This garment has qualities I admire, linguistic question

[Never_falter2]

*phew* Happy I got that right.
Does this rhyme in English?

John has qualities I admire
such as liking to clean the shower
and being able to jump rope for an hour

I would pronounce it like this but not sure because it is written that different.

 

[blackemerald1]

John has qualities I admire
such as liking to clean the shower

No admire and shower do not rhyme.

(Is that what you meant?)

Is knight pronounced like night btw and is nite a correct spelling?

Knight has the same sound as night - you are correct. The "k" in knight is a silent letter and not pronounced. The 'gh' in night are also silent. English has a lot of silent letters in it's words. The meaning of these two words is different too.

No.. nite is incorrect spelling of night. I think it is used in social media context.. etc., but it's not the correct way of spelling it. :)

 

[Never_falter2]

Yes, it is what I meant. How would you pronounce admire?

 

[Freida]

check this site out!

ADMIRE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

I love this site because it will tell you how it sounds/what it means in all the variations of english dialects

 

[Mach123]

How do you pronounce the ihn hour by the way? I would pronounce it a: like in power or shower. (Have to say that my written English is far better than my accent... goes hiding behind a bush ?)

The h in hour? It's silent. That's what you asked right?

 

[Never_falter2]

Ouch, my autocorrect again. I asked for the ou in hour. I pronounce it like a:, like in power, or shower.

 

[blackemerald1]

I asked for the ou in hour. I pronounce it like a:, like in power, or shower.

Yep you are correct in your pronunciation.

Shower. power, hour, our, cower, etc.,

But your is pronounced more akin to bore, core, sure, galore etc., :)

I like this thread. It's insane the way we pronounce all of our words. I feel so badly for people learning English as a second language. But I also like English as a language as clumsy as it is :)

 

[Freida]

then you get into "same" words. These make my french friends nuts!

bow - what you use to shoot arrows
bow - bending from the waist
tow - using one vehicle to pull another
toe - the things at the end of your feet
read - the act of reading a book (present tense)
read - having read a book (past tense)
tear - water from your eyes
tear - a rip in fabric
Kansas -- pronounced can's ass
Arkansas - pronounced Ark en saw
to/too/two -- all pronounced the same but mean completely different things Like there/their/they're
I feel really lucky to be learning french and not English! :laug:

 

[Never_falter2]

I really do like English. Btw I heard people prounce the y in “really“ like /i/ and like /e/. What does it depend on? Region?

(If you want to learn a logical language might I suggest German because we really speak like it is spelled).

 

[blackemerald1]

The (I) (e) (y) puzzle... hmm I think it just originated from people speaking English but with an accent?

Pronunciation is all about regions, education, origins and different countries. Different intonations etc., take the language into different sounds. There are so many nuances to this language.

Take the word 'tomato' - :rolleyes: both are correct in their pronunciation and neither tell the listener much about where the person comes from.

So in Australia, in some States "really' would be pronounced 'reallee' with emphasis on the 'ee' but it's still spelt as 'really'. But in other States it definitely sounds like realli (I) . (Small I)

So words like honey, bunny, dunny, funny, exactly.... etc. all have the long ee pronunciation but depending on the speaker they can sound like: buni, funi, duni, eactli… etc.,

But English speakers in other countries cut down the long ee and it is not extended at all. They are probably speaking proper pronunciation. But I would never tell someone who emphasises the e that they were incorrectly pronouncing the word.

 

[Friday]

The silent letters at the beginning/ends of words show you how to shape your mouth when speaking.

No overt sound is created, but it changes the way the letter before/after is approached, and is part of what delineates upper/lower class accents (Shhhh. We’re not supposed to have those ;)). Vowels, rhythm, & emphasis denote region, literacy used to denote class, and this is one of the small things that still does. As old money families & private school kiss usually pronounce words slightly differently. Nowhere near as much as British school accents.

A great example is listening to a speech pathologist or linguist say cot / caught! Same voice, different mouth shape, very different sounding words. Or identical words.

#TooManyYearsOfSpeechTherapy

On the subject of accents? This chick is BRILLIANT.

 

[blackemerald1]

Both of my sister's accents changed slowly as they moved through University.

They now speak with 'clipped' educated English accent. It's hilarious.. No hint of the country twang left. :)