Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

18:15

0

Q: How to pronounce "ʌ" and "dʒ" IPA phonetic symbol

I have developed a web app which trancripts English words into their literal phonetic form in Spanish, so you can read it with Spanish phonetics and it will sound like the English pronunciation should. As not all English sounds are available in Spanish I include descriptions for some of the phone...

pronunciation

Interesting!

"Hello, my name is Damkerng, and I pronounce /ʌ/ as /ɑ/ sometimes."

Me in a 12-step program. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'd definitely pirate and read that book!

Anonymous

Hmm, I think that would be weird.

Anonymous

/ʌ/ is kinda tricky.

Anonymous

It's the STRUT vowel.

Anonymous

It's a friend of the schwa.

Anonymous

18:26

For many speakers, the two sounds are basically indistinguishable.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Like me.

Or maybe not.

Anonymous

John Wells calls this the STRUT-Schwa Merger

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I oscillate around knowing and not knowing the difference.

Anonymous

And if they're the same sound phonetically, then what's the difference? Well, STRUT is always stressed, and schwa never is...

Damkerng T.

@snailboat For me, I think the tongue positions for the two are more or less the same, but one is more concise (or shorter) than the other.

nods

Anonymous

18:28

In particular, in Welsh English, the two are completely merged.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Riiight.

Anonymous

> "…in Wales and in some (higher-prestige) midlands and north-of-England accents, STRUT words have stressed [ə], in consequence of the STRUT-Schwa Merger…Even in GenAm it may well be considered that stressed [ʌ] and unstressed [ə] are co-allophones of one phoneme." (Accents of English, vol. 1, John Wells, 1982, p.132)

Anonymous

I won't take a position on that since I'm bad at phonetics.

Damkerng T.

Weird. My own star turned black!

Anonymous

If I saw my own star turn black, I might guess that I'd double-clicked it, accidentally removing the star at the same time someone else starred it...

Anonymous

18:33

I'm sure there are other explanations, but I can't think of any.

Anonymous

(Well, "a bug", but that's not very specific :-)

Damkerng T.

Let's blame it on JavaScript. (JavaScript seems like a convenient scapegoat. :P)

Oh, I got an idea, which could be fun.

Wikipedia seems to provide a sound clip for all English vowels.

In probably all major dialects, even! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

So, we can download these vowel clips, play them randomly, and see if we can recognize them accurately enough.

Could be fun. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:48

o/ @oer smiley.

@Dam this is interesting:

The deputy badge says, and I quote: "Achieved a flag weight of 500 by reviewing and flagging appropriately". You flagged inappropriately, so it was marked invalid. Flagging is for issues which are more serious than a question just being off topic. That's how it is. — nhinkle ♦ Jul 19 '11 at 3:41

@snail did the deputy use to be for 500 flags?

13

Q: Flag weight deputy badge bug?

I've been on "flag weight 500 (max)" on main for a while (probably the best part of a day, if not longer), but I've not been awarded the Deputy badge. Am I missing something or is this a bug?

bug status-completed badges flag-weight

O.o

Anonymous

Yes! Blame JS!

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Dunno. I'm not very eager to have one. Just flag things I think they need to be flagged.

Anonymous

Be careful―Wikipedia's sound clips aren't necessarily very reliable.

Anonymous

Some of them are good.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

18:56

Goes on a flagging mania

@snailboat Junior Scavengers?

Jungle Smugglers?

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Flag weight used to exist.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Jeopardized Scandinavians?

Anonymous

I don't think it was ever for 500 flags, though.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well that's China's problem now.

I always wanted to say that some time. ^

Anonymous

Weight was a measure you could see of how helpful your flags were, and it was used to determine if and when your flags were shown to moderators. (Well, I think it still is, but it isn't shown anywhere anymore...?)

Anonymous

19:01

The description is at the bottom of this answer:

Anonymous

62

A: Are the new moderator flag limits sufficiently high?

Until a few days ago, the calculation was: default 10 per day one bonus flag per 1000 reputation maximum 100 But we have now tweaked this to consider previous flagging history: flags by people who flag well are OK so: default 10 per day one bonus flag per 2000 reputation one bonus flag per...

Anonymous

So you can see you could easily reach 500 with less than 500 flags. 40 would be the fewest possible.

Anonymous

Since flag weight isn't shown anymore, I'm not sure exactly what the system is for hiding flags from users with lots of declined flags. I actually think they've changed it since then, but I don't really know. Maybe you can find details on Meta.SE if you're interested.

Anonymous

I'm not sure flag weight still exists in any capacity.

Damkerng T.

19:29

I agree that "I saw the water turn to ice" is more acceptable than "I saw the magician turn the cat to a rabbit". "The cat turned into a rabbit" is a transformation, but "the water turned to ice" is more of a change of state than a transformation into something different. "Winter turned to Spring" is another example where I think "turned to" as well as "turned into" would be OK. — ColleenV Oct 1 '14 at 21:38

^Worth noting.

Anonymous

Yeah. Water turns to ice, but cats turn into rabbits. Great examples in Colleen's comment!

Anonymous

By the way:

Anonymous

3

Q: How to pronounce "ʌ" and "dʒ" IPA phonetic symbol

I have developed a web app which trancripts English words into their literal phonetic form in Spanish, so you can read it with Spanish phonetics and it will sound like the English pronunciation should. As not all English sounds are available in Spanish I include descriptions for some of the phone...

pronunciation

Anonymous

This is impossible.

Anonymous

But if you relax the requirements a bit and say something like "as close as possible to the English pronunciation", it sounds like a good project.

Damkerng T.

19:32

nods

I think mapping sounds from one language to another to learn a second language is not a very good idea.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Depends on the languages.

Anonymous

It kinda happens anyway, though, for most people.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

It's a problem that has to be overcome.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Could be. It's possible that the two languages are almost identical.

Anonymous

19:35

Native Listening discusses this in an interesting way.

Damkerng T.

curious

Anonymous

I've mentioned it a couple times before:

Anonymous

amazon.co.jp/Native-Listening-Language-Experience-Recognition/…

Damkerng T.

Oh, that book. I thought you mentioned a website or something.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Is there a FLAWLESS pronunciation book?

Damkerng T.

19:36

Hmm... I don't think so.

Anonymous

Read chapters 8-10.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Her way of saying reminds me of the way people quote shows.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Strange. The used ones are more expensive!

Anonymous

I mean, read them if you're interested. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. But since pronunciation is a typically more sensitive field, I reckon wrong stuff'd be more common.

Anonymous

19:38

You can get a Kindle Edition on amazon.com for $18

Damkerng T.

Oh!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

What does a Kindle edition do? Spark some thoughts?

Anonymous

Ack, I clicked delete by accident!

Anonymous

→ amazon.com/…

Anonymous

There's the link again :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

19:39

@snailboat I thought you intentionally did it.

The review was humongous.

Damkerng T.

It's $19.99 for me.

Anonymous

The Nook version is $18 for me, too: barnesandnoble.com/w/native-listening-anne-cutler/…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That's just FOR YOU @Dam.

Anonymous

Is the $18 Nook version accessible outside the US?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat No, it needs a US street address.

Anonymous

19:40

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M It was humongous, so I wanted to prefix it with an arrow to prevent it from expanding. I went to click edit, but my hand strayed and I ended up over delete!

Damkerng T.

But some people know how to work around it.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat Yeah that figures.

Damkerng T.

checking Kinokuniya...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Is that a US street?

Damkerng T.

It's a bookstore. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

19:42

Note that I sometimes ask rhetorical questions because they're s'posed to be funny.

Damkerng T.

Answering rhetorical questions is even funnier. >:)

Ah, $30.114.

Anonymous

The -ya suffix means 'shop'

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Wow, they charge milles?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I converted it from baht.

Anonymous

In the US, milles are rarely used outside of gasoline prices.

Anonymous

19:46

Anonymous

Four dollars, seven cents, and nine milles per gallon.

Damkerng T.

Phew! -- I thought it was $407.90 at first glance!

Anonymous

There's often, but not always, a visible decimal point.

Anonymous

People know what the numbers mean even without an explicit unit or a decimal point.

Anonymous

19:50

Gas stations have their own conventions, not used by anyone else.

Damkerng T.

So, no decimal points on red signs. :P

Anonymous

Haha!

Anonymous

I can find plenty of evidence to confirm this hypothesis!

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

19:50

Anonymous

I may be biasing the selection a little on purpose ;-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

Eeps!

Anonymous

An arm and nine milles.

Damkerng T.

19:54

Conclusion: Blue signs are easy to read; insert decimal points when reading signs; avoid yellow signs -- could be fatal.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Seems like a nice time to repost this:

Totally fatal^.

Damkerng T.

Good message. Wait, why did they make this sign in the first place!?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Because it has sharp edges.

Anonymous

Time loop.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

K.

It would've gonna be having sharp edges.

Anonymous

20:00

That too.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I invited a new tense. I hereby name it time loop.

Actually, it's time loop continuous in this case.

Damkerng T.

21:54

englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfectcontinuous.html

> USE 2 Recently, Lately

> You can also use the Present Perfect Continuous WITHOUT a duration such as "for two weeks." Without the duration, the tense has a more general meaning of "lately." We often use the words "lately" or "recently" to emphasize this meaning.

> Examples:
- Recently, I have been feeling really tired.
- She has been watching too much television lately.
- Have you been exercising lately?
...

> IMPORTANT

> Remember that the Present Perfect Continuous has the meaning of "lately" or "recently." If you use the Present Perfect Continuous in a question such as "Have you been feeling alright?", it can suggest that the person looks sick or unhealthy. A question such as "Have you been smoking?" can suggest that you smell the smoke on the person.

> Using this tense in a question suggests you can see, smell, hear or feel the results of the action. It is possible to insult someone by using this tense incorrectly.

I think the explanation is mostly correct,

but it could be misleading on a few points.

For one thing, it seems to imply that with lately or recently, we should use the present perfect continuous (progressive).

(There is no mentioning of lately or recently on the page for the simple past.)

Another thing is they seem to treat lately and recently as two words with the same meaning.

(Of course, I don't think they really think so, but it's quite possible, imho, that the reader who is a learner will read it that way.)

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