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Interactive IPA Chart

ipachart.com

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Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#171

Post by hunter2_ »

open0 wrote: post #153
hunter2_ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> /ʒ/ does not occur in word-initial position in English I never noticed that until now. While it's obviously not an English word, plenty of English speakers have discussed French explorer Jacques Cousteau. I can't think of any other examples.

"genre" is one of the few. One of the languages I know allows for a word-initial /ŋ/, which English does not have at all.

Ah, good call.

Vietnamese, by chance? I'm guessing that because the only initial /ŋ/ word on my radar is the name Nguyen.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#172

Post by bradrn »

sergeykish wrote: post #163
bradrn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phonetic spelling is useless when you’ve got more than one dialect. For instance, consider the word ‘castle’. Is this [kæsɫ̩], or [kɑːsl̩], or [kɑːsu] (as it is for me), or something else entirely? Having an orthography which is not purely phonetic avoids this problem.

Terry Pratchett plays a lot with language, and it is funny > “Mr Vimes," said Mrs Winkings, "ve cannot help but notice that you still haf not employed any of our members in the Vatch..." > Say 'Watch', why don't you? Vimes thought. I know you can. Let the twenty-third letter of the alphabet enter your life.” I am not a native English speaker, yet I decifer everyone execept gargoyles: — e cuns uk ere um-imes an awks o…

Huh, what a coincidence — I just re-read Thud! a couple of weeks ago! An excellent illustration of my point that phonetic spelling is highly dialect-dependent.

(Oh, and don’t worry; I’m a native English speaker, and I can’t understand Pratchett’s gargoyles either.)

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#173

Post by bradrn »

eythian wrote: post #169
open0 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"genre" is one of the few. One of the languages I know allows for a word-initial /ŋ/, which English does not have at all.

New Zealand English (through Māori influence) has this, in names like Ngaire and places like Ngaio. This said, a lot (perhaps most, though it'll be regional I expect) of speakers will pronounce it as though the 'g' isn't present.

A couple of years ago I had a geology class in which the lecturer (albeit a non-New Zealander) consistently pronounced Ngāuruhoe with initial /n/. Interesting to know that New Zealanders pronounce it with /ɡ/ instead. (I, of course, pedant that I am, insisted on pronouncing it with an initial /ŋ/.)

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#174

Post by bradrn »

lokedhs wrote: post #170

Very nice chart. It really helps when understanding IPA. I was trying to find the Swedish "u" sound. According to the Swedish Wikipedia page on the sound, it says it's written as "u" in IPA, but it doesn't sound right at all. The "ʉ" sound is a lot closer, but still not right. What is the correct IPA representation of the Swedish u, as in "ful"?

I don’t speak Swedish, but I found a sketch grammar (Andersson’s) which says that it’s [y]. Not sure if that’s correct or not though.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#175

Post by JaakkoP »

davidw wrote: post #113
JaakkoP wrote: post #13

I'm a non-native English speaker, and I've been working with an accent coach to improve my pronunciation. The IPA chart has been instrumental teaching tool, and after about two years it's finally starting to sink in. 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, bu…

May I ask which coach you are working with? My wife is interested in one of those services. Thanks!

Let me ask my coach if she's taking new clients at the moment and I'll get back to you. You can reach me at {HN Username}iipponen@gmail.com

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#176

Post by dvirsky »

blowski wrote: post #161
ff7c11 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French speakers often struggle with beach/bitch :)

There's also the classic can't, count, and cunt (the last being one of the most offensive expletives).

For me that actually was easier - learning English mostly from TV as a kid I just pronounced can't as "kent".

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#177

Post by DonaldPShimoda »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #142
DonaldPShimoda wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's really interesting about the affricates! Thanks for sharing! :) I get the continuous vs discrete aspect for sure, but you'd think we'd at least have different symbols for each place of articulation! /t/ crosses four different places (dental, denti-alveolar, alveolar, post-alveolar) and the best we can do is cut that down into two groups of two places with the dental diacritic which says "some teeth contac…

I don't think the places of articulation you list are considered all that different, really. Two speakers of different languages using sounds articulated along that continuum are likely to recognize the other language's sound as being their own, but sounding a little funny. (This phenomenon is especially notable for rhotics, where different languages may realize an "r" in very different ways -- for example, Spanish a…

Right, again I'm with you!

> There are languages that distinguish retroflex stops from alveolar stops, and IPA obliges those languages with different symbols for the two places of articulation. Do you know of a language that distinguishes alveolar stops from dental stops?

I actually mentioned this in the top comment:

> I'm not sure why the IPA chart doesn't differentiate these specific phones, honestly. I imagine it's because although the sounds are very different cross-linguistically, maybe there aren't any languages where these phones are contrastive and thus they don't warrant separate glyphs in the IPA.

What I meant in my most recent comment was that, if I were going to create a new IPA from scratch, I would probably try to have some diacritic or distinct symbol for each place of articulation, such that any possible place/manner combination could be expressed uniquely. As it stands, the presence of distinct symbols in the IPA seems governed by whether there are examples of real-world languages in which phones are considered contrastive. This is perfectly pragmatic, but it leaves me feeling disappointed that I can't easily express something that is right there on the chart! Having correspond to 3-4 places of articulation with only a diacritic to distinguish 1-2 of those is disappointing, even if it's technically sufficient for any transcription within a given language.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#178

Post by novaleaf »

I'm not a linguist, but I think they could have done better with the Plosive "P" sound. It's too close to the "B". In Standard American English the P is more obvious than this.
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