Archiv verlassen und diese Seite im Standarddesign anzeigen : Pronounciation
Hey,
I need a little help. I'm from Germany and in my school we are working on a theatre project. The story of it takes place in "Maddison Heights". So we had a long discussion about how to pronounce "heights". :D
So can you please tell me how to pronounce it?
I also looked it up in LEO, an english dictionary in the web. Is that one (http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=Ci4HO3kMAA&search=height&trestr=0x8001) right?
ICFabian
02.02.2011, 14:07
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/heights
The Am.Eng. version. The British one is slightly off.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/heights
The Am.Eng. version. The British one is slightly off.
Ok. Thank you!
dark-cz-klaw
02.02.2011, 16:42
http://www.forvo.com/
"All the words in the world, pronounced."
I use this website all the time, it's very useful. Normal people from around the world sign up and pronounce words in their language. There's also a map that shows where they live, so you can compare different dialects.
Aetherian
03.02.2011, 01:17
Don't know how the politically correct way the dictionary says, but most people I know pronounce it 'h-eye-ts', or maybe 'high-ts' depending on your english knowledge.
Susanooo
03.02.2011, 20:46
Don't know how the politically correct way the dictionary says, but most people I know pronounce it 'h-eye-ts', or maybe 'high-ts' depending on your english knowledge.
I think it would be more like "haits".Read it as it is written...
ICFabian
03.02.2011, 20:49
I think it would be more like "haits".
"Haits" (pronounced in English as "hates") is how you pronounce it in Romanian. English people pronounce it "hyets."
Aetherian
03.02.2011, 21:57
I think it would be more like "haits".Read it as it is written...
I live in the U.S. so I think I know how things are pronounced, at least how the average U.S. person does. The -eigh- part in the word is pronounced differently depending on the word, you would be right if the word was 'eight', which is pronounced like 'ate', or in 'sleigh' which is like 'slay' but add a 't' on the end it is pronounced 'slite'. Likewise in 'height' the i is pronounced long instead of short so it's more like 'hite' not 'hate'.
Hellbilly
04.02.2011, 04:51
The problem with "read it as it's written" is that how you read it depends on where you are from. From my linguistic background, "haits" sounds indeed correct - and "hite" would end up sounding like something not even remotely like English. :)
Aetherian
04.02.2011, 05:28
The problem with "read it as it's written" is that how you read it depends on where you are from. From my linguistic background, "haits" sounds indeed correct - and "hite" would end up sounding like something not even remotely like English. :)
Even though 'height' is just 'eight' with an 'h' added to it, it changes its pronunciation as well as the meaning of the word. If you go to a town here in the states, say 'Sterling Heights' (abbreviated as Hts), it's pronounced 'Sterling High-ts' not 'Sterling Haits' as you would think. Here is a more clear example of what I'm trying to say:
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/eight
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/american/height
Don't worry, I'm lost when trying to deal with any other language out there, me trying to pronounce some Finnish words would probably have you rolling on the ground. ;) But at least I think I have most of my own language down. Though people from Britain would pronounce it more like 'hyets' I guess, it just depends on the country.
Hellbilly
04.02.2011, 06:16
Like I said, it depends on your linguistic background which approximate transcription sounds most correct. If you write to a Finnish guy it's supposed to be pronounced "hites", you get something that will sound more like Japanese perhaps, and nothing like English. To an English speaking person, the end result would perhaps sound like "hai-tees" or "hii-tees", or "hii-tiis", or even "hits". Different letter combinations are pronounced differently in different languages, that's a simple fact of life*, and as such, I would believe I speak with more authority than you when I say that to a Finnish pair of eyes and ears (eg. [half of] my linguistic background), "haits" is a closer 'as it sounds' transcription of the English word than "hites".
Which is, of course, exactly why there exists special symbols meant for a language-independent understanding of how to pronounce words.
* For example, the Swedish word for chess is "Schack", the beginning pronounced like in the English word "Shaft" (but, as you see, written very differently). Finns, especially older Finns who were not taught English in school, have huge difficulties pronouncing the Finnish equivalent, "Shakki", because historically, the "sh"-sound has not existed in Finnish, leading Finnish speaking people to pronounce it "sakki"; or, they'd pronounce "shaft" as "saft". And "banana" as "panana" because the soft b is also very rare in Finnish. The letters a, i, e and u are also pronounced differently. As another illustrative example of the differences in writing and pronunciation between languages, the common slang word for the letter 8 in Finnish, "kasi": if you were to hear it spoken, you'd probably think as an English-speaking person that it is written as "quasi"; however, were a Finnish person to pronounce the written down word "quasi", it'd probably sound like "guuasi", as "quasi" is "kvasi" here.
I think we should adopt the Devanaagari or a similar script with a few new consonants and vowels for writing. One of the rules Devanaagari is that there is a definite way to pronounce each and every alphabet, and it must be pronounced like that in each and every case. No alphabet has two or more ways to be pronounced. This makes it easy to ensure uniform pronunciation of Hindi, Sanskrit, etc but writing or typing is a real pain. I think this should help with problems with linguistic background interfering with pronunciation of words. It won't eliminate the problem because there are many people who just cannot pronounce certain alphabets correctly. For instance, I cannot pronounce a vowel that is actually a mix of 'sh' and 'kh' sounds. When speaking Hindi, I always pronounce it as 'sh' and when speaking Maithili, I pronounce it as 'kh'. But Devanaagari script with its large no. of vowels and consonants still makes things easier because it is pronounce-as-it-is-written. And we can pronounce the words correctly no matter what language it belongs to.
And because of our fondness for such complex scripts, Latin script pronunciation is somewhat difficult for us. D, for instance, can signify at least 3 different pronunciations for an Indian, and very few of us tend to take take pains with correct pronunciation. Another unfortunate thing resulting from this is that most Hindi writers tend to transcribe (if that's the word I want) Latin script words incorrectly, probably due to unfamiliarity with the source language. All this just because our complex, cumbersome script is probably too much work for you lazy Westerners :p.
Also, I think the script's name is written Devanagari in English, but I'm not sure. If it is, it doesn't make sense because the 'a' after 'n' is pronounced 'aa' while all other instances of 'a' are pronounced as 'uh'. And 'e' is pronounced like 'a' in 'ate'.
Aetherian
04.02.2011, 08:27
I did mean 'haits' in my last sentence in my previous post, oops.
This can be, and is, a confusing topic because not only are their differences in English pronunciation between countries, but also between regions here in the States. Also the African Americans (or basically the hip-hop culture, black or white) here seem to be developing their own language, changing meanings of words and such. But that link I provided has the "traditional" American way of pronouncing words, with audio, and fabys' link has the U.K. way as well for comparison. Close enough, I guess.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.2 Copyright ©2025 Adduco Digital e.K. und vBulletin Solutions, Inc. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.