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Interactive IPA Chart

ipachart.com

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Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#51
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…

I had this realization during one of my later linguistics classes. It was a syntax class, so didn't really have anything to do with pronunciation; but it was an upper level class, so it was a safe assumption that everyone knew IPA. In the beginning of the class, the professor introduced himself with "my name is X, but you can call me Y if that is too difficult". The two names were mostly the same, except that the fir…

Can you post his name? I don't understand how it would be so hard to hear, hopefully he wouldn't mind.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#52
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that IPAs and neIPAs will dominate the taps at my local breweries, but kinda disappointed I haven't seen any Maibocks on tap this spring.

I heartily recommend taking up homebrewing. You can produce your own gallon-sized batch of Maibock!

Gallon… or five

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#53
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…

I'm a native Hebrew speaker. We basically have one way to say each vowel. It took practice for me (not with a coach but with some training videos etc) to even hear the different ways English speakers pronounce them, my brain just wasn't tuned to hear them, let alone pronounce them.

Week, weak and wick will be pronounced and will sound exactly the same to a non trained Hebrew speaker, and to much much more hilarity - sheet/shit, peace/piece/piss.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s interesting, but the Spanish unaspirated t and the English one are different phonemes. The tongue is in a different position. If I forget and use the English t, my Spanish teacher stops me. The difference in sounds is quite obvious. So how, in IPA, do you spell the difference?

> but the Spanish unaspirated t and the English one are different phonemes. The tongue is in a different position. That is not what "phoneme" means. They are different sounds, but they aren't different phonemes in either language; to be different phonemes, the same language would have to consider them different. Neither does -- in both cases, one is "/t/" and the other is "weird /t/".

Thanks for the correction. I’m not a linguist (obviously). Just teaching and learning a foreign language.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

It's more complex. Spanish phonology dictates a denti-alveolar pronunciation of /t/, while typical English phonology (USA, England, etc.) uses purely alveolar /t/. So in Spanish, the tip of the tongue hits the back of the teeth, which doesn't happen in English. This distinction is not rendered in the IPA glyphs or any diacritic that I'm aware of.

That’s what I’m talking about. The Spanish t is almost like an unaspirated English th.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#57
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…

I was once in a classroom in India attempting to teach English to Hindi speaking kids (I don't speak Hindi, but at that time I more or less knew the devanagari script). Someone told me a Hindi word and I wanted to write it on the blackboard in an example.

There are (at least) 3 different consonants in Hindi that just sound like "T" to me. So it took me 3 attempts to spell this Hindi word correctly. The kids all absolutely lost their minds with laughter at this - they were all yelling (what I heard as) "no not tuh, TUH" and just couldn't understand why I couldn't tell the difference.

Re: Interactive IPA Chart

#60
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that IPAs and neIPAs will dominate the taps at my local breweries, but kinda disappointed I haven't seen any Maibocks on tap this spring.

I heartily recommend taking up homebrewing. You can produce your own gallon-sized batch of Maibock!

Homebrewing - the most expensive way to enjoy free beer.
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