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Problems with English pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jrsanbernabe Newbie Spain Joined 4599 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Spanish* Studies: English | Message 1 of 23 11 May 2012 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello everyone, I have some doubts about the pronunciation of some senteces in English, I
refer specifically to the sound /ed/ in regular verbs. I know that may sound /t/,/d/ or /id/ depending on the case, my doubt is that I find it very difficult to pick up the sound /t/ and /d/ in a sentence, unless the next word begins with a vowel (for example: She worked a lot sounds like She work ta lot) or even h, which sometimes tends to disappear (for example I asked him sound like I ask tim), but if not,it's difficult for me to distinguish the sound /ed/. I could hear the same phrase in present and past, and not differentiate except by context, especially if it's spoken quickly. thanks in advance, and forgive my mistakes, my English is not very good. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4856 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 23 11 May 2012 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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In fast spoken English I hear this:
I want to go. -> I wanna go. I wanted to go. -> I wanna ta go. (extra syllable) We discuss trees -> We discuss trees. We discussed trees -> We discuss trees. (don't detect any difference) And of course some verbs have no past tense form: I cut trees. which can be past OR present. I think this is the reason we use the present progressive a lot in English: We discuss trees -> We are discussing trees. I cut trees -> I am cutting trees. We almost never say "I go to the store now.", but always "I'm going to the store now." The difficulty in telling them apart may be why we avoid the simple present most of the time. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 23 12 May 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yeah, the pronunciation actually changes. I want to go -> I wanna go.
I hear that as: "I wannid-duh go" Which is pretty similar to what you wrote if you say it quickly.
Whoa, that's a good one. I would agree pretty much with what you said. Sometimes people might emphasize the tense if there was confusion: "Wait, you discuss trees? Or you discusst trees?"
Agree. "I go to the store now" sounds very unnatural. I would only say that if I was talking to a little kid (or impersonating pidgin English... hypothetically speaking, of course). Edited by IronFist on 12 May 2012 at 12:46am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4656 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 23 12 May 2012 at 5:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I remember someone made a post a while ago with a dissection of a typical casual pronunciation of "I'm going to go to the store," with a phonetic version of it written something like "ahmunna-guhduhthuh-stor." It really made me appreciate the extent to which learners of English also must have trouble deciphering quick, casual native speech and mapping it to the written form of the words they are learning, just as many Anglophones like me do in our TLs. :-) Edited by tastyonions on 12 May 2012 at 5:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4613 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 5 of 23 12 May 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, but you say "I go to the store every Saturday." Or "I cut down trees for a living." So I don't think it has anything to do with pronunciation. Personally I don't really understand the original question, since I think there's usually a difference between the present and the past, except in the 'we discussed trees' example. But English pronunciation is complicated. For example, in "cut trees" it sounds to me as though the 't' in 'cut' is often replaced by a glottal stop of some kind (in American English). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4613 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 6 of 23 12 May 2012 at 10:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
For example, in 'he asked me to go' I think there's always a /t/ before 'me' no matter how fast it's pronounced. What dialect of English are you primarily referring to? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4856 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 23 12 May 2012 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Neither of those uses past tense. Nor are they present tense. They describe habitual or continuous action in a construction where the past tense NEVER appears, and so there is no possibility of confusion. In both cases the past tense version is so different that no pronunciation confusion can exist: "I went to the store every Saturday" or "I used to go to the store every Saturday", and "I used to cut trees for a living." In cases where continuous or habitual action needs a past tense, such as "I danced timidly when I was young." the clause "when I was young" fixes the ambiguity. In other words, if you said "I dance timidly when I was young." your listener would HEAR "I danced timidly when I was young." And, obviously, when the next word begins with a contrasting sound, no ambiguity is present: "I danced at the party." which allows the -ed to be clearly pronounced and heard. Where you will hear the past tense clearly is in formal speech given by people trained in locution such as actors and public speakers. Even so, to my ears it sounds a bit odd and artificial to hear an actor say "I danced _ timidly" with a notable gap between the ending -ed and the initial t-. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 23 12 May 2012 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That was me :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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