Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[rice07]

Hi

It's really a growing concern for an English learner who is Taiwanese like me what on earth which phonetic system to follow. Why? Let me tell you the story. We Taiwanese students used to adopt K.K. for our English learning. Moreover, nowadays, most of dictionaries available published with phonetic symbols given are K.K. or IPA while LONGMAN Dictionary says that K.K. is being used by American and IPA is for British. And I have no doubt about that. But things are changing, when those American missionaries in Taiwan tell me that K.K. is not they're using, then they teach me what they learned- the phonetic symbols. To my shame, I don't understand that.

I must concede that the students in Taiwan, from where I stand, incline to learn American English. But why there're already some differences existing explicitly right there, dictionaries cannot keep pace with the trends? Should there's a reason I could come up with, it might be that the United States is too large with diversified accents, so K.K. is, of coerse, not the unique- but the prime answer(s) might be offered by some kind natives. Perhaps I have to find some time to have a good look at those authentic American dictionaries to check if their phonetic symbols are different from what I know.

It might be time for me to encourage innovation- open another window for information.

[pugachevV]

Most native English speakers have never heard of KK or IPA.
Does it really matter, in the real world, whether your accent is British, or American?
Since Americans, Britons, Australians, etc. can all understand each other with no problem, I would say the most important things for a foreign student are comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and fluency.