11–20 of 185 posts
And here I was expecting to read about hoppy beers... :(
Me too. There's this one... https://vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/IPA-final.jp... I'm not a big fan of the New-England which seems to be all the rage.
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
t͡ʃ, t͡ɕ, ʈ͡ʂ all sound so close to my poor ear that I'd struggle to articulate the difference. They sound like exactly the same thing at slightly different speeds.
It's really helpful to understand the theory behind the pronunciation, instead of just repeating words and attempt to make the same sounds as my coach. As in "this is what your tongue should be doing, but you're doing this other thing instead."
You can even use the chart (and maybe Wikipedia) to identify specific reasons as to why you're doing something wrong. For example, there's just one way to pronounce "S" in Finnish, whereas there are four ways to do that in English. It's just something that never crossed my mind before starting to work with a professional.
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
t͡ʃ, t͡ɕ, ʈ͡ʂ all sound so close to my poor ear that I'd struggle to articulate the difference. They sound like exactly the same thing at slightly different speeds.
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
Native speakers have the advantage in spoken conversation. They quickly understand not just the word, but the context. No native speaker would ever confuse "Give that document to Ted" with "Give that document to dead" since the latter is nonsensical. Even if you actually said "dead", most people would interpret it as "Ted" without even noticing anything odd about your pronunciation. (In fact, in a context like that between two vowels, it's entirely possible that you would keep your vocal cords buzzing and produce a "d" even if you'd meant to say "t").
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
If you are a native English speaker, these renditions will sound too close together for you, because the person pronouncing them is not a native English speaker. IPA is a coarse guide to phonemes; it does not capture, for example, the difference between the English and Spanish t , which is so great that I am still struggling to do it correctly. But they are both “t” in IPA.
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
A lot of sounds are difficult even for a native speaker to distinguish in isolation. That's especially true for plosives, since they can't be held; you have only a moment to hear the difference. Native speakers have the advantage in spoken conversation. They quickly understand not just the word, but the context. No native speaker would ever confuse "Give that document to Ted" with "Give that document to dead" since t…
The 't' and 'd' (dental & postalevolar plosives) sound so close together.
If you are a native English speaker, these renditions will sound too close together for you, because the person pronouncing them is not a native English speaker. IPA is a coarse guide to phonemes; it does not capture, for example, the difference between the English and Spanish t , which is so great that I am still struggling to do it correctly. But they are both “t” in IPA.
Obviously this is a spectrum; some transcriptions are so broad that they transcribe the english as /r/ when the context is clear that we're talking about english, even though it should properly by /ɹ/. And in my narrow transcription, I didn't bother to notate vowel length, because it didn't matter for the given example.
(Note: I use for orthography (how it's written in the language), // for broad transcription, and, and [] for narrow transcription)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a native English speaker, these renditions will sound too close together for you, because the person pronouncing them is not a native English speaker. IPA is a coarse guide to phonemes; it does not capture, for example, the difference between the English and Spanish t , which is so great that I am still struggling to do it correctly. But they are both “t” in IPA.
Interestingly enough, IPA actually does have a way of distinguishing these sounds. The Spanish t is always unaspirated [t]. But the English t can sometimes be unaspirated [t] as in "stamp" or aspirated [tʰ] as in "too" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspiration_(phonetics)