June 7, 2026
I Have a Question about English Soundmark
I have a question about English pronunciation.
Do native English speakers use a different system? It's just that we learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in China.
I'm asking because I noticed the feedback on my last entry. Instead of using the phonetic symbols like /ˈmetəfər/, a friend wrote it out as 'meta-ph'or'. It seems like everyone who gave me feedback uses this system.
Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words? I totally understood the feedback, but I'm just curious if there's an easier way for you guys to figure out pronunciation.
P.S. I took some stream views from my hike yesterday as a little thank-you for you guys: https://youtube.com/shorts/JBang6HYNjs
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I Have a Question about the English SoundmarkPhonetic Alphabet
I Have a Question about the English Phonetic Alphabet
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As others have noted the Anglosphere doesn't have one broadly-used system of transcribing pronunciation. That said, when we do need to "sound things out" we (obviously) resort to the Latin alphabet which only has 26-letters. The IPA uses additional symbols like "ə" so typing it would be more work than we're used to. As a non-linguist if I were tasked with describing the (American) pronunciation of "metaphor" I would use something like "METT-uh-for". Unfortunately, most pronunciation is simply learned by ear.
I Have a Question about English SoundmarkPhonetic Symbols
I Have a Question about English Phonetic Symbols
I have a question about English pronunciation.
Do native English speakers use a different system?
It's just that we learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in China.
I'm asking because I noticed the feedback on my last entry.
It seems like everyone who gave me feedback uses this system.
Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words? Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words?
Not really. If I don't know how to pronounce a word, I usually check the dictionary on how to pronounce it.
Some are easy to guess from the pronunciation rules but there are always exceptions 🥲.
I totally understood the feedback, but I'm just curious if there's an easier way for you guys to figure out pronunciation.
Feedback
We use the Phonetic symbols to learn in school, like learning words that contain a particular sound but we don't write the Phonetic symbols of each word or learn them in rl. We just check the dictionary for the pronunciation.
It's not even easy to write those symbols online 😅.
June 8, 2026
Thanks again!
Have a nice day!
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I had never heard of IPA before I went to Taiwan when I was 19, and I’ve never attempted to learn it. American dictionaries used a standardized pronunciation key when I was a student, for example “mĕt’ə-fôr′, -fər” in this dictionary entry:
https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Metaphor+
I assume this is still the standard in American dictionaries, but I haven’t confirmed this.
June 8, 2026
Instrsting!
This system looks like a pronunciation based on spelling.
June 8, 2026
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the system:
“‘Phonemic’ systems, as commonly found in American dictionaries, consistently use one symbol per English phoneme. These systems are conceptually equivalent to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) commonly used in bilingual dictionaries and scholarly writings but tend to use symbols based on English rather than Romance-language spelling conventions (e.g. ē for IPA /i/) and avoid non-alphabetic symbols (e.g. sh for IPA /ʃ/).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_respelling_for_English
I Have a Question about English Soundmarkpronunciation
I Have a Question about English pronunciation
we don't use the word Soundmark
I have a question about English pronunciation.
Do native English speakers use a different system?
It's just that we learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in China.
I'm asking because I noticed the feedback on my last entry.
Instead of using the phonetic symbols like /ˈmetəfər/, a friend wrote it out as 'meta-ph'or'.
It seems like everyone who gave me feedback uses this system.
Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words?
I totally understood the feedback, but I'm just curious if there's an easier way for you guys to figure out pronunciation.
P.S. I took some stream views from my hike yesterday as a little thank-you for you guys: https://youtube.com/shorts/JBang6HYNjs
Feedback
We don't learn the phonetic symbols at school in England, unless perhaps you study linguistics at a university level. I have tried to teach myself them, but I am not fluent. There is no system here, typically we would just give examples of well-known sounds that things rhyme with. We have to have these kind of conversations whenever we learn a new word from reading, because our spelling system is so non-sensical, e.g. Through rhymes with shoe, though rhymes with show, tough rhymes with stuff, thou rhymes with cow (and cow and show do not rhyme with each other! Argh!) Occasionally we end up having a friendly debate over the dinner table about how an unusual word should be pronounced.
I have a question in return - in the Chinese language, if you read a word you are unfamiliar with, how do you know how to pronounce it?
June 8, 2026
Thanks for sharing！ This is so interesting!
In the Chinese Mainland, we were all taught to look up the Pinyin in a dictionary if we came across a word we were unfamiliar with. That's one of the first things we learned as soon as we got into elementary school.
Feedback
The phonetic symbols are in the dictionary but we generally never use them so we aren’t really familiar with them. It probably would be better if we did because I don’t always agree with how some people write out pronunciations sometimes.
June 8, 2026
In my Chinese mind, you guys are geniuses!
I once thought the only way to learn a language was to learn the phonetic symbols first.
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I Have a Question about English Soundmark
I Have a Question about English we don't use the word Soundmark
I Have a Question about English
I Have a Question about the English |
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I have a question about English pronunciation. This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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Do native English speakers use a different system? This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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It's just that we learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in China. This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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I'm asking because I noticed the feedback on my last entry. This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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Instead of using the phonetic symbols like /ˈmetəfər/, a friend wrote it out as 'meta-ph'or'. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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It seems like everyone who gave me feedback uses this system. This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words? This sentence has been marked as perfect! Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words? Do native speakers just rely on the spelling itself to know how to pronounce words? Not really. If I don't know how to pronounce a word, I usually check the dictionary on how to pronounce it. Some are easy to guess from the pronunciation rules but there are always exceptions 🥲. |
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I totally understood the feedback, but I'm just curious if there's an easier way for you guys to figure out pronunciation. This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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P.S. I took some stream views from my hike yesterday as a little thank-you for you guys: https://youtube.com/shorts/JBang6HYNjs This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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