
If you are interested in British pronunciation, check out the Oxford English Dictionary’s guide to British vs. The British guide uses more actual symbols (instead of letters) or old Greek letters, so it can be a little harder to learn. The American and British guides are slightly different-they use different symbols for the same sounds. This guide will cover the American dictionary pronunciation guide. Take a little time to figure out the pronunciation guide, and you will be saving yourself a lot of time (and effort) in the future as you improve your English speaking skills! British or American? You will know at a glance that the two g’s in garage make two different sounds, and that the o in boot is not the same as the o in boat. No matter the situation, reading the dictionary pronunciation guide can be an incredibly useful tool for English learners. Maybe you do not like using apps, and prefer to have a paper dictionary! For example, you may be in a classroom or meeting where you cannot use your cell phone or maybe your phone’s battery just died. Even if you have apps in your phone, there may be times when you need to use a dictionary. However, a dictionary will still be very helpful to you while you learn English.įirst of all, a dictionary allows you to look up a huge diversity and quantity of English words. You could ask someone to say it for you, or find an example of the spoken word in a video. There are a few ways you can learn the correct pronunciation of a word.
PRONOUNCE REGGY HOODHEIMSTRA HOW TO
For you to actually use this word while speaking, though, you need to know how to pronounce it. You might even learn the different forms of the word. When you learn a new word, you learn what it means and how it is used in a sentence. Why Should I Learn to Use the Pronunciation Guide? You just need to learn what sounds the symbols stand for. They are meant for anyone to use, so you can learn to read them too! They use some simple symbols, and they are not as complicated as they seem. The IPA on its own is not very easy to understand-it is mostly for scholars and linguists, people whose job it is to figure out sounds and how to write them down.ĭictionary pronunciation guides are a little different though. Most dictionaries use a version of the IPA for their pronunciation guide. People who study language, called linguists, have come up with a pronunciation guide called the International Phonetic Association, or the IPA for short. We bet you never noticed that before!Īs you can see, letters have different sounds, depending on where they are in the word or the sentence, or even which country the speaker is from. In these words, the second g in gara ge makes the same sound as the letter s in vi sion. The letter i is read very differently each time, though! In each word, the letter i makes a different sound. Now try these two words: So what is the point of creating a whole different way of writing these same sounds?īoth are three-letter words with the letter i as the second letter. Letters are symbols-they are small drawings that represent sounds.
PRONOUNCE REGGY HOODHEIMSTRA PDF
Once you understand the rules, you will be able to check the dictionary for the definition of a word, and you will know how to read it correctly.ĭownload: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that youĬan take anywhere. Learning how to use the dictionary’s pronunciation guide is not as difficult as it looks. Wait, what? That doesn’t look like the word dictionary at all! How does this work? These letter-like symbols are actually a pronunciation guide!įor example, here is how to pronounce the word dictionary: Next to a word in the dictionary are some strange-looking symbols. When you look in an English dictionary, you probably only look at the word and its definition.īut did you know that dictionaries also give you a guide on how to pronounce the words? By Yuliya Geikhman Last updated: Janu5 Things You Must Know to Understand All English Pronunciation Guides
