Pronunciation Of English Words

[fairyrak]

Hi, I want to know the real pronunciation of English words, please someone who understand IPA and knows the real pronunciation of words:

This vicon lingoes dictionary that I have here comes with pronunciation too in IPA and it says for example for the word and:
and [ænd;ən(d)]

So my question is what's the real pronunciation: "ænd" or "ən(d) ?"

or are both correct, or is the average of æ and ə the correct one?
or is the first one more used or something else?

why does it show two pronunciations?

[Mamyalynne]

A little about 'æ' here.......


http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/70927/how-is-%C3%A6-supposed-to-be-pronounced

[Mamyalynne]

This may be useful

[fairyrak]

I checked the words with that website and also I went to the lingoes program that has the vicon dictionary and I chose a sample of 7 very different words with 2 pronunciations

And it turned out that the first pronunciation was the American pronunciation in 7 out of 7 times and the 2nd one was the English one in 7 out of 7 times, I think that this is not casualty, when this dictionary says [ænd;ən(d)] ænd might be more American and ən(d) more British, although maybe the word and isn't a good word to compare American and British pronunciations but 7 out of 7 is somewhat like very apparent for my tastes that the first one was American

[Jackdaw33]

English is a non-phonetic language which makes it very difficult for non-natives to pronounce. There are great problems with words which are spelt the same but are pronounced differently. One example: read (present) pronounced 'reed', read (past) pronounced 'red'.

[fairyrak]

I think that they should teach languages with IPA characters instead of the mediocrity that was my English course which was taught by teachers with my native Spanish accent.

I don't know if many courses in the world are like that too, but look at how they don't care, but it's not a good thing, because for example now I can translate a lot of written things but I suck at understanding what they say in many films, I only understand like 30%, If I had learned with IPA maybe I would understand 95% :C

[Jackdaw33]

You are not alone. However, may I say that your standard of written English is extremely good.

[fairyrak]

Well, the grammar lessons of my course were really good, and one of my teachers said that I was the best student that he had had in 10 years, and the course wasn't completely bad. But look at me, look at how me, one of the best students only ended up understanding 30% of the things they say in films because of their reluctance to teaching with ipa!

I know like maybe 12000 words in English and I now have to relearn everything from scratch! I learned my 12000 words by studying like 30 words per day for like 2 years, hard work! really hard! I could be learning another language now instead of losing the time relearning the correct English pronunciation now! :D but I'll have to do it or the course will be useless with my 30%

[Jackdaw33]

Don't be put off by films. I can speak, read and write French and Russian fairly fluently, but when it comes to films etc. I can hardly make out a word.

[fairyrak]

suppose that I can learn everything with IPA but then how? by guessing? by listening and guessing? actually my particular brain sucks at it! my brain is extremely good to confuse similar things, extremely good!

IPA things really tell the truth in a systematic way, that's what I think, because I learned each word with its pronunciation like the prehistoric dictionary said I should pronounce it! (that is, with Spanish accent!) but at least now I have this vicon English Spanish dictionary that stops doing that...

[fairyrak]

look af how good my brain is to confuse things, some examples: I recently confused:

a faithful/afraid for

off/ of

dinner party/in her party

behind one/behind of one

off the/up the

all the hysteria/all the history

initiative/initiated


fining wheels/shining wheels

are there /harder

you/to


epoch/epic

privileged/publish

that is as/that is say /