Alright

Shogo   Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 05:15 GMT
Another question... how about words like already, always, although and almost? My dictionary(colliins cobuild) shows phonetically the al- part should be pronounced as [o:l](while it shows words like talk should be [to:k], not [to:lk]), does it sound slangish or informal if i say these words like aw-ready, aw-ways, aw-though and aw-most?
Thanks in advance.

shogo
mjd   Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 05:22 GMT
You'll "aw-ready" sometimes, but don't do it for the others...it would sound a bit weird.
mjd   Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 05:23 GMT
*sorry....."You'll HEAR...." I left out a word there.
Shogo   Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 05:27 GMT
mjd,
Thanks for the quick reply:) Yeah I guess it's better to say "already" than "aw-ready" while I should recognize it when used by native speakers or other speakers of English. Thank you!
Jim   Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 05:38 GMT
Yeah, you'll hear [o:redi(:)] = "awready" but I think sometimes you'll hear [o:weiz] = "awways" and [o:mOust] = "awmost" too, sounds really sloppy though. I don't think you'll hear [o:THOu] "awthough" because the [l] and the [TH] are so close in terms of where in the mouth they're pronounced it's easier to say [o:lTHOu] = "although" anyway.
Shogo   Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 10:02 GMT
Jim,
You're right... maybe its not that hard to say "al-though" because you only have to hold your tip of the tongue on your l-position and pronounce th. i personally don't want to sound sloppy so i should fallow the way as it is shown in the dictionary. Thanks for your reply:-)