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I had some training in the IPA at Conservatory.

sadly don't remember much of it now...


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I had some training in the IPA at Conservatory.

I studied the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) for a couple of years, but the lessons never really took. I can still make a sound on it, but its not something I'd like to do with another person around. The best part of it for me was learning the traditoinal music notation system for it (it was based on katakana). The system is only used for shakuhachi music. Most modern pieces are written in standard Western notation these days.


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Originally Posted By: zmjezhd
Originally Posted By: Faldaroony
you surely need to be a trained phonetician


I learned all about phonetics, phonology, and the IPA in a 3-unit, 10-week undergraduate course at university. It was nowhere near the toughest course I've taken within my linguistics major or without.


Great. So it's easy to be a trained phonetician. If you've got a phonetician training center handy. And if you think you should need to take a training course to be able to read a dictionary.

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Originally Posted By: Faldage
So ʌ is an open-mid back unrounded vowel. How do I make my mouth do that?


Click a symbol to hear it.

IPA chart for English. The vowel chart lists each sound as a "diaphoneme" - that is a symbol that is not specific to any dialect - and then lists the pronunciation in each dialect.

Last edited by goofy; 05/08/10 11:37 AM.
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OOF! I get so dizzy looking at that chart. All these reversed and upsidedownied symbols. Something you must learn while young. Salto's, bungy jumping, rodeo riding.

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So it's easy to be a trained phonetician

I still think you can do it without taking a class. There are plenty of podcast lectures and a bunch of MP3 files, etc. The OED uses the IPA for its pronunciation guide. English has about 40 phonemes. Take a look at the charts on this page. 8 of the 24 consonants don't occur in our alphabet. I'd say you know at least 4 of them. Of the fourteen monophthong vowels, four are in our alphabet. We're talking about learning four consonants and ten vowels. And you already speak English. Look at those characters, listen to some MP3 files, and I'd say you can do it in an afternoon. Far less time than participation in this thread.


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I get so dizzy looking at that chart. All these reversed and upsidedownied symbols.

If you can learn to spell words in English (and French), you can learn not to be dizzy when looking at this chart. Think of it as a still life with glyphs.


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laugh Very well, a descent proposal: if you paint that still life I will do the glyphs.

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if you paint that still life I will do the glyphs.

Sure, it's a deal. I went through a phase of painting (mainly watercolors and acrylics) back in the '80s of the previous century. Let me just say my paintings were less enjoyable than my shakuhachi playing. I guess I could use Photoshop, but that would be cheating. wink I was inspired by a documentary I watched yesterday afternoon on Alfred Stieglitz and the artists he was associated with.

Now for two of those words. Japanese shakuhachi is a length, 1.8 shaku 'foot' (actually 30.3 cm, 0.99 ft). (There are other sizes of bamboo flute.) I have always liked the term still-life, but I like the French term better, nature morte 'dead nature'.


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Still-life, nature morte. Never took notice of this difference, funny enough. I guess the English and Dutch chose the the more intimate point of vieuw, the French the more dramatic.

PS. Still life with bread and cheese or fruit can hardly be called "morte". ;~)

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