How do you pronounce "AGAIN"?

Kell   Wed Dec 28, 2005 3:01 pm GMT
I don't say ''a gain''
Derrick   Fri Dec 15, 2006 5:51 am GMT
Any Kiwis, because they have raised the DRESS vowel to /i/ which could make it rather interesting
Kelly   Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:54 am GMT
1.- [@'gEn]
2.- [@'ge(I)n]

both are used in Canada
User   Fri Dec 15, 2006 3:45 pm GMT
Interesting. As usual, my unaccented accent differs from everyone else's accent. I would say [@'gIn], and I've heard others use [@'gen]. [@'gEn] is not correct; sort of like saying [gEt] for "get". :wink: I'm still flabbergasted as to why the accent here seems to differ so markedly from just about every other region on words like again [@'gIn], get [gIt], guess [gIs], etc., whereas words like pin [pIn] and pen [pEn] are clearly distinct.
Travis   Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:19 pm GMT
>>[@'gEn] is not correct; sort of like saying [gEt] for "get"<<

I myself still find the idea of such to be funny, as both [@'gEn] for "again" and [gEt] for "get" are features of General American, at least as I know it...
User   Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:05 pm GMT
>> I myself still find the idea of such to be funny, as both [@'gEn] for "again" and [gEt] for "get" are features of General American, at least as I know it... <<

But you don't speak anything even close to General American. I do.
Travis   Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:23 pm GMT
>>But you don't speak anything even close to General American. I do.<<

Speaking a dialect close to some other variety and being aware of the details of some variety other than one's own dialect are two different things. Your dialect may have features that are closer to than General American than my own (which would not be surprising at all), but that does not mean that you are necessarily more aware of the characteristics of General American than myself. Actually, such may be counterproductive as such may obscure the differences that do exist between one's dialect and conservative forms of the variety in question (in this case General American) due to one being less aware of the differences betwee one's own dialect and such.
User   Sat Dec 16, 2006 1:40 am GMT
What other features does General American have that I don't have (other than the cot-caught merger)?
Guest   Sat Dec 16, 2006 5:18 am GMT
Dont fight kids. There is not much difference among American accents. For difference's sake, listen to a variety of British accents ;)
Travis   Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:59 am GMT
>>What other features does General American have that I don't have (other than the cot-caught merger)?<<

The biggie that I can think off the bat is the widespread shifting of /E/ to /I/ in stressed positions, which is something that General American definitely does not have. I do not know enough about you dialect to say much more, even though there are certain features of conservative General American which are absent in most GA-like dialects today, such as the distinction between /Er/ and /er/ and the distinction between /w/ and /W/.
Travis   Sat Dec 16, 2006 10:21 am GMT
>>Dont fight kids. There is not much difference among American accents. For difference's sake, listen to a variety of British accents ;)<<

Of course North American English dialects do not vary nearly as much as English English dialects, especially when one excludes Atlantic Canadian English dialects from them. However, that does not mean that the variation in them is negligible or that there are not interesting dialect features or sound changs in them.

And even still, I am really damn surprised that a whole lot of people, other NAE-speakers included, think that my own speech is somewhere from quite heavily accented to practically unintelligible even when I am speaking in a clear reading voice. While it is not too unlikely that one could find English English dialects that are not fully intelligible with each other, the idea of NAE dialects being not fully intelligible with each other, especially dialects which are stereotypically not thought of as being all too divergent from other NAE dialects (such as Midwestern or Western ones), is still weird to me.
Guest   Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:19 pm GMT
I was damn suprized too after listening to your accent. I think you are a non-native speaker who is living in the USA unless you show me your photo. ( In this case, I am trusting your honesty that you will show your real photo). User, you didn't need to be sarcastic in your previous post regarding Travis's accent of not being close to General American.

Travis, you are the only person that did not sound native American on my ears even after I have listened to a cornucopia of native American speakers.
User   Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:47 pm GMT
>> The biggie that I can think off the bat is the widespread shifting of /E/ to /I/ in stressed positions, which is something that General American definitely does not have. <<

Just out of curiosity, does General American pronounce "pretty" with [E]? I use [I] for this. I also do it in reverse sometimes: milk [mElk] ; vanilla [v@nEl@], but pillow [pIlo].
Lazar   Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:35 pm GMT
<<Just out of curiosity, does General American pronounce "pretty" with [E]? I use [I] for this.>>

No; as far as I know, all dialects (including General American, RP, and my own) use [I] for pretty.

<<I also do it in reverse sometimes: milk [mElk] ; vanilla [v@nEl@], but pillow [pIlo].>>

Changing /Il/ to /El/ is common in several regional dialects. From what I've heard, this shift tends to be partial (ie, some words like "pillow" will be excepted), and some speakers (like Kirk, if I remember correctly) have it only in the word "milk".

This shift doesn't occur in my speech - I pronounce all those words with [I]. (I don't think the /Il/>/El/ shift is very common here in the Northeast.)
Travis   Sat Dec 16, 2006 10:36 pm GMT
>>I was damn suprized too after listening to your accent. I think you are a non-native speaker who is living in the USA unless you show me your photo. ( In this case, I am trusting your honesty that you will show your real photo). User, you didn't need to be sarcastic in your previous post regarding Travis's accent of not being close to General American.

Travis, you are the only person that did not sound native American on my ears even after I have listened to a cornucopia of native American speakers.<<

I have no recent pictures on the Internet (the most recent is about half a decade old at this point), and I do not see how that would say anything about whether I am a native speaker or not in the first place.