Pronouncing of "was"
Hi every English Fan,
Till now I used to pronoucne the a in "I was" like the e in silent, but recently I have discovered in my dictionary that it should be pronounced instead like the a in wash, I mean like a o. I was surprised, but English is always surprising me, and that's one of the main reason why I like it so much as a non-native speaker.
What do you think about it ? I would like to know your thoughts and feelings , both American and British ones. I must admit that I have a liking for the American way of speaking English, but not always. Be careful.
Thank you and
Cheers.
Myself.
I think that most people find the different pronunciations of English a huge problem.
That is why I think that it is important that you should concentrate on trying to get your 'meaning' across.
British people will forgive 'pronunciation' errors, even though they will notice them.
When people cannot understand what you are saying. That is much more problematic.
Some mispronunciations are considered very attractive. British people generally like English pronounced with a French accent.
If you have got to have an accent, why not have a foreign accent?
I'm afraid my thoughts are only Australian so if you don't care to know them skip this post. The fact of the matter is that both are correct. There are a strong version and a weak version. In the strong version you pronounce it with the same vowel as in "wash" (whatever that actually be) and in the weak version you use the same vowel as represented by the "e" in "silent". Which to use depends on what you want to emphasise. Consider the following dialogue.
Alice: I was at the park yesterday.
Bob: No, you weren't.
Alice: I certainly was.
The first "was" would usually be unstressed taking the weak form whereas Alice would have to use the strong form for the second "was". By the way it wouldn't matter whether Alice were American or British ... or even Australian.
Thanks Jim.
Nice to have got a sound answer from Australia. I really appreciate your details.
Thanks Robin, too.
Your comments are interesting too, but I am interested to speak English the best I can.
Cheers. Myself.
<<Till now I used to pronounce the a in "I was" like the e in silent, but recently I have discovered in my dictionary that it should be pronounced instead like the a in wash, I mean like a o.>>
First of all, let me clarify by saying that in all dialects, "was" uses a schwa sound (like the "e" in "silent") when it's unstressed, for example in a sentence like, "I was going to the store."
When "was" is stressed, as in, "Yes I was!", the pronunciation can vary. In British and Australian English this stressed "was" is pronounced with a short-O sound, like in "pot", as if it were "wozz".
In American English, it's more common to pronounce stressed "was" with the vowel of "cut", as if it were "wuzz". (Although a minority of Americans do pronounce stressed "was" with the vowel of "pot".)
Why is the schwa (reduced) sound called the ‘ “e” in silent’? The silent “e” is the vowel letter “e” that is silent, not articulated or pronounced in a certain syllable of a word. For example the “e’ is silent in “late”, “date” & etc. How could a mid central unrounded sound like the schwa be silent? It’s uttered precisely with this sound in its weak form.
In its strong form, we pronounce it mostly with the cardinal Vowel #13, a low back rounded vowel as the “a” in “wash” or “pot”. But as others indicated, it is also pronounced with a short “u” sound (Cardinal Vowel #14) as in “cut”, or with the “a” sound (Cardinal Vowel #5) as in “father”. I think most Americans utter it with this last sound.
<<Why is the schwa (reduced) sound called the ‘ “e” in silent’? The silent “e” is the vowel letter “e” that is silent, not articulated or pronounced in a certain syllable of a word. For example the “e’ is silent in “late”, “date” & etc. How could a mid central unrounded sound like the schwa be silent? It’s uttered precisely with this sound in its weak form.>>
Buddaheart, you've misunderstood what was written. The questioner wasn't referring to "silent e"; they were referring to the "e" in the word "silent". The "e" in the second syllable of "silent" represents a schwa sound.
<<In its strong form, we pronounce it mostly with the cardinal Vowel #13, a low back rounded vowel as the “a” in “wash” or “pot”. But as others indicated, it is also pronounced with a short “u” sound (Cardinal Vowel #14) as in “cut”, or with the “a” sound (Cardinal Vowel #5) as in “father”. I think most Americans utter it with this last sound.>>
I disagree; I think most Americans pronounce the strong form with the vowel of "cut". A bunch of Americans on this board, including me (from Massachusetts), Travis (from Wisconsin), and Kirk (from California), have all noted that we use the "cut" vowel. I really can't recall any of the American contingent here actually saying that they don't use this vowel.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the "cut" pronunciation is the most common pronunciation that I hear. The pronunciation with the "pot" or "father" vowel, I think I hear most commonly in people from New York City.
>>Buddaheart, you've misunderstood what was written. The questioner wasn't referring to "silent e"; they were referring to the "e" in the word "silent". The "e" in the second syllable of "silent" represents a schwa sound.<<
Actually, that is not necessarily so in all NAE dialects; for instance, in my dialect, silent has [I~] in the second syllable. Of course, this is almost certainly due to the Lennon-Lenin merger resulting in [I] being the merged realization of unstressed /@/ and /I/ before /n/.
<<Actually, that is not necessarily so in all NAE dialects; for instance, in my dialect, silent has [I~] in the second syllable.>>
Yeah, that's true, which demonstrates why it's much better to just specify an IPA or X-SAMPA character than to try to give clumsy layman's examples. (I didn't use X-SAMPA in my response to Myself because Myself doesn't seem to be familiar with it.)