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pronunciation of “a”
I would like to know the pronunciation of a in the expression make a difference. Is it like a in ate or like a in about?
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marked as duplicate by JSBձոգչ, Matt Эллен, Mitch, simchona♦, waiwai933♦ Mar 27 '12 at 15:20
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
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In ordinary speech, one pronounces it like in about. It is like in ate only if we want to stress the a for some reason or other. |
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Either is fine. Personally, I found the pronunciation like the a in about to be more natural. |
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There are so many accents that it is impossible to answer such question :). But Will Hunting gave a general idea about it (although I can imagine accents where a like in ate will not have any meaning) |
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Will Hunting is right. Not enough rep to up vote... Just some more notes: in rapid speech, this the "uh" sound in uh-bout (about) is represented by the ə (schwa) or the ʌ (IPA). Vowels tend to gravitate toward the laziest form of pronunciation (at least in American English... I say this as an American). The "uh" sound represented by the schwa or caret is one of the first sounds you can make as a child; thus is it one of the easiest. Another example of this would be the pronunciation of the word "butter." Americans use a "flap" to where it almost sounds like "buder." That flap is quicker than enunciating it (like in UK speech) where the "t" is pronounced as "t." Side note, same vowel sound (ʌ). I didn't really have much to add, but since I can't up vote yet, I added a lot of useless (hopefully interesting) information. |
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Ironically I pronounce it like "ah" instead of "a" So for me it would be, "Make ah difference." Guess it really just depends on your local dialect. Also language is a continually morphing and as long as you are understood and don't sound like a complete idiot you should be fine. |
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