Pronunciation of can’t (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Pronunciation of can’t
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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anjathilina
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 6414 days ago
33 posts - 106 votes

Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin
Studies: Hindi

Message 65 of 68

12 February 2012 at 9:58pm | IP Logged

Northernlights wrote:

anjathilina wrote:

Northernlights wrote:

IronFist wrote:

Can you upload a recording of yourself saying "Mary wants to marry the merry gentleman"
or something like that?

Your wish is my command lol

I can't find any way of providing a direct link here other than pasting the whole URL:

http://www.youmicro.com/listen/song/5093/marry-merry-mary-sp oken-by-
northernlights

That was great! :) Thanks for doing that!

The first I ever heard of those three words being spoken differently was when I took
theatre classes in college. They taught us a stage dialect called "Standard American"
which to my Western US ears sounded vaguely British. And marry-merry-mary were
pronounced just as you did, which took me a while to get just right. I found it great
fun. I grew up in Alaska, by the way. But I don't sound like Sarah Palin; I have no
idea why she talks that way.

Thanks and you're welcome! That's interesting about the stage dialect differentiating
things that most Americans wouldn't. When people in Britain pretend to speak in a
pedantic way they overemphasise the "Hawe" sound in words like "who" because normally
the W is silent, so it'd be "Hoo". Did the stage dialect do that?

Actually, yes! I had forgotten about that...
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Northernlights
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4485 days ago
73 posts - 93 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French

Message 66 of 68

12 February 2012 at 11:03pm | IP Logged

It's interesting and I'm now wondering whether the stage dialect deliberately incorporated all these differentiations for the sake of clarity. I suppose when someone's on stage it's good if the audience can understand them, but at the same time speaking like that would sort of sound rather pompous lol!

Were there any other features that you remember from the stage dialect? How about elocution lessons, that's something I've heard of but never done and I don't honestly know if I know anyone who has.
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IronFist
Senior Member
United States
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663 posts - 941 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

Message 67 of 68

13 February 2012 at 1:31am | IP Logged

What part of "who" sounds like "hawe"?

You guys are confusing me.

"Who" sounds like "hoo" to me.

An owl says "who."
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Northernlights
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4485 days ago
73 posts - 93 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French

Message 68 of 68

13 February 2012 at 1:24pm | IP Logged

IronFist wrote:

What part of "who" sounds like "hawe"?

You guys are confusing me.

"Who" sounds like "hoo" to me.

An owl says "who."

Rofl classic!

Owls in Britain say "terwit terwoo" or "twit-twoo" depending on your spelling preference.

Yes, I think I got that a bit wrong with the "who" and it's "hoo" for me too. I was trying to describe the "hawe" breath thing you occasionally hear people do. So I've just been trying to pronounce like that and I think it's words like "when" and "what", so they'd be "huwen" and "huwot". You breathe out a puff of air between the H and W at the beginning.

To me, that way of saying those words sounds either Scottish if the vowel is also Scottish and that'd sound fine, but if it's with an English vowel it'd sound either posh or pompous, either way somewhat put on and OTT. That's why I thought a stage dialect might do that too.

Ironfist, I replied to your PM but I wonder if you've received it because I ticked the box for an email when you opened it, and so far I haven't heard. Your last post was later.

I'll make another recording today and include CAN CAN'T and those words that rhymed.

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