Question for Australians - Stake/steak

Dave   Wednesday, October 06, 2004, 19:15 GMT
Any Australians, Do you distinguish ''stake'' and ''steak''? I'm an Australian and I pronounce them differently, and similarly ''brake'' and ''break'', ''grate'' and ''great'', ''Sunday'' and ''sundae'', ''bare'' and ''bear'', ''ware'' and ''wear'' etc. are distinguished in my accent.

If you don't distinguish them, then do you have any idea about what the source of my distinction might be?

Also, how do you pronounce the letter ''h''? I pronounce it [heitS].

And also, Do you pronounce ''fewer'' and ''pure'' to rhyme? I do.
Rhon   Thursday, October 07, 2004, 23:10 GMT
I pronounce ''stake'' and ''steak'', ''brake'' and ''break'', ''grate'' and ''great'', ''Sunday'' and ''sundae'', ''bare'' and ''bear'', ''ware'' and ''wear'' etc. differently too, but I'm from New Zealand not Australia. I guess that I'm no help to your question, because you were asking about Australians.

''Fewer'' and ''pure'' don't rhyme for me.

I know some people from my place that pronounce ''bare'', ''bear'' and ''beer'' all the same. I sometimes have a hard time understanding them when they say [bi..] and mean ''bear'' rather than ''beer''.
Rhon   Thursday, October 07, 2004, 23:11 GMT
Oh, I forgot to say that I pronounce the letter ''h'' as [eitS] not [heitS].
Mi5 Mick   Friday, October 08, 2004, 02:36 GMT
How do you distinguish ''stake'' and ''steak'', ''brake'' and ''break'', ''grate'' and ''great'', ''Sunday'' and ''sundae'', ''bare'' and ''bear'', ''ware'' and ''wear''? Care to use a phonetic alphabet? You could use this:

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-ascii.htm
Dave   Friday, October 08, 2004, 10:10 GMT
It's hard to describe the difference in that phonemic alphabet because it uses [ei] for the ''a'' sound in ''grate''. In Australia, it's more like [@i]. So, I'll use [@i]. The difference is mainly in vowel length.

Here's how I distinguish them,

stake-[st@ik]
brake-[br@ik]
grate-[gr@it]
Sunday-[s^nd@i]
bare-[be..]
ware-[we..]
steak-[st@:ik]
break-[br@:ik]
great-[gr@:it]
sundae-[s^nd@:i]
bear-[b@:]
wear-[w@:]
Mi5 Mick   Friday, October 08, 2004, 10:26 GMT
I'm Australian too, so I know what you mean but I treat each one of those pairs as one and the same. I usually stick to the compact vowel length for each case; rarely drifting to the longer but without affecting the meaning.

Are you from a regional area? Somewhere in Queensland?
steve   Sunday, October 10, 2004, 07:08 GMT
I'm an Australian aswell, and like Dave, I pronouce those words above with different distictions. I also say pure and fewer as if they rhyme.