where can I find pronunciation for words which are not found in dictionarie

Question

Hello friends,

Where can one find pronunciation for words which are not found in dictionaries? For example, words which denote various food items like amla, herbs, medicines etc. It will much better if I can hear voice recordings of pronunciation of the word.

Thanks a lot.

Kooyeen · Accepted Answer

Hi,
that's an interesting question. Veeeery interesting. I've always wanted to ask about this...

I wonder how natives can read a word if they never heard it.

Can they (or we) read a book about medicine, pharmacy, etc. on their own? In theory, they need to go to college and hear a lecturer pronounce them. Or... how can they study Geography by themselves, if you can't even know how to pronounce the name of a town or city without hearing it at least once? (Example: Plymouth! Geez, when I heard that, I thought... Oh, yeah, that was easy to figure out! LOL)

So I'm thinking of those who study medicine, and have to learn thousands of weird terms, with weird pronounciations, and even weirder spelling (it's like writing in Latin). How can you remember that?

As for your question, Hitesh, if you can't find a word in the largest dictionaries (like Merriam-Webster)... there isn't much else that you can do, lol. But if it's a common word that you can't find (like a brand name), you can try searching with Google. Often you won't find anything though.

Pter · Answer

KooyeenHi,
that's an interesting question. Veeeery interesting. I've always wanted to ask about this...

I have exactly the same question. I have a Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and I can find names of places and people, but only limited to those common ones. I can find Nokia, Nikon, Samsung, but not Canon in the CEPD. "canon" of course can be found, but only as an English word, not a brand name.

Nokia is an interesting example. The pronunciation of "Nokia" in the CEPD has the stress on the first syllable, but when I watched Transformer (the movie), the girl pronounced it with the stress on the second syllable. I was wondering which is the more common pronunciation in use.

Occassionally, I can find some names from www.reference.com, e.g.
http://www.reference.com/search?r=13&q=Nokia
(It also says the stress is on the first syllable.)

You can also find the pronunciation of some drug names here:
http://www.alternativemedicine.com/common/adam/DisplayMonograph.asp?storeID=02AD61F001A74B5887D3BD11F6C28169&DocID=41_000300

Pter · Answer

I forgot to mention that everyone in my region says the word Nokia with the stress on the first syllable.  The pronunciation of Nokia by that girl in Transformer is the first time ever I heard someone saying the brand name this way.

Cool Breeze · Answer

PterNokia is an interesting example. The pronunciation of "Nokia" in the CEPD has the stress on the first syllable, but when I watched Transformer (the movie), the girl pronounced it with the stress on the second syllable. I was wondering which is the more common pronunciation in use.

Hi Pter

Nokia is a small town fairly close to Tampere in Finland and the company was founded there in 1865 - and named after the town. Finnish pronunciation is very easy and very logical: the primary stress is always on the first syllable. There may be a secondary stress on another syllable, especially in compounds. So, if you want the Finnish pronunciation of Nokia, the first syllable has the stress. However, I wouldn't mind if I heard it pronounced with the stress on the second syllable; I understand that some speakers of the world's thousands of languages may prefer it that way.

By the way, in the beginning the company had nothing to do with electronics. It was a wood-pulp mill and later manufactured rubber products, tyres for bicycles at first and later for cars as well, and rubber boots. Then came all kinds of communication cables. An electronics department was established in 1960. Now Nokia makes 39 percent of the world's cell phones and is also the biggest manufacturer of cameras. It sold 140 million phones equipped with with cameras in 2006.

Cheers
CB

Pter · Answer

Hi Cool Breeze,

Thanks for the background information.

Do you say /'n?k.i.a/, /'n??k.i.a/ or /'no?.ki.a/?

Cool Breeze · Answer

PterDo you say /'n?k.i.a/, /'n??k.i.a/ or /'no?.ki.a/?

Every vowel is pronounced clearly and never diphthongized in Finnish, so using the IPA symbols, the pronunciation is ['nokia]. The [o ] sound is pretty much the same as the British pronunciation of o in got or hot, perhaps a little less broad and open. However, no one will mind if you pronounce it "wrong"!

CB

Pter · Answer

Thank you very much!

where can I find pronunciation for words which are not found in dictionarie

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions