It’s so long since I last published anything on this blog (since the end of my A–Z of pronunciation, in fact), that I’ve more or less forgotten how to do it. But things have happened since I retired at the end of 2021 that seem to warrant one more sally into the world of blogging. […]
Tag Archives: pronunciation
Z. The end of the alphabet and the end of this ‘A–Z of pronunciation‘ blog. There’s a lot more to say, of course, and a lot that could be dealt with in greater depth, but the blog has handsomely fulfilled it’s initial purpose, which was to give my life some sort of structure and direction […]
Oh the power of this question in the mouths of young children as they flex their early language and logic muscles! ‘Why?’, they ask with apparent innocence, driving their exhausted parents deeper and deeper into their dwindling reserves of patience and logic. ‘Why?’, the child asks. Later we become adults and stop asking. Or ask […]
Back in July 2020, in the introduction to the post ‘M is halfway‘, I invited you to suggest possible topics for posts N–Z. Colleague Daniel Barber took me at my word and suggested that for ‘X’ I should write about xenophobia. Happy just to be getting feedback, I said that I would. In hindsight, that […]
W I made it! Finally got to ‘W’ and so can talk about something really important. Weak forms. A central feature of spoken English. Crucial to getting the rhythm right. Something we can all wax lyrical about! (If you’re sitting there panicking because you can’t quite remember what weak forms are, don’t worry. Memory is […]
Variation, the way that speakers of the same language use it in often quite different ways, is a wholly natural, entirely unavoidable phenomenon. In fact, without variation languages wouldn’t actually serve their speakers’ needs. Living here in Northern Spain, what I need from Spanish is not the same as the needs of speakers in the […]
No, sorry, not as in U2 and good music, but the second part to my blog on sounds and spelling as requested by the majority of you (= four, possibly five). And to get the ball rolling, a recommendation from colleague and pronunciation expert Donna Brinton, who kindly reminded me of Adam Brown’s Understanding and […]
When I got back from the UK at the end of 2020, I decided that the time had come to put some sort of order into my books, papers and paperwork, and to begin to throw out what I was never going to need again. In doing so I came across a stray copy of […]
I’ve just noted that my last A–Z of pronunciation post was back at the beginning of December 2020. Goodness, how time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. Sadly, I wasn’t rushing off to England in December to enjoy myself, but to say goodbye to someone very dear to everyone in my family. Not surprisingly, it’s taken […]
‘It’s not what you say. It’s the way that you say it’. How many times have you been chided or have you chided someone for using the wrong tone when speaking. And it’s so important to get the tone right. Or is it?
Well, this is quite a mouthful of a name, so as this blog is always about pronunciation, let’s just refer to receptive competence, which is the listener’s ability to make sense of whatever it is that the other person is saying, or, to put it technically, to decode the incoming acoustic signal. Receptive competence, as […]
One of the key messages in my last post on priorities for English vowels, was that you don’t need the twelve pure vowels (monophthongs) of RP in order to be intelligible in English. Evidence for this assertion is pretty overwhelming, and in addition to common sense observation of English in daily use, this evidence lies […]
Sorry, I’m a late with this. I got distracted. They’re busy re–roofing the garage and I’ve been negotiating what I want them to do and for how much. “It’s a big job,’ the roofer said, ‘And I guess you want it done well, so it’s a question of both quantity and quality. That’s not going […]
Welcome back! I signed off in July saying I’d be back in September, and I swore to myself that I’d be back at the beginning of the month, but I didn’t make it! The other thing that I promised was to return to blogging with the letter ‘N’, and there I can manage to be […]
M is halfway through the alphabet so it’s a good time to take a break. End of term, let’s say, and time for the northern hemisphere’s summer recess. I’ll be back in September, however, with more mind-numbing reflections on pronunciation, beginning with N and the nativeness principle, and moving on to other irresistible delights such […]
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