Help with pronunciation

Borat   Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:13 pm GMT
Hi everyone,

I can't pronounce the following words correctly with an american accent:

error
terror
mirror
or pretty much anything that has an 'r' followed by a vowel and another 'r'.

Any help would be appreciated,
thanks in advance,
- Borat
Travis   Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:53 pm GMT
In my NAE dialect, those are

"error" : /"er@`/ -> ["e:.r\@`]
"terror" : /"ter@`/ -> ["t_he:.r\@`]
"mirror" : /"mIr/ -> ["mI:r\] (The -"or" has been lost in my dialect in this word)

One note though is that in most NAE dialects, one would find /Er/ -> [E:r\] rather than /er/ -> [e:r\] in words like "error" and "terror". For more formal conservative NAE pronunciations, they'd be more like:

"error" : /"Er@`/ -> ["E:.r\@`]
"terror" : /"tEr@`/ -> ["t_hE:.r\@`]
"mirror" : /"mIr@`/ -> ["mI:.r\@`]
Brennus   Fri Dec 23, 2005 6:25 am GMT
Dictionary.com is always a good source to check if you want to know what the standard American English pronunciation of a word is.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=error

In this case, the /o /in error, mirror and terror is actually a short schwa sound often represented on an English keyboard as @. (I wish the schwa symbol was available.
Larissa   Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:05 am GMT
hi all,
what does NAE mean AE=American English, but what does "N" mean?
thanks in advance
Uriel   Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:13 am GMT
The NA is for North American. That allows you to lump US and Canadian accents together into one group, since they are closely related and Canadians get miffed at being left out.
Guest   Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:00 am GMT
Thanks for your help, Travis and Brennus.

The thing is, I have no trouble pronouncing the "american" r, but when I
pronounce a word that contains two rs, such as "error", it sounds kind of
slurred, like the second r was a little bit lighter than the first r. So basically what I'm asking is: How can I make it sound clearer? I think this is quite a common problem for people who try to improve their accent in order to sound more American.
Larissa   Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:02 am GMT
Uriel thanks so much for your answer!
Borat   Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:03 am GMT
Oops, I forgot to sign my message. The above guest was me.
Borat   Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:14 am GMT
I should add that my problem is that I know how the words should be pronounced, but can't pronounce this /r@`/ thing properly.
Guest   Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:54 am GMT
What's the difference between [r\] and [`] ?
Travis   Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:08 am GMT
[r\] marks an alveolar approximate, [@`] marks a rhoticized schwa.
Travis   Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:14 am GMT
That should be "approximant".
Guest   Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:20 pm GMT
Why can't [@r/] be used for a rhoticized schwa?
Guest   Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:22 pm GMT
Why can't [@r\] be used for a rhoticized schwa?
Trawick   Fri Dec 23, 2005 3:01 pm GMT
Truth is, Borat, most Americans also have trouble pronouncing words like that. In the South, many dialects pronounce these words in a non-rhotic way (i.e. [ter\@] for "terror"), even if the dialect itself is rhotic, as it's just easier that way.

I actually don't think the standard American pronunciation is quite [ter\:] as Travis said, as much as it is quite literally a double r [ter\r\].