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Why don’t more dictionaries use IPA?

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Medulin
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 Message 9 of 30
05 April 2014 at 10:39am | IP Logged 

Gran diccionario español-portugués português-espanhol © 2001 Espasa-Calpe uses IPA:
it is available here as well:


http://www.wordreference.com/espt/paranoia
paranoia [paɾa'noja]

http://www.wordreference.com/espt/claraboya
claraboya [klaɾa'βoʝa]

http://www.wordreference.com/espt/adverbio
adverbio [að'βeɾβjo]

http://www.wordreference.com/espt/dependiente
dependiente [depen̯'dien̯te]

mirlo ['mirlo]

While the Spanish spelling may be ''logical'', that's not 100% apparent to L2 learners, especially when it comes to subtleties like softening (or not softening) of b,d,g and [j] ~ [ʝ] as well as [r] ~ [ɾ] contrasts,
this is where this dictionary shines:

[paɾa'noja] [klaɾa'βoʝa] [að'βeɾβjo] [depen̯'dien̯te] ['mirlo]


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Iversen
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 Message 10 of 30
05 April 2014 at 1:26pm | IP Logged 
If IPA was used in all my resources and acrosss all language combinations it would certainly be worth learning it. But my experience tell me that language guides and dictionaries tend to use more or less homebrewed systems based on their respective base languages, and when I jot pronunciations down I also use my own homemade transcription rules rather than IPA. So for the time being I only see IPA in places like Wikipedia and scholarly language resources.

Edited by Iversen on 05 April 2014 at 1:27pm

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shk00design
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 Message 11 of 30
05 April 2014 at 11:14pm | IP Logged 
Personally I don't rely on IPA guide for pronunciation as much. On the Internet there are a number of
online dictionaries that has a playback button so you can listen to words pronounced correctly like a
native speaker instead of guessing.

A language like French has regular pronunciation but the other day I did find 1 common word that
people use every day and has an odd pronunciation: Monsieur as in Monsieur et Madame (equiv. to
English Mr. & Ms). Originally the word Monsieur is made of 2 words Mon & Sieur for My Lord referring to
a member of the French royal family. The plural is Messieurs made of 2 words Mes & Sieurs. In the
singular form it is pronounce like the plural but without the s at the end. Probably the only word with
irregular pronunciation.
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Josquin
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 Message 12 of 30
05 April 2014 at 11:46pm | IP Logged 
No, there are more irregular French words: femme, plus, jadis...

Actually, "monsieurs" and "messieurs" are pronounced differently. The first one has a schwa (e) in the first syllable, while the second one has a closed e sound (é). The s at the end is never pronounced.
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Retinend
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 Message 13 of 30
06 April 2014 at 11:43am | IP Logged 
shk00design wrote:
Personally I don't rely on IPA guide for pronunciation as much. On the Internet there are a number of
online dictionaries that has a playback button so you can listen to words pronounced correctly like a
native speaker instead of guessing.


It doesn't have to be one or the other. In a perfect world you would be able to hear the sound and see, on the page, what type of sound you
are hearing via IPA. I think that some people in this thread are handwaving the benefits of knowing the IPA correctly and including them in
dictionaries. If you rely only on the auditory resource, you can go on believing that "this sound is just like this one" when actually it's
subtlely different. If an IPA symbol showed you that there was a difference, then you might adjust how you perceive a sound. For example if
you expected to see /b/ in an IPA transcription but you actually saw /β/; or you expected to see /y/ but you actually saw /ʎ/. Then you
might be motivated to learn about the articulation required to sound more true to the model.
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Retinend
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 Message 14 of 30
06 April 2014 at 3:13pm | IP Logged 
Many thanks to Medulin for a resource which has exactly this utility. Unfortunately the
same website has a different source for español-English entries and features no IPA on
these pages. I find this curious, since this cannot be because English people have an
easier time learning Spanish pronunciation than do the Portuguese. Other dictionaries
should aspire to this Portuguese-Spanish one.
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luke
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 Message 15 of 30
06 April 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
If IPA was used in all my resources and acrosss all language combinations it would certainly be worth learning it.

So for the time being I only see IPA in places like Wikipedia and scholarly language resources.


Yes, I mean, the United States doesn't even use the metric system, which is ubiquitous and practical - we could make parts the same size as the rest of the world - one set of wrenches; and clearly superior to any Physics student.

Edited by luke on 06 April 2014 at 8:34pm

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Iversen
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 Message 16 of 30
07 April 2014 at 1:05am | IP Logged 
When we speak about notational systems for pronunciation it is not just like the situation for lengths and weigths where practically the whole world use meters and kilos, with the United States as the only major exception. You can take two language guides in one language like English or German or French, and chances are that they use two different notations ... and IPA is will in all likelyhood not be one of them. Which actually is what the situation was for lengths and weights up to the late 18. century and way up into the 18. century: chaos!

And now it may be too late. I actually think that shk00design is right: people will use the speech synthethizers/recordings provided by a number of sites on the internet, instead of sitting down to learn IPA. And I'll be among those who do this, or I'll just continue trying to get some information out of the homemade systems.

Edited by Iversen on 07 April 2014 at 1:07am



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