Pronunciation 500: User guide

This is a page with information for users of Antimoon's Pronunciation 500 collection for SuperMemo.

Installation

Before you begin, SuperMemo 2000 must be installed on your computer. You also need the pron500.zip file which contains the Pronunciation 500 collection.

  1. Unzip the pron500.zip file into an empty folder on your hard drive. A number of folders and files will appear in the folder.
  2. If you have never run SuperMemo 2000, run it by opening the file sm2000.exe. Then close it and restart your computer.
  3. Open the file pron500.kno. If SuperMemo 2000 is installed, the file will have a blue icon.
  4. SuperMemo 2000 will run automatically. The program will open the Pronunciation 500 collection. You should see a welcome message on the screen.

Learning

Press the Learn button to start learning. Here is what happens when you learn (or repeat) an item:

  1. The collection shows you an English word. For example, pron: "be". Pron shows that this is a pronunciation item.
  2. Say the word. If you are a beginner, you don't have to pronounce all the sounds perfectly. You should just know which English sounds you meant. Your way of saying .. doesn't have to be perfect, but it must be different from your pronunciation of e. If you can't pronounce English sounds yet, you can write down the transcription on a piece of paper.
  3. Press the Show answer button. The collection shows you the correct answer — the phonetic transcription of the word in the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet. For example: [bi:].
  4. Compare your answer with the correct answer. Did you think about the correct English sounds? Your pronunciation of the sounds does not have to be perfect, but you must not confuse the sounds.
  5. Give yourself a grade between 0 (very bad) and 5 (very good).
  6. Press Next repetition. The collection goes to the next item and you repeat these steps.

You can take a look at our general explanation of repetitions in SuperMemo (with screenshots). It explains the learning process in SuperMemo, how to grade yourself, etc.

Using the Pronunciation 500 with a talking dictionary

If you like, you can use the Pronunciation 500 together with a software English dictionary which has recorded pronunciations. After you repeat a word, you can listen to a recording in the dictionary. Here are some talking dictionaries which you can use:

You should remember that a sound recording always shows only one version of the pronunciation. It shows how a specific person pronounced the word. But there may be many other versions.

Why it may be useful to learn both American and British pronunciations

The Pronunciation 500 collection gives both American and British pronunciations of English words. We recommend that you learn both, because you will need to understand both American and British English, and because you need to know the differences between them if you want to speak pure American or British English.

The phonetic alphabet used in the collection

The phonetic transcription in the Pronunciation 500 collection is written in the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet. This is our own alphabet. It is like the International Phonetic Alphabet (which is used in many English dictionaries), but it uses symbols which you can easily type on a computer.

You can take a look at a table with all the symbols of the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet.

The collection uses a few "advanced symbols" which are not given in the table. If an item uses one of these symbols, it also explains the symbol.

The following advanced symbols are a short way of transcribing some systematic differences between American and British English. In the collection, if a word has one of these symbols, you can also see the full transcription in American and British English (see the example items).

The symbols (r), .l, and .n (which are given in our table) are also usually explained in the collection.

Example items

Q pron: "be"
A be [bi:]

This is the simplest item possible.

Q pron: "year"
A AmE [ji..r]
BrE [ji..]
-
year [ji..(r)]

First, the American version of the pronunciation. Then the British version. Finally, the short version with the symbol (r). The r is probably the biggest difference between American and British pronunciation.

Q pron: "last"
A AmE [l@st]
BrE [la:st]
-
last [l@:st]

Same idea, different symbol (@:). The American version is @, the British version is a:. This happens in many English words. When this happens, we can use a short transcription with the symbol @:.

Q pron: "want"
A AmE [wo:nt   wont]
BrE [wont]
-
want [wo(:)nt]

For want, there are two possibilities in American English, and only one in British English. They are all written with one symbol o(:).

Q pron: "after"
A AmE ['@f t..r]
BrE ['a:f t..]
-
after ['@:f t..(r)]

Here, two "advanced" symbols — @: and (r) — are used in the same word.

Q pron: "with"
A with [wiTH   with]

With can be pronounced [wiTH] or [with] (in all kinds of English).

Q pron: "people"
A people ['pi: p.l]

-
[.l] shows that the consonant [l] is pronounced as a syllable

The transcription uses a special symbol, so we explain it below.

Q pron: "any"
A any ['e ni(:)]

-
[i(:)] means [i:] or [i] or something in between

Same thing, but here we explain i(:).

Q pron: "service"
A service ['se:(r) v(i)s]

-
[(i)] means [i] or [..] or something in between

The word has an (i) symbol, so we explain it. We don't explain (r) here. If we did explain it, the item would be too long — and (r) is easy anyway.

Q pron: "policy"
A policy ['po l(i) si(:)]
-
[(i)] means [i] or [..] or something in between
[i(:)] means [i:] or [i] or something in between

Policy has two special symbols, so we explain them both.

Q pron: "data"
A AmE ['dei t..   'd@ t..]
BrE ['dei t..   'da: t..]
-
data

Here there are two versions in American English and two versions in British English. The word data is repeated, so that you can associate it with the transcription more easily.