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Anglophone Pronunciation Of Foreign Languages
The following is a list of common non-native pronunciations that English speakers make when trying to speak foreign languages. Many of these are due to transfer of phonological rules from English to the new language as well as differences in grammar and syntax that they encounter. This article uses International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation. See Help:IPA pronunciation key and IPA chart for English for an introduction. Esperanto *While English speakers tend to assimilate to before or , as well to before or , neither of which occurs in "strictly regular" Esperanto. However, since Zamenhof himself recognized this type of assimilation, there is debate over whether this is actually an error. *Speakers tend to pronounce Esperanto as , the vowel of ''pay''. *Speakers tend to reduce unstressed vowels. *Speakers tend to pronounce as or otherwise have a hard time pronouncing it. This sort of difficulty is behind the gradual shift from to (see Esperanto phonology#Loss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pronounce
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular individual speaks a word or language. Contested or widely mispronounced words are typically verified by the sources from which they originate, such as names of cities and towns or the word GIF. A word can be spoken in different ways by various individuals or groups, depending on many factors, such as: the duration of the cultural exposure of their childhood, the location of their current residence, speech or voice disorders, their ethnic group, their social class, or their education. Linguistic terminology Syllables are counted as units of sound (phones) that they use in their language. The branch of linguistics which studies these units of sound is phonetics. Phones which play the same role are grouped together into classes called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark L
The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is . As a sonorant, lateral approximants are nearly always voiced. Voiceless lateral approximants, are common in Sino-Tibetan languages, but uncommon elsewhere. In such cases, voicing typically starts about halfway through the hold of the consonant. No language is known to contrast such a sound with a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In a number of languages, including most varieties of English, the phoneme becomes velarized (" dark ''l''") in certain contexts. By contrast, the non-velarized form is the "clear ''l''" (also known as: "light ''l''"), which occurs before and between vowels in certain English standards. Some languages have only clear ''l''. Others may not have a clear ''l'' at all, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition involves structures, rules and representation. The capacity to use language successfully requires one to acquire a range of tools including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign. Human language capacity is represented in the brain. Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion. Evidence suggests that every individual has three recursive mechanisms that allow sentences to go indeterminately. These three mechanisms are: ''relativization'', ''complementation'' and ''coordination''. There are two m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but may now relate to any linguistic analysis either: Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages. The building blocks of signs are specifications for movement, location, and handshape. At first, a separate terminology was used for the study of sign phonology ('chereme' instead of 'phoneme', etc.), but the concepts are now considered to apply universally to all human languages. Terminology The word 'phonology' (as in ' phonology of English') can refer either to the field of study or to the phonological system of a given language. This is one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-native Pronunciations Of English
Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules from their first language or first languages into their English speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language. Overview The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from their imperfectly learning the sound system of English, either by transferring the phonological rules from their mother tongue into their English speech ("interference") or through implementing strategies similar to those used in primary language acquisition. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language. The age at which speakers begin to immerse themselves into a language (such as English) is linked to the degree to which native s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accent Reduction
Accent reduction, also known as accent modification or accent neutralization, is a systematic approach for learning or adopting a new speech accent. It is the process of learning the sound system (or phonology) and melodic intonation of a language so the non-native speaker can communicate with clarity. In some cases the student's goal may be to eliminate their accent completely, though improving intelligibility is often a more attainable goal. Training Accent modification is offered by various speech-language pathologists, acting coaches, and linguists. Speech-language pathologists offer accent modification services but do not "treat" accents or dialects, because neither are considered communication disorders. The goal of accent training is not to suppress the accent entirely, nor is it to sever the connection between the speaker and their cultural-linguistic background. Rather, the impetus behind accent modification is to improve the intelligibility of speech to non-familiar lis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinitive
Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is derived from Late Latin '' odusinfinitivus'', a derivative of ''infinitus'' meaning "unlimited". In traditional descriptions of English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle ''to''. Thus ''to go'' is an infinitive, as is ''go'' in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without ''to'' is called the bare infinitive, and the form with ''to'' is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive. In many other languages the infinitive is a distinct single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like ''morir'' (" odie") in Spanish, ''manger'' (" oeat") in French, ''portare'' (" ocarry") in Latin and Italian, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Vowel Reduction
In the pronunciation of the Russian language, several ways of vowel reduction (and its absence) are distinguished between the standard language and dialects. Russian orthography most often does not reflect vowel reduction, which can confuse foreign-language learners, but some spelling reforms have changed some words. There are five vowel phonemes in Standard Russian. Vowels tend to merge when they are unstressed. The vowels and have the same unstressed allophones for a number of dialects and reduce to an unclear schwa . Unstressed may become more central and merge with . Under some circumstances, , , and may all merge. The fifth vowel, , may also be centralized but does not typically merge with any of the other vowels. Other types of reduction are phonetic, such as that of the high vowels ( and ), which become near-close. Thus, ('to play') is pronounced , and ('man') is pronounced . General description The five Russian vowels in unstressed position show two levels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weak Vowel Merger
The close and mid-height front vowels of English (vowels of ''i'' and ''e'' type) have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect. Developments involving long vowels Until Great Vowel Shift Middle English had a long close front vowel , and two long mid front vowels: the close-mid and the open-mid . The three vowels generally correspond to the modern spellings , and respectively, but other spellings are also possible. The spellings that became established in Early Modern English are mostly still used today, but the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly. The and generally corresponded to similar Old English vowels, and came from Old English or . For other possible histories, see English historical vowel correspondences. In particular, the long vowels sometimes arose from short vowels by Middle English open syllable lengthening or other processes. For example, ''team'' comes from an originally-long Old English vowel, and ''eat'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of China. Because Mandarin originated in North China and most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as Northern Chinese (). Many varieties of Mandarin, such as those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the standard language (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion). Mandarin is by far the largest of the seven or ten Chinese dialect groups; it is spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretches from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with '' phoneme''. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. Tonal languages are different from pitch-accent languages in that tonal languages can have each syllable with an independent tone whilst pitch-accent languages may have one syllable in a word or morpheme that is more prominent than the others. Mechanics Most languages use pitch as intonation to co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
