an- en- anne- enne-), diacritics mark and silent letters are other ways too. For me, it's more important to know how to pronounce a word based on its spelling, that to know how to write one based on its pronunciation.

Actually, the real problem is to make native speakers understand that a phonetic writing system of English is not in any way patrimony of uneducated black dialects speakers.

Edited by Heriotza on 15 August 2012 at 5:45pm
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Heriotza
Groupie
Dominican Republic
Joined 4681 days ago
48 posts - 71 votes

Speaks: Spanish*

Message 29 of 35

15 August 2012 at 5:40pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

[QUOTE=Марк]

Why does French keep its orthography, which even has grammatical rules that don't exist in spoken French anymore?

In order to make French grammar regular. In writing, all the verbs change for person, even though, at least three person in the present are actually pronounce the same. All the adjectives change for gender and plural (at least most of them) and so on. It's actually a great advantage. But the spelling of French is not in any way a "mess". It's almost perfectly logical (at least when it comes how to pronounce a word that is written), and a truly balance between phonetic and etymological features. Unlike English that is etymological only out of pure laziness exerted throughout centuries.

Edited by Heriotza on 15 August 2012 at 5:43pm
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 30 of 35

15 August 2012 at 6:17pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

Марк wrote:

Do you want to return the prerevolutional spelling in
Russian?

That was all about abolishing redundant letters and political agendas. I don't need a
hard sign at the end of every word to tell me the consonant is hard. The other letters
didn't have a real function either: Yat' (ѣ) had become the same sound as 'e' and all
the other letters were only used to indicate relations to Ancient Greek and Old Church
Slavonic spellings. And of course, the Communists wanted to make a cut with Czaristic
customs.

I am not for reintroducing the old spelling - what is done is done -, but I can see
good reasons why educated Russians might have stuck to it. E.g. міръ ('peace') and миръ
('world') became both мир, and a lot of etymological information was lost. On the other
hand, the soft sign was kept in grammatical endings for etymological reasons, and you
still write и after sibilants although you pronounce it ы.

Once again: I also think English spelling is a bloody mess, but I'm not a fan of a
purely phonetic spelling that would neglect all English pecularities. You want English
to be written like Spanish or like IPA, but that would make the language
irrecognizible. Instead of 'I see you', I would write something like 'Ai si ju'. Excuse
me, but that's simply ridiculous.

Why does French keep its orthography, which even has grammatical rules that don't exist
in spoken French anymore? Why do Russians write with Cyrillic letters? Why does
Mandarin have Hanzi and Japanese even three kinds of writing systems? Because they have
done so for centuries and the writing systems have stood the test. Utilitarian
solutions are not automatically good solutions.

Cyrillic alphabet is good enough for Russian, changing into other alphabets won't
simplify our writing system.
I don't like French for that. Why do i have to waste my time to learn this instead of
learning real grammar. And I don't like the modern Russian spelling.
1 person has voted this message useful

Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4845 days ago
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Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

Message 31 of 35

15 August 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged

Heriotza wrote:

In order to make French grammar regular.

Okay, that's a joke, right?

Heriotza wrote:

In writing, all the verbs change for person, even though, at least three person in the present are actually pronounce the same. All the adjectives change for gender and plural (at least most of them) and so on. It's actually a great advantage.

French grammar would also be regular, if not all persons had their own endings. Or is English grammar less regular, because only the third person singular has its own ending? I didn't understand the part about the adjectives either. Russian adjectives are only distinguished for gender in the singular, but not in the plural. Does this make them more irregular than French adjectives?

Heriotza wrote:

But the spelling of French is not in any way a "mess".

That was not my point.

Heriotza wrote:

It's almost perfectly logical (at least when it comes how to pronounce a word that is written), and a truly balance between phonetic and etymological features. Unlike English that is etymological only out of pure laziness exerted throughout centuries.

Okay, what's logical about travailler, travaillez, travaillé, travaillée, travaillés, and travaillées? They are all pronounced [tʀavaje]. Yes, pronunciation is more predictable than in English, but it's not logical. Why is it "chevaux" and not "chevaus"? It doesn't get better if liaison is involved. When does one lier and when not?

Марк wrote:

And I don't like the modern Russian spelling.

Which spelling do you like? Does that mean you prefer prerevolutionary spelling?

Edited by Josquin on 15 August 2012 at 10:47pm
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 32 of 35

15 August 2012 at 6:54pm | IP Logged

"Does that mean you prefer prerevolutionary spelling?"
Not at all. I prefer something simpler and more logical. ветреный - безветренный are not
needed.

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