Questions tagged [pronunciation]
for questions about the sound, stress, or intonation of spoken words.
2,530
questions
1
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1answer
366 views
Should the first h in Nehemiah be silent? If so, why?
I hear many native speakers do not pronounce the first h in Nehemiah. However, I also found a video pronouncing this h. I am wondering about the correct pronunciation of Nehemiah in English.
This ...
3
votes
2answers
116 views
How can “Harold” and “Herald” ever sound the same?
I was reading a book¹ recently where the main protagonist is fixated
on homonyms and has rules that proper nouns are not homonyms and
gives Harold and herald as an example of words that sound the
same ...
1
vote
1answer
52 views
I pronounce initial R's with my upper teeth on the very bottom of my inside lower lip. Not rhotic. What's the IPA for this?
The Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_/r/) doesn't mention an option for pronouncing R where the upper teeth are really, really at the bottom of the inside lower ...
1
vote
0answers
27 views
/iu:/ and /ju:/ sound differences? [closed]
How community /kəˈmjuːnəti/ can have j inside it ? And I have struggled with it for last night. According to what i have researched, /j/ is equals /i:/ but faster. I try to pronounce beautiful slow ...
25
votes
2answers
3k views
When and why did English stop pronouncing ‘hour’ with an [h] like its spelling still shows?
As a non-native speaker, I had been pronouncing hour
in the literal, letter-by-letter way as [ˈhaʊə(ɹ)].
Then I learned that its written h is silent in
speech, and that you therefore needed to say an ...
1
vote
1answer
44 views
Why is "purchase" pronounced the same as a verb and as a noun, unlike other words such as increase? [closed]
Many words which can act as a noun and a verb pronounce differently in the different parts of speech. As a verb, the stress in on the second syllable, while as a noun, the first, such as INcrease (...
4
votes
1answer
254 views
Do many Americans have trouble pronouncing "fr" in "infrastructure"?
Infrastructure has been much in the news lately, because of the bill that has been moving through Congress for months and finally passed last week. As such, lots of people have been interviewed about ...
0
votes
1answer
56 views
Do some Americans in the Midwest pronounce "sorry" similarly to Canadians?
I just listened to the closing arguments from the defense team in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. At one point, Mr. Rittenhouse’s lawyer pronounced the word “sorry” in a way that to my non-native ears ...
0
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0answers
28 views
Australian pronunciation of the word "mum" (for mother)
As a native Midwestern U.S. speaker of American English, I had always assumed that the vowel in the word "mum" (meaning "mother") would be pronounced the same as the "u" ...
0
votes
0answers
55 views
pronunciation of the 'ous' in dangerous
When I look up the word dangerous, the IPA spellings almost always show up as /ˈdānj(ə)rəs/
Maybe it's regional (Southern Ontario), but I don't encounter that pronunciation lot. And I probably use it ...
0
votes
1answer
44 views
How to recognize stressed and unstressed syllables? (E.g. admit vs limit) [duplicate]
I wonder is there any simple rules to recognize is a syllable stressed or unstressed.
When I try to pronounce any word, I don't recognize any of the following features of a stressed syllable: 1) ...
0
votes
0answers
30 views
Have difficulty in pronouncing /g/ [migrated]
I noticed myself have this problem recently. When I pronounce /g/, I get a result like a mix of /g/ and /d/, is there any suggestions on how to train and improve this point?
I can hear the sound ...
1
vote
1answer
115 views
Is "dives" in "Maldives" pronounced as "/diːvz/" or "/daɪvz/"?
Wikipedia says the American pronunciation of the country is "/ˈmɔːldaɪvz/". But I asked a few American friends and they all pronounce it as "/ˈmɔːldiːvz/".
I searched "...
1
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0answers
69 views
What are the two /r/ sounds explained in this video?
This guy says here there are two ways of "making the /r/ sound". His explanation lacks academic rigor and necessary phonetic details. He claims the first way is: "It's like a /l/, with ...
0
votes
2answers
122 views
Are fairy and ferry exact homophones?
I was puzzled when a native speaker of American English (grown up in Texas) recently told me that they would pronounce fairy and ferry the same. I would expect a "long" vowel in fairy and a &...
0
votes
0answers
26 views
Do some people pronounce "women" same as "woman"? [duplicate]
This is something i've noticed lately. Example 1, example 2 (1:10). (...i do not necessarily endorse these videos).
I can clearly hear them say "all woman"/ "why do pregnant woman"....
4
votes
1answer
523 views
How to pronounce [ɹɾɚ] in American English?
I'm having issues pronouncing barter, order, harder, smarter using General American pronunciation. I can pronounce the individual sounds as well as combinations ɾɚ as in better and ɹɚ as in bearer but ...
3
votes
1answer
117 views
Why is scissors /ˈsɪz.əz/ and not /ˈsɪz.ɜ:ʳz/?
I am an English teacher, but have not studied phonetics much.
The sound əz is the same sound we find in "houses" "causes" "ages" "beaches". The dictionaries say ...
2
votes
2answers
64 views
How do you pronounce "over the complexes"?
Is there an agreed-upon way to say "complexes" in the sense of "the set of complex numbers" (as in "solve over the complexes")? Do we keep the stress on the first ...
0
votes
0answers
38 views
When to pronounce 'beloved' in 2 syllables vs 3 syllables [duplicate]
I've heard this pronounced as two syllables: be-loved. And as three syllables: be-lov-ed.
Is only one correct? If not, what cases require each use?
0
votes
2answers
98 views
Why do English speakers sometimes raise the pitch of their voices when not asking a question? [duplicate]
When recording myself, I found that I sometimes raised the pitch of my voice when not asking a question, and not when asking a question. Why is this?
0
votes
1answer
46 views
"Device" vs "Delete" pronunciation [closed]
Why has the American English changed the pronunciation of "device" to /dəˈvaɪs/ while the word "delete" has retained its British nature which is /dɪˈliːt/ ?
Both words are just too ...
2
votes
0answers
84 views
Glide retention in tune, duke, news in the United States
In words like tune, duke, news or student, most Britons and a sizable minority of Canadians have a sort of y glide after the initial consonant or consonant cluster. For these speakers, the words do ...
0
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0answers
36 views
What are some heterophones belonging to same part of speech (or even heteronyms linked to also same umbrella meaning)? ;Is there a pattern when/which?
This undoubtedly will vary based on regional dialect, which is partly why I included [received pronunciation]---not because I want the results to be limited to British telecaster formology, but to ...
0
votes
3answers
99 views
What kind of error is using Women instead of Woman
An online argument.
Guy says "You are looking for a women".
Girl replies "talking all that sh*t with bad Grammar".
Guy replies "Spelling is not a part of Grammar".
...
3
votes
1answer
85 views
"man" vs. "men" pronunciation in American English
Here are 10 audio clips taken (more or less randomly) from a book narrated by a professional American narrator. In 5 of them, he is saying man, and in the other 5, men.
Is it possible for a native ...
2
votes
3answers
411 views
Is there a term for the letter T not being pronounced when at the end of a word? [duplicate]
I thought it might be called a soft T, but upon looking that up, it seems a soft T is when T sounds like D, as in putty or letter.
What I mean though is when Batman uses his second favorite cup, it's ...
5
votes
1answer
167 views
Pronunciation of "I" vowel name in fast speech
I'm not a native english speaker.
I was wondering what is the right way to pronunce the "I" (/aɪ/) vowel name in fast speech.
Perhaps i'm confused, but sometimes i hear /a/. Like in the ...
2
votes
2answers
151 views
Are /a/ and /ʌ/ pronounced the same?
Are 'a' and 'ʌ' pronounced the same?
For example, there's 'write' /rait/ and 'nice' /nais/
and then there's
'up' /ʌp/ and 'must' /mʌst/.
I don't seem to find any difference between the first set and ...
0
votes
1answer
61 views
Did you initially thought "comparable" was pronounced as "com-pair-able"? [duplicate]
And were you surprised to learn it pronounced as "com-pra-ble"?
1
vote
2answers
137 views
What words in English sound aggressive to native speakers(not a semantically, but phonetically/ associatively) and why? [closed]
What words in English sound aggressive to native (not a semantically, but phonetically/ associatively) and why?
it can be not a "bunch of examples" only, but a generalized rule, if you can, ...
12
votes
5answers
4k views
Do "cook the" and "cooked the" get pronounced differently?
How are they different in pronunciation?
In other words, how can one recognise the difference purely by sound?
0
votes
1answer
51 views
Reading of Swift's On Poetry correctly
Jonathan Swift wrote once that
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.
You can see that to bite '...
0
votes
1answer
104 views
British pronunciation of the word "year"
It's clear that this word is usually pronounced /jɪə/, but it seems to me that in some British accents (probably one of them is RP) it's pronounced /jeə/ so that it becomes a homophone of ‘yeah’.
...
-2
votes
1answer
90 views
Why is this English pronunciation rule applied inconsistently? [closed]
I pronounce "privatize" as "praiv^taiz" [corrected by editing] instead of "private eyes"(praiv^daiz) [corrected by editing] despite the t being in the unemphasized, ...
0
votes
2answers
57 views
Pronunciation of an acronym as a word - C as a stop or a fricative [closed]
At my place of work in the US at an agency, there is an acronym that is fairly well known: FOCI
I've noticed some pronounce it "FOSI" (with a sibilant(?) C) and some "FOKI" (with a ...
0
votes
0answers
53 views
Nike brand pronounced /ˈnʌɪk/ instead of /ˈnaɪki/? BrE? Or? [duplicate]
I've only ever known Nike to be pronounced as /ˈnaɪki/.
Recently, I've heard many BrE speakers exclusively read the brand as: /ˈnʌɪk/.
Do all BrE speakers pronounce Nike in this way? Is it a regional ...
0
votes
1answer
110 views
Is it correct to pronounce the letter N as "ain" when spelling out words letter by letter?
I live in a non-English-speaking country. A lot of people around me pronounce the letter N as "ain" (/eɪn/ in IPA). I am very confused because in dictionaries the letter N can be only ...
10
votes
3answers
752 views
Why is there a flap allophone of /t/ but not of /k/ or /p/?
In English, there are three (phonemic) voiceless stops: /t/, /k/, /p/. In most if not all American accents, a /t/ between vowels (the first of which is usually stressed and the second unstressed) is ...
-1
votes
1answer
123 views
Dialect using "woman" instead of "women"?
If you watch this VICE episode, the presenter sounds like a native speaker, but uses "woman" instead of "women" every time (probably over a dozen times in the 10 minute video).
...
1
vote
1answer
322 views
How to pronounce the "bunched /r/" sound?
I don't live in English-speaking country. I try to learn English on my own. I am interested in aquisition the General American accent (GA). My question is about the American /r/ consonant ([ɹ]) and ...
2
votes
1answer
70 views
The pronunciation of sciurine (pertaining to squirrels)
I am intrigued by the pronunciation for the adjective for squirrel, "sciurine".
In Wiktionary, the pronunciation in IPA is '/ˈsaɪjʊɹaɪn/' ('/ˈsʌɪjᵿrʌɪn/' in the OED online), which strikes me ...
1
vote
1answer
78 views
Syllabification of "riding"
According to the Middle Consonant Rule, shouldn't we syllabicate the word riding as Ri-ding (raɪ-dɪŋ)? Why are we syllabicating it as Rid-ing (raɪd.ɪŋ)? What's the rule for this?
4
votes
1answer
140 views
Is the underlying form of "n" /n/ or /ŋ/ in words ending in -nk?
There are lots of words ending in -nk in Modern English. In (almost) all those words, the -nk is pronounced [-ŋk]. My understanding is that the "n" in spelling represented [n] originally but ...
3
votes
1answer
353 views
What caused the changes in pronunciation of the hard "G" in "Los Angeles"?
I know there was a long debate about whether "Los Angeles" should be pronounced like the English (soft-G, as in "jelly") or the Spanish (heavy-H as in "Jose"), and given ...
2
votes
0answers
79 views
In Scottish English are all plurals after an "s" sound pronounced as "-seez"?
In English I'm accustomed to the incorrect irregular plural pronunciation used by many educated speakers for the words "processes" and "biases" to end in /siːz/ instead of /səz/ ...
4
votes
2answers
368 views
Which groups of Americans pronounce -ing |ŋ| as -inG |ŋg|?
I have noticed that some American-born native English speakers pronounce -ing |ŋ| as -inG |ŋg| , at the end of a word, and I would really like to know why, or which groups have this characteristic. I'...
2
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0answers
128 views
How is the word "coir" pronounced: like /kɔɪɹ/ /kɔɪɚ/ or /kɔɪjɚ/?
I've been reviewing the General American English pronunciation of the word "coir". I had previously pronounced it /kwɑɹ/ (rhyming with noir), but understand now that I was wrong.
I've found ...
1
vote
0answers
54 views
Correct pronunciation of "parietal lobe" from neuroanatomy
When I studied neuroanatomy at university, my tutor (who later it turns out studied Latin in school), uses a different pronunciation than other neuroscientists. I prefer his pronunciation, but which ...
0
votes
0answers
20 views
Pronunciation of tissue [duplicate]
I have heard two pronunciations for the word tissue. Tishoo and Tisyou.
Tishoo is of course the one in common use but what is the current status on Tisyou ?
It ''feels'' like an archaic way of ...
