English pronunciation

Learning Russian Forum - Ask a Tutor
1

I’ve some trouble with the letter “I”, when it remains a monophthong and when it becomes a diphthong!?

I have no problem with some familiar words where the “I” remains a monophthong such as: in, this, is, window, rich.

There’are some words I recognise easily where the “I” changes to become a diphthong such as: crime, right, mine, mind.

But, when I encounter words like: blind, divide, original, visit, vital, criticise, titivate…, then, I have trouble to know when and where the “I” remains a monophthong or becomes a diphthong.

Of course I use a dictionary to chech out the right pronunciation, but I wonder if there’s another way allowing one to pronunce these words or any word for that matter.

Thank you for contribution!

2

No, there’s no other way, you must check the pronunciation of every word independently, either by looking it up in the dictionary or by listening to the word, here at Lingq or pronounced by a native speaker.

Remember: it’s Chaos!!!

3

I hate English for this very reason. Very illogical, inconsistent, and definitely not phonetic.

4

A monosyllable that ends in a consonant is a monophthong: “bit”, “is”, “sit”, “writ”. If it ends in a silent “e”, it’s a diphthong: “bite”, “ice”, “mite”, “site”, “write”. Words that end in “gh” or “ght” are diphthongs: “bright”, “might”, “sight”, “right”.

Multi-syllable words are monophthongs if the next syllable begins with a consonant: : "bitter, “difficult”, “icky”, “pitiful”, “tinny”. But if the “I” is stressed and the next syllable begins with a vowel sound, the “I” is a diphthong: “bias”, “diagram”, “icicle”, “pious”.

Boy, I’m reaching back to the third grade for this. And I don’t think it’s very helpful. Too many exceptions. Listen to spoken English and copy what you hear. Remember even native speakers make a lot of mistakes. John F. Kennedy was famous for saying “nu’-cu-ler” instead of “nu’-cle-er”.

Maybe somebody who really knows their TOEFL can come in with more accurate information.

1 Like
5

This was very interesting indeed! I’ll try to study these and of course I 'll be listening, listening and listening to spoken English. Thank you very much!

6

@ftornay, thank for the video! But it ends in this way: My advice is to give up!!!

I think that LingQ should create lessons concerning English pronunciation, in the same way @memfo explains how to pronunce words with the letter “I” and other monosyllables changing from a monophthong to a diphthong.

What do you think?

7

Of course, the final “give up” is said “tongue in cheek” :slight_smile:
Memfo himself recognizes that those rules have too many exceptions to be of much help. It’s helpful to know some typical examples but the rules will only take you so far. I wouldn’t dwell on them. The well-known poem recited in the video shows that determining pronunciation from spelling is a tricky thing for natives themselves.

8

Hehe! On re-reading my reply for possible errors, I realized that you can already find some exceptions to the rules in just a little paragraph. For example “native” has the so-called “magic e” at the end but the it’s still pronounced as a monophtong.
And what rule warns you that both “y” and “i” in “typical” are pronounced as monophthongs whereas the “y” in reply is a diphthong? And so on and so forth.

9

To make English even more interesting there are words where you hear both pronunciations from native speakers. For example:

direction
diversity
dynasty

This seems to be a difference between British and American English. But I’m not sure.

10

You’are right. But if only I can learn some rules, it can’t harm at all.

11

Knowledge never hurts. It’s a question of effort against benefit. Only you can decide what your personal balance point is.
My contention’s just that for most people, too much emphasis on rule learning for this particular case does not really pay. That’s why I don’t see much point in creating Lingq lessons about them. Again, it’s just my opinion. If some content provider’s willing to do so, of course it’s just for them to decide.

12

I understand your point. But I wish that such lessons will be created here at LingQ. I realy wish!

13

Okay, there you go my advice for you to improve you pronunciation of all words in general, it’s a very powerful exercise if you do it properly.

First of all, that an audio about something you really like to listen about, preferably a podcast, avoid recorded stuff from actors, try to find something from native speakers, the talk must be natural and not so long either, max 5~30 min will be enough, also you must be able to understand at least 90% what you’re listening, if you can’t that high enough, try to find something easier, it MUST be easy to understand and, once again, it must be something that you really enjoy because you’ll need to listen to it a lot of times per day,

Secondly, listing to the audio with all your attention to the pronunciation of the ENTIRE PHRASE, not just a single word, listen to the entire audio entirely at least 30 times, use a text if you feel trouble understanding what you’re listening, you don’t need to listen to it 30 times straightly, you can divide it during the day like listen 5 times during the breakfast, then more 5 times during the lunch, then more 5 times during the break, ect…

After listening to the audio at least 30 times, you’ll do it again, but this time, you’ll do something different. You’ll listen to 1 phrase, paying a lot of attention to the pronunciation, then REPEAT IT OUT LOUD, trying to mimic the pronunciation of the audio. Do it at least 30~100 times, so you will be able to master it.

Try it out for a week or two and you’ll feel a enormous difference in your pronunciation and listening.

14

Hi Etudiant,

THE TWO VOWEL RULE: when a one-syllabe word, or the stressed syllable in a multi-syllable word, has two vowel letters, then the first vowel letter is pronounced with it’s alphabet vowel sound (ie., as you pronounce it in the alphabet), and the second vowel letter is silent.

THE ONE VOWEL RULE: when a one syllable word, or the stressed syllable in a multi-syllable word, has one vowel letter, you pronounce it with a ‘relative vowel sound’, or a monophthong as you put it.

These are text to speech rules that work around 90% of the time.

So in the examples you cite:

blind is an exception

divide - the stressed syllable is ‘vide’ which has two vowel letters and you pronounce the ‘i’ as in the alphabet

original - the stressed syllable is ‘ri’ which has only one vowel letter ‘i’ as an /i/

visit - ‘vi’ has only one vowel letter so it’s /i/

vital - exception

criticise - ‘cri’ has one vowel letter, ‘i’ is pronounced as an /i/, ‘cize’ has two vowel letters and ‘i’ is pronounced as in the alphabet

titivate - ‘ti’ has one vowel letter and is pronounced as /i/; ‘vate’ has two vowel letters and ‘a’ is pronounced as in the alphabet

In unstressed syllables the vowel may either be pronounced the same as in the stressed syllable, just a bit shorter, or it may be reduced to a Schwa. When there are three or more syllables, not all unstressed syllables will be reduced to Schwa.

Source: Judy Gilbert “Clear Speech”

15

Hi Tom Tabaczynski,

I’m so grateful for your contribution, as well as memfo’s. That’s what I was looking for, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one.

I’m so happy I made this thread - NEVER GIVE UP.

Thank you indeed!

16

If you like that kind of rules, I’d advise you to improve the ones given by Tom Tabaczynski with the ones from the page whose link I provide below. Notice that, instead of relying on the number of vowels in the syllable, this page advises you to divide words into syllables in a different way and decide whether the syllable is open or closed. It’s not much more complicated than the one/two syllable rule and it does reduce the number of exceptions. For example, this rule explains:
“vital”, “dinosaur”, “mica”, “lion” and many other words not covered by the one/two syllable rules.

Notice that the page claims a 75% reliability (much less than Tom Tabaczynski’s purported 90% for a rule with more exceptions). My own experience makes me believe that it’s even more reduced, though.

Link: Phonetics: Pronouncing vowels –[Multimedia-English]

17

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7: 7-8)

Thank you folks!

18

You’re welcome! If you’re interested there are additional exercises for various text to speech patterns for vowels, for linking, intonation, etc. in Judy Gilbert “Clear Speech” (4th ed). It’s a good book, I use it to teach my students, and I recommend it.

19

Once again thank you for this piece of information! Of course I’m interested and I’ll order the book as soon as possible. I’m glad to hear that you’re an English teacher (you know what you’re talking about).

20

Honestly, I’ve learned less than 30% of my english at school or intentionally studying the language. Just use the internet. Chat in english, read in english and listen to english podcasts and videos. I owe alot of my english to YouTube and video games.

Listen to how the native speakers say the words and if you hear them enough they will just “click” and you don’t even have to think about. I live in Norway and I know from personal experience that if you’re exposed long enough to english and american games, videos and movies, you’re english skills will increase rapidly and you will have no trouble pronouncing the words.

Also, what’s the worst that can happen if you say the I wrong?