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English publishers don’t use IPA? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5264 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 17 of 26 06 October 2012 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not really, but as long as we use Arabic numerals, base 10 and decimals, it is very practical to stick to 10. Well, that's only my personal opinion.
From what Danes have told me, numbers like "treds" and "halvfjers". just represent 60, 70 etc. to them and they don't think of them as 3 × 20 and 3½ × 20. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5666 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 18 of 26 07 October 2012 at 8:38am | IP Logged | |||||
I called it "modified standard English" because some courses claim that the transcription is based on standard BBC English accent and then introduce the sounds, even sounds not found in English with the transcription. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5666 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 19 of 26 07 October 2012 at 8:46am | IP Logged | |||||
At least for Assimil, there is plenty of audio to rely on. I personally did not learn the sounds of a new language based on the introduction of Assimil (If I would start one) and try to listen from the CDs from the beginning or check the IPA on the Internet. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 26 07 October 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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Alright, Assimil has audio, but so does Teach Yourself which still has so-so transcription. Maybe they think that the learners aren't able to hear the sounds, what do I know?
The absolutely worst kind of transcription is adding R for long vowels (think of British car, door, burn) - obviously a sign that the publisher has a non-rhotic accent of English, but how should the learners know? It's especially common for so-called transcriptions of Cantonese ("bart" for the number eight, how about that! I've even heard people base their Cantonese pronunciation on the supposedly audible R). I've seen the same vowel sound transcribed as "o" which only makes sense if you know the author's accent (/ɑ/ instead of /ɔ/ in certain positions). Oh, the humanity. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| boaby Newbie Ireland Joined 5291 days ago 16 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Portuguese, Catalan | Message 21 of 26 09 October 2012 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For me, the main reason for the rare use of IPA symbols in English language published material compared with non-English is to do with the target audience and specifically their goals.
The most studied foreign language at the moment is English and the majority of those learners are not doing so out of a love for languages, English language culture or to make their holidays more enjoyable. They are mostly learning English for very serious reasons to do with making their way in the world as nurses, doctors, engineers, hospitality staff or entrepreneurs (to name a few). English is part of a process towards a better life and it is a means not an end in itself. It is for these reasons that they take learning English very seriously, spending serious money to acquire it, and I'm guessing, are open to anything that will help them succeed. The publishers for these learners operate in a very competitive market and try to offer real tangible benefits to using their series of books over another. They assess what to include in their pedagogical approach based on a different idea of the target user to the book user (like me) who pursue languages and language materials out of curiosity, fun and often without the intention to commit serious time or energy to the materials. Edited by boaby on 09 October 2012 at 6:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6393 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 22 of 26 10 October 2012 at 7:05am | IP Logged | |||||
Not only publishers, but Cantonese speakers, too. There are a lot of words that don't have commonly known characters and they are often written in Latin letters according to a pretty ad-hoc system. Heck, even characters that are pretty standard are sometimes transcribed instead. My girlfriend consistently writes "ar" for the "aa3" particle. It took me a long time to get used to. So hey, if the writer of the course is a native Canto speaker, it might feel very natural to them. Doesn't make it natural for us American-indoctrinated Europeans, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 26 10 October 2012 at 11:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Objectively seen the best solution would be that all textbooks and dictionaries used IPa. But you would have to teach it to the readers first, and you would have to do that with sound examples, articulatory descriptions maybe even those dreadful "sounds as" descriptions. Serious students of language might want to go through such a preparatory course, but I'm not surprised that publishers choose something seemingly simpler - even I haven't bothered to learn the full set of IPA symbols.. Edited by Iversen on 10 October 2012 at 11:27am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4867 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 24 of 26 10 October 2012 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
But IPA makes learning languages easier. And textbooks must be aimed to those who want to study a foreign language. Also even native English speakers sometimes need other languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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