Say Bee!

How do you say "horizon"? Is it supposed to be hawri-zan, horai-zan, hawri-zawn or horai-zawn? That was the question of our session yesterday.

We realized that we have so many different accents of our own, that we don't even know the right way of saying words. So we started to learn how to pronounce. We started with the Dictionary pronunciation key that gives you the different sounds associated with vowels and consonants. below is the key taken from http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/pronunciation.html.

Consonants
p pen /pen/
b bad /bæd/
t tea /tiː/
d did /dɪd/
k cat /kæt/
ɡ get /ɡet/
tʃ chain /tʃeɪn/
dʒ jam /dʒæm/
f fall /fɔːl/
v van /væn/
θ thin /θɪn/
ð this /ðɪs/
s see /siː/
z zoo /zuː/
ʃ shoe /ʃuː/
ʒ vision /ˈvɪʒn/
h hat /hæt/
m man /mæn/
n now /naʊ/
ŋ sing /sɪŋ/
l leg /leɡ/
r red /red/
j yes /jes/
w wet /wet/

The symbol (r) indicates that British pronunciation will have /r/ only if a vowel sound follows directly at the beginning of the next word, as in far away; otherwise the /r/ is omitted. For American English, all the /r/ sounds should be pronounced.

/x/ represents a fricative sound as in /lɒx/ for Scottish loch, Irish lough.
Vowels and diphthongs
iː see /siː/
i happy /ˈhæpi/
ɪ sit /sɪt/
e ten /ten/
æ cat /kæt/
ɑː father /ˈfɑːðə(r)/
ɒ got /ɡɒt/ (British English)
ɔː saw /sɔː/
ʊ put /pʊt/
u actual /ˈæktʃuəl/
uː too /tuː/
V cup /kʌp/
ɜː fur /fɜː(r)/
ə about /əˈbaʊt/
eɪ say /seɪ/
əʊ go /ɡəʊ/ (British English)
oʊ go /ɡoʊ/ (American English)
aɪ my /maɪ/
ɔɪ boy /bɔɪ/
aʊ now /naʊ/
ɪə near /nɪə(r)/ (British English)
eə hair /heə(r)/ (British English)
ʊə pure /pjʊə(r)/ (British English)

The funny part was knowing about the British and American accents. Dog (in American accent) sounds so much like Daag (in hindi), and the funny sentence This Dog has a Daag made for a good laugh!

We tried to recognize the differences in the way words are spoken differently among us. One of our South Indian friends said "Only" as "one-ly", and another had a tough time saying Horizon. So that became the homework for the week.

At Unschool, we believe we can make that big difference by correcting these accent issues one small step at a time. Some of the great online sources to make a "Say Bee" out of you are:

1. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary- by far the most dependable and authoritative one.
2. HowJSay.com- helps to see the word with the preceding and following words, and also translations into other languages like Hindi.
3. Okanagan College- for some great worksheets and online exercises
4. EnglishStudyDirect.com- gives a lot more links for better English learning online

We finally ended up singing (a bit of Karoake-style) a song...one of our favourites- That's The Way It Is by Celine Dion reading along its lyrics online.

Oh, and just in case you are wondering how to pronounce horizon, its something like harai-zun. Listen to it here.