Question about pronunciation Thread poster: cuervito
|
|---|
cuervito
Local time: 12:27
English to Spanish
+ ...
I am thinking about offering a dictionary online. It will be an English-Spanish one. Each term should contain the like fə'sɪlɪteɪt for facilitate. My question is about offering the same for Spanish. Well I don't want to offer the translitaration, because Spanish is much easy to pronounce, but the place in which the word is stressed, e.g.
facilitar = facili'tar
esternocleidomastoideo = esternocleidomastoi'deo
magnetismo del planeta = magne'tismo del pl... See more I am thinking about offering a dictionary online. It will be an English-Spanish one. Each term should contain the like fə'sɪlɪteɪt for facilitate. My question is about offering the same for Spanish. Well I don't want to offer the translitaration, because Spanish is much easy to pronounce, but the place in which the word is stressed, e.g.
facilitar = facili'tar
esternocleidomastoideo = esternocleidomastoi'deo
magnetismo del planeta = magne'tismo del pla'neta
Do you think this is a good idea?
Thank you for your opinions!
vk ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michele Fauble 
United States
Local time: 04:27
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Stress indication not necessary | Jul 22, 2005 |
In Spanish the rules for stress are straightforward. Stress is already indicated by the spelling. (If you know the rules.)
| | | |
cuervito wrote:
Spanish is much easy to pronounce,
I see it at home, with my husband.
The sounds English people learn (I mean their native sounds) are different, and when they see a word in Spanish, that for us is straight forward, for them is complete gibberish and they generally find it extremely difficult to pronounce or they pronounce it with English sounds.
E.g. an "a" in English is normally "ei", so if you make them read "mate", they'll pronounce "meit" (sorry, I don't know the keyboard codes for the correct phonetic symbols).
In my humble opinion, if you put the pronounciation for the English words, it would be nicer to have the Spanish too.
Regards,
Grace.
| | | | Anabel Martínez
Spain
Local time: 13:27
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| I agree with Grace | Jul 22, 2005 |
It seems straightforward, and it is for natives or for advanced learners, but it would be more complete to include the phonetics of the word.
| | |
|
|
|
| Excellent idea | Jul 22, 2005 |
Although there are rules, it sometimes helps to see the stress marked - particularly for medicines.
| | | | Henry Hinds
United States
Local time: 05:27
English to Spanish
+ ...
In memoriam | In a Half Hour | Jul 22, 2005 |
In a half hour many English speakers can be taught to pronounce Spanish well enough to read off a page, and even though they will not understand it, a Spanish-speaker listening to them could.
The rules are so simple and straightforward that it can be done. However, there are some who cannot get it even after half a lifetime, that happens also.
| | | | | Not necessary | Jul 22, 2005 |
Henry Hinds wrote:
In a half hour many English speakers can be taught to pronounce Spanish well enough to read off a page, and even though they will not understand it, a Spanish-speaker listening to them could.
The rules are so simple and straightforward that it can be done. However, there are some who cannot get it even after half a lifetime, that happens also.
It really does take no time at all to learn how words should be pronounced. Of course, we will retain an accent for years, but we know how it SHOULD be pronounced. It really isn't needed. I know virtually no Italian or Portuguese, but I could read from a page without any problems, with the only exception being some of the words with the stress on the antepenultimate syllable in Italian.
I received a CD with my bilingual dictionary with the pronunciation of all Spanish words in it; I haven't used it once. Yet I have used the "listen" option on the M-W monolingual many times, because in English there are no rules; we have to learn how to pronounce each word.
In short, phonetic transcriptions are useful in English and French, but not in Spanish.
| | | | Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 13:27
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
| English pronunciation rules: there are rules | Jul 22, 2005 |
Timothy Barton wrote:
because in English there are no rules; we have to learn how to pronounce each word.
Not quite true that there are no rules. The reason we think there are no rules is because there seem to be less openly taught rules than might be case for other languages. And often those people who have taught English language to native English speakers in schools usually have themselves had very little training in English linguistics.
Several sets of rules to teach are:
1. the 3-way morpho-phonemic pronunciation of plural nouns
a) devoiced consonants are followed by devoiced plural consonont (this applies to all pronunciation spots in the phonetic chart across the labial to laryngal areas), such as in : pups /ps/ & cats /ts/ & packs /ks/
b) voiced consonants are followed by voiced plural consonont such as in : pubs /bz/ & pads /dz/ & dogs /gz/
c) alveolo-palatal fricatives add a schwa vowel between the set of plural consonants, such as in: watches /tchEz/ & badges /djEz/
2. the silent e at the end of the word makes the vowel sound like its vowel name in the alphabet
rat
rate
pet
Pete
bit
bite
rot
rote (as in rote memory)
mut
mute
3. English word stress alternations
|_ _ _
diplomat
photograph
monotone
_ _ | _ _ _
diplomacy
photography
monotony
_ _ _ | _ _
diplomatic
photographic
monotonic
(Table 5.2, page 105, Lagefoged, Peter. A Course in Phonetics. 1982 (2nd ed). New York: Harcourt Brace.
4. Chapter 5 in the Lagefoged book gives all kinds of pronunciation rules of English based on tonic stress, sentence stress, intonation, strong and weak vowel forms, vowel reduction, multiple degress of stress, etc.
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris. 1968. "The Sound Pattern of English" is also a key reference for English phonology rules.
Also see "Making sense of spelling and pronunciation" at:
http://www.hueber.de/downloads/lehrer/fs/Pronunciation.pdf
Jeff
-----
Jeff Allen, Ph.D.
Paris, France
http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/
[Edited at 2006-02-14 23:30]
| | |
|
|
|
Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 13:27
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
| add stress marks in dictionary or not | Jul 23, 2005 |
The basic rule is: "Know thy audience"
What is the purpose of your dictionary?
Who is supposed to use it?
If you aim at a reader audience that is advanced, then probably not necessary. If they are beginners, and especially if monolingual speakers who want to learn Spanish for the first time, yes it is probably a good idea to include word stress.
Let's keep in mind that everyone on this discussion site is at least bilingual and many are multilingual. Interest... See more The basic rule is: "Know thy audience"
What is the purpose of your dictionary?
Who is supposed to use it?
If you aim at a reader audience that is advanced, then probably not necessary. If they are beginners, and especially if monolingual speakers who want to learn Spanish for the first time, yes it is probably a good idea to include word stress.
Let's keep in mind that everyone on this discussion site is at least bilingual and many are multilingual. Interest in languages and often in many languages, is simply one of main interests in life. But there are millions of people out there that don't care about languages and have never had to care about languages. So when they try to start learning a 2nd one, it is a very difficult task. Things that I take for granted (after having studied and learned maybe 10 languages other than English during my lifetime, and having taught 3 languages in all kinds of language learning institutions) are not the kinds of things that I assume should be easy to learn by someone who is learning a 2nd language for the first time.
Jeff
http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/
[Edited at 2005-07-23 08:28] ▲ Collapse
| | | | cuervito
Local time: 12:27
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Pronunciation ---Yes | Jul 24, 2005 |
Jeff Allen wrote:
The basic rule is: "Know thy audience"
What is the purpose of your dictionary?
Who is supposed to use it?
If you aim at a reader audience that is advanced, then probably not necessary. If they are beginners, and especially if monolingual speakers who want to learn Spanish for the first time, yes it is probably a good idea to include word stress.
[Edited at 2005-07-23 08:28]
Thanks Jeff,
after reading your comment, I have decided to offer the pronunciation. The audience of the site should be everyone who needs a dictionary, as you can see in the screenshot (translation for "aberration"). Beginners will find this very good but professionals not at all. Perhaps I can program an option to toggle it.
http://www.krumbacher.com/bbp.pdf
| | | | | My experience in teaching English .... | Aug 12, 2005 |
I have taught English to adult Italian students from beginner to advanced university level.
One of he major problems that I found was that mispronounced English words lead to comprehension problems. This for me is a major issue because it means that the learner has communication problems, i.e. he can't make himself/herself understood and can't recognise words that are spoken to him/her because what is being said doesn't fit into the pronounciation in his/her head. (TOEFL is a great ... See more I have taught English to adult Italian students from beginner to advanced university level.
One of he major problems that I found was that mispronounced English words lead to comprehension problems. This for me is a major issue because it means that the learner has communication problems, i.e. he can't make himself/herself understood and can't recognise words that are spoken to him/her because what is being said doesn't fit into the pronounciation in his/her head. (TOEFL is a great example - where students have to reply on comprehension skills)
My experience is Italian and they have a number of very specific problems with English.
Word stress is one of them. I have always written the stress of a new word on the blackboard using a simple line system above the word. For example a word like "hotel" in English creates enormous problems because it is stressed on the first syllable, while in Italian it is stressed on the last.
Words like "managable" or words which in certain English accents turn everything into a glottal stop, (bottle vs Bo'l)I will write as pronounced, for example "vegetable" veg't'bl ( they will still have problems with the dark "l", but that is the least of the issues.
I believe that any word stress system is very useful, as is a sentence stress system or sentence rhythm.
I have taught a fairly disasterous student to give a presentation in English on private banking in 4 hours by using a script with sentence stress. If, without this system, I could barely understand 30%, with it, I got the gist of around 90%. It also gives students much more confidence to use the language.
I have I haven't waffled on too much. All I wanted to say really was that - depending on target - any stress system is useful, and to come back to your question - I would follow common sense - English is not a phonetic language and the cluster combination have to be recognised and learnt as word stress - so it needs to be explained. Perhaps Spanish doesn't, Dictionaries should be practical working tools. So dcide who your target audience is. ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Alison Kennedy wrote:
For example a word like "hotel" in English creates enormous problems because it is stressed on the first syllable, while in Italian it is stressed on the last.
Hmmm...that's really an odd thing to say for an English teacher.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hotel
| | |
|
|
|
| Yes should be the other way round ... | Aug 13, 2005 |
Marcus Malabad wrote: Alison Kennedy wrote:
For example a word like "hotel" in English creates enormous problems because it is stressed on the first syllable, while in Italian it is stressed on the last. Hmmm...that's really an odd thing to say for an English teacher. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hotel[/quote] Marcus - sorry quite right should be there other way round - long day translating!! | | | | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Question about pronunciation | Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.
More info » |
| | Anycount & Translation Office 3000 | Translation Office 3000
Translation Office 3000 is an advanced accounting tool for freelance translators and small agencies. TO3000 easily and seamlessly integrates with the business life of professional freelance translators.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
