Korean Job Discussion Forums

[BS.Dos.]

I'm preping a pronunciation lesson for my HS 2nd graders. For one of the activities, I am going to give them a list of about 30 words and ask them to sort them into groups of 1,2,3,4 and 5 syllables.

When compiling the 3-syllable list, I came across millionaire, which is listed as being a 3-syllable word ~ Mil-lion-aire. However, I was taught that each mouth movement consitutes a seperate syllable and, as such, would mean that it should be a 4-syllable word ~ Mil-li-on-aire

It's listed as being 3 on dictionary.com

Any thoughts?

[reaction]

3-syllables.

just by looking at the pronunciation key [mil-yuh-nair] you can see it's not [li-yuh] but rather a one-shot [yuh].

[kat2]

We were taught to decide syllables by clapping to hte word. Millionaire is definetly 3.
There are some tricky ones though when you consider regional accents.
I'm from the SE US. Orange is a one syllable word for us, where as most americans will tell you that it's two. If you are really from the mountains, so are fire and tire, and theater has 3 (fire, tire, and theater are pretty hick examples, but I've met plenty of educated people who say it that way, too). In North Carolina, ruin has one syllable (rhynes with coin).
So, i guess I'm saying, me sort of careful with what words you choose. Some real classics for Korean students would be words like stretch, lunch, strange...

[BS.Dos.]

I was taught to place the back of your fingers under your chin when you say each word. Each movement of the jaw felt through your fingers would then indicate a syllable, as in Mil-li-on-aire. I suppose that if you prononce the two middle syllables as lion then it would indeed be a 3-syllable word, but then the pronunciation would be wrong.

You're right though, accents play a big part. Maybe I'll forget about using it for now.

[RACETRAITOR]