This question might sound a little silly but is there an easy way out to improve my phonetic knowledge? Do I have to learn every single word in phonetics? Because It's been a couple of months and I still am not where I want to be. I understand and decode what I hear also I speak fluently yet when it comes to writing or typing(in phonetics) what I hear, I fail. Is there any static patterns? I don't want to fail my next phonetic exam. What should I do?
Asked
Active
Viewed 175 times
0
-
1If you can understand and produce spoken English, presumably your problem is you need help learning standard IPA. This might help. – FumbleFingers Jan 11 '16 at 13:36
-
@FumbleFingers I know IPA that's what I use yet there are thousands of words. It's very hard to type a strange word in phonetics with IPA. I am afraid If I have to memorize all of them . – Cenkay V. Jan 11 '16 at 13:48
-
1@CenkayV. No, you need to train your ears! You don't need to learn lots of individual words :) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 11 '16 at 14:13
-
@CenkayV. You'll want to wait a day or two before choosing an answer. You may get some much better ones, or ones with more practical resources. If you select an answer too soon, people may think you don't want any more answers! :-) You can undo the selection by clicking again on the green tick! – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 11 '16 at 14:19
-
@CenkayV. I'm still not clear. Are you effectively saying your problem is you don't understand written English? For historical reasons, English spellings don't consistently reflect the spoken forms. That really is something you just have to learn, but over time you'll become familiar with the more common peculiarities (which do mostly fall into recognizable "groups"). – FumbleFingers Jan 11 '16 at 14:49
-
@FumbleFingers I have exams that I have to convert written English(Article,Vocabulary.) into phonetics by using IPA. Especially when I face a word that I have no idea of. This is my problem. In my mother tongue words are written as they are spoken, no phonetics. English is easy to communicate yet hard to master. – Cenkay V. Jan 11 '16 at 15:10
-
I'd like to say this is a duplicate of Which are the most reliable pronunciation guidelines? But that question is (quite rightly) closed as Off Topic, so I'm going for Primarily Opinion-based. – FumbleFingers Jan 11 '16 at 15:15
-
@Araucaria Turkey was on Monday. I failed so hard tho' – Cenkay V. Jan 15 '16 at 11:18
-
@CenkayV. You have the results already? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 15 '16 at 11:18
-
@CenkayV. Will you have more phonetics exams later? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 15 '16 at 11:19
-
@Araucaria no but no big expections – Cenkay V. Jan 15 '16 at 11:19
-
@Araucaria yes I will – Cenkay V. Jan 15 '16 at 11:20
-
@CenkayV. OK, well there are questions that you can ask on here that might help you, and there are also some books you can get too. You could ask this question here, for example: "When I was practicing English transcription for my exam, I gave this transcription for the word view, /vɪjəw/ . Somebody told me that this word would be impossible in English. Is it an impossible word? Why?" I'm a bit busy right now, but you might get another answer from someone else, if not I'll be able to answer it some time next week. It would help you in general with your transcription :) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 15 '16 at 11:24
-
1@Araucaria Sorry, was in a History Exam. It's the "finales" week. Thank you for your help and care Appriciate it! "If there was more informal way to say "appriciate it!" would say that!" – Cenkay V. Jan 15 '16 at 12:34
-
@CenkayV. Good luck with the results! – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 15 '16 at 12:40
1 Answers
2
You need to find some online transcription exercises. In particular you would benefit from transcribing English nonsense words. Because you cannot recognise the words it will force you to actually listen to the sounds you are hearing and not the words. In other words you need a site like this one, but specifically for English.
You could also invest in a copy of a book like Ship or sheep which has exercises for discriminating individual vowels (I would bet it's the vowels that you have a problem with).
Araucaria - Not here any more.
- 27,144
- 4
- 53
- 117
-
Exactly! Long and short vowels,/oʊ/ and using of /j/ like I always thought It was view /vɪjəw/ but today I saw that my answer was incorrect. It's sad that there's no an easy way out I have to practice – Cenkay V. Jan 11 '16 at 14:24
-
@CenkayV. That's not such a big mistake! In case it helps: the /u:/ vowel very very often occurs after /j/. In these cases there will never be a preceding /ɪ/ in the transcription. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 11 '16 at 14:43