I had a paper of my English at university. I did not ace it very well even every classmates. It was the hardest test which we have ever faced, ask me why ? - we had a question to write phonetics of words. This question made all students nuts and it was making a big hole in our minds.
Anyhow , I'm being bewildered because I don't know what phonetic should I follow . When I completed my 6 month course at English local centers where I learned Americans phonetics and now am entered at university and have to study british phonetics of words from Oxford dictionary.
Anyway, When I wrote a few phonetics correctly , I felt very happy.
Could you tell me that " learning of writing phonetics is a part of English " ?
or just for getting extra proficiency .
Personally , I'm interested in learning American English .
Tom and Michal :
Can you inform to antimoon users that you are able to write both British and American phonetics instead of using your own " phonetic symbols "
What will be the advantage of learnin' writing phonetics of words ?
to Mohammed:
(I'm sorry we took so long to answer this interesting message. Somehow it must have escaped our attention.)
The International Phonetic Alphabet (and the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet) can be used to write both American and British pronunciations.
- You have to know what the symbols mean (what sounds they represent).
- You have to know the pronunciation of every English word that you use.
If you know these two things, you should be able to write the phonetic transcription of every English word that you know.
There is no big advantage in WRITING the transcription of English words. But if you can do it, it is a SIGN that you know how to pronounce the words properly.
I would like to know the differences between American and British transcription.
As far as I know, there are various types of phonetics transcription. The most popular one amongst these is the IPA. Actually, phonetic symbols are used to describe sounds in languages. In other words, it's mere written form of sounds of a specific language.
However, different dictionaries use diffrent symbols. Take Oxford English Dictionary - OED and Webster for example. They use two different sets of symbols. OED transcribes the *ge* sound in the word *chanGE* as /dz/ while Webster transcribes it as /j/. I guess you probably have noticed the difference. So make sure you don't mix up these things.
Learn the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is not difficult, and it is the easiest way to master American or English pronunciation, or the pronunciation of any language. For me it is the religion of language ( don't take this too seriously).
I don't Know what are you talking about? what's really the porpuse of knowing that?
If you know the phonetic alphabet, you can learn pronunciation from paper dictionaries. You don't need to hear word pronounced.
The computer version of Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners does not have phonetic transcription.
I corresponded with a person who was working on this computer version.
The person wrote:
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In my opinion, the only reason why there is a phonetic transcription of a word in a printed dictionary is that the dictionary cannot speak. The CD can actually produce the sound, and so the transcription is redundant.
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I replied:
Personally, I find transcription more useful than audio.
I am proficient in the use and interpretation of phonetic transcription.
I can imagine how the word should be pronounced.
I can extract all the needed information from phonetic transcription.
Every person has a different way of pronouncing vowels.
When you give transcription you cover all possible variations.
When you give the voice of one native speaker,
you give only one way of pronouncing a word.
My pronunciation is different from that of the native
who recorded the words.
In order to incorporate the pronunciation of a word into my system
I need to hear the native speaker and extract the phonetic symbols
from what I hear. Then I can pronounce the word my way,
once I have the phonetic symbols. I translate from what I hear into
phonetic symbols and then into my own pronunciation.
This is much simpler when I can see the phonetic transcription directly.
Phonetic transcription is by no means redundant.
It is essential.
I can live without the audio, I can't live without transcription.
I will have to use other dictionaries besides this one to see transcription.
The phonetic transcription in COLLINS COBUILD ENGLISH DICTIONARY in the book form is excellent. The best I've seen. It gives many possible variations. It also gives hints about American pronunciation. It contains much more information than audio.
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As well as the sound being more useful for learners, many users do not
understand the IPA characters at all, but can hear and learn from the pronunciation.
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I am a teacher of English.
From my experience I can say that those who don't understand phonetic
transcription will also fail to benefit from what they hear.
One tends to hear the sounds of one's native language even when one is
listening to a foreign one. After hearing a word pronounced
by a native speaker, students will try to render the word in their own
pronunciation system. It takes an intimate knowledge of the
phonetic symbols to be able to hear foreign sounds for what they are.
does it really compensate to spend all that time on it? wouldn't it be better to ignore all that things which take you much time to understand? I've never been interested in that but maybe it works.
