Do you understand IPA pronunciation?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1945616

by rnadna • 16 years ago

8 13 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Survey: do you understand the IPA convention for pronunciation, e.g. that given as the first guide by wikipedia?

For example, if you look up 'deus en machina', do you look at the IPA /ˈdeɪ.əs ɛks ˈmɑːkiːnə/ or do you find yourself skipping to /DAY-əs eks MAH-kee-nə/?

Muzza• 16 years ago

No, I've never bothered to learn IPA.

frou_dh• 16 years ago

I don't see how I'd ever be motivated to actually learn it, given I encounter it sporadically and never under pressure.

rick_2047• 16 years ago

I had to learn it (at least how to use it from a lookup table) for a communications course in first year of college. So ya I can fairly read IPA.

colanderman• 16 years ago

I learned IPA for fun and much prefer it over the English-esque pronunciation guides, both because not only are the English ones often are often ambiguous, but they necessarily leave off important pronunciation details such as forward and nasal vowels and pitch.

malandrew• 16 years ago

I wish I still knew it, but it's one of those things you need to use frequently to retain.

toddn• 16 years ago

I have as much understanding of IPA as one gets in a college gen-ed requirement linguistics class. I can usually understand the IPA transcriptions of English words (and sometimes a romance languages), but if the transcription includes non-English phonemes, I go to the respelling.

xentronium• 16 years ago

Interesting. It was like the second thing they taught us during the English course at school (with the first one being the alphabet).

Figs• 16 years ago

I had to learn to use it for a linguistics class that I took out of curiosity, but I haven't memorized it. With a reference, I can usually work it out.

andolanra• 16 years ago

Yes; I've got a working knowledge of the full IPA, diacritics and all. Of course, I have an undergrad degree in linguistics, but still.

I think the IPA should be taught more widely than it is—perhaps not to a level of fluency, but at least to a level of moderate proficiency. Most of the other conventions for pronunciation are ad-hoc and ambiguous, whereas the IPA gives an unambiguous and international standardized system for pronunciation in every possible language, which is invaluable in many situations.

eel• 16 years ago

I recognize most of it, particularly sounds which are in English, but sometimes I have to look a letter up to recall the sound.

In the example, I do tend to skip to the latter part if it is available, probably because I can just "read" the latter part, but I would have to think briefly for each letter in the IPA part.

mahmud• 16 years ago

No, and I speak more than a handful of languages. It's often easier to tell me about a similar sound, even if in another language.

IPA is the other Unicode.

johkra• 16 years ago

I can read it partly and I find it very useful for instance for French, where è, ê, ai and sometimes e are all pronounced [ɛ]. I have not learned it, however, and don't understand the meaning of all characters.

nailer• 16 years ago

No I do not, as I have not studied IPA. In this case, unless you know IPA explictly, it's misleading. 'dei' would seem to be 'dai' but the segment is pronounced 'day'. 'əs' and 'nə' seem to repeat the ə character but the sound it makes is different in different parts - 'uhs' versus the higher pitched noise in 'na'.

Do you understand IPA pronunciation?

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