When I have trouble...

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Hi,this is a fork of a thread where Jim said:CalifJimI'm  not sure what your opportunities are where you live, but the solution,  where possible, is to choose someone whose pronunciation you like and  whose judgment you trust, and just pronounce everything the way they  do.  You can choose someone like a news anchor, but that's not  practical when you need to ask about the pronunciation of a particular  word.  It almost has to be some native speaker you come in contact  with daily, preferably someone of the same sex and age as you, that is,  as much like you as possible!So I wanted to show you what happens when I have trouble finding the pronunciation of a word.Yeah, choosing a model to imitate is a good thing, but... I often have trouble with terms that are not so common. I can't ask someone to read everything for me. But anyway, here are a few examples of "me-getting-in-trouble". I'll refer to some dictionaries as OALD (Oxford), LDOCE (Longman), MW (Merriam-Webster), AH (American Heritage). Listed in the same order they are given.1 - Basil. I look it up. I get:OALD = bæzl, be?zlLDOCE = be?zlMW = bæzl, be?zl, bæsl, be?slAH = bæzl, be?zlThen I have to choose. I choose bæzl. One day I'll hear it, maybe. Only God knows when I'll hear it in context...2 - Customizable, realizable. Where's the stress?OALD = realizable  LDOCE = realizable, customizable.  MW = realizable, customizable.  AH = realizable...and MW is confusing me.2 - Executable, the noun. Where's the stress and how's it pronounced?OALD = ?g'z?kj?t?bl    LDOCE = '?ks?kjut?bl    MW = same as above, but only listed as adjective    AH =  same as above, but only listed as adjective...probably no one knows. I am pronouncing it like the adjective.4 - Underline. Stress?OALD = underline      LDOCE = underline      MW = underline, underline      AH = underline, underline...Wow.5 - Hydrocarbon. Stress?OALD = Hydrocarbon  LDOCE = Hydrocarbon  MW = Hydrocarbon  AH = Hydrocarbon...hmm, MW is looking for trouble.6 - Hydrocarbon again. How's that O in Hydro pronounced? Oh or Uh?OALD = Uh  LDOCE = Uh  MW = Oh  AH = Uh...again that damn MW. But anyway, if it's not pronounced Oh, how come it's Oh in "electromagnetism", or "thermodynamics"? Oh's and Uh's in prefixes give me trouble...And so on. There you go, this is why I go crazy every time. Those are just a few examples, but I have trouble that way on a daily basis

Feebs11 · Accepted Answer

You say you are learning American English - if so, I would ignore any pronunciation in a dictionary originating in the UK and stick with the Americans - but of course MW does make it more difficult. Since it seems to be a minority, go with the others!

Basil - in the UK is is ba[as in sad]-zil [The same way that the Christian name is pronounced]
In the US it is more often bay-zil.

CalifJim · Answer

A lot of your phonetic symbols for vowels come out as question marks on my computer, so that's not telling me a lot.

It looks to me like M-W has the pronunciations that I, personally, use most, so that's the one I would trust most.

bay-zul (the herb)
bazz-ul (the British name)

REE-a-LIZE-a-bul
CUST-a-MIZE-a-bul

Because of the "Alternate Stress Rule" (ASR), there's often as much stress on REE or CUST as on the IZE syllable. There's no way around this "problem". It's a case of 'whatever comes out as you're speaking'.

ex-a-CUTE-a-bul
UND-er-line

HY-dro-car-bun (By the ASR, CAR also can get a lot of stress.)
In fast speech, the oh can become uh. The way I say it, it's a kind of half-tense O.
I don't think I ever hear it with a fully tense O.

CJ

Kooyeen · Answer

Hmmm... Aaaaargh! Looks complicated, lol.

Thanks a lot.
MW always seems to list different pronunciations, but it seems it's the most reliable now. The only one who says "hydrocarbon" with the stress on HY, etc.
And you know, about that oh vs uh, that's interesting... half-tense... could be! I hear a sound between oh and uh when I listen to the clips on MW. Things seems more complicated than I thought...

But...
Executable is ex-a-CUTE-a-bul when it's a name? (like when talking about files). Is it not pronounced like the adjective, EX-a-cute-a-bul?
And MW lists bazz-ul as the pronunciation for the herb...

Ok, this is a mess, but I see there's nothing I can do about it. Thanks

CalifJim · Answer

Things seems more complicated

You say this to an English speaker, and you're going to come out looking like a beginner, no matter how perfect your pronunciation of hydrocarbon! Maybe it's time to rethink your priorities?

CJ

<<Executable is ex-a-CUTE-a-bul when it's a name? >>

To me it's always ex-a-CUTE-a-bul, no matter what the use.

CJ

Kooyeen · Answer

Aaaargh! Well, I often make mistakes... sometimes because I think of something while I'm actually writing someting else (ex: "things", but I think of "this", etc.). Often because my English is not good yet. What's interesting is that I might be likely to write "people seems", but I don't think I might write "people is" instead of "people are". I guess it's just a question of S's then.

Anyway...
MW-online only lists executable. I am now using MW to check the pronunciation. You said it looks more reliable... it seems more reliable to me too (for example, it's the only dictionary that shows the first vowel in numerical as a reduced OO sound).
And that reminds me of a question: MW is the only one that says external and exterior with the first EX as in ***. All the other dictionaries use an IX like in FIX. Is MW right? Of all the most common words that start with EX, MW pronounces only external and exterior with EX, all the others with IX. Looks like those two words are kind of like exceptions...

CalifJim · Answer

I wonder if the following T beginning a stressed syllable is the reason.
Nobody's going to notice if you use IX or EX on these. They'll be listening to the meaning, not the pronunciation.

CJ

Kooyeen · Answer

Hmm...
Too many possible pronunciations, too many things to remember... I think I'd better pick a pronunciation, almost at random, and keep using that until someone tells me I sound odd...

Thanks, I'll see what I can do...

Anonymous · Answer

Hi,

CalifJim appears to have written, "It almost has to be some native speaker you come in contact with daily, preferably someone of the same *** and age as you, that is, as much like you as possible!"

Why do you suggest non-native speakers learning English imitate a native speaker the same *** as themselves, Calif? Surely male and female speakers of English speak the same language.

Kooyeen · Answer

Hi Anon,
what Jim said makes a lot of sense, and we discussed it a little in another thread, I think.
The point was that teaching completely descriptively is impossible. The teacher would have to say: Mr X says this, Mr Y says that, and Mr Z says another thing. Now learn what they say and then decide what to do by yourself.
Every time a teacher gives advice or suggest something, they're being at least a little bit prescriptive.
So if you want a good teacher, you need a teacher who "prescribes" the most appropriate English for you.

Now, suppose I'm 17. The better you know English, the more it should sound like English spoken by native speakers (this should be true for every language). How can I be as similar to a native as possible? If am learning American English and I imagine I am a native speaker, I should imagine I am a 17-year-old American guy. If I found an American teenager to imitate, I would learn how to speak like my imaginary native clone.

So, why would a ESL student who is 17, listen to punk rock and don't care much about school and rules in society... why would he want to have a teacher who is 50, listen to classical music, and is a literature professor? Learning English from a punk like him is probably the best way to learn the best kind of English for him.

And as for females... sometimes girls talk a little differently. Vocabulary might be different, tipical topics in conversations are definitely different, and sometimes intonation might vary (example: uprising intonation).

CalifJim · Answer

Surely male and female speakers of English speak the same language.

Surely they do -- in the most obvious way. Nevertheless, if we take 'language' to mean something much more detailed, I don't think their 'language' is the same at all. Everything from vocabulary choice to micro-pronunciation and tone of voice is different, not to mention choice of what to speak about at all. Most men are not going to coo and gurgle in a high-pitched voice over a baby or a puppy, "Ooooo, what a precious little cutie!" And they probably won't talk much about the exact shade of periwinkle or puce needed to match the drapes to the carpet. (I must look up puce one of these days.) And most women are not going to use some of the strong swear words that men do, or use much of the vocabulary of sports or that of auto mechanics, etc. I may be overdoing the stereotypes to prove a point, but it is purely in this sense that I claim men and women do not "speak the same language". Following a similar line of argumentation, young people and old people do not speak the same language, and people with very high incomes do not speak the language of the very poor. And so on, for all social groups.

CJ

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