Different pronunciation

[Kuti]

hi again everyone,
most of you have probably been faced with problems caused by mispronunciation,havent you?after it happened to me once i decided to give much more importance to it..when i come across a word which is not familiar,the first thing i do is to look up the phonetic description so as to pronounce it properly..and as i think you all can help me improve myself an even yourself
you know that there are some words having two maybe three different pronounciation which change their meaning so i will give you the first example and ask you many examples as you can.Here it is;
Minute
when we say ['minit] it means sixtieth part of an hour.
when we say[mai'nju:t]it means very small,or paying attention to the smallest details..

Thank you..

[Mosteque]

i'd also recommend buying and isntalling on your comp a dictionary with pronunciation. I've got one with british and american pronunciation. It helps me a lot:)
_________________
obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

[Torsten]

Yes pronounciation often can be tricky and Mosteque has made a very proposal - to use a software program that has got an audio feature. This could be an electronic dictionary such as Babylon which comes with a so-called speech engines. This means, in addition to the written explanation you can get an example of how a particular word is pronounced properly. Very useful when you want to learn new new words.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Kuti]

hi again everyone,
most of you have probably been faced with problems caused by mispronunciation,havent you?after it happened to me once i decided to give much more importance to it..when i come across a word which is not familiar,the first thing i do is to look up the phonetic description so as to pronounce it properly..
you know that there are some words having two maybe three different pronunciation which change their meaning so i will give you the first example and ask you to give as many examples as you can.Here it is;
Minute
when we say ['minit] it means sixtieth part of an hour.
when we say[mai'nju:t]it means very small,or paying attention to the smallest details..

sorry for confusion

[Rich7]

Hey, Kuti try this www.onelook.com it's not a dictionary but a search engine within which you will find dictionaries containing audio pronunciations. Encarta is my favorite.

Good luck and keep up the fine work

[Rich7]

And by the way, I'm sorry for the confusion.

[Kuti]

hey rich thank you so much for your help..this is exactly what i really want..
i see you are so frank.it very kind of you..
i am improving my english day by day thanks to this site.hope we regularly can be in contact in order to get different input from each other..talk to ya soon..
kuti...

[Carbonarius]

Have you ever tried any pronunciation books and cassettes? I was worried about my pronunciation, and an English friend of mine, who's learnt Spanish almost perfectly, told me that he used a cassette. Then I bought one for English (Tree of three), and after that I borrowed more in the library. As you are training with them you may not be aware of your progress, but it helps in the long run.

It helped me at least. Apart from a little English, I only speak Spanish and Basque, with have only five vowel sounds. It was a shock for me to realize that the English a, e, i, o, u are pronounced in many different ways. It's also difficult, as there are some sounds that we haven't. At first I was unable to make the difference between ship and sheep. Now I distinguish them, at least when I hear them. I don't know if I pronounce them correctly!

By the way, I'm new on this forum. Hi to everybody. I want to write this message to reply to a topic about pronunciation that was posted recently. I don't know if this one will be posted where I want. I'm not used to chat in forums.

[3axap]

http://www.say-it-in-english.com/SpellHome.html

This should help you out tremendously. In English our vowels don't just have more than one way of pronunciating them, they can even be pronounced with another vowels at the same time!!!

Not even English speakers get it right!

By the way, can anyone tell me how English even started?
Was it a language formed first from writing or speaking???