What does " : " mean in IPA Transcription?

jackebear · Post by **jackebear** » Wed May 05, 2004 1:35 am

Could someone please explain why some people add a : in their transcription and some don't.

Does this change the pronunciation or is it just someone's preference?

I saw one person transcribe - Tuna

/tjune/ (upside down e)

and another

/tju:ne/

thanks for your assistance.
J

Harzer · Post by **Harzer** » Wed May 05, 2004 2:20 am

The colon is used to show length: is a short sound as in /put/, while [u:] is a long sound as in /food/.

Harzer

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:58 am

jackebear wrote:Could someone please explain why some people add a : in their transcription and some don't.

Does this change the pronunciation or is it just someone's preference?

I saw one person transcribe - Tuna

/tjune/ (upside down e)

and another

/tju:ne/

thanks for your assistance.
J

As Harzer says on the elongation of the sound with ":".

Some people say TUNA as chew-nuh and some as two-na.

The upside down e is called the schwa an is common in words like:

picture
furniture
another

schwa
noun

the weak vowel sound in some syllables that are not emphasized, such as the first syllable of 'about' and the second syllable of 'given', or the upturned e symbol that represents this sound

wjserson · Post by **wjserson** » Wed May 05, 2004 2:39 pm

Metal56,

It's great to see people discussing phonetics on this forum!
I do have a question though Metal56,: in most IPA vowel lists, the schwa represents the sound "uh" which is the same sound used (in a North American accent) in words like 'alone', 'America', 'sofa', and yes in examples like 'tuna' (exactly how jackbear explained).

In your given examples, you mentioned 'another' and the 'a' could very well be represented by an upside down 'e' but where would it be placed in 'picture' and 'furniture'?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed May 05, 2004 3:16 pm

wjserson wrote:

In your given examples, you mentioned 'another' and the 'a' could very well be represented by an upside down 'e' but where would it be placed in 'picture' and 'furniture'?

In BE, after the "t" and following the thing that looks like and elongated "s", In some dictionaries there is a tiny "r" added. The "r", if sounded at all, is very soft.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define. ... &dict=CALD

Go there and click on "show phonetics".

jackebear · Post by **jackebear** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:30 am

Thanks for your assistance everyone.

The one thing I learned is that IPA is not a perfect art form. At speed, the words sound the same (let's say from 2 Torontonians) but when transcribed, each could interpret it differently.

thanks again.
J

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:22 am

I am also glad to talk about phonetics in this forum.

The colon is used to show length: is a short sound as in /put/, while [u:] is a long sound as in /food/.

Hey Harzer would the colon just represent the time you "hold" the vowel, I mean if you pronounce it longer or not, for anyone could hold and keep the phoneme /U/ as in 'put' (as if it was a song), I think the matter here is how stressed is one's month when pronouncing such sounds, /u:/ as in 'food' requires tension in the mounth and /U/ as in 'put' requires less tension, the colon would only show that natives of English usually pronounce the /i:/ and /u:/ longer than /i/ or /u/ (/i/ at the end of some words like 'city' and /u/ originated from some foreign words like 'brunette'). What are your opinions about it?

Following the same train of thought, I notice that the /E/ sound like in 'bed', 'pet', 'said', is represented by /e/, isn't the /e/ the same sound found in some latin languages as in 'cerro, señor' in Spanish? And in the diphthong /eI/ as in 'they', the /e/ sound is different to the /e/ in 'pet', and therefore the latter would deserve another symbol?

José

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu May 06, 2004 8:25 am

jackebear wrote:Thanks for your assistance everyone.

The one thing I learned is that IPA is not a perfect art form. At speed, the words sound the same (let's say from 2 Torontonians) but when transcribed, each could interpret it differently.

thanks again.
J

You should try transcring the individual words in each of these sentences and then, thinking of medium to rapid speech, try to transcribe the sentence as a whole.

That cough is really bad.

That coffee's really bad.

To her he's human.

To err is human.

It's, moreover, a rounded edge. (Or It's, moreover, a round edge.)

It's more of a rounded hedge. (Or, It's more of a round hedge.)

It's dead here.

It's dead, dear.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:26 pm

Metal 56, how have you lost the second syllabie in rounded?

José: there is a simplified phonetic alphabet, which is the one most people use, and the full one.

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Fri May 07, 2004 3:27 am

José: there is a simplified phonetic alphabet, which is the one most people use, and the full one.

Now that you've mentioned, I realised that most phonetic transcritions for foreigners do not show things like the dark "l" or the aspiration of /p,t,k/, in my studies I use /e/ and /E/ for in Portuguese both sounds occur largely, and not only in diphthongs.

José
[/quote]

zaneth · Post by **zaneth** » Fri May 07, 2004 12:03 pm

Interesting, I hadn't realized tuna was pronounced by some as tjuna. I had to get used to thinking more about all this in Russia, but I hadn't thought of it as an accent difference in English.

[long explanation of hard and soft consonants, vowels, and hard and soft signs in Russian deleted]

cute/coot

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri May 07, 2004 12:37 pm

Stephen Jones wrote:Metal 56, how have you lost the second syllabie in rounded?

José: there is a simplified phonetic alphabet, which is the one most people use, and the full one.

Where?

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Fri May 07, 2004 2:52 pm

zaneth wrote:Interesting, I hadn't realized tuna was pronounced by some as tjuna. I had to get used to thinking more about all this in Russia, but I hadn't thought of it as an accent difference in English.

<snip>

cute/coot

I know there are also differences in the pronunciation of "student" and "new/news," neither of which I pronounce with the added "y" sound before the "u," but which I've heard other English speakers use. Since I'm an American speaker, I don't know as much about other varieties of English. Is adding the "y" sound considered first choice in British English?

Maltezer · Post by **Maltezer** » Fri May 07, 2004 11:08 pm

Hi

It's the ONLY choice, unless we're trying to take off the American accent

!

zaneth · Post by **zaneth** » Sat May 08, 2004 9:41 am

In Russian there are different characters for u and ju (and a/ja, e/je) They often pronounce juniversity as university because that's how it is in Russian.

Interesting use of "take off." Means "fake" or "imitate" or "put on" right? I might say "this movie is just another take off on shakespeare."

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