Pronunciation - ate

[Williamyh]

Hi Everybody,

Tell me how do you pronounce the past tense of eat, "ate"? There are two versions of pronunciation I have ever heard before....

WYH

[mxreader]

Hi Everybody,

Tell me how do you pronounce the past tense of eat, "ate"? There are two versions of pronunciation I have ever heard before....

WYH

What's wrong with the online dictionaries? you can get your answer there. Here is a link to Cambridge Dictionary in case you don't know.

[Offroad]

Or this one, which has someone to pronounce the words for us:

Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus

This one is even better, type the sentences and click the button:

[web translator

[Williamyh]

Or this one, which has someone to pronounce the words for us:

Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus

This one is even better, type the sentences and click the button:

[web translator

I just wanted to know, in the real world, how many people would pronounce "eɪt"and how many people would pronounce "et"?

[Linguist__]

I'm in the 'real world' and I pronounce it [et] or [ɛt]. I don't know how I would choose which I say, just depends on who I'm talking to I guess.

I should point out here that I'm using IPA symbols. I've noticed that dictionaries use the vowel /e/ to represent the vowel I would write as /ɛ/. See this link for a pronunciation of the sounds.

http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ip...lab/IPAlab.htm

My accent is Scottish English, which has hardly any diphthongs.

[Williamyh]

I'm in the 'real world' and I pronounce it [et] or [ɛt]. I don't know how I would choose which I say, just depends on who I'm talking to I guess.

I should point out here that I'm using IPA symbols. I've noticed that dictionaries use the vowel /e/ to represent the vowel I would write as /ɛ/. See this link for a pronunciation of the sounds.

The International Phonetic Alphabet - Audio Illustrations

My accent is Scottish English, which has hardly any diphthongs.

Do you know how RP speakers pronounce ""eɪt" or "et"?

[BobK]

Do you know how RP speakers pronounce ""eɪt" or "et"?

Extreme RP (the sort that omits the /l/ in "golf"), has /et/. Quite a few speakers of British English use the version with the diphthong. As extreme RP used to be drummed into schoolchildren, most (older) people alternate. As schools aren't like that any more, younger people use the diphthong. (When I said things like /et/ during my teaching practice, I was accused by the students of 'talking posh'.)

b