Youtube comments of (@engvidAdam).
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Hi everyone,
I usually don’t post this soon after a lesson, but just wanted to clear up a couple of things. If you’ve found this lesson difficult, don’t worry too much about it. This skill, like any other, takes time and practice to master.
Anyway:
I see this lesson has received very mixed reviews. For those of you who have found it useful, I’m glad I could help. For those of you who disliked it, or at least some aspects of it, allow me to explain myself a little:
1) I’m not British. I am Canadian, and so I speak with a neutral North American accent (i.e., not Texan, or Bostonian, or Newfoundlander, etc.) I could try to fake a British accent, but then I’ll have to comment here with apologies for sullying the Queen’s English.
2) What about the IPA? Well, what about it? I have been teaching English for a long time. I have tried on many occasions to get my students to use the IPA and have had very little success. Why, you ask? Firstly, it involves memorizing a new alphabet, which many students who have enough trouble with the regular one aren’t very inclined to do. Secondly, not everyone finds it useful. That’s because it is actually not as international as it may seem; there is no such thing (yet?) as an international English standard.
All I was trying to do was provide an alternative approach (much like I did in my lesson on The Sentence- svo, svc, sva, rather than a subject-predicate group. You’d be surprised how difficult it is for many people, native and non-native English users alike, to grasp the concept of a predicate).
Take the word CAN'T:
Merriam Webster: \ˈkant, ˈkänt, especially Southern ˈkānt\
Oxford Dictionary: /kɑːnt
Ummm… ok, well… which one should I go with? Imagine you study the British pronunciation. Next, imagine you take that pronunciation of the word can't and go to a small, conservative town in the southern US. In certain contexts, your pronunciation of this word might get you slapped in the face, punched in the stomach, or shot. I’m afraid I cannot elaborate here as to why, but the curious amongst you will figure it out.
3) Why use the Merriam Webster Dictionary in the first place? If you attend college in the US, most likely your professors will want you to write using the standard language rules of the US, which follow (in most cases) the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) It then follows that you should use it for pronunciation as well. This is why I was very careful to mention which dictionary I was using for this exercise.
4) Some of the fiercest comments against my approach came from people whose writing suggests to me that they are native or near-native English users. Please keep in mind that it isn’t as easy for newcomers to the language to grasp the things that you can, at least not at this stage of their language development. Besides, most native English users (outside linguistics programs) don’t even have a clue what the IPA is.
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