Pronunciation of the letter "a"
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Pronunciation of the letter "a"
Please can anyone help me with the pronunciation of the letter a
I remember that there are 5 rules governing the pronunciation of the letter "a" but I can´t remember what they are or where i read them.
Please can anyone help me??!!
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you in advance for replying.
Look forward to hearing from you soon.
I remember that there are 5 rules governing the pronunciation of the letter "a" but I can´t remember what they are or where i read them.
Please can anyone help me??!!
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you in advance for replying.
Look forward to hearing from you soon.
-
- Posts: 345
- Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2003 2:21 pm
- Location: Brazil
From what I can recall:
'a' before 'r' is like the /a:/ in f ather.
car, carnival, star, March, park, etc
'a' between two consonants "CaC" is pronounced /ae/ like in bad
mad, fat, cat, hat, etc.
--> 'a' if there's a letter 'e' at the end, then 'a' is pronounced /ei/ as in the alphabet.
made, cake
But there are many expections and nuances that I myself prefer to check a dictionary whenever in doubt.
José
'a' before 'r' is like the /a:/ in f ather.
car, carnival, star, March, park, etc
'a' between two consonants "CaC" is pronounced /ae/ like in bad
mad, fat, cat, hat, etc.
--> 'a' if there's a letter 'e' at the end, then 'a' is pronounced /ei/ as in the alphabet.
made, cake
But there are many expections and nuances that I myself prefer to check a dictionary whenever in doubt.
José
pronunciation rules
You need to distinguish between open and closed syllables. (Open = CV, closed = CVC)
In open syllables, you use the long vowel sound. (la-bor)
In closed syllables, you used the short vowel sound (cat) with two exceptions: 1) when there is a long vowel marker such as a silent e or an "ai" combination (make, paint); and 2) when the ending consonant of the closed syllable is a semi-vowel (l,r,w) -- then you pronounce it as a flat a (call, bar, draw).
The above rules are for single syllable words or stressed syllables in multi-syllable words. On an unstressed syllable or an unstressed word (such as the article "a") the "a" is reduced to a schwa.
In open syllables, you use the long vowel sound. (la-bor)
In closed syllables, you used the short vowel sound (cat) with two exceptions: 1) when there is a long vowel marker such as a silent e or an "ai" combination (make, paint); and 2) when the ending consonant of the closed syllable is a semi-vowel (l,r,w) -- then you pronounce it as a flat a (call, bar, draw).
The above rules are for single syllable words or stressed syllables in multi-syllable words. On an unstressed syllable or an unstressed word (such as the article "a") the "a" is reduced to a schwa.
Here are the five sounds the letter A can make.
The letter "a" in a word can stand for several different sounds:
1. the long "a" sound as in able,
2. the short "a" sound as in apple,
3. the "schwa" sound as in about,
4. the short "e" sound as in air,
5. the short "o" sound as in car.
Xin
www.PronunciationPatterns.com
1. the long "a" sound as in able,
2. the short "a" sound as in apple,
3. the "schwa" sound as in about,
4. the short "e" sound as in air,
5. the short "o" sound as in car.
Xin
www.PronunciationPatterns.com
-
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:25 pm
I agree with Metamorfose. There are so many exceptions to the rule that, if ever in doubt, I'd rather check the phonetic transcription for the word in the dictionary.
I also teach my students the phonetic alphabet at the beginning of a course and frequently write on the board the phonetic transcriptions for words difficult to pronounce.
I also teach my students the phonetic alphabet at the beginning of a course and frequently write on the board the phonetic transcriptions for words difficult to pronounce.
Phonetic transcript sometimes can be very confusing
Phonetic transcript sometimes can be very confusing especially when you have several different phonetic transcripts, International Phonetic Transcript (APA), American Phonetic Transcript (APA), and others. When I moved to the states, I cound't figure out which one was which one because I learned little about IPA but I was using American dictionary, which uses APA, to look up words.
Yes, there are so many exceptions in English pronunciation. Using phonetic transcript is a great way for visual-oriented students to learn correct pronunciation of new words. However, the problem is that remembering the pronunciation is hard. For me, I don't want to spend time on remembering those symbols which have not much meaning in real life. I uses phonics to help me remember the pronunciation. For example, I know that the letter i in pint is pronounced as the long I sound. However, for other words such as mint, link, tint, etc, I could use the pattern to help you recall their pronunciation instead of remembering the phonetic symbols for all of those words. I always tell my users to use my program look up the pronunciation in the dictionary first, then they can apply the patterns or rules in my program to help them remember the pronunciation. If they can apply the pattern, that means one more phonetic transcript they don't have to remember.
Xin
http://www.PronunciationPatterns.com
Yes, there are so many exceptions in English pronunciation. Using phonetic transcript is a great way for visual-oriented students to learn correct pronunciation of new words. However, the problem is that remembering the pronunciation is hard. For me, I don't want to spend time on remembering those symbols which have not much meaning in real life. I uses phonics to help me remember the pronunciation. For example, I know that the letter i in pint is pronounced as the long I sound. However, for other words such as mint, link, tint, etc, I could use the pattern to help you recall their pronunciation instead of remembering the phonetic symbols for all of those words. I always tell my users to use my program look up the pronunciation in the dictionary first, then they can apply the patterns or rules in my program to help them remember the pronunciation. If they can apply the pattern, that means one more phonetic transcript they don't have to remember.
Xin
http://www.PronunciationPatterns.com
-
- Posts: 28
- Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:18 am
- Location: Vancouver, BC Canada
Pronunciation of the letter "a"
Don’t forget sometimes grapheme ‘a’ takes a walk too (i.e. silent) as in “read” \riːd\ or “heat” \hiːt\, thanks to the famous (or infamous) 2-vowel rule.
“Call” depending on your dialect can be uttered with a Cardinal vowel #6 (IPA symbol open O, a low back rounded phoneme) as the 'a' in 'ball' or the'o' in "cord" in addition to the flat a (I believe that is the IPA script A Cardinal vowel #5 (a low back unrounded phoneme)) as mentioned.
“Call” depending on your dialect can be uttered with a Cardinal vowel #6 (IPA symbol open O, a low back rounded phoneme) as the 'a' in 'ball' or the'o' in "cord" in addition to the flat a (I believe that is the IPA script A Cardinal vowel #5 (a low back unrounded phoneme)) as mentioned.
-
- Posts: 345
- Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2003 2:21 pm
- Location: Brazil
Don't you think in this case we can generalise and boldly say that the graphemes ea will always (or almost always) sound like /i:/, so that students grasp this ea as one thing (as we do with some consonant combination like th,sh for example) and then we can reduce their mind load.Don’t forget sometimes grapheme ‘a’ takes a walk too (i.e. silent) as in “read” \riːd\ or “heat” \hiːt\, thanks to the famous (or infamous) 2-vowel rule.
read, heat, teach, tea, sea, flea
The same goes to oa that always sounds /ou/
cloak, boat, goal, toast...
It's in indeed Cardinal vowel #5, I've just checked, that's funny, I have always been told that this grapheme <a> in call should never be pronounced as /a:/ like in father, just after I started studying phonetics and phonology I realised that things weren't as simple as many people wish they were.“Call” depending on your dialect can be uttered with a Cardinal vowel #6 (IPA symbol open O, a low back rounded phoneme) as the 'a' in 'ball' or the'o' in "cord" in addition to the flat a (I believe that is the IPA script A Cardinal vowel #5 (a low back unrounded phoneme)) as mentioned.
José
-
- Posts: 345
- Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2003 2:21 pm
- Location: Brazil
informative
Thank you for that solid primer.