New answers tagged pronunciation
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Every rule in English has exceptions, including this rule.
There are some words (like “thyme”, pronounced the same as “time”) where even the correct pronunciation of “th” is weird, but it’s much more common that “th” gets dropped to a “d” or “t” when someone is speaking quickly or has a thick accent.
If I say the word “clothes” by itself, I’ll say it ...
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I can’t recall hearing a native speaker make that mistake, at least past the young age when we first learn that sound, but it is sometimes done on purpose in poetry or lyrics (and written as bath’ed or bath-ed) when the author needs an extra syllable to fit the meter or rhythm.
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Question:
How does one pronounce past participles in -thed, such as "clothed" and "bathed" in British English? Are there more than one correct pronunciation?
A Cambridge dictionary said "-ðd", but would it also be correct to omit the final "d"?
[I want the question to appear in my answer.]
Answer: The Cambridge ...
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The standard pronuncation of 'bathed' in both British English and American English is /beɪðd/.
In Southern British English, 'bath' (noun) is pronounced [bɑːθ] while the verb 'bathe' is pronounced [beɪð]. The voiced 'th' [ð] is a remnant of Old English. And in Old English, it was a result of Intervocalic Fricative Voicing.
It's not correct to omit the final d ...
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The past participle ends in /ðd/ so we have approximately /beiðd/
The infinitive and basic form of the verb is "bathe" /beið/
I have /beiðd/ in the river.
I /beið/ in the river every evening.
Note that the running to gether of words means that you get /beiðdin/.
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She's saying "standing in front of me", as the lyrics say.
She either slightly mispronounces it (exhaling a little more air than she intended to) or the microphone distorted it a little, which makes the T slightly elongate and sound a bit like an S, which is where your ear is getting a little confused: but she's definitely singing "standing in ...
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It depends on the word and, to some extent, the speaker.
No matter what the word is, guarantee that there is at least one accepted pronunciation that uses all English phonemes. A good dictionary should tell you the most common. For frequently used words, there's often just one "correct" English pronunciation, even if it isn't the closest match the ...
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Generally, words are pronounced to approximate the pronunciation in the original language. Often there is some modification to English phonemes and sometimes the words are more mangled.
So "buk" would probably be pronounced the same as "book". Note that pronouncing u as [u] is well known in English, for example "put". Enen ...
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Such words may appear in dictionaries or or glossaries. You could call them the "pronunciation"
When I make vocabulary cards, I always include both the spelling and the pronunciation on the card.
To be more technical, they are a type of phonetic transcription, that is they are a written representation of speech sounds. There are a number of ...
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I think of this as a cultural issue. Here in UK (where the legend originated) almost everyone says Robin HOOD. This is analogous with Judy DENCH, Peter PAN, etc. To me, ROBin Hood sounds strange and "American" (because I only hear it in US media and when I used to live there).
I think this may be linked to general differences in stress patterns ...
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Gripe -> /ɡraɪp/
Grape -> /ɡreɪp/
This is how they're pronounced in both General American English and Southern British English.
Gripe -> [ɡɹʷaɪp̚]
Grape -> [ɡɹʷeɪp̚]
This is how I pronounce both the words (it's a detailed transcription).
Grape has the same vowel as mate, fate, weight -> [eɪ]
Gripe has the same vowel as might, fight, white -&...
2
This is an interesting question, understandably from a native Japanese speaker. There are no gender markers in personal pronouns in English as in Japanese. English does not have a separate female speech style/women's language like the Japanese 女性語. In most romance languages nouns are gendered, but that is not the case in English either (English is a Germanic ...
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It's not 'cancelling' in the narrow sense. Basically, it's because of Phonotactics Constraints.
English cannot have two homorganic plosives (voiced and voiceless) next to each other. Homorganic consonants are the consonants that are articulated from the same place.
/t/ and /d/ are both stops and have the same place of articulation i.e. the alveolar ridge. /t/...
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It depends on the accent/dialect. If the dialect is rhotic, it means the /r/ is pronounced in all positions (pre-vocalically, intervocalically and post-vocalically).
However, if the dialect is non-rhotic, it means the /r/ is only pronounced pre-vocalically (before a vowel).
In Standard British English, the /r/ is only pronounced pre-vocalically. In General ...
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A minimal pairs exercise might be helpful in learning to both hear the difference and then to produce it in your own speech. Listen to pronunciation of both words in each pair and try to hear the difference:
fur/fair
blur/blare
purr/pair
burr/bear
her/hair
lure/lair
were/wear
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It depends on which dialect the speakers use. In American English, a final /r/ is indeed pronounced. So in "another thing", the /r/ in pronounced, especially in careful speech (eg. television interview or news reporting). In British English, the /r/ is not pronounced.
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Huh?
Ready to spread your vibes?
Spread them where?
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Pronunciation of foot or of feet does not change significantly when embedded in a sentence. However, the choice of word depends on context, e.g.
It is a thousand-foot drop to the bottom of the cliff
It is a thousand feet to the bottom of the cliff.
In the first example, thousand-foot is used as an adjective, where it is regarded as a singular unit... as in ...
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There was a similar question in ELU a few days ago. I'll just copy my answer and will modify it a bit.
In English, when a stressed syllable is followed by two (or more) unstressed syllables, the vowel immediately following the stressed syllable is usually dropped in colloquial/fast speech (not every accent/dialect and not in every individual's speech). The ...
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They are very close, maybe identical, in sound, and the repetition of "for, um...for, um...for,um...for fur." is joking, using the similarity of the sounds to underline the woman's reluctance to admit that she was shopping for fur. She admits that shortly after, saying "And then I realized that I'm against that."
In some people's careful ...
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There are some words which have a different pronunciation in British English to American English, but remember that within both British and American English there are many different regional accents. Don't expect every native BrEng or AmEng speaker to pronounce every word the same. Yet both British and American dictionaries will only carry one pronunciation ...
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Your first link from the Cambridge Dictionary appears basically correct:
comfortable
adjective
US /ˈkʌm.fɚ.t̬ə.bəl/ UK /ˈkʌm.fə.tə.bəl/
Note what this says, with the funny character "ɚ". Namely, the US version includes an "r" sound. Although not always since there are many regional dialects.
Next, the Merriam Webster dictionary, "...
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