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I watched many YouTube videos and they seem to pronounce the first part of "Quarter" exactly the same as "core". It seems that the A is silent reading. Am I correct? Are there any accents that pronounce it like "QuAr"?

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    Yes, quart-er can sound like core-ter but not by all speakers. Some pronounce it as "ku-orter". Sorry, no phonetics or phonemics.
    – Lambie
    Nov 7, 2019 at 16:50
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    "Quarter" should have two syllables, although some speaker may "swallow" the second syllable when speaking quickly. The "a" sound is more like the "o" sound as in "go" or "home". Only a few dialects pronounce it like the "a" in "water", and never like the "a" in "quake".
    – Andrew
    Nov 7, 2019 at 19:25
  • It would sure help if you linked to one or two of those YouTube videos you are alluding to. Otherwise, we have no idea about what you are really hearing.
    – J.R. ♦
    Nov 7, 2019 at 22:59

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The A always sounds like an O. I never hear it pronounced like an A.

It's the U that you hear disappearing in regular everyday speech. Sometimes it's briefly pronounced, but often not at all. You can see this described in this YouTube video. You might hear the U if someone specifically emphasizes that word in a sentence.

I'm a native English speaker from Canada. I can't always speak about British English, but this seems to be true there too.

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    Sorry, I didn't explicitly say this, but my answer only applies to the word "quarter" as that was the only word asked about. I'm not claiming anything about any other "qu" words.
    – Gabriel Luci
    Nov 7, 2019 at 22:19
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    @Lambie What about? That hardly anyone pronounces the U in quarter?
    – Gabriel Luci
    Nov 7, 2019 at 22:36
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    Lambie and Gabriel Luci, before you continue arguing this point, you might want to get some consensus on what sound the "q" makes without the "u". Since in normal English the 2 letters are never separated, it's not obvious whether the "q" by itself says "kw" (like "kwak-kwak") or simple "k" (like "Iraq"). That would make a difference in whether the "u" is pronounced or not.
    – Lorel C.
    Nov 7, 2019 at 22:56
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    @Lambie "Some people pronounce quarter as: core-ter, the core part is: k ɔ" - So what do you disagree with then? You just said exactly what my answer says.
    – Gabriel Luci
    Nov 7, 2019 at 23:08
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    Maybe you have a different experience then. In my experience (in Southern Ontario, Canada), I never hear the U pronounced unless someone is emphasizing the word.
    – Gabriel Luci
    Nov 7, 2019 at 23:33

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