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Cardinal

00:33

Jul 20 '16 at 9:21, by CowperKettle

You think you know English until you venture into a street in London or into a method validation report on your PC.

That's a very true statement.

yubraj

Good morning Everyone!

Anonymous

01:06

@userr2684291 Yeah, I go for hello sometimes, but I like deictic greetings. They seem friendly :-)

yubraj

01:17

Is the pronunciation of the word "vowel" just like "towel"?

Jasper

01:34

@yubraj Yes.

yubraj

01:45

If so, why the phonetics symbol "a" is used there. "a" refers to the same sound produced at first part of "abandan".

Whereas in "vowel", "a" sound is produced as at the first part of "arm"

@snailplane Hello, Good morning!

1 hour later…

Ahmed

02:50

Mostly I use "Morning" or "Good morning" as a universal greeting. "Hello" sounds boring.

yubraj

03:14

Pls anyone help me to know it

Cardinal

@yubraj vowel doesn't have "a". What do you mean?

Anonymous

Vowel consists of four phonemes: /v/ /aʊ/ /ə/ /l/

Anonymous

The diphthong which we write /aʊ/ cannot be broken into two vowel phonemes /a/ and /ʊ/. Rather, it's a single sound which changes over time, and the two symbols we chose to write it show approximate start and stop positions.

Anonymous

But even though one of the two symbols we use to write it is ‹a›, this does not imply that the starting point of the diphthong has the same phonetic characteristics as the phoneme /a/ might.

Anonymous

In fact, many English diphthongs are written using symbols which are not used independently to transcribe English monophthongs.

Anonymous

03:23

In any case, the symbols should be taken as approximations. A full description of what a symbol means, even in a close phonetic transcription, needs more than just a symbol. You need to explain what you mean by a symbol, and that's going to vary.

Anonymous

For example, in English, we often use /ʌ/ to describe a vowel that is very different from what you might expect /ʌ/ to represent in another language. We do this for historical reasons, and it's quite a bit away from where the cardinal IPA [ʌ] is supposed to be.

Anonymous

That's the sort of detail you pick up when you learn how the symbols are used in the context of transcriptions for a particular language.

CowperKettle

03:46

Good morning

+ 4 °C

6 hours later…

skullpatrol

09:38

You're saying that the responsibility for avoiding miscommunication lies entirely with the listener, not the speaker, which explains why you haven't been able to convince anyone to help you down from that wall.

Jasper

10:23

@yubraj Most advanced learner's dictionaries have a table of IPA symbols showing how various symbols are pronounced. If you just study that table for a few minutes, you might get how all the symbols in English are used. Most online versions also allow you to click on the sound to hear, though sometimes this is not accurate and doesn't match the symbols displayed.

2 hours later…

userr2684291

12:49

> “It’s not the kangaroos’ fault they’re overabundant, it’s probably we’ve just been too reluctant to take a stick to them, remove them out of the system sooner, to actually prevent the damage being caused,” he said.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-Latin answer: Use of "Regarding to" in a sentence by Google on ell.SE

userr2684291

From here. What does take a stick to them mean exactly, and could someone provide a reference? I've found take a lot of / some stick from, but I'm not certain if that's the same idiom.

Jasper

13:03

@userr2684291 Have you checked a few dictionaries? I haven't, and I don't know the term.

userr2684291

@Jasper I haven't. I'm currently stuck in a queue, waiting for yet another document I need in order to obtain another document (a vicious circle). I've googled a bit only.

Jasper

@userr2684291 LOL. Stuck in a queue, yet still writing perfect English in this chat.

userr2684291

@Jasper I'm out of the queue, I'm now waiting for my bus.

Jasper

@userr2684291 Are you enjoying your vacation so far?

userr2684291

@Jasper No.

Jasper

13:18

@userr2684291 Hmm, I see. Have you ever gone to Cancun in Mexico for summer vacation? I watched the movie 'The real Cancun' starring my favourite actress Laura Ramsey and thought it would be a lovely place, lol.

Ahmed

Moin!

userr2684291

Haha. No. It'd be very expensive for us to buy a plane ticket just to go for summer vacation somewhere.

Ahmed

So I just noticed, it is 9/11 today.

Jasper

@userr2684291 Indeed. In fact, my whole life, I have almost never left Antarctica.

@Ahmed Indeed.

Ahmed

Hello @Jasper

userr2684291

13:23

I mean we have a beautiful coast here in Croatia, there's no need for me to go anywhere. (:

Jasper

That's good for you.

userr2684291

13:46

Yep.

Jasper

I would like to share with you the most important song to me now. =)

(HD 720p) Ama Credi E Vai (Because We Believe), Andrea Bocelli

►

I knew about the English/Italian version, but only recently did I find out about the completely Italian version of this great song.

4 hours later…

userr2684291

17:55

@CowperKettle If you're still wondering – I asked a native speaker about the ion thing and they said it's supposed to be ions (or the safe alternative I told you).

Jasper

18:09

@userr2684291 Hello, do you like the song above? =)

userr2684291

@Jasper Yeah.

I like Italian songs by and large, especially those from 60s and 70s.

Jasper

@userr2684291 By the way, did you hear my singing before?

userr2684291

@Jasper Can't say I did.

Jasper

@userr2684291 I see. Hmm, I deleted all my youtube videos again, lol. Maybe I will do one in future and show you, lol.

userr2684291

youtube.com/watch?v=4wOSHpJrm_M This is one of my favorite songs from the above mentioned period, despite the not-so-nice motifs. I've linked it before but whatever.

@Jasper Have you heard my speaking in English?

Jasper

18:19

@userr2684291 No, if you want you can show me. I sing opera by the way, and the like.

userr2684291

I was just making sure I haven't ruined the impression.

Jasper

Oh I see. No, I have a very good impression of you so far, LOL.

userr2684291

Hahah.

Jasper

You write perfect English in a chat room.

And you used 'healthful' instead of 'healthy'.

userr2684291

(: Thank you, thank you.

I try my best, but it could always be better.

Jasper

18:22

There are two reasons I am not a singer, though, health reasons aside.

userr2684291

What are those?

Jasper

One is that I am a bass, not a tenor, and I really prefer tenor songs.

The other is that I can't read music. I can learn, but I don't want to invest time and money into that to give a go at singing classical music as a career now.

I mean, I know what is CDEFGAB and all that, but I can't just sight-sing, meaning look at the score and sing right away.

userr2684291

Right...

Jasper

But if one day, some company listens to me and decides to hire me, that would be awesome...

But I would need to go to some talent show for that, maybe, and there are no such shows I am interested in where I live.

1 hour later…

CowperKettle

19:36

@userr2684291 Thank you!

Jasper

-1

Q: Wmo ist you my gooaod mane

wmo ist you my good man? I'm a respectable menber of the society of apple, and I muct now wmo you are st. Im a sad lonely hert and i need macaronns are you of knoledge of were some may be. Pls help.