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Phonemic awareness: transcriptions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5324 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 37 09 October 2012 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
English is a bit of a special case, because our orthography is truly horrible. French, for example, is probably 95% phonemic once you figure out which letters to ignore and apply some sound laws. A couple of other strategies might help with many languages: 1. Practice pronouncing and hearing the major phonemes of the language. 2. Spend a lot of time listening and reading in parallel (Assimil, L/R, subtitles, etc). 3. Spend a lot of time listening, period. It helps to mostly stick to one or two dialects at first, when the culture permits. (Some places require multiple languages and multiple registers.) And as an adult, it certainly helps to have a knack for imitating accents. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4636 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 10 of 37 09 October 2012 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You probably didn't recognize it, because the sound in "red", "bed", and "Ted" is an [e] and not an [ɛ]. [ɛ] is the sound in German "hätte", "Bett", or "Welle". RP English doesn't have this sound, so I'm asking myself what Wikipedia articles you were looking at. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4620 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 37 09 October 2012 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just on that last point, I've realised that when I was looking at well-known phrases or passages of English, I was either looking at the following, or something like it, or a copy of it elsewhere: Paul Meier U. Kansas Suprasegmentals If you hover over one of the "in context" areas, a passage comes up written in IPA and you can hear it in what sounds like RP English. In the famous Hamlet speech, I note that (leaving out stress marks or whatever they are), we have "[tu bi ɔ nɒt tu bi]" and then for "to suffer" he has [ tə sʌfə ]. Well, all I can say is that I as a more or less RP speaker would not have said [ tə sʌfə] but closer to [tu sʌfə]. I've checked with my wife and she would be the same, although she has a residual very faint northern English accent. Maybe I am slightly influenced by my northern parents although I grew up in southern England. And illustrating a point made by someone else earlier, he is using [ɛ] to represent the vowels in the words "end them", whereas, in a chart I was looking at earlier, here they were using [e]. So to people who say IPA should be used because it is consistent and unambiguous, unlike those ad hoc systems used by some language books, well, it's not 100% consistent. EDIT: oops, I mean to quote not edit this post. I've ended up deleting the beginning (thinking I was quoting, not editing). Careless, sorry. Oh well, it was too long anyway. Edited by montmorency on 10 October 2012 at 9:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5245 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 12 of 37 09 October 2012 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Some dictionaries use [e], others [ɛ]. The transcription is probably not consistent throughout Wikipedia either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunci ation#Vowels 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4620 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 13 of 37 09 October 2012 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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On IPA again: these phonetic transcriptions are quite interesting for someone like me trying to make sense of it. Easier than reading and listening to the pure chart:
http://www.photransedit.com/Online/Library.aspx However, I don't agree with some of the transcriptions. e.g. in "this be the verse" by Philip Larkin (the famous one with the "F" word). Perhaps the word between "Mum" and "Dad" is "ɘn" from some people but many RP speakers will pronounce the "d" and many more will pronounce it "ænd", i.e. the same vowel as in "dæd" ("dad"). (I would do myself). ...and several similar problems, so we are still in something of a minefield. And this is only in my native language. Hard to see me using it in a second language. EDIT: The author of this might be of interest to the OP. On his blog he claims to be the teacher of "The only English pronunciation course in Italy!!!". I disagree with some details of his transcription too, e.g. in the last sentence: I'm sure most RP speakers would manage a "t" in "next", and even only moderately clear speakers will manage the vowel in "will" (and of course sloppy and dialect speakers may make a dipthong out of it). Edited by montmorency on 09 October 2012 at 9:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4636 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 14 of 37 09 October 2012 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Be that as it may, but the link you give clearly supports my transcription system. It's important though not to confuse the symbols [ɛ] and [ɜ:], because the latter is the sound in "girl". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5245 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 15 of 37 09 October 2012 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, it does, and I wasn't implying that your transcription was wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4620 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 16 of 37 10 October 2012 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Good point. Here is an article where they are using [e]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English
(to be fair, that one doesn't claim to represent RP; seems to be generalised for several variants including General American). I can't see from his blog enough about Alex Rotatori's history to assess whether he could be native speaker level in English. But I'm a bit puzzled why, for example, someone like Jack Lewis (clearly someone with a long track record in phonetics and a native English speaker), in this piece: http://www.photransedit.com/Online/Library/5ci5MqOc.pdf in no. 6, last line, represents "to the" as [tɘ ðɘ] While I am sure some people speak like that, I don't think an educated RP speaker would, even when speaking quickly, and I'm sure quite a few not particularly educated people wouldn't either, i.e. they would differentiate the two vowel sounds. The "to" would be more like the [ tuː ] as in "two tickets" on line 2. Also the [tɘ] in "to Churchill" on line 1 similarly just looks wrong to me. If I was saying this, I may not say exactly [tuː] but I'm sure I wouldn't say [tɘ] either. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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