Phonetics and Phonology
How do we distinguish between the phonetics and phonology?
What are the key elements to pronouncing sounds?
How do non-linguists describe sounds?
The difference between sounds and letters, sounds and signs.
How do linguistics approach the task?
What is the IPA?
For your blog entry read the enclosed and then answer using the full IPA (http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/IPA_chart_(C)2005.pdf) and the IPA for English the following questions:
How does my language fit into that scheme?
How does my language differ from English?
See the Wikipedia entry:
Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). It is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones) as well as those of non-speech sounds, and their production, audition and perception, as opposed to phonology, which operates at the level of sound systems and abstract sound units (such as phonemes and distinctive features). Phonetics deals with the sounds themselves rather than the contexts in which they are used in languages. Discussions of meaning (semantics) therefore do not enter at this level of linguistic analysis.
While writing systems and alphabets are in many cases closely related to the sounds of speech, strictly speaking, phoneticians are more concerned with the sounds of speech than the symbols used to represent them. So close is the relationship between them, however, that many dictionaries list the study of the symbols (more accurately semiotics) as a part of phonetic studies. On the other hand, logographic writing systems typically give much less phonetic information, but the information is not necessarily non-existent. For instance, in Chinese characters, a phonetic refers to the portion of the character that hints at its pronunciation, while the radical refers to the portion that serves as a semantic hint.
Characters featuring the same phonetic typically have similar pronunciations, but by no means are the pronunciations predictably determined by the phonetic due to the fact that pronunciations diverged over many centuries while the characters remained the same. Not all Chinese characters are radical-phonetic compounds, but a good majority of them are.
Phonetics has three main branches:
- articulatory phonetics, concerned with the positions and movements of the lips, tongue, vocal tract and folds and other speech organs in producing speech
- acoustic phonetics, concerned with the properties of the sound waves and how they are received by the inner ear
- auditory phonetics, concerned with speech perception, principally how the brain forms perceptual representations of the input it receives.
There are over a hundred different phones recognized as distinctive by the International Phonetic Association (IPA) and transcribed in their International Phonetic Alphabet.
Phonetics was studied as early as 2500 years ago in ancient India, with Pāṇini's account of the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th century BCE treatise of Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today, except Tamil script, order their consonants according to Pāṇini's classification.
See also
- List of phonetics topics
- Tolkāppiyam (a 200 BCE grammar of Tamil)
- Speech processing
- Acoustics
- biometric word list
- Phonetics departments at universities
- IPA
- X-SAMPA
External links and references
- Compure - Phonetic Index Search Technology
- The sounds and sound patterns of language U Penn
- UCLA lab data
- UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive
- EGG and Voice Quality (electroglottography, phonation, etc.)
- single sound per symbol phonetic writing system(simple phonetic symbols for English language)
- IPA handbook
- Speech Analysis Tutorial
- Lecture materials in German on phonetics & phonology, university of Erfurt
- Real-time MRI video of the articulation of speech sounds, from the USC Speech Articulation and kNowledge (SPAN) Group
Bibliography
- Catford, J. C. (1977). Fundamental problems in phonetics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32520-X.
- Clark, John; & Yallop, Colin. (1995). An introduction to phonetics and phonology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19452-5.
- Hardcastle, William J.; & Laver, John (Eds.). (1997). The handbook of phonetic sciences. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-6311-8848-7.
- Ladefoged, Peter. (1982). A course in phonetics (2nd ed.). London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Ladefoged, Peter. (2003). Phonetic data analysis: An introduction to fieldwork and instrumental techniques. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23269-9 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-23270-2 (pbk).
- Ladefoged, Peter; & Maddieson, Ian. (1996). The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19814-8 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19815-6 (pbk).
- Maddieson, Ian. (1984). Patterns of sounds. Cambridge studies in speech science and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Pike, Kenneth L. (1943). Phonetics: A critical analysis of phonetic theory and a technic for the practical description of sounds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Pisoni, David B.; & Remez, Robert E. (Eds.). (2004). The handbook of speech perception. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-6312-2927-2.
- Rogers, Henry. (2000). The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics. Harlow, Essex: Pearson. ISBN 0-582-38182-7.
- Stevens, Kenneth N. (1998). Acoustic phonetics. Current studies in linguistics (No. 30). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-2621-9404-X.
Download the IPA from here: http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/handbook.htm
posted by TRB | 6:38 AM
13 Comments:
Disclaimer (for my post’s less-than-perfect appearance): I spent about an hour trying to find an IPA font that was compatible with this blog, but I don’t think the website accepts this kind of font. Even in Unicode form (which allows the symbols in Microsoft Word), the characters just show up as rectangles on the website. I downloaded several fonts and followed the link at the bottom of the assignment posting, but that only contained audio files, from what I could find. I also tried to save the Word file as an HTML, but that didn’t help, either. So, if any of you can find a way to post all of the phonetic characters (because my computer skills are pretty pathetic), please e-mail me or the class, so that I can change my rectangles into characters. Thanks! Now, down to business…
The charts below contain representations of the sounds of Spanish (according to standard pronunciation in Spain) and American English, using the International Phonetic Alphabet. I tried to cover all the sounds and vowel combinations I could think of, but it’s likely that I missed some of the more subtle ones. As aids, I used the IPA chart from http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html, the IPA chart for English from http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm, the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, and the University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary (to check non-phonetic spelling on some of my word examples).
Spanish Vowels
Phonetic Representations
a – madre /a/
e – entre /e/
i – iglesia /i/
o – olor /o/
u – junio /u/
ia – hacia /j/ - /aθja/
ie – cierto /j/ - /θjerto/
io – estación /j/ - /estaθjon/
iu – ciudad /j/ - /θjudad/
au – causa /w/ - /kawsa/
eu – deuda /w/ - /dewda/
ua – aguantar /w/ - /agwantar/
ue – fueron /w/ - /fweron/
uo – cuotidiano /w/ - /cwotidjano/
ui – cuidar /w/ - /kwidar/
ue – guerra/que /e/
ui – guitarra/quince /i/
English Vowels
Phonetic Representations
ai – bait /eɪ/
a – father /ɑ:/
a – bat /æ/
ea – wear /eə/
ee – beer /ɪə/
ee – feet /ɪ:/
i – bird /ɜ:/
e – wet /e/
i – bite /ɑɪ/
oa – boat /əʊ/
oo – food /u:/
oo – foot /ʊ/
o – hot /ɒ/
ou – bought /ɔ:/
ou – about /aʊ/
oy – boy /ɔɪ/
u – hut /ʌ/
i – pig /I/
er – computer /ə/
ur – pure /ʊə/
I. Vowels:
It is quite evident that English has far more unique vowel sounds than Spanish. Within most vowel combinations in Spanish, those containing only the strong vowels /a/, /e/, and /o/, the sounds remain true to their individual pronunciations (e.g.: the /a/ and /e/ of “traer,” to bring, remain their own separate sounds and do not create a diphthong or different pronunciation). Only in the case of diphthongs with the weak vowels /i/ and /u/, do alternate sounds appear (e.g.: the /i/ in “cierto,” true, becomes a /j/, causing the /i/ sound to slide easily into the /e/ sound. If it weren’t a diphthong, the word would be /θierto/, “thee-air-toh,” but due to the weak /i/, the word is /θjerto/, “thyair-toh”). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language identified this change from /i/ to /j/ as a “semi-vowel” in the phonetic discipline. Equally notable is the fact that when combined with the consonants /q/ and /g/, these weak Spanish vowels assume the normal pronunciations of the standard vowels. In other words, the /u/ in the word “guitarra” nearly disappears, making the pronunciation, /gitarra/, “gee-tarra,” instead of /gwitarra/, “gwee-tarra.”
Spanish Consonants
Phonetic Representations
b – beber /b/
c – coche /k/
c – cerrar /θ/
ch – charlar /tʃ/
d – donde /d/
f – fondo /f/
g – grabar /g/
g – girar /h/
j – jota /h/
l – la /l/
ll – llamar /j/
m – madre /m/
n – no /n/
p – padre /p/
qu – que /k/
r – robar /r/
rr – perro /rr/
s – ser /s/
t – tú /t/
v – ver /b/
y – ya /j/
z – zambra /θ/
ñ – niño /ñ/
English Consonants
Phonetic Representations
b – bat /b/
c – car /k/
c – face /s/
d – dog /d/
f – fog /f/
g – gap /g/
g – fudge /ʤ/
h – happy /h/
k – kite /k/
l – lap /l/
m – mom /m/
n – nose /n/
p – pit /p/
r – rose /r/
s – sit /s/
t – take /t/
v – vat /v/
w – will /w/
y – yell /j/
z – zone /z/
ch – chat /t/
ng – song /ŋ/
sh – shut /ʃ/
si – vision /ʒ/
th – throw /θ/
th – the /đ/
II. Consonants:
Spanish and English are much more similar, as shown by the chart above, in their pronunciations of consonants. Both have two sounds for /c/ and /g/, soft and hard, depending on which vowels they precede. In Spanish, though, combinations of consonants seldom create a new pronunciation, just as was the case with most Spanish vowels. The only exceptions are: /ch/, /ll/, and /rr/, all of which used to be members of the Spanish alphabet, but have recently been removed from the list. But, seeing as how these three additional letters, and the letter /ñ/, all have close equivalents to English, it can be concluded that Spanish is a relatively easy language to pronounce for a native English speaker.
I found an IPA unicode keyboard for Tavultesoft Keyman (http://www.tavultesoft.com/keyman/downloads/). I downloaded it a while ago, but it looks like it's still easy to get a free version for personal use. You can then download a specific IPA keyboard for it (which comes with a handy reference guide).
I compared the sounds of English with those of Classical Greek. However, the fact that this was my first time working with the IPA and that no one knows exactly how Classical Greek sounded means it should be taken with a grain of salt (I did find a refernce for Greek vowels, so those should be more reliable). For reference I used the Wikipedia entries for the IPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
International_Phonetic_Alphabet), the IPA for English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
International_Phonetic_Alphabet_for_English), and Ancient Greek Phonology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ancient_Greek_phonology). I also used my copy of Hansen and Quinn's Greekː An Intensive Course, which gives the basic pronunciation of the Greek letters.
(apologies for the different formats)
Greek Vowels
α: /a/
ᾱ: /aː/
ε: /ɛ/
η: /ɛː/
ι: /ɪ/
ῑ: /ɪː/
ο: /o/
ω: /ɔː/
υ: /ʊ/
ῡ: /uː/
αι: /aɪ/
οι: /ɔɪ/
αυ: /aʊ/
English Vowels
/ɪ/: bid
/ʊ/: good
/ɛ/: bed
/ʌ/: bud
/æ/: bad
/i/: bead
/u/: booed
/e/: bayed
/o/: bode
/ɝ/: bird
/ɔ/ or /ɑ/: bought
/ɑ/: body, pod, father
/ɔɪ/: boy
/aɪ/: buy, thigh
/aʊ/: bout, cow
/ɪɹ/: beer, here
/ʊɹ/: boor, manure
/ɛɹ/: bear, air
/ɔɹ/: bore
/ɑɹ/: bar
Comments:
As Leah noticed with Spanish, English has noticeably more vowel sounds than Classical Greek. Greek's vowel sounds are constant (as far as we know), so an /ɛ/ sound will be an /ɛ/ sound no matter what comes before or after. In contrast to that, English vowel sounds change a fair deal (such as the difference between 'good' /ʊ/ and 'booed' /u/). While English has a greater number of vowel sounds than Greek, they are generally bordered by consoant sounds. In Greek, on the other hand, there can easily by several vowel sounds without a break, which can be difficult for an English speaker.
Greek Consonants
β: /b/
γ: /ɡ/
δ: /d/
ζ: /dz/
θ: /θ/
κ: /k/
λ: /l/
μ: /m/
ν: /n/
ξ: /ks/
π: /p/
ρ: /ɹ/
σ: /s/
τ: /t/
φ: /f/
χ:/x/
ψ: /ps/
γγ: /ŋ/
γκ: /ŋk/
γξ: /ŋks/
γχ: /ŋx/
υι: /w/
‘: /h/
English Consonants
/p/: pit
/b/: bit
/t/: tin
/d/: din
/k/: cut
/ɡ/: gut
/tʃ/: cheap
/dʒ/: jeep
/m/: map
/n/: nap
/ŋ/: bang
/f/: fat
/v/: vat
/θ/: thin
/ð/: then
/s/: sap
/z/: zap
/ʃ/: she
/ʒ/: measure
/x/: loch
/h/: ham
/ʍ/: whine
/w/: we
/ɹ/: run
/j/: yes
/l/: left
Comments:
There is certainly a fair amount of overlap in terms of consantal sounds, but there are some notable sounds in English that Classical Greek does not have. The most obvious for me is that Classical Greek lacks the /tʃ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /j/ sounds. Even some of the more unusual sounds in Greek like /dz/, /ps/, or /ŋ/, while not common, can certainly be found in English.
My organizing principle for a comparison of French and English phonetics is to list by phonetic symbol, giving examples of that sound in each language (assuming the sound occurs in both French and English). When my system of symbols didn’t have anything for a specific element (e.g., ‘ng’), I used the system found at http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:Pzksha47PBcJ:ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-900Spring-2005/CC7C58CA-2AD5-4870-BA42-F65923C66FCE/0/phoneticswin.pdf+mouth+cavity+for+sounds&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2
VOWELS
/æ/ - an English sound; ‘that.’
/a/ - a French sound; ‘marque’
/ɑ/ - English ‘father,’ French ‘mât.’ May be nasalized in French, as with ‘dedans.’
/ɛ/ - English ‘kettle,’ French ‘pêche.’ May be nasalized in French, as with ‘gardien.’
/e/ - English ‘date’ without allowing the diphthong, French ‘laver.’
/ə/ - English ‘melon,’ French ‘me.’
/i/ - English ‘flee,’ French ‘miroir.’
/ɪ/ - an English sound; ‘skit.’
/ɔ/ - English ‘saw,’ French ‘bonne.’ May be nasalized in French, as with ‘compte.’
/o/ - English ‘mote,’ French ‘mot.’
/ʌ/ - an English sound; ‘skull.’
/U/ - an English sound; ‘foot.’
/u/ - English ‘food,’ French ‘doucement.’
/y/ - a French sound; ‘hurler.’
/ø/ - a French sound; ‘bleu.’
/œ/ - a French sound; ‘œvre.’ May be nasalized, as with ‘parfum.’
DIPHTHONGS
/j/ - English ‘yap,’ French ‘hier.’
/w/ - English ‘wish,’ French ‘jouer.’
/aɪ/ - an English sound; ‘bite.’ May be a French sound, but I know of no examples.
/aU/ - an English sound; ‘mouse.’ May be a French sound, but I know of no examples.
/ɔɪ/ - an English sound; ‘toy.’
The majority of the vowel sounds are shared by French and English, but of the nine sounds unique to one language or the other, French has the majority. However, English claims three of the five diphthongs. One could argue that the unique French vowels and the unique English diphthongs are roughly equivalent. The French vowel /y/ consists of two vowels—/i/ and /u/—that, instead of sliding from one to the other as a diphthong would, have become one sound.
CONSONANTS
/b/ - English ‘bog,’ French ‘bout.’
/d/ - English ‘dog,’ French ‘danse.’
/f/ - English ‘far,’ French ‘faux.’
/g/ - English ‘agog,’ French ‘galette.’
/ʤ/ - an English sound; ‘jam.’ This excepts ‘Djibouti’ and other words borrowed into French.
/h/ - an English sound; ‘hockey.’
/k/ - English ‘cop,’ French ‘comme.’ /k/ not aspirated in French.
/l/ - English ‘lamp,’ French ‘lire.’
/m/ - English ‘map,’ French ‘mère.’
/n/ - English ‘nap,’ French ‘noir.’
/ɲ/ - English ‘onion,’ French ‘signe.’
/N/ - an English sound; ‘anger.’ Probably exists in French through word borrowing.
/p/ - English ‘pop,’ French ‘pamplemousse.’ /p/ not aspirated in French.
/r/ - English ‘romp,’ French ‘rouler.’ Production of /r/ is completely different in these two languages.
/s/ - English ‘slip,’ French ‘singe.’
/ʃ/ - English ‘ship,’ French ‘cheval.’
/t/ - English ‘top,’ French ‘tas.’ /t/ not aspirated in French.
/tʃ/ - an English sound; ‘chat.’
/ɵ/ - an English sound; ‘theme.’
/ð/ - an English sound; ‘worthy.’
/v/ - English ‘veal,’ French ‘vapeur.’
/z/ - English ‘zest,’ French ‘noisette.’
/ʒ/ - English ‘pleasure,’ French ‘gentil.’
English and French have the majority of the consonantal sounds in common. However, English does have six unique elements: /ʤ/ /h/ /N/ /tʃ/ /ɵ/ /ð/. Granted, any or all of these consonants may technically exist in French, but they are not common and all almost certainly come in borrowed words. If we consider aspirated consonants separate, then English has three additional consonants in aspirated versions of /k/ /p/ /t/. English seems to have a wider variety of consonants available to it. Overall, the languages seem evenly matched in terms of unique sounds, particularly if we count diphthongs as laziness (however lucky for linguists) and not as true vowels.
Alright, so I also spent some time searching for an IPA font that would fit online and I tried to use that same website as Devin, but I couldn’t make it work, so I’m going to approach things as well as I can with alphabetic representations of sounds instead of the IPA symbols. That being said, what follows is a description of the sounds in Spanish and English (or at least all the sounds I could identify off the top of my head).
I got my information from the following websites:
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_IPA
1. Vowels
Spanish:
a: /a/ - padre
e: /e/ - economía
i: /i/ - igual
o: /o/ - olvidar
u: /u/ - unirse
y: /i/ - y
eu: /w/ - deuda
ia: /j/ - guia
ie: /j/ - abierto
io: /j/ - transformación
iu: /j/ - ciudad
ua: /w/ - guapo
ue: /e/ -guedeja
ui: /e/ or /w/ - guitarra or cuidado
uo: /w/ - cuota
English:
/ɪ/: bid
/ʊ/: good
/ɛ/: bed
/ʌ/: bud
/æ/: bat
/ɒ/: pot
/iː/: bead
/uː/: booed
/ɜː/: bird
/ɔː/: bought, board
/ɑː/: father, bard
/eɪ/: bay
/ɔɪ/: boy
/əʊ/: toe
/aɪ/: buy
/aʊ/: cow
/ɪə/: beer
/ʊə/: boor
/ɛə/: bear
Conclusions:
Something that I noticed was that Spanish has far fewer combinations of vowel sounds than English. Well, Spanish has just as many combinations, but the diversity of sounds produced is far fewer. The strong vowels /a/, /e/ and /o/ retain their sounds regardless of whether they are next to another vowel. However, the weaker vowels /i/ and /u/ readily form diphthongs with other vowels. Within this diphthong system, however, there are only a few sounds produced. For example, “/i/ diphthongs” are likely to produce a /j/ sound whereas “/u/ diphthongs” are more likely to produce a /w/ sound. Also, I noticed that English is likely to double the same vowel in a word like “door” to lengthen the vowel sound into a new sound entirely, whereas this practice doesn’t exist in Spanish.
2. Consonants
Spanish:
b: /b/
c: /θ/
ch: /tʃ/
d: /d/
f: /f/
g: /g/ or /h/
j: /h/
l: /l/
ll: /j/ or /ʤ/
m: /m/
n: /n/
ñ: /ñ/
p: /p/
qu: /k/
r: /r/
rr: /rr/
s: /s/
t: /t/
v: /b/
y: /j/
z: /θ/
English:
/p/: pit
/b/: bit
/t/: tin
/d/: din
/k/: cut
/ɡ/: gut
/tʃ/: cheap
/dʒ/: jeep
/m/: map
/n/: nap
/ŋ/: bang
/f/: fat
/v/: vat
/θ/: thin
/ð/: then
/s/: sap
/z/: zap
/ʃ/: she
/ʒ/: measure
/x/: loch
/h/: ham
/ʍ/: whine
/w/: we
/ɹ/: run
/j/: yes
/l/: left
Conclusions:
I noticed that the English and Spanish consonant systems are extremely similar to each other. There are very few sounds that don’t overlap between the two languages. The main difference is in the pronunciation of the letter “r”. In English, the letter takes on the sound of the vowel near it whereas in Spanish the “r” is more of a trill sound. The combinations “ll”, “ch” and “ñ” which are also part of the Spanish alphabet (or were until recently) are unique to the Spanish alphabet in terms of written symbols, but the sounds themselves exist in the English language. Therefore, it seems to me that there are very few differences in consonantal sounds between English and Spanish.
What follows is an attempt to use the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the sounds found in the Japanese language. Japanese differs greatly from English because the sounds are not strictly divided into consonants and vowels. Of the 46 basic Japanese sounds, only five are vowels like those found in English. The remaining 41 are combinations of a consonant followed by a vowel and are generally grouped by consonant: k, s, t, n, h, m, y, and r (each consonant, with the exception of y, combines with each of the vowels to create a distinct sound - か: ka, き:ki, く:ku, け:ke, こ:ko).
Japanese vowels:
あ：a : /a/
い：i : /i/
う：u : /u:/
え：e : / /
お：o : /o/
These vowel sounds found in Japanese are significantly different than English vowels. English words can be constructed by placing multiple vowels next to each other in a word, but in Japanese a vowel is almost always followed by a consonant. In English the pronunciation of vowels frequently changes depending on the word, but in Japanese the sounds always remain constant. The one exception to a consonant not following a vowel is when the same vowel follows the previous one which only serves to make the sound longer; it does not alter the actual pronunciation (おばあさん: obaasan – mother).
As previously mentioned, Japanese does not have consonants like English. No consonant ever stands alone with one exception: ん: n. This consonant however has different pronunciations depending on where it occurs within a word. The most common usage is when it is followed by a vowel or at the end of a word in which case the pronunciation is long and nasalized /n/.
k: /k/
s: /s/, /ʃ/
t: /t/, /tʃ/
n: /n/
h: /h/, /f/
m: /m/
y: /j/
r: /r/
Aside from Japanese’s 46 basic sounds, 23 additional sounds can be formed. These are also formed by adding vowels.
k → g: /g/
s → z: /z/
t → d: /d/, / dʒ/, /z/
h → b: /b/
h → p: /p/
When Japanese combined sounds of consonants and vowels are broken down as much as possible into single consonant sounds to match English, many of the same consonant sounds appear. The Japanese are notorious for having a hard time with /l/ in English because no such sound exists in their language. Japanese also does not contain the /v/ sound. English seems to combine more consonants together to produce unique sounds, such as / / and / /; in Japanese you never find two consonants following each other.
*http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm
*http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/IPA_chart_(C)2005.pdf
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
The Japanese language contains a smaller range of consonants and vowels than English does. We can almost say an English speaker utilizes more parts of the mouth (bilabial, alveolar, dental) than a Japanese one. One can easily see this from the short list of Japanese phonetics below.
Japanese Consonants
k – kasa /k/
s – sumu /s/
t – tatami /t/
p – pan /p/
h – haru /h/
m – mizu /m/
n – nani /n/
r – ramen /ɾ/
g – ga /g/
z – zutsu /z/
d – dame /d/
b – basu /b/
ts – tsumetai /t¬¬¬¬¬¬s/
j – jisho (I tried all the sounds in the IPA lab but couldn’t find one that corresponds. It should not be a remote sound so I probably didn’t look in the right place. But “ji” should be pronounced like /gi/ in the postalveolar with the tongue flat.)
Japanese people are considerably famous for not being able to pronounce the English R sound as their “r” is an alveolar tap sound that is between the English /r/ and /l/. The Japanese consonants also lack the velar nasal sound /ŋ/ and the dental and labiodental fricative /f/ /v/ /θ/ /ð/ (meaning when speaking Japanese your teeth will never touch your lips or tongue!) in English. If you are wondering how they pronounce the name of their sacred Mount Fuji (the consonant “f” only goes with “u”), it sounds like pronouncing /fu/ without letting the teeth touch the lips while allowing air to flow through.
Japanese Vowels
a – ani /a/
i – inu /i/
u – umi /u/
e – edo /e/
o – oto /o/
yo – kyoto /jɔ/
yu –kyushu /ju/
ya – yada /ja/
wa – watashi /wa/
Japanese vowels are a lot more minimalistic and constant. English vowel sounds like /ʌ/ (as in “hut”) and /æ/ (as in “hat”) are not available in Japanese and compound vowels in Japanese are just minimal. However, both languages make a distinction between short and long vowels, as in the English /fu:d/ (food) versus /fut/ (foot) and the Japanese /taijo:/ (taiyo-o) versus /shjo/ (sho).
Sooo this is sorta lame, but I'm going to be honest on this public forum...
I really don't understand how to read that IPA chart. I thought a lot about the questions before that... and I think that in general, from what I've read, that French (the language I did last time) and English fit pretty well into the IPA scheme. This probably is because they're more Latin based than other languages, like... Ojibwe. Try representing some of those sounds!
The IPA obviously had certain languages in mind, if it can represent the "th" sound that Anglophones (and relatively few other groups) make and marks for tones. I would imagine there aren't too many aboriginal groups that can map out their language in terms of a "standard" alphabet.
As I might have mentioned in my previous posts, the Japanese language is comprised of its own alphabet, in fact two sets of alphabets. Although the two sets use completely similar pronounciation methods, I will only use one of the two alphabets, Hiragana, because it is the more commonly used set. Each ‘letter’ or ‘symbol’ of the Hiragana has its own distict syllable and the sound is usually not interchangeable like it is in English. (i.e. the letter “c” cell and call are pronounced /s/ and /k/ respectively)
Japanese is not split into vowels and consonants (although there are sounds that correspond to what we English speakers understand as vowels and consonants).
The vowels are:
あ：ah : /a/
い：ee : /i/
う：oo : /ɯ/
え：eh : /e/
お：oh : /o/
Vowels have a distinction in length (either short or long). Misusage of accurate vowel lengths can lead to confusion amongst speakers.
Ex.
ojisan /ojisaN/ "uncle" vs. ojiisan /ojiisaN/ "grandfather"
tsuki /tsuki/ "moon" vs. tsūki /tsuuki/ "airflow".
Consonants in Japanese are:
s: /s/, /ʃ/
t: /t/, /tʃ/
h: /h/, /f/
r: /r/
k: /k/
m: /m/
y: /j/
n: /n/
: s, t, h, r, k, m, y and n.
‘N’ is a special consonant because it does not join with a vowel. It is pronounced on its own and can be joined with certain words to give them emphasis.
The letters above do not have a separate symbol that represents them on the Japanese alphabet. They have to be combined with a vowel in order to become a pronounceable syllable.
Each consonant can be added with a vowel to produce a syllable.
Ex. か: ka, き:ki, く:ku, け:ke, こ:ko
In addition, variations of the syllable can be made by adding ‘”’ or a “o” to certain syllables.
ひ: hi (hee) , び: bi(bee), pi: ぴ(pee)
Another 25 syllables are formed by using these combinations.
Ex.
k → g: /g/
s → z: /z/
t → d: /d/, / dʒ/, /z/
h → b: /b/
h → p: /p/
and therefore:
が: ga, ぎ: gi, ぐ: gu, げ:ge, ご:go
In total, words are made by combining the 61 syllables.
This is a tragedy—I spent the whole night going around asking neighbors and trying to figure out this IPA chart. However, we haven’t made any good sense out of. Plus, to make the alphabet display properly on my computer is even a missioin impossible. I really should’ve started this earlier so that I can talk to some fellow students who made exellence comments above. Now since it’s already very late and I guess I just have to make my point in my own words:
CHINESE
The pronouncication of each Chinese character can be divided into two parts, the initials（声母） and the syllables nucleus(韵母), which comes after the initials. In the last assignment, I briefly talked about the 21 consonants which actuallly are the initials. Here I am going to talk more in depth and 39 syllabus nucleus that we have.
Firsly, the 21 initials can be divided into two categories, voiceless and voiced. The voiceless ones can be subdiveded into aspirated ones and inaspirated(it this a word?) ones. There are also some small categories as dental, apical, nasalized which are going to be indicated specifically.
Please refer to this paragraph when you read the analysis:
Here I listed all the consonants along with a vowel so that we could try to pronounce them:
Ba- as in “ba” in bat (not in typical American English though, close to British pronunciation)
ci- as “ts” in cats
di- as “de” in decision
fo— humm…close to “fuo”(think about duo)
ge—as “gir” in girdle
ma – close to “ma” in maximum
ni – as “ne” in neo
li – as “ly” in lyrics
ku- close to “coo” in cool (absolutely no nasal sound, no tongue rolling)
he- as “he” in herd
ji – close to “je” in jeep. But the “j” are pronounced differently. Here in Chinese, your teeth are touching each other to make the sound instead of your tongue touching the palate.
Pa – as “pa” in pasta
Qu- as “too” in troop, no “r” and “p” sounds. I can’t think of a better example, just give this a try.
Ra- as “ru” in rug
Sa – close to “sa” in sad
Ti – as “ti” in tin
Xi – as “si” in six
Zi – imagine “d—s---”, almost there.
Zhi- close to “j” in jerk
Chi- as “che” in cheese (attention: only one “e”)
Shi- as “she” in sheep
Voiceless: b, d(dental and apical), g, a, zh, j -- unaspirated
P, t(dental and apical) , k, c(dental and apical), ch, q – aspirated
F, sh(apical), s(dental and apical), x(apical), h
Voiced : r(breathy voiced?), l,
M, n – nasalised
The syllabus nucleus can be basically divided into three categories: single (which usually is made by a single vowel), compound(made by two syllables) and nasalised(made by one or two syllables plus one nasal sound). For vowels I’ve tried to identify them with the “vowel heights”
SINGLE: --I—as “ee” in deep (close-mid vowel)
a- as “ah!!!”(open vowel)
o- as “oh!”(open)
e—as “ea” in east
e^- usually comes after –I and u``to form “ye”(s) and “ue”(sorry I can find an example in English) sounds (close-mid vowel)
er- as “ea” in earth (open-mid vowel)
i- as in dish (close-mid vowel)
ia- say ye—ah!, then combine them together and speak it faster
ie—as yeah (more sutle)
u- as oo(ps)
ua—as wo-ah!! ( more rounded)
U’’—as in “deja-vu” , in orignial french pronounciation. ( close vowel)
COMPOUND
Ai- as “I”(don’t open the mouth too large though)
Uai- as in wa(x)
Ei—as in Ai(ds), uei- as in wai(t)
Ao- as in o(x) , iao- as in yo(bi)
Ou- as “oa” in oak, iou- as “o”in yoga
NASALISED
An- as in an
En—as in “en…”
Ang—close to (l)ong
Eng- come to me in person if you want to know how it’s pronounced
Ong- close to ong in Hong kong
Ian- as yan
In- as in “in”
Iang- close to young
Ing- close to in(strong nasal sound)
Uen- close to “uin” in ruin
Uang- as uang(an insect, this is in English)
Ueng –come to me in person if you want to know how it’s pronounced
U’’an—close to (g)uan ( an animal)
Un- as in gun.
ENGLISH
When I was 12 years old trying to learn English at school, this is the very first thing I knew about:
http://club.telepolis.com/phonetics/tablea.html
This maybe ailien to many of you since this is the British version( I believe). Apparently English has some sounds that Chinese doesn’t have and Chinese has some that English doesn’t too. For example, there is no th(e) and th(ree) sounds in Chinese. On the other hand, English doesn’t have u’’, uai, uei, iao, uang, ueg, uen, etc sounds which exist in Chinese. What is even more evident from the comparison is that Chinese has a far more complex sytem of the syllables after the initials. Wait, maybe that’s not right, an English word could be incredibly long where lots of syllables can be stacked up. But its basic sound units is less various that that of Chinese. Looking at the IPA, even though I don’t get most of it, I can still tell that there isn’t too much compound sounds. So my guess so far is that English will fit better in this scheme than Chinese.
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English has 26 letters – 5 vowels and 21 consonants. Korean has 24 ‘basic’ letters – 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The ratios between vowels and consonants of the two languages are different, but as described below, there are many overlaps between consonants of English and vowels of Korean. Korean alphabet becomes slightly more complicated when taking compound consonants and vowels into consideration. They many look like two or three different letters merged together, but they are all considered a single letter.
Consonants
ㄱ - /g/
ㄴ - /n/
ㄷ - /d/
ㄹ - /l/
ㅁ - /m/
ㅂ - /b/
ㅅ - /s/
ㅇ - /ŋ/
ㅈ - /dʒ/
ㅊ - /tʃ/
ㅋ - /k/
ㅌ - /t/
ㅍ - /p/
ㅎ - /h/
ㄲ –stressed k
ㄸ –stressed t
ㅃ –stressed b
ㅆ – stressed s
ㅉ – stressed j
There are strikingly many similarities between Korean and English in phonetics. Sounds such as g, n, d, l, m, and b are all pronounced in both Korean and English in the same way. In Korean, there were no r, k, and f sounds that are present in English. Stressed sounds present in Korean, such as ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ, are not spoken in English. Lastly, unlike in English, there is only way to pronounce a consonant in Korean. In English, when ‘c’ sounds differently when in ‘card’ and ‘char.’ The only exception is the empty consonance, ㅇ, which becomes /ŋ/ (-ng) when it comes after a vowel.
Vowels
ㅏ - /a/
ㅑ - /ja/
ㅓ - /ә/
ㅕ - /jә/
ㅗ - /o/
ㅛ - /jo/
ㅜ - /u/
ㅠ - /ju/
ㅡ - /ɯ/
ㅣ - /i/
ㅐ,ㅔ - /ε/
ㅖ,ㅒ - /jε/
ㅚ,ㅙ - /wε/
ㅘ - /wa/
ㅝ - /wә/
ㅟ - /wi/
ㅢ - /ɯi/
In Korean, /j/ and /w/ are recognized as vowels, while they are considered as consonants in English. While the sound /wa/ is most likely written as ‘wa’ (consonant + vowel) in English, it is written as ‘ㅘ’ (ㅗ+ㅏ, vowel + vowel) in Korean. Korean vowels cover more range of sound; /ɯ/ and /ɯi/ do not exist in English. Unlike English, though, Korean does not make a distinction between short and long vowels. Sounds like “heat” and “hit” would be undistinguishable in Korean.
As shown in above, some of the compound verbs are pronounced the same way. When Korean was first invented, there were a few more sounds (such as ‘z’ sound) in Korean language that disappeared or merged into one sound after time passed by. Technically,ㅐ and ㅔ sound slightly different, but virtually all the Koreans do not differentiate the pronunciation of those vowels.
Sorry this is so late in coming. Life got in the way.
Here is my attempt at a phonetics scheme for Spanish. It doesn’t differ too much from that of English, but there are several Spanish sounds that are foreign to English and vice versa.
VOWELS
a: /ah/ España
ae: /ayeh/ maestro
au: /ow/ sauna
e: /eh/ pero
i: /ee/ si
ia: /eeyah/ sería
ie: /eeyeh/ gobierno
io: /eeyoh/ situación
o: /oh/ todo
u: /oo/ un
ua: /wah/ guardar
ue: /weh/ bueno
ue: /eh/ guerra
ui: /ee/ guitarra
CONSONANTS
b: /b/ borrar
c: /c/ carro
c: /s/ centro
c: /th/ centro (depending on nationality)
d: /d/ debo
d: /th/ Madrid
f: /f/ fiel
g: /h/ general
g: /g/ gato
h: / / hora
j: /h/ jardín
k: /k/ euskera
l: /l/ balon
ll: /y/ calle
ll: /j/ calle (depending on nationality)
m: /m/ mama
n: /n/ nene
ñ: /ny/ mañana
p: /p/ puro
qu: /k/ que
r: /r/ pero
rr: /rr/ barrio
s: /s/ Segovia
t: /t/ tapa
v: /b/ voy
w: /w/ web
x: /x/ Texas
z: /z/ zoo
z: /th/ zoo (depending on nationality)
And now a similar schema for English:
VOWELS:
a: /ah/ ball
a: /æ/ bat
a: /ey/ hate
ai: /ay/ rain
e: /eh/ bet
ea: /ee/ teach
eau: /yu/ beautiful
ee: /ee/ creed
ei: /ee/ declive
eu: /?/ amateur
i: /ih/ hit
i: /ay/ time
ie: /ee/ believe
o: /oh/ row
oa: /oh/ soap
oe: /oh/ toe
oo: /u/ boot
oo: /uh/ look
oy: /oy/ toy
u: /uh/ stud
u: /oo/ muse
ui: /ih/ guitar
ui: /oo/ suit
ue: /eh/ guess
ue: /oo/ blue
CONSONANTS
b: /b/ baby
c: /k/ cat
c: /s/ center
d: /d/ dog
f: /f/ far
g: /g/ give
g: /j/ garage
h: /h/ history
h: / / hour
j: /j/ judge
k: /k/ kelp
l: /l/ like
ll: /l/ llama
m: /m/ men
n: /n/ ten
p: /p/ please
qu: /kw/ question
r: /r/ rat
s: /s/ sister
t: /t/ top
v: /v/ very
w: /w/ wish
z: /z/ zap
There are enough similarities between the two phonetic systems that a native speaker of English can read a Spanish text with relative ease. The variations are most notably in the pronunciation of vowels and specific consonants. In my amateur list of English vowel sounds, I included 25 distinct vowel sounds/combinations. The Spanish list included only 14. The great variety of English vowel sounds, some very subtly distinct (look, good), is a challenge for non-native speakers of English. A Spanish speaker might pronounce “I live in the United States” as “I leef een deh oonited stahtes” by adopting the Spanish vowels to an English context. Likewise, a native English speaker might butcher “Vivo en los Estados Unidos,” saying “Veevoh ehn lows estahdows yooneedows.” The subtle distinctions between one language’s vowel system and another can pose hurdles to students attempting to mask a foreign accent. Spanish employs consonant sounds which are either foreign to English, or have been adapted through borrowings. One such sound is the characteristic trill “r” that appears at the beginning or end of a word, or with an r-doubling. The English “r” is formed by the lips at the front of the mouth as in “red,” while the Spanish “r” involves a tapping of the tongue against the teeth as in “rosa” or “pero” (heard to English ears as “drdrdrdrosa” or “pedo”). An example of an adaptation is the “ll” which appears in English as an “l.” Words that have been borrowed such as “llama” and “Amarillo” lose the “y” sound and treat the word as though it contained a single “l.” Another important difference in the phonetic scheme of English and Spanish is the lack of a Spanish labio-dental “v.” The letter “v” in Spanish is always pronounced as a bilabial “b.” Depending on the country and region, some native Spanish speakers pronounce the soft “c” as a “th.” Despite these distinctions, English and Spanish phonetics are quite similar and non-native speakers of either language can eventually learn a native pronunciation.
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