Pronunciation

Marla_Singer said:
but most (including me) are doing mistakes all the time.
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Shold be "...making mistakes...";)

You post very well in English. :goodjob:
 
Abulafia said:
Try Russian. Once you've nailed the the 33 letters and learnt the 6 grammatical cases (with few exceptions) it's easy enough to speak and read as words are pronounced phonetically, and words can go anywhere within a sentence.
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That is wierd. In English, if you move one word it can totally change a sentance. For example:

Steve got bitten by the dog.
The dog got bitten by Steve.

33 letters is a little to much, isn't it? I mean, do they really need a spereate letter for shch? I believe it looks like this: Щ
 
Actually, what I've read is that it can be advantageous that our spelling is not phonetic.

Because we cannot rely on the letters of any particular word corresponding directly with that word's pronunciation, we tend to look at an entire word at a time, almost as though it were a single glyph like Chinese. And hence, we read faster than we would if we spelled everything phonetically.

Is this a valid argument, or would we still learn to recognize entire words even though they be phonetically spelled? I cannot say.

On the other hand, though, our current spelling system, rife with exceptions as it may seem, is in a way a historical document, as the spelling rules of each word reveal that word's origin and when it entered the language. Latin-derived words, for example, follow different pronunciation rules than Greek-derived words, which are different still from Germanic-derived words, and the language of origin is immediately recognizable in most of these words. Also, silent letters like final e's, initial kn's, and gh's all stand as a vestige of the language's history, because at one time, they were all pronounced; final e and initial kn were pronounced just as they are in German today, and gh was pronouced like German ch (following the same variations in pronunciation when following front vowels or back vowels).
 
Sims2789 said:
33 letters is a little to much, isn't it? I mean, do they really need a spereate letter for shch? I believe it looks like this: Щ
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Then what would the Russians call beetroot soup (борщ - borsch)? :mischief:

Here's the alphabet. :)

  • А а - ah
  • Б б - bay
  • В в - vay
  • Г г - gay
  • Д д - dee
  • Е е - yay
  • Ё ё - yo
  • Ж ж - zh
  • З з - zay (as in zoo)
  • И и - ee
  • Й й - used for forming dipthongs, i.e. Ча (cha) becomes Чай (chai)
  • К к - kay
  • Л л - el
  • М м - em
  • Н н - en
  • О о - oh, sounds like ah when unstressed
  • П п - pay
  • Р р - ar
  • С с - ess
  • Т т - tee
  • У у - oo
  • Ф ф - ef
  • Х х - h (like the h in Scottosh 'loch')
  • Ц ц - ts
  • Ч ч - ch
  • Ш ш - sh
  • Щ щ - shch
  • Ъ ъ - tvyordiy znahk (hard sign)
  • Ы ы - i (as in ill)
  • Ь ь - myagkeey znahk (soft sign)
  • Э э - eh, (as the e in set, yet, etc.)
  • Ю ю - yoo
  • Я я - ya

Ъ and Ь (the hard and soft sign) don't have a sound of their own. They affect the sound of the consonant they follow.
 
I tried to learn Russiab=n off the internet once. I gave up after the first letter.
 
I'd prefer to stick to Latin based languages if you don't mind ;)

The thing is; English is just enough Germanic not to be considered Latin based and just enough Latin that learning another Germanic language is really difficult. I guess it draws upon both the Latin and German pronunciation rules among others.
 
Is this a valid argument, or would we still learn to recognize entire words even though they be phonetically spelled? I cannot say.
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Hundreds of millions of speakers of more phonetically spelt language manage the whole-word recognition thing just fine, so I think we can safely write it off as invalid.

@SN: Why resist? I always enjoy seeing spelling reform suggestions that will never be implemented.
 
You think regular English is weird? Try a Boston accent.

Worcester = Woostah
Drawer = Druah
Nomar = Nomaah
Park the car in Harvard Yard = Paahk the Caah in Haahvahd Yahd
Idea = Idear
Etc.
 
Uh a bit OT but do Californians have an accent? I think they don't emphasize any sounds...
 
Geordie is quite hard, in my opinion. Auf wiedersehen Pet is always a bit of a challenge. :)
 
"Yo, duuude, we TOTALLY don't, like, have ACcents... rully"

EDIT: That's supposed to be a valley/surfer-dude accent. don't know well I pulled it off.
 
NeoDemocrat said:
Uh a bit OT but do Californians have an accent? I think they don't emphasize any sounds...
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Could you explain to me what you mean by emphasizing sounds? [I'm not trying to be sarcastic but I really am unclear as to whether we do it or not so an explantion could clarify me on this issue.]

Another note: The word "phonetically" is not spelled phonetically. It should be spelled "fuhneticlee" with the ee sounding as it does in the word bee and the oe sounding as it does in the word foe. Why the silent al is there is beyond my knowledge.

Here is what google said phonetically should be pronounced like:

phonetically

\Pho*net"ic*al*ly\, adv. In a phonetic manner.

They say phonetically with five syllables, not four(how I say it). Then again, maybe it's just my accent. I'm not sure. Could people say how many syllables are in phonetically? Also say where you're from.
 
"Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy."
 
Birdjaguar said:
"Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy."
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Epecxt wehn the non-fsirt and lsat lrettes are cletelpomy bdrawkcas.
 
Did the person who decided on how phonetic was spelt have an over-active sense of ironry? :crazyeye:

It's like the spelling of dyslexic, another of lifes evil twists...
 
Birdjaguar said:
"Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy."
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Hence the ingenious brand name:

FCUK

Hehehe.
 
Sims2789 said:
Another note: The word "phonetically" is not spelled phonetically. It should be spelled "fuhneticlee" with the ee sounding as it does in the word bee and the oe sounding as it does in the word foe. Why the silent al is there is beyond my knowledge.

Here is what google said phonetically should be pronounced like:

phonetically

\Pho*net"ic*al*ly\, adv. In a phonetic manner.

They say phonetically with five syllables, not four(how I say it). Then again, maybe it's just my accent. I'm not sure. Could people say how many syllables are in phonetically? Also say where you're from.
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If the word is properly enunciated, it *does* take all five syllables. ;) However, most people slur their sounds when they speak, breaking off the "sharp edges" of words, and blurring their distinctiveness.

And harking back to the earlier discussion about words pronounced the same but spelled differently to differentiate them: quite the contrary. Words pronounced the same but with different spellings either came into the English language from different sources, or they were originally pronounced differently. Roughly during the time of Chaucer, the language experienced what linguists call the "Great Vowel Shift". Over a very short period of time (about 100 years, IIRC), pronunciation shifted from the Germanic to what we have now (more or less).
 
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