Questions tagged [vowels]
This tag is for questions about the pronunciation and orthographic representation of vowels.
89
questions
1
vote
2answers
58 views
Is it wrong to pronounce “to” as /tə/ before words starting with vowels?
In Oxford Dictionary, it says it is correct to pronounce "to" as /tə/ only before words starting with a consonant. It seems fair to me too because /tə/ sounds off and unsmooth before vowels; ...
3
votes
1answer
539 views
Pronunciation of ‘deduce’ as duh-DOOS
When I look up some dictionaries, the pronunciation of the word 'deduce' is /dɪˈduːs/, but it is pronounced as duh·doos ([dəˈduːs]). Is there a rule when to pronounce the vowel /ɪ/ like that?
1
vote
1answer
58 views
Pronunciation of “tag” in American English
I have heard some American English speakers saying the word "tag" like [tεg], but the [ɛ] vowel is somewhat lengthened. Is that a specific regional accent? I can't find this pronunciation on ...
0
votes
1answer
47 views
Are all reduced vowels schwa sounds? [closed]
Please teach me which alphabet letters we do not sound schwa.
For example, many words ending in age like damAge, imAge, pagE, storAgE etc. don't sound an upside down e schwa. I appreciate it if you ...
-1
votes
1answer
47 views
Why 'TEFL" is pronounced with Schwa /tef.əl/ although it's an abbreviation? [closed]
Why 'TEFL" is pronounced with Schwa /tef.əl/ although it's an abbreviation?
What is the logic behind this of insertion a schwa sound?
-1
votes
1answer
44 views
“Constructor” pronunciation debate [closed]
I have a debate with my friend on the pronunciation of “constructor” word that he claims there cannot be a pronunciation which is of IPA phonetic as following unlike mine that
/ˈkɑn.stɹʌktəɹ/
of which ...
1
vote
0answers
42 views
Does /eɪ/ sound make a slight 'y' sound in the word “DAY”?
I am really confused with this sound /eɪ/
It seems that it has a /j/ or 'aaaay' sound when it is at the end of the word like:
Day - /deɪ/
pray - /preɪ/
Also with words like
Played
Some people (non-...
1
vote
1answer
50 views
What is the difference between /ɔ/ and /ɑ:/? [duplicate]
Why they write the word 'Call' as /kɑːl/ (Cambridge)
And some others, they write it like /kɔl/ (Collins)
So, are they the same in American English?
12
votes
3answers
1k views
How do I decide if an “i” is pronounced long or short?
I am an English teacher who has never really learned the complex rules of teaching pronunciation. Many learners here in Spain have difficulties deciding whether an "i" in a word is long or ...
1
vote
1answer
92 views
Minimal pairs with /ʌ/ and /ɑ/
Would an American native speaker be able to hear a difference between /ʌ/ and /ɑ/ in pronunciation of "done" and "don" and recognize which one was said without a context? For me as ...
35
votes
3answers
5k views
Why are the pronunciations of 'bicycle' and 'recycle' so different?
It is obvious that both 'recycle' and 'bicycle' have a common element 'cycle'. 'Cycle' on its own is pronounced with a long 'I' sound /aɪ/. 'Cycle' in 'recycle' is pronounced how 'cycle' is normally ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
Is there any difference in pronunciation of 'wore' and 'were'?
'Were' and 'wore' sound the same to me.
Is it true at native english users' ears?
from dictionary: [wɔ:r] for wore and [wə́:r] for were
1
vote
2answers
79 views
Is ”Physical”'s IPA spelling not unique?
Could you come up with an explanation why the same adjective "physical" has two IPA renderings of the same pronunciation?
Oxford Learners Dictionary: /ˈfɪzɪkl/ (that is the /ə/ is missed in ...
1
vote
1answer
83 views
“Albeit” pronunciation - does any one say it like 'al-bite'?
This is most likely just a case of me "learning" to pronounce 'albeit' wrong, before I ever heard the word spoken by a native speaker.
Had similar issues with other words in the past, so...
...
3
votes
1answer
41 views
Why are “define” and “definition” pronounced with different vowels? [duplicate]
It just doesn't make sense.
"Define" has a long vowel and "definition" has short.
Isn't "definition" the noun form of "define"? Shouldn't both have the same ...
1
vote
1answer
81 views
Segmental -> [sɛɡ|mɛnt“ə”l] Can I omit the “/ə/” sound?
segmental [sɛɡ|mɛntəl]
Can I omit the /ə/ sound?
Due to another dictionary's pronunciation [seɡˈmentl]
4
votes
2answers
764 views
Why does “wind” have two different pronunciations?
The word "wind" seems to be problematic (with almost all other English words that behave strangely). When it is used as a noun to mean the movement of air, it is pronounced to rhyme with &...
0
votes
2answers
91 views
Which British accents feature pronouncing [i] like “eyi”?
Pronouncing [i] like "eyi" has always been in my life, but I don't know who from I heard it so much. I finally found a person who actually speaks like this. It's Matthew Murphy, the vocalist ...
2
votes
1answer
156 views
Pronunciation of “Lives” [duplicate]
I often wonder what is the proper pronunciation of "lives", like how would I pronounce "human lives", am I suppose to pronounce it like:
Leeves
Like i in thing.
Or more like:
...
1
vote
1answer
80 views
“Law” vs “Lawyer” pronunciation, why is the “law” part sometimes pronounced differently?
So I've recently watched "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" (which is set in SoCal), and I've noticed everyone there pronounced "Law" and "Lawyer" differently, which was really ...
1
vote
2answers
106 views
Why are the vowels in “decisive” and “decision” different?
"Decision" is a very common and I have known it for most of the time in my life. It's pronunciation is /dɪˈsɪʒ.ən/. "Decisive" may be common in English speaking countries but I ...
4
votes
2answers
351 views
US-American pronunciation of 'e'
Since quite some time I get the impression, that especially in US-American, spoken english the pronunciation of 'e' (as in 'best' — /ɛ/) seems to shift towards 'a' (as in 'flat' — /æ/). Some recent ...
1
vote
1answer
312 views
Are “father” and “farther” pronounced exactly the same in British English?
In American English, "farther" is differentiated from "father" by the middle R, but I am talking about the British English in which the R's are only pronounced before vowels ...
1
vote
1answer
258 views
Should there be an article at the start of a factual sentence?
____Umbrella is of no avail against a thunderstorm.
An
A
The
No article
(I opted for option "d" since we are not talking about any single umbrella. We are talking generally. what's your ...
12
votes
3answers
4k views
Why is “threepenny” pronounced as THREP.NI?
First of all, "threepenny" is a British word meaning "costing or worth three pence". It's quite an uncommon word. If you haven't heard it before, I'm pretty sure you would ...
4
votes
2answers
216 views
Why don't the vowels in “northern” and “eastern” get short like “southern”?
As you have probably seen the very recent question Why are “south” and “southern” pronounced with different vowels?
The only (excellent) answer suggests that it is because of "Trisyllabic Laxing&...
36
votes
2answers
6k views
Why are “south” and “southern” pronounced with different vowels?
I was wondering why we pronounce the vowels in the words south and southern. They seem to be very closely related to each other. Both refer to the same direction. South is a noun and Southern is an ...
13
votes
2answers
7k views
Why does “elite” rhyme with “beet” rather than “bite”?
Why is "elite" pronounced /ɪˈliːt/ (rhyming with beet) and not /ɪˈlaɪt/ (rhyming with bite)? Most words that end in ite are pronounced with /aɪ/ — lite, trite, site, etc. — but elite is ...
0
votes
1answer
66 views
Counting syllables in English rhymes
I have the same question as answered here:
Counting syllables in English words
But for rhymes and their metre. When you look for words that rhyme with "castle", does castle still count as ...
-2
votes
2answers
71 views
Words with 'oo' that aren't pronouced as [ʊ]
I'm looking for words that has double o, but aren't pronounced as [ʊ].
(aren't like moon, goose, school)
Ideally is there a rule, or even a hint for finding these kind of words?
Looking at the ...
1
vote
1answer
132 views
Why are the vowels in “sense”, “nonsense” and “nonsensical” pronounced differently?
I'm a bit confused by these words. Since "nonsense" derives from "sense" but the vowel in "sense" is /ɛ/ and it reduces to /ə/ in "nonsense". BUT "...
19
votes
2answers
3k views
'Me' vs 'my' [pronunciation] in British English
I noticed that British people sometimes use me instead of my. For example, Liam Gallagher does it quite often.
Example:
The wind was strong I have nearly lost me pants
What is a story behind this ...
0
votes
1answer
128 views
the pronunciation of “gripe”
Cambridge Dictionary gives IPA symbol /ɡraɪp/ for "gripe" while Merriam-Webster gives /ˈgraɪp/.
Both audio clips on them sound like grape, at least sound closer to grape than to white.
When ...
0
votes
2answers
192 views
How many vowels in each syllable?
I'm trying to improve my spelling, and I came across this article, which states that "Every syllable has one vowel'.
How can this be true while words like room, pain, eat, grow, etc. Have one ...
1
vote
2answers
279 views
How to tell apart /ɝ/ and /ɛ/?
Today I discovered the word "scurry" and I immediately found that I couldn't tell it apart with "scary". I looked it up and found that it boils down to differentiating /ɝ/ and /ɛ/, ...
1
vote
0answers
27 views
a EULA or an EULA [duplicate]
We use "a" before words that start with a consonant sound and "an" before words that start with a vowel sound. "EULA" seems to start with a semivowel sound.
An end-user license agreement (EULA, /...
1
vote
1answer
55 views
Which phonetic alphabet represents the this sound?
Which phonetic alphabets represents the sound of 'u' in words like 'truck'? My real name includes written 'sam' but it is read as 'sum'. So I want to know what could I write between s _ m to make it ...
0
votes
2answers
84 views
When contract “used to” as “usta”, is it pronounced /ə/ or /a/?
In everyday english, people like contracting words, for example, "used to" would be contracted as "usta".
When people pronounce a single "usta", it sounds like /juːstah/; when people pronounce a ...
0
votes
0answers
78 views
Minimal pairs for i vs ɪ and is there an important difference?
According to a vowel question in Linguistic SE, English can be considered to have vowels [i ɪ e ɛ æ ɑ ɔ o ʊ u ʌ] which can be reduced to [i e æ ɑ o u ʌ] (plus an orthogonal length or ...
0
votes
2answers
217 views
Pronunciation of 'lunch'
I believe that I can pronounce the words 'call' and 'balloon'
"a" in call sounds like "o". To me, there is no difference between "a" in balloon and "u" in lunch. How can we distinguish between them?
0
votes
1answer
60 views
Confusion with /e/ sound
An exercise from English pronunciation in use (Elementary), J. Marks:
Seven of these numbers have /e/. Which are they?
Three, seven, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty, ...
38
votes
6answers
15k views
Can fluent English speakers distinguish between “steel”, “still”, and “steal”?
Can fluent English speakers understand this sentence the first time they hear it?
What? They still steal steel?
Can they hear a difference between the pronunciation of the words still, steal, and ...
0
votes
1answer
84 views
Confusion in placing Articles a and an before nouns
When I was a kid I was taught that Article An should be placed before nouns starting with a Vowel letter, but now i got to know that it's actually the sound of vowel we should focus not the letter.
...
0
votes
2answers
178 views
The correct pronunciation of “where is”
Is it [weriz] or [weəriz]? In case of ‘there is’ I'm almost sure there is no schwa, but I'm not sure it's the same with ‘where is’.
To avoid disambiguations I have to add that I'm interested in ...
3
votes
1answer
547 views
How to differentiate the pronunciation of it, eat, eight and ate?
I'm trying to refine my spoken English from scratch, and one of the biggest issue for me are the pairs of vowels: tense /i/ and lax /I/. I really can't tell the difference between them. I know that /i/...
1
vote
2answers
176 views
Pronunciation in British v. American English
Why are words like privacy pronounced like /ˈprɪv.ə.si/ in British and /ˈpraɪ.və.si/ in American English (short vowel in the first case, long in the latter one)?
I read that determining whether a ...
0
votes
2answers
3k views
What's the difference between /ɜ/ and /ə/?
Someone said, one is k.k sound mark, and another is international sound mark.
Then, I find this
They are both in one phonetic system. Why?
1
vote
2answers
1k views
Example Sentence for learning 'short' vowel sounds
As a teaching tool, I'm looking for a sentence that contains the 5 short vowel sounds (cat, get, sit, got, mud).
The sentence should be as short as possible, contain words that are as phonetically ...
0
votes
1answer
2k views
Letter “i” and its sounds [closed]
I am not a native English speaker and I have a question.
Why is the sound of the letter i different in the words dinner and diamond? What is the criteria for the change?
0
votes
2answers
166 views
Is letter Y in “Guyana” a vowel or a consonant?
Despite not being perfect, I do have some basic knowledge about consonants and vowels. From textbooks and internet, I know that, for example, C, Q and X are always consonants; A, E, I, O, U are always ...
