pronounciation of ending sound

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Winwin2011

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Some people critize the English pronunciation of some Chinese English speakers. Usually, some Chinese speak with lazy tongue especially in ending sounds. For example 'head' without 'd' sound, 'soap" without 'p' sound and 'heart' without 't' sound.

I am very confused with the rule of ending sound. An American told me “All ending letters should be pronounced except for English words ending in ONE 'e'.”. I looked up the dictionary for winter [ˈwɪntə], the pronunciation is “ win[FONT=&#32048]‧[/FONT]ter”. It seems that the ending word “r” is not pronounced.

Anybody can help? Thx.

 

BobK

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There are two issues here:
  • A final 'r' is not usually sounded. There are exceptions. See related threads.
  • Most native speakers, in words ending with a stop consonant (/p t k b d g/}, form the closure but don't release it. This doesn't mean there's no closure - which is what many students do (with /t k d/ and /g/, there are very few visual cues, but that doesn't mean native-speakers don't do it ;-)) . The situation is further confused sometimes, informally, by the Glottal stop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - which reinforces (and sometimes replaces the closure) - but you probably don't need to bother with this.

b
 

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Which dictionary did you use?
 

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TheFreeDictionary,com
OK. The Free Dictionary uses mostly two dictionaries: The American Heritage Dictionary and the Collins Dictionary. The first one is an American dictionary and the second one is a British dictionary. In America, most people speak so called rhotic accents and in Great Britain, most people speak non-rhotic accents. This means that for most people in America, the letter "r" in the word "winter" is pronounced and for most people in Great Britain, it is not.

Take another look at the page you have already seen: winter - definition of winter by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.. There are two dictionary entries there. The first one comes from the AHD. We can tell, because there is a footnote which says:

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Can you see it? The second entry (below the thick blue horizontal line) is from the Collins Dictionary. We know this thanks to another footnote which says:

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Now compare the pronunciations the two entries give us. Unfortunately, they don't use the same phonetic symbols. The AHD uses its own symbols, which nobody else uses, and the Collins Dictionary uses the IPA, which is used by very many other sources. The different phonetic alphabets make it more difficult to compare the two entries, but it's still quite easy, at least in this case.

Notice that in the entry from the AHD, the suggested pronunciation has a sound denoted by the letter "r". This is because the AHD is an American dictionary so it prefers a rhotic pronunciation. The entry from the Collins Dictionary doesn't have this sound. This is because the Collins Dictionary is a British dictionary so it prefers a non-rhotic pronunciation.
 

birdeen's call

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I am very confused with the rule of ending sound. An American told me “All ending letters should be pronounced except for English words ending in ONE 'e'.”
Let's now consider what the American said. They weren't right. You shouldn't believe any simple rules regarding English pronunciation unless they come from an experienced phonetician or from someone who can prove they're right. Take a look at the following words and their pronunciations.

dumb /dʌm/
tomb /tu:m/
comb /kəʊm/
bomb /bɒm/
damn /dæm/
column /kɒləm/
beret /bɛreɪ/

As you can see, in all of these words the final letter is silent! There are many more. Unfortuanately, you have to learn how to pronounce them separately. There is no one simple rule that would explain the pronunciations of these words. English spelling is very strange. Often, the spelling of a word has little to do with the pronunciation.
 

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Hi Bobk/birdeencall’s call,

Many Thx to you.

Do you mean that we need not pronounce the ending sound? "For example 'head' without 'd' sound, 'soap" without 'p' sound and 'heart' without 't' sound".The ending sound can be silent for 'head' & soap"?
 

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Hi Bobk/birdeencall’s call,

Many Thx to you.

Do you mean that we need not pronounce the ending sound? "For example 'head' without 'd' sound, 'soap" without 'p' sound and 'heart' without 't' sound".The ending sound can be silent for 'head' & soap"?
Absolutely not. The sound /d/ in "head" should be pronounced and so should the sounds /p/ and /t/ in "soap" and "heart". I meant something different. Usually, the final letter of a word isn't silent. But sometimes, it is silent, as you can see in my examples.

What you should do is listen to how native speakers pronounce different words and try to remember that. Another thing to do is to read what dictionaries tell you very carefully. As I said earlier, there are no simple rules here.

Good luck!
 

Winwin2011

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Let's now consider what the American said. They weren't right. You shouldn't believe any simple rules regarding English pronunciation unless they come from an experienced phonetician or from someone who can prove they're right. Take a look at the following words and their pronunciations.

dumb /dʌm/
tomb /tu:m/
comb /kəʊm/
bomb /bɒm/
damn /dæm/
column /kɒləm/
beret /bɛreɪ/

As you can see, in all of these words the final letter is silent! There are many more. Unfortuanately, you have to learn how to pronounce them separately. There is no one simple rule that would explain the pronunciations of these words. English spelling is very strange. Often, the spelling of a word has little to do with the pronunciation.

Hi birdeen's call

What do you mean by "you have to learn how to pronounce them separately"?
 

birdeen's call

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Hi birdeen's call

What do you mean by "you have to learn how to pronounce them separately"?
I mean that the spelling and pronunciation of many words in English don't follow any rules. When you learn Italian, it's easy. In Italian, "sci" is always pronounced /ʃi/. When you see "sci" in an Italian word, you can safely pronounce it /ʃi/ and it will be correct. You don't need do know this word, because this rule (that "sci" is always pronounced /ʃi/) applies to all Italian words. When you learn Italian pronunciation, it's enough to learn some simple rules and you can read any word you encounter.

This is not true regarding English. Simple rules don't work for English because there are very many exceptions. You have to learn these exceptions one by one because there isn't any simple rule that would tell you how to handle them. Learning English pronunciation is much more difficult than learning Italian pronunciation because of this.

Someone told you that there are no silent final letters in English except "e". It's a simple rule. It would be great if it were correct because it would make reading easier. Unfortunately, this rule isn't correct. Many English words have silent final letters. It's true that most English words don't have them, but still there are many which do. You have to learn which.
 

Winwin2011

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I mean that the spelling and pronunciation of many words in English don't follow any rules. When you learn Italian, it's easy. In Italian, "sci" is always pronounced /ʃi/. When you see "sci" in an Italian word, you can safely pronounce it /ʃi/ and it will be correct. You don't need do know this word, because this rule (that "sci" is always pronounced /ʃi/) applies to all Italian words. When you learn Italian pronunciation, it's enough to learn some simple rules and you can read any word you encounter.

This is not true regarding English. Simple rules don't work for English because there are very many exceptions. You have to learn these exceptions one by one because there isn't any simple rule that would tell you how to handle them. Learning English pronunciation is much more difficult than learning Italian pronunciation because of this.

Someone told you that there are no silent final letters in English except "e". It's a simple rule. It would be great if it were correct because it would make reading easier. Unfortunately, this rule isn't correct. Many English words have silent final letters. It's true that most English words don't have them, but still there are many which do. You have to learn which.

Hi birdeen's call

You are the kindest person I have ever seen! You taught me a lot for the English pronounciation which I have been confused for many years.

Based on my own judgement, I divide the words with ending sound or no ending sound as follows: -

1. No ending sound: a,c,e,h,i, j,o,q,r,u,v,w,y
2. With ending sound: b (except mb),d,f,g,k,l,m,n,p,s,t,x

Am I correct in most cases? I understand that there are some exceptions.
 
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birdeen's call

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Hi birdeen's call

You are the kindest person I have ever seen! You taught me a lot for the English pronounciation which I have been confused for many years.
This is very flattering. Thank you.

Based on our own judgement, if I divide the words with ending sound or no ending sound as follows: -

1. No ending sound: a,c,e,h,i, j,o,q,u,v,w,y
2. With ending sound: b (except mb),d,f,g,k,l,m,n,p,r,s,t,x


Am I correct in most cases? I understand that there are some exceptions.
It's difficult for me to answer this question. I'm not sure I understand it correctly. Do you mean that words that end in one of these letters:

a, c, e, h, i, j,o, q, u, v, w, y

usually have them silent?

Let's see. These letters are quite rarely the final letters of words (except "c", "e" and "y") in English. Let's take a look at "a", "c", "e" and "h".

a
The simplest word that ends in "a" is simply "a" -- the article. Of course, the letter "a" isn't silent here. Otherwise the whole word would be silent! It's pronounced /ə/ or /eɪ/.​
The word "fora" ends in "a". It's pronounced /fɔːrə/. The letter "a" isn't silent. It's pronounced /ə/.

The word "visa" ends in "a". It's pronouced /viːzə/. The letter "a" isn't silent. It's pronounced /ə/.

I can't find any word in which "a" would be the final letter and it would be silent. But it doesn't mean such a word doesn't exist.
c
Most words that end in "c" are these with the suffix "-ic". For example, "basic", "forensic", "economic". "c" is not silent in these (unless there are exceptions that I don't know). It's pronounced /k/.

There are some other words in English that end in "c". For example, "franc". This word is pronounced /fræŋk/, so "c" isn't silent. It's pronounced /k/. Some people will pronounce "franc" in the French way, that is /frɑ̃/. "c" is silent in this prononciation, but it's a rare pronunciation.

I think we can safely say that "c" is very rarely silent when it's the final letter of a word.
e
Many English words end in "e" and it's very often silent then. We have "come" (/kʌm/), "some" (/sʌm/), "home" (/həʊm/) and "borne" (/bɔːn/). "e" is silent in all of these.

When a word ends in double "e", the double "e" is usually pronounced /i:/. We have "employee", "donee", "coffee"

Some words ending in "e" came to English directly from French. Some of these are often written with original French accents. For example, "née" (/niː/ or /neɪ/), "fiancé" (/fɪˈɒnseɪ/), "café" (/kæfeɪ/). As you see "e", "ée" and "é" aren't silent here.

The word "technique" comes directly from French, but "e" is silent here. The word is pronounced /tɛkˈniːk/.

It's impossible to discuss all possibilities here. As you can see it's extremely complicated.
h
Most words in English that end in "h" are those which end in "ch", "sh", "tch", "gh" and "sch". It doesn't make sense to discuss whether "h" is silent in these words or not. These are so called digraphs and trigraphs. It doesn't make sense to consider every letter separately in these strings.
Few other words in English end in "h". For example, "rajah" is pronounced /rɑːdʒə/. "h" is silent in this word.
You can see that this is very complicated. If you create simple rules for yourself, you will be confused when you encounter exceptions. English is a mix of three main languages with many additions from numerous others. Different rules from different languages mixed together and there has never been anyone who would regulate it. This is why English is so irregular.
 
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Winwin2011

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This is very flattering. Thank you.


Yes, you are right! I made some wrong pronunciation rules for myself.!
1." a" e.g media{miːdiə) That means "a" is sounded
2 "c" e.g basic The ending letter "c" is pronounced /k/
3. "e" for employee. The ending letter "e" is pronounced /i/
4. " Few other words in English end in "h"" except gh etc-totally agreed


Thank you very much again! God bless you!


Best regards,
bh
 

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Hi Bobk/birdeencall’s call,

Many Thx to you.

Do you mean that we need not pronounce the ending sound? "For example 'head' without 'd' sound, 'soap" without 'p' sound and 'heart' without 't' sound".The ending sound can be silent for 'head' & soap"?

As BC said , absolutely not. Read my earlier post. Sorry - my battery's dyin...

b
 

Winwin2011

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As BC said , absolutely not. Read my earlier post. Sorry - my battery's dyin...

b

I regret that I could not find your earlier post. Sorry - my battery's dyin... in UE
 
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BobK

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I regret that I could not find your earlier post. Sorry - my battery's dyin... in UE

Sorry :oops: the 'dyin...' bit was a rather (OK very ;-)) weak joke. By 'my earlier post' I meant https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/...2-pronounciation-ending-sound.html#post784694 .

I think BC and I are talking about different things. She seems to be talking about written letters. I'm talking about phonemes - which (particularly /p t k b d g/) Chinese speakers frequently omit at the ends of words.

b
 
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birdeen's call

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Sorry :oops: the 'dyin...' bit was a rather (OK very ;-)) weak joke. By 'my earlier post' I meant https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/...2-pronounciation-ending-sound.html#post784694 .

I think BC and I are talking about different things. She seems to be talking about written letters. I'm talking about phonemes - which Chinese speakers frequently omit at the ends of words.

b
Yes, I was trying to show the OP some of the oddities of the English spelling system. The OP seems to be trying to understand what relation between letters and sounds there is in English.
 
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