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Venting about "father" | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5693 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 1 of 34 05 April 2011 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just need to get this out of my system: you know how pretty much every pronunciation guide ever written for any language tells you to pronounce the long a "as in 'father'"? I don't see why everybody uses this particular word as an example for this sound.
I personally pronounce the "a" in "father" almost like the "aw" in "Awww, isn't that cute!" It almost exactly rhymes with "bother" when I say it. That makes me seriously doubt that the phrasebook intends me to say this "aw" diphthong. Then the question remains: which pronunciation of "father" does it intend you to use? I automatically think of various accents: a certain type of "high-class" English accent which uses a very "dark" sound for the A-sound a strong Brooklyn accent using a very "flat" or "bright" A-sound, etc. It seems to me that this word varies rather more than most, depending on accent, which in my opinion makes it particularly bad choice to represent this A-sound. I think they ought to say "Imagine a member of British royalty saying 'Ahhhh, of course!'" instead. All right, done venting. Does anyone else here pronounce "father" the same way as I do? Or, has anyone had the same issue with the word "father" being used in examples? I know that pronunciation guides should be a last resort in any case, but it strikes me that some of them do an okay job... except for the fact that almost ALL of them choose "father"! (EDIT: fixed spelling mistake – "do you intend you to use" was supposed to be, and now is, "does it intend you to use".) Edited by Jinx on 06 April 2011 at 11:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Phantom Kat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5063 days ago 160 posts - 253 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 2 of 34 06 April 2011 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I do. I pronounce "father" just like you as in that it rhymes with "bother." I'm sure it's an accent thing because I've lived in Texas for most of my life (at least from since I began learning English at the age of 3-4) and have never heard anything different. I agree that the "father" example is not a very good one. In my Finnish for Foreigners I book it says to pronounce the "a" as in "father", and then it gives you the example of "ja" (and). But it's not "jaaw", it's "ja" much like the Spanish "ya."
So yeah, no more "father." It just makes it confusing for some at the end. - Kat Edited by Phantom Kat on 06 April 2011 at 1:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| destructomoose Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4998 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 34 06 April 2011 at 1:38am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was starting to learn Russian I used many online resources. Some were in
English and others in French. Some of the pronunciation tables seemed to be pretty straightforward. Some of them didn't seem to match up, at least not for me. For example, on the English site: Э - e as in 'peg', 'met' In French: Э - e comme 'père' To me, all three of these words have different sounds. peg (p-ay-g), met (m-eh-t), père (p-ei-r). These are just approximations of my pronunciations, but they are all different. For this reason, I find written pronunciation guides to be useless for me. By the way, I say 'father' the same way that you do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5086 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 4 of 34 06 April 2011 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I pronounce Father and bother as {f/b}awthur (forgive the not-IPA)... however, in languages I've looked at I've always pronounced the "a" as an aw diphthong.
So your post leads me to wonder if I've been doing it wrong. I find that most of the time they do mean that, perhaps with the diphthong bit slightly clipped, but generally the same sound. However, I could be wrong. It appears your German is at a higher level than mine (as I am A1 or A2 at best) but in a word like "tag" or "nach" I would always say an "a" similar to that in Father. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 34 06 April 2011 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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All "like the English sound X/Y/Z" descriptions are useless.
"father" is a great example as I have no concept of the intended sound. Another great one is describing schwa as the "-er" in "doctor". I mean, like, some of us actually pronounce our Rs, you know? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 34 06 April 2011 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I remember a pronunciation guide advising me to "pronounce the 'a' in this word like the 'a' sound in 'cup'" which confused the heck out of me. Thankfully, written pronunciation guides now take a back seat in the age of mp3 recordings by native speakers. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5560 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 7 of 34 06 April 2011 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ooh, so much anger against "the word" father...hmmm...it rhymes with "bother" you say?...tell me more about your fantasies about British royalty...
Sorry. MT Dutch uses "start", if that's any help. Although I always find vowels followed by "r" a bit tricky. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 8 of 34 06 April 2011 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I hate to be the lone dissenter here, but as a non-native speaker of English I have no problems with using father /ˈfɑːðə(r)/ as an example of a long a sound, because it is indeed spoken with a long a sound in English RP and Mid-Atlantic English and does not rhyme with bother /ˈbɒðə(r)/.
BTW, we don't have this issue in Germany because pretty much all mainstream textbooks use IPA symbols and therefore most Germans interested in learning foreign languages have at least a working knowledge of the most common IPA symbols. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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