I have learned English for many years, and from the first day I began to learn it I know the dictionary is necessary for the study. One of the important aspects is that English words, unlike German and Spanish, usually can not be read correctly without phonetics. But recently, I talked with some native speakers and they told me they can read any word directly and rightly even though they never learned it before. I just want to know how they can do that — there is no ordinarily acceptable method to read an English word?
Learn English – How to native English speakers read an unknown word correctly
pronunciation
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With the dental, for example, in the word "eat", the back of the tongue is pressed up against the palate to partially occlude the airway, and the tip of the tongue is pressed up behind the front teeth. The vibration in the throat (the "voicing" of the vowel) must also cease immediately before the dental is produced. Otherwise the air from the voicing will be "plugged up" by the tongue and then be forced out "plosively" when you release the tip of your tongue, in a quasi-vowel.
With the dental, there should be a "closing off" by the throat muscles immediately before the final consonant is articulated. Having the back of the tongue pressed slightly up against the palate makes this closing off easier.
In connected speech, /ð/ at the start of function words may be assimilated to a preceding consonant in some cases. However, I don't think there are any circumstances where this kind of assimilation always occurs—my impression is that it is gradient. Also, the identity of the preceding consonant probably affects the probability of assimilation.
I have found a source "Applied English Phonology", by Mehmet Yavas, that gives a more specific description of the conditions of this assimilation:
unstressed initial /ð/ in words such as the, this, that becomes assimilated (with or without complete assimilation) to previous alveolar consonants (e.g. what the heck [wɑt̪d̪əhɛk], run the course [ɹ̣ʌnːəkɔɹ̣s], till they see [tɪlːesi], how's the dog? [haʊzːədɔg], takes them [teksːəm]) (p. 67)
I think "takes them" may not be the best example of the phonetic process in question, since them additionally has an alternative form ’em that may occur after any consonant, not only alveolar consonants.
The fact that "in the" could be realized as [ɪnːə] or [ɪnə] rather than [ɪnðə] is mentioned in Geoff Lindsey's blog post "Lucas quiz – the answers".
Another known phonetic phenomenon is deletion (which could be seen as assimilation followed by mandatory shortening) of [θ] or [ð] before the suffix -(e)s. This is lexicalized for many speakers in the noun clothes /kloʊz/, although the non-assimilated pronunciation /kloʊðz/ is not uncommon either. Some speakers (I think a smaller number) also have this type of assimilation/deletion in the word "months", pronouncing it as [mʌnts]. This has been covered in other places on this site (e.g. How to distinguish 'month' and 'months' in pronunciation?)
As far as I know, no native speakers (without speech impediments) use [z] for /ð/, or [s] for /θ/, in contexts other than assimilation to an adjacent /s/ or /z/.
Some native speakers do use realizations other than [ð] and [θ] more generally—I discuss this in more detail in my answer to Do all native English speakers actually pronounce the "th" sound?—but as far as I know it is always something non-sibilant like [d̪], [d̪͡ð], [v]. If you can't manage [θ] in "thorough" or "thief", I would say it's better to fall back on [f] or [t] than to use [s].
As for "at the beginning" and "what the heck", if you pronounce them at a reasonable pace, it will probably not even be noticed if you use a dental stop [d̪] rather than a dental fricative.
Best Answer
Unlike in some other languages, English spelling tends to reflect the developmental history of the word rather than its pronunciation. Therefore, it takes more learning and practice to pronounce English words. After learning the basic rules, you also need to learn some exceptions, and with enough practice, you may be able to spot some patterns.
Given that English is built on Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon / Norse, and French influence, and continues to assimilate words from other languages, it helps to consider which set of pronunciation rules to apply depending on the word's origin. For example, "ch" in words of Greek origin (e.g. psyche) would generally have a /k/ sound. In words taken from French during an earlier period (e.g. chief), "ch" would have a /tʃ/ sound. Later French borrowings (e.g. chef) would have a softer /ʃ/ sound.
Even with lots of experience, any English speaker who claims to be able to read any word correctly is lying. Here is a whole thread on Reddit full of words that people have mispronounced for years. Some examples include:
I'd also add
No amount of experience would ever help you guess the British pronunciation of "lieutenant".
Part of the difficulty is, believe it or not, deliberately introduced. In words like "scent" and "debt", silent letters were added to make them fit their etymology.
Your only consolation is that English is still easier to read than Chinese.
Have you figured out the pronunciation of the words above? Here are the answers!