Tag: Diphthong

Sounds and spelling of Spanish

This post summarises the spelling and pronunciation of Spanish. I discuss below mainly standard Spanish of Spain (Castilian), but point out a few of the differences for Spanish regions and Latin America. Spanish Alphabet The Spanish alphabet includes: 26 letters also used in the English alphabet (though <k> and <w> are rare, used mainly in…… Continue reading Sounds and spelling of Spanish

Sounds of Vietnamese

Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) is in the Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is spoken as a first language by around 85 million people, mainly in Vietnam, where it is the official language. It has several times as many native speakers as all other Austroasiatic languages combined.  This post covers: syllable structure word structure consonants vowels reduplication…… Continue reading Sounds of Vietnamese

English has all the syllables it needs

In this post, I consider whether English has enough distinct syllables to create all the words it needs. Actual, possible and impossible syllables If we look at the sound system of a language, we can identify 3 types of syllable: syllables in words that exist in that language. An English example is brick /brik/. syllables…… Continue reading English has all the syllables it needs

Japan to change official romanisation?

Recent press reports suggest that the Japanese government is thinking of changing the officially recommended system for romanising Japanese. Romanisation is writing Japanese in roman characters (known in Japanese as rōmaji). There are 2 main romanisation systems for Japanese: Hepburn, devised by an American Missionary James Curtis Hepburn (1815-1911). Kunrei, issued by the Japanese government…… Continue reading Japan to change official romanisation?

Language sketch: Maori (1)—sounds

Maori is the language of the Māori people of New Zealand. It is known in Maori as te reo Māori (‘the language Maori’) or simply te reo (‘the language’) for short. Te reo Māori was made an official language in New Zealand in 1987, along with New Zealand Sign Language. There is a useful short…… Continue reading Language sketch: Maori (1)—sounds

How German speakers pronounce English  

Someone’s first language tends to cause consistent errors when they speak a second language. I’ve always found it interesting see what types of error people make in speaking (or writing) English they have learnt as a foreign language. Those errors can be useful pointers to the features of the speaker’s first language. Spotting those errors…… Continue reading How German speakers pronounce English  

Hangul Day

Today (9 October) is Hangul Day. Hangul is the name used in South Korea and most of the world for the writing system used in writing Korean.   Origin of Hangul Before the 15th century, most written documents in Korea were in Chinese. When Korean was written, people used Chinese characters, known in Korean as…… Continue reading Hangul Day

Great English Vowel Shift

Major changes occurred in the English vowel system between about 1400 and about 1750. English spelling began to stabilise before most of those changes took place. As a result, English spelling does not match well with current pronunciation, as many native and non-native learners have discovered to their cost. This post summarises one group of…… Continue reading Great English Vowel Shift

How many sounds are there in English? (2): vowels

In an earlier post, I looked at how many consonant sounds there are in standard southern British English, generally known as Received Pronunciation RP). In this post, I will look at the vowels. As before, I will be looking at how many phonemes there are. The earlier post describes what a phoneme is. How many…… Continue reading How many sounds are there in English? (2): vowels