Any word in any language in any accent - Word и Excel - помощь в работе с программами

I. Word accent. Word accent in English.

1.
In
the English language the word accent is the constitutive function of
a word as of lexical and morphological element of a language in its
absolute form. The word accent can be observed both in monosyllabic
and polysyllabic words. For the latter it is typical to single out
one or more syllables by increasing the degree of their prominence.
Thus, the word accent organizes a word as complex auditory unit and
at the same time gives prominence to separate syllables. Such
syllables are considered to be singled out accentually (accented) or
stressed.

It is a
common knowledge that stress
or accent
means greater degree of prominence to certain syllable or syllables.
Such prominence is achieved through the greater force of exhalation
and higher level of voice pitch and slight change in the direction of
voice.

The
nature of an accent
— still represents a ground for disputes.

Gimson
believes
that the effect of prominence
is
achieved through the combination of 4 major factors: degree of
tenseness, tone, intensity and length of a vowel. The prominence of a
syllable in the languages with the rhythmic tendency is achieved by
higher muscular tension while pronouncing the given syllable.

In the European languages,
such as English, German, French, Russian the dynamic tendency in a
word accent prevails. In the Scandinavian languages the accent is
considered to be dynamic and musical. Musical character of a word
accent may be observed in Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese languages.

So, passing
directly to the English language, it is necessary to mention, that
word accent in the English language is
dynamic.
It is accepted practically by all the linguists. However,
experimental researches testify, and such linguists as Gimson
and
Crystal point out as well, that the word accents in English is a
complex and complicated phenomenon marked by changes in the energy,
in the voice height, characterized by qualitative and quantitative
changes. Dynamic and tonal features of the English word accent
prevail over the other characteristics.

Qualitative
and
quantitative
aspects of a stress or accent
are
important components of a word accent. In this case we deal with the
qualitative or quantitative changes of a vowel in the unstressed
syllables in comparison with the stressed ones. It is natural, that
in a stressed syllable a vowel is longer and of full quality
(possesses all the qualitative characteristics). The qualitative
aspect of an accent is revealed through the change of a colour or
quality of a vowel in the stressed position while quantitative aspect
— with the change in the length of a vowel sound.

The nature
of Russian
stress differs from
English.
The qualitative component of an accent plays bigger role in the
system of Russian word accent as Russian vowels in the unstressed
position always undergo a qualitative reduction. While in the English
language we may find vowels of full quality in the unstressed
position (we spoke about it at our last lecture).

One more
fact that deserves our attention here is the
position
of a stress in different languages. So, according to this aspect we
may single out languages that have
fixed
stress and those whose word accent has free
character.

In the
languages with
the fixed accent,
the position of a word accent is fixed on a concrete syllable. Thus,
for example, in the French language it is the last syllable in a word
(Paris, a cachenez, an orchestra),
in the Finnish and Czech languages — on the first syllable
(Helsinki, the Sauna, Карловы
Вары,
Gold Prague),
and in Polish — on the last but one.

In
languages with a free
stress,
the word accent is not fixed on any concrete syllable. For example,
appetite, beginning, balloon
and
lake, weather, milk.

It is
necessary to note, that in the English language the accent is not
only free, but even has a shifting character, i.e. carries out
semantic function, distinguishing lexical units, parts of speech,
grammar forms.

The phonologic status of a
word accent also doesn’t possess any stability in the world of
linguistics. Anyway, all the linguists are of the same opinion — the
analysis of a word accent should be carried out from the point of
view of its degree.

Thus, it is
accepted, that the English word stress has three degrees:
primary, secondary
and
weak stress.
These ideas are reflected in the works of Jones, Gimson, Kingdon,
Torsuev, Vasiliev. Some phoneticians distinguish four degrees of a
word accent:
primary, secondary, tertiary
and
weak stress.

Primary
accent
falls either on the third or on the second syllable from the end.

In the
majority of words
the secondary
stress falls on the syllable separated from a stressed (nuclear)
syllable by one unstressed syllable. Something like in the following
words,
pro’nunciֽaton,
ֽ
occupation,
governmental, patriotic.

In many
derivative nouns the secondary accent falls on the same syllable
which has a primary accent in the initial word, i.e. in the word from
which the noun is derived:
organize
—
organization,
peculiar
—
peculiarity.

Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]

Источник

People often get confused between accent and dialect because they are similar terms, both describing how our speech changes in relation to where we live.

Accent vs dialect definition

Accent is a broad term that dialect falls under. Accent refers to how voices sound as a result of geographical location. Accents have developed throughout history by people conversing in isolated communities and adopting their speech habits. This took place before it was easy to travel around the country, meaning everyone in a particular community only had contact with other people who sounded like them, thus developing regional accents.

Dialect derives from accent, but rather than describing how our voices sound, it refers to how where we live impacts our grammar and lexical choices. Dialect is a mode of speech that differs from standard English. Our dialects are dependent on our geographical location, as where we live impacts the words we use.

For example, ‘chuddy’, and ‘chewy’ both mean chewing gum in various Northern dialects. These words derive from the standard English term ‘chewing gum’.

Fig. 1 — Different dialects may have different words for things — such as ‘chuddy’ and ‘chewy’ for chewing gum.

Other Relevant Definitions

Slang is a specific type of colloquial language featuring abbreviations such as ‘innit’ or ‘ain’t’. It also encompasses phrases predominantly used by young people that are not in the dictionary, such as ‘peng’ (meaning something highly appealing) and ‘bare’ (to have or be something in vast quantities).

Sociolect is a dialect dictated by your class/position in society. Examples include school jargon used between school children, criminal jargon, office jargon, etc.

Jargon describes particular words and expressions used by groups of people (generally in the context of the workplace) that are difficult for others to understand. For example, most people would find legal jargon difficult to understand unless they work in the legal sector.

Dialect and accent

This is a table showing the differences and similarities between accents and dialects:

Similarities	Differences
Both accent and dialect are influenced by location	Accent describes how our voices sound
They both deviate from standard English	Dialect dictates word and grammar choices
Both accent and dialect influence speech patterns	Dialect can change over time
Accent and dialect can be detected both audibly and in writing	Accents are more set in stone
Understanding both accent and dialect can help a non-native person speak the language better	Accents are more widely understood, whereas dialects can often be more cryptic because of the words they involve, such as ‘barm’ meaning bread roll in a Manchester dialect
	Accents help with the pronunciation of words. For example, to speak a language well you must speak it in an accent

We can tell the difference between accent and dialect by observing how far the words deviate from standard English, looking at the grammatical/lexical choices, and the way the voice sounds (or we can imagine how it sounds if the words are written phonetics). If the sentence would be understood by most people in the country, it is likely a result of an accent. If the meaning of the sentence is hard to decipher, it is likely a dialect. This is because different dialects use different words to say things, which can be confusing for people from a different region, whereas accents only influence how we sound.

Task: These two sentences mean the same thing. Can you work out which one is spoken in dialect and which one is an accent?

‘Ay up duck can ya bring me some chuddy?’

‘Ello luv can ye bring mae some chewing gum?’

Both of these sentences are instances of people asking for some chewing gum. One is spoken with a Sheffield dialect, indicated by the phrase ‘Ay up duck’ used in place of a friendly greeting, and ‘chuddy’ meaning chewing gum. The dialect causes the speaker to choose alternative words to the standard English: ‘hello, can you bring me some chewing gum?’.

The second example is written in a northern accent. The phrase itself is the same as standard English in that none of the words used are different words for ‘hello, can you bring me some chewing gum?’, but rather just alternative ways of speaking standard English.

Slang vs accent vs dialect

It’s easy to become confused when so many linguistic terms are used in one article, so we’ll break down each different comparison to make things clearer.

Slang vs dialect

Whilst slang and dialect are very similar because they are both versions of non-standard English that dictate your lexical and grammar choices, they are also different from each other:

The term slang refers to words and phrases, whereas dialect is a way of speaking.

Slang is not always region-specific like dialect. Slang presents itself in communities like students and divisions within the student bubble. For example, you wouldn’t expect a group of gamers to say something like ‘I stan cookies so much, they are so peng’, they would most likely have their own slang in relation to their hobby.
Slang terms continuously change as time goes by; in the past 5-7 years we have witnessed the rise and fall of many slang terms such as ‘goals’, ‘eyebrows on fleek’, and ‘YOLO’, which most people would not use now, but were popular in the period between 2013-2015.

Let’s compare some examples of slang from the 21st century and the 90s to highlight just how much slang changes.

Task: Next time you watch Friends (1993-2003), Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-1996), Seinfeld (1989-1998), or any other 90s TV show, see if you can notice these 90s slang terms being used.

90s slang

‘Da bomb’ — meaning something really cool or amazing
‘Eat my shorts’ — dismissive comment
‘Aiight’ — modified phrase of alright, used as a greeting or in agreement.
‘All that and a bag of chips’ — when something is so good, it’s ‘all that’ and more (‘a bag of chips’). Because chips are good, this means something is really, really good!

Fig. 2 — There was a lot of different slang in the 90s than there is nowadays.

21st century slang

Bang — Appealing/ attractive. Used in relation to people, things, and situations.
‘I stan him so much’ — Stan means a hardcore fan. Originally used in relation to pop stars, now it can mean anything you really, really like.
‘Ugh, that’s basic’ — Basic has been used as a derogatory term meaning something boring and uninspiring. This goes further than the original meaning of something practical and essential.
‘Okay boomer’ — Boomer describes a person born between 1946-1964 (the baby boom period), but young people use it to describe anyone over the age of 35/40. Usually used in a dismissive way to veto the opinions of the older generation online.

Now we have looked at some examples of slang, let’s have a look at some examples of dialect to see how they differ from each other.

Dialect

Newcastle — ‘goon oot on tha toon’ — going out on the town

Notice how this sentence contains variations of English words such as ‘toon’ meaning town, and ‘goon’ meaning ‘going’, rather than entirely made-up words like ‘peng’, or words used in completely different contexts to their original meaning, such as ‘bare’. This is the difference between slang and dialect. Whilst dialect and slang are variations of English language, slang is more inventive and strays further from Standard English.

Slang vs Accent

Let’s have a look at some differences between slang and accent.

Slang is usually in the form of phrases, whereas an accent impacts everything the speaker says, not just a small portion.
Slang is not region-specific like accent is, instead it is community-specific.
Slang is more fluid than accent, developing over time. While accents can change slightly over time, they are a lot more fixed than slang.

Accent

People with a Scouse accent would pronounce ‘what’s that?’ as ‘woss tha?’.

Dialect

The Essex dialect (like many Northern dialects) involves missing out words. For example, they might say ‘let’s go shops’ instead of ‘let’s go to the shops’.

We can tell that the first example is an example of an accent because the actual words they say sound different from standard English, whereas the dialect example doesn’t change how the words sound but instead the word order (grammatical choices).

Accent and dialect: A-level English Language

As a bit of a summary, and to round up the reasons why accents and dialects are so important, let’s look at each one in turn:

The importance of dialects

Dialects are important for a number of reasons:

Dialects preserve the cultural heritage of particular regions. This is because dialects express the individual qualities of a town, city, or county.
Unique ways of pronouncing words help distinguish different parts of the UK, constructing the region’s identity.
Dialects help expand our minds by helping us learn new words and ideas from alternate perspectives.
They enhance cultural differences and celebrate what makes one place different from another.

The importance of accents

Accents are important too:

Accents represent history, as they are a product of historical conversation.
They are a part of our identities. If someone grew up in multiple places, their accent would be an amalgamation of those different influences.
They represent where we come from and our past, including where we grew up.
They can be used in literature to help establish where characters are from.

Accent vs. Dialect — Key Takeaways

Whilst both are specific to particular regions, accent refers to how the voice sounds and dialect influences word and grammar choices.
We can tell the difference between accent and dialect by observing how far the words deviate from standard English, looking at the grammatical / lexical choices and the way the voice sounds (or we can imagine how it sounds if the words are written phonetically).
If the sentence would be understood by most people in the country, it is most likely a result of an accent. If the meaning of the sentence is hard to decipher, it is most likely a dialect.
Slang changes with the times, whereas dialects and accents do not.
Accents and dialects are important to our language because they represent individual cultures and differences between different places. They represent our history and heritage, allowing language to become part of our history and celebration of where we are from.

Источник

By
Last updated:

January 31, 2023

Improve Your Accent: 5 Tips for Sounding Native in Any Foreign Language

You can sound exactly like a native speaker.

Of course, an accent isn’t the end-all, be-all of foreign language learning. Grammar, vocabulary and conversation skills are arguably more important. You can be understood and respected while still having an accent.

But there’s nothing cooler than speaking with the tone, rhythm and pronunciation of a legit native speaker.

Why Improve Your Accent in a Foreign Language?
The Guide to Improving Your Accent in a Foreign Language
- 1. Listen, listen, listen
- 2. Teach your mouth and tongue the right moves
- 3. Do a sound check
- 4. Make a sweet playlist
- 5. Act out the role of a lifetime

Download:
This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you
can take anywhere.
Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Getting rid of your accent and sounding more like a native is the key to fully being understood.

There’s a very social aspect to language that should not be ignored. While it may seem cool to know one or more foreign languages, the goal of language is communication. Sounding more like a native enables smoother conversation, since the listener won’t be straining to make sense of your words.

Getting your accent to be not just intelligible but also perfect will put natives even more at ease, as they won’t feel like they’re speaking with a foreigner as much. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being foreign, but people might not be sure if you fully understand them or have anything in common with them.)

An accent requires a deeper knowledge of not only the grammar and rules of the target language but also of the customs and culture. There’s a famous Czech proverb: “You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once.” It’s no coincidence that this proverb exists. To speak like a native, you must step into the shoes of a native speaker.

A deeper knowledge of the accent will help you understand natives better. Many language learners find themselves overwhelmed when they step out of the classroom and meet honest-to-goodness native speakers for the first time. The language can sound so different when natives are speaking a mile a minute, dropping syllables and blurring words together. To get your own accent just right, you’ll have to study the way natives speak, which in turn will boost your comprehension, big time.

At times, speaking a foreign language can feel more like a performance. In fact, thinking of it in this way helps you overcome your fears, shyness and self-imposed boundaries, which set you down the path to sounding more like a native speaker. Integrating artistic disciplines such as music and theater along with some basic language learning concepts can drastically improve the way you speak. Again, you’ll put yourself in the shoes of a native speaker. Play the role of someone who lives in the language. Then project that voice out into the world when you’re speaking.

In the end, language is more about communicating effectively—practice is more important than the theory for all practical purposes.

The Guide to Improving Your Accent in a Foreign Language

1. Listen, listen, listen

The most important skill you have to master in order to improve your accent when you’re learning a new language is listening.

Careful listening will help you get the language “in your ear.”

It will help you to better distinguish all the phonemes, or distinct sound units, of a language, giving you an overall familiarity with the language.

Before you can speak fluently in a foreign language, it’s important to be able to break it down into its distinct sounds. The first time you come into contact with a new language, a whole conversation may sound like one big run-on word. However, with time and with more exposure, you’ll start to hear syllables and words.

Obviously, the most fruitful way to listen to a language is to be surrounded by it constantly while having little to no contact with your native language. This forces you to listen because your native language can’t be used as a backup to get you out of a situation that you don’t completely understand. Your brain goes into “survival mode” and you’ll be compelled to use that language to buy food, locate the bathroom and get back to your house or hotel.

Realistically, not everyone has the luxury of living abroad and being fully immersed in their target language, but that’s no longer a deterrent. You can immerse yourself in the sound of native speech using authentic media and other sources of audio in your target language.

YouTube, language learning podcasts, language learning apps like FluentU and internet radio are great resources to utilize for this.

FluentU, in particular, is a valuable resource since it presents you with authentic videos from all over the world. The program currently teaches 10 languages through music videos, movie trailers and clips, commercials, news segments and more.

On top of these videos, FluentU has tools to help you actually understand what you’re watching, like interactive subtitles, multimedia flashcards and personalized quizzes. The transcripts and subtitles are vetted by language experts, making them extremely accurate and enabling you to read along out loud as you watch.

You should pick material that you find engaging, so you stay motivated to keep at it. Before you know it, you’ll be listening to your target language every day.

Never let the room be silent. When you’re working, exercising, showering, cooking, washing the dishes, you name it—have something playing in your target language. It’s always a great idea to listen to one of these resources while doing menial tasks around the house such as cleaning or cooking. The foreign language becomes the background noise that you’ll slowly grow accustomed to.

2. Teach your mouth and tongue the right moves

Once you’re able to distinguish the basic phonemes of your target language, it’s advisable to immediately start learning the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Any dictionary for any language

This is a systematic method of phonetic notation that makes reading foreign words much easier because every sound has its own character. This can be learned through IPA charts and apps. The IPA Phonetics app is very beneficial because it allows you to hear the sound of each letter and it shows you a close-up video of the mouth and lips—not only can you hear the sound, but you can see how the sound is made. Both of these are very important to getting the correct accent.

Aside from listening and watching this app, it’s helpful to practice these letters on your own in front of a mirror. Are your mouth and lips making the same movements as the app? How are these movements different from those in your native language? Becoming conscious of these can help you distinguish your native accent from the foreign accent, making it easier to pick up the new foreign accent.

3. Do a sound check

Once you get down the basic mouth and lip movements, it’s time to focus on pronunciation as a whole. This means putting all the individual sounds you learned with the IPA together. It’s advisable to practice words and phoneme combinations that differ from the combinations in your native language. However, this is not enough—you have to focus on articulation and the tone of voice.

Getting the vowel sounds down pat is key to any authentic-sounding accent. Most constants are the same or at least very similar across languages, but vowels are tricky. Practicing getting vowel sounds correct greatly improves your accent. Listening to vowel sounds in your native language and comparing them to your target language is a surefire way to distinguish your native accent to that of your target language.

As silly as it may sound, tongue twisters immensely improve your accent because they focus on a certain phoneme that’s said in various words across a sentence. Tongue twisters are tricky to say correctly in your own native language, so practicing them in your target language helps you learn and get used to these difficult sounds.

Reading out loud and recording yourself helps you track your progress. This exercise is twofold. You practice both speaking and critical listening. There are many foreign-language and dual-language books which are excellent sources for practicing. Some of these books are also sold as audiobooks so you can listen to the audio version and compare it to your own practice recording.

Another interesting fact is that accents are closely connected to the culture. Trying to get into the mindset of the culture does wonders for your accent.

For example, have you ever noticed that a Midwestern American accent sounds rather flat, much like the flatlands that surround them?

Have you ever noticed that the Russian accent is in the back of the throat, as if it’s too cold to let the words out so they stay warm back there?

Did you ever notice that the romantic French language seems to speak with the lips always ready for a kiss?

Noticing these little nuances and applying them to your language learning helps bring your language to life and improve your accent when speaking.

4. Make a sweet playlist

After getting down pronunciation, you’ll notice that every language has its own melody. The words are spoken in a certain rhythm with emphasis and stresses in places much different than those in your own native tongue. Building up a music library gives you access to music that brings this out. Not only will it help you learn new words and sentence structures, it loosens you up, making it easier for you to achieve the accent of your target language.

Singing songs in your target language in your favorite genre is a great way to start. The basic rhythm of these songs will be somewhat familiar to you. If it’s music you already love, then you’ll identify with it right away. This creates an emotional connection and makes accent practice much more enjoyable and memorable. You’ll probably be mumbling the lyrics to yourself next time you’re wheeling your shopping cart through the grocery store.

Singing along with a song also helps you imitate the sounds being sung. Once you’re more advanced, rapping is an incredible way to practice improving your accent. Like tongue twisters, rap tends to be fast and with all the rhyming it can be a challenge to learn—but it provides immense benefits.

When singing it’s important to be emotionally present—feel the rhythm and become part of the song. Focus not only on the music of the song but on the music of the language. Singing helps you exaggerate this, which improves your accent.

5. Act out the role of a lifetime

Lastly, every language has its own mentality.

This mentality forms the culture which affects the language. So, why not become an actor?

Act out the language! Embrace the emotions that are shown or not shown. Language isn’t just words—gestures, expressions and body language play a huge part in unspoken communication. Embracing these help you to break free of your own native language and culture, allowing you to enter into the world of your target language. This is the only way to truly speak like a native.

Practicing reverse mimicry is an acting technique that helps improve your accent. This is when you speak your native language in the accent of your target language. With this, you’re practicing the accent without any of the worrying that may come along with speaking in your target language. The accent is much easier to achieve in this manner. Once you realize that you’ve got the accent down while speaking in your native language, it’s an easy transition to use it when actually speaking in your target language.

Don’t forget, speaking a language is a means of interacting more effectively with native speakers.

The less you sound like a foreigner, the more easily you’ll be understood.

On a more personal level, achieving a foreign accent helps you sound more confident and fluent, thus making it easier for people to engage in conversation with you.

Despite this, you should never be ashamed of where you are in learning a foreign language.

Even if you’re a complete beginner and are worrying about your rough accent, get out there and try your best!

Start practicing a foreign accent at the beginning of your language learning journey.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Download:
This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you
can take anywhere.
Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Источник

The English language has vast linguistic variety all around the word, in both accents and in the language or dialect, from American English to Australian English and of course British English.

Media and entertainment tend to portray only a small glimpse of the British accent. So people often fail to see the immense diversity of accents within each country in Britain which also has more than 37 dialects.

**ACCENT VERSUS DIALECT**

An accent refers to the pronunciation and sound of the speech. The dialect is the local words and slang terms; used only in the specific area.

There are too many accents to list them all, but following are some of the most well-known and distinctive in the four countries of Britain – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; with a small sampling of a few dialect words.

ACCENTS AND DIALECTS IN ENGLAND

There is generally a north – south divide with many of the accent features in England, but each accent also has their own specific features that make them unique.

1. RP (Received Pronunciation)

RP is largely non-regional but is typically spoken in some areas in the south and parts of London. It is associated with the upper classes and most often considered by non-natives as the ‘Standard English’ accent, since this is what is heard on BBC radio and TV.

Accent Features

Broad ‘a’ – the ‘a’ sound in the words ‘bath’ and ‘dance’ is pronounced ‘aw’ so they sound like ‘baw-th’ and ‘daw-nce.’ This is typical of the southern accents.

‘r’ sound – at the end of a word is not pronounced so ‘mother’ is pronounced as ‘muhthah.’

Dialect Words

There are not any dialect words in RP as all speakers speak “Standard English” without slang terms, since it is non-regional.

2. COCKNEY

Cockney originated in London’s East End. It can be also be heard in Essex in the East of England and in Kent and Surrey in the South East. It has the same unpronounced ‘r’ ending as RP but many other distinct features too.

Accent Features

Vowel shift – the sound ‘ay’ is pronounced as ‘eye’ so ‘today’ sounds like ‘to-die.’ And the ‘eye’ sound in ‘buy’ changes to sound like ‘boy.’

Glottal Stop ‘t’ sound – the ‘t’ is lost in between vowels, so ‘better’ sounds like ‘beh-uh.’

L-vocalization – an ‘l’ ending often changes to a vowel sound, so ‘pal’ sounds like ‘pow.’

‘Th’ sound – is pronounced as ‘f’, ‘d’ or ‘v.’ So ‘thing’ sounds like ‘fing’, ‘that’ like ‘dat’ and ‘mother’ like ‘muhvah.’

Dialect Words

A main feature of the dialect is “Cockney rhyming slang”, which replaces a word with an unrelated rhyming phrase.

Bees and honey = money

Dog and bone = phone

Apple and pears = stairs

Tea leaf = thief

3. GEORDIE

The Geordie accent is spoken mainly in Newcastle in the West Midlands, and the people who live there are known as Geordies.

Accent Features

‘R’ sound – often not pronounced and replaced with ‘ah’ : ‘sugar’ becomes ‘sug-ah,’ ‘centre’ becomes ‘cent-ah’ and ‘weird’ sounds like ‘we-ah-d.’

‘I’ sound – some of the ‘i’ sounds change so ‘kite’ sounds like ‘kaete’ and ‘I go’ becomes ‘a go.’

‘ay’ sound – in words like ‘mate’ changes to an ‘ay-ah’ sound to become ‘may-aht.’

Long vowel sounds – the ‘oo’ sound is over emphasized, in words like ‘school’ and ‘book.’ And the ‘ee’ sound at the end of ‘copy’ is extra long.

Dialect Features

Areet marra = alright mate (to greet a friend)

Giz a deek = let me have a look

Canny = nice or pretty

Gannin’ yem = going home

4. SCOUSE

Scouse is a term for the Liverpudlian accent spoken in Liverpool in the North West, so they pronounce the ‘a’ sound in ‘bath’ and ‘laugh’ as an ‘ah.’ It has a very nasal sound that can be hard to imitate.

Accent Features

‘R’ sound – omitted at the end of a word when a consonant follows : ‘pour with’ sounds like ‘paw with.’

‘o’ sound – in words like ‘foot’ is pronounced as ‘fut.’ And ‘book’ and ‘look’ have a long ‘oo’ sound.

‘th’ sound – occasionally changes to a ‘t’ or ‘d’ : ‘thin’ becomes ‘tin’ and ‘then’ becomes ‘den.’

‘ai’ sound – in certain words change to a short ‘e’ : ‘hair’ and ‘square’ sound like ‘her’ and ‘squer’.

Dialect Words

Made-up = happy, pleased

Boss = great

Bevvy = drink (alcoholic, typically beer)

Butty = sandwich

5. WEST COUNTRY

This accent is spoken in places like Bristol and Devon in the South West. There is a slower rhythm to the speech due to long vowel sounds.

Accent Features

Soft ‘i’ – there is subtle difference in the ‘eye’ pronunciation : ‘I am’ is pronounced ‘Uy am’. ‘Guide’ sounds like ‘guyde.’ It has a slightly softer sound.

‘t’ omitted – the ‘t’ at the end of words is generally dropped, so ‘that’ sounds like ‘tha’ and ‘tt’ is glottalized so ‘butter’ sounds like ‘buh-er.’

‘r’ sound – where there is a ‘r’ before a vowel, this often becomes ‘ur’ : ‘great’ and ‘children’ comes out as ‘gurt’ and ‘chillurn’ (with a dropped ‘d’).

Missing ‘l’ – in many words where the ‘l’ is near the end, it is not pronounced : ‘old’ sounds like ‘oad.’

Dialect Features

Where be to? = Where are you going?

Gurt lush = very good

‘ark at he = listen to him

chucky pig = woodlouse

ACCENTS AND DIALECTS IN SCOTLAND

6. SCOTTISH

There are numerous Scottish accents, influenced by the Irish accent in the West and by Nordic accents to the North. But among the differences are some common features that determine the sound of a General Scottish English accent.

Accent Features

‘O’ sounds – the vowel sounds ‘oo’ and ‘u’ sound the same, with a shorter ‘ui’ : ‘food’ and ‘good’ sound like ‘guid’ and ‘fuid’.

Tapped ‘r’ – the ‘r’ is often slightly rolled, as the tongue taps the top of the mouth, which gives a short roll or a ‘tapped r.’

‘l’ after ‘r’ – when ‘l’ follows ‘r’ an extra syllable is added : ‘girl’ becomes ‘girel’ and ‘world’ becomes ‘woreld’

Other vowel sounds – the vowel sound in ‘heard’ has an ‘eh’ sound so is more like ‘haird.’

Dialect Features

Aye = Yes

Wee = small

Bairn = Child

Ah dinnae ken = I do not know (Nae = not)

ACCENTS AND DIALECTS IN WALES

7. WELSH

There are differences between the North and South of Wales, but the features from South Wales are most typically associated with the Welsh accent. It has a melodic tone to it, due to the vowel sounds being drawn out and a drop to low notes on stressed syllables; influenced by the Welsh language itself.

Accent Features

Dropped ‘g’ – like many other accents in the UK, the ‘g’ is dropped at the end of ‘ing’ verbs : ‘walking’ becomes ‘walkin.’

Tapped ‘r’ – similar to the Scottish accent, the ‘r’ is tapped to give a slightly rolled sound.

‘Weh’ for an ‘i’ – When ‘i’ comes after a vowel, a ‘weh’ sound is inserted : ‘doing’ sounds like ‘do-wehn.’

‘Ew’ sound changes – in words like ‘news’ and ‘tune’ to a short ‘oo’ sound so these words become ‘noos’ and ‘toon.’

Dialect Words

Many of the dialect words come from the Welsh language.

Dwt (pronounced ‘Dut’) = small and sweet

Cwtch (pronounced ‘Cutch’) = hug or cuddle with love, warmth and affection

Lush = awesome or very nice

Ych-af-i (pronounced ‘Aach-ef-ee) = To express disgust / that’s gross!

ACCENTS AND DIALECTS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

8. NORTHERN IRISH

The accent differs from county to county, but there are many similarities. The speech typically has a slight long rise in tone at the end of sentences.

‘ow’ sound – in words like flower becomes closer to an ‘ai’ sound so ‘how’ sounds like ‘hai’ and ‘sound’ becomes ‘sai-nd’

Inserting ‘y’ sound – in some words after an inital ‘k’ or ‘g’ so that ‘car’ and ‘garden’ sound like ‘kyarr’ and ‘gyarrden.’

‘t’ sound – is often pronounced closer to a ‘d’ sound : ‘northern’ is pronounced ‘norden’ or even dropping the ‘t’ entirely to sound like ‘nor-n.’

‘oo’ and ‘ou’ sounds – the word ‘poor’ has a very soft and long sound like ‘ooh’ and is pronounced ‘pooh-r.’

Dialect Features

Gurn = moan about someone

Houl yer whisht = Please be quiet

Boggin’ = very dirty

Dead on = fine

AN ABUNDANCE OF ACCENTS

There are of course so many more wonderful and unique accents in the UK with a beautiful and diverse range of dialects; including the Brummie accent the Yorkshire accent and Estuary English to name but a few.

Next time you visit the UK or listen to someone speaking from Britain, see if you can spot the unique features of the many different accents and appreciate the lovely diversity these countries have to offer.

Источник

Hi, I am a beginner learner. My friend, who had taken an Russian course, told me that; there is only one special accent ( like spanish acute accent «‘ «), which works for stressing the letters, in Russian and he also told me followings:

In one syllabled words there is no need any acute accent. (actually being acute accentless is obligatory for those words—i.e.:век)
Any word that has more than one syllable needs an acute accent, unless other the unique, accented, letters are present(such as:й or ё ) i.e.: па́па; but then, I cannot see any accent on words, having more than one syllable, on many pages like wikipedia. i.e: алфавит (from this link: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Русский_алфавит
Also he told me; a more-than-one-syllabled word can ONLY get one accent upon one of its letters. (including unique accented letters, too) i.e.:Русский
but again from the same wiki link: (just below the head)— Ру́сский
Any of the accents only comes to vowels. (I know telling this is dummy, but bear with me)

-What I need is true evaluations of these tips from my friend. I mean, for each one please, are they TRUE or FALSE?, if FALSE; can you explain to me why?

Thank you so much in advance.

The stressed syllables are marked out only in the Russian dictionaries and textbooks. In most cases the Russians need not it as Russian is their mother tongue. They know how to pronounce the Russian words. Although there can be ambiguities in some rare cases.

It is similar situation like in Latin. The ancient Romans did not mark out stress and vowel length as Latin was their mother tongue.

Drink

Hi, I am a beginner learner. My friend, who had taken an Russian course, told me that; there is only one special accent ( like spanish acute accent «‘ «), which works for stressing the letters, in Russian and he also told me followings:

In one syllabled words there is no need any acute accent. (actually being acute accentless is obligatory for those words—i.e.:век)

Any word that has more than one syllable needs an acute accent, unless other the unique, accented, letters are present(such as:й or ё ) i.e.: па́па; but then, I cannot see any accent on words, having more than one syllable, on many pages like wikipedia. i.e: алфавит (from this link: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Русский_алфавит

Also he told me; a more-than-one-syllabled word can ONLY get one accent upon one of its letters. (including unique accented letters, too) i.e.:Русский
but again from the same wiki link: (just below the head)— Ру́сский

Any of the accents only comes to vowels. (I know telling this is dummy, but bear with me)

-What I need is true evaluations of these tips from my friend. I mean, for each one please, are they TRUE or FALSE?, if FALSE; can you explain to me why?

Thank you so much in advance.

Accents are almost never written. They indicate the stress in a word and are only used in dictionaries and learning material. In one-syllable words, the accent mark is unnecessary to indicate stress, but is sometimes included. Also, sometimes two or more words are pronounced as one and one stress mark is used (e.g. на́ голову). The letter ё is the only automatically accented letter. The letter «й» is not a vowel and cannot be stressed, and thus there must be another vowel in the word with stress (e.g. ру́сский). Sometimes long words can have more than one stress (e.g. четырёхуго́льник, пяти́уго́льник).

Accent in Russian (beyond dictionaries and educating texts) is marked in the following cases (according to the grammar reference of Lopatin):

— To avoid ambiguity: большая часть (a big part) and бо́льшая часть (a bigger part); or вороны (crows) and во́роны (ravens). In such cases accent is usually marked when a rarer of two words is used and only if the conext is really ambiguous.
— To distinguish е and ё when the latter is written without dots: все́ (Plural of весь) and всё (Singular Neuter of весь); бере́т (beret) and берет (=берёт — takes).
— To avoid erroneous reading of rare words.
— To distingusih relative pronoun что́ from the conjunction что:
Рассказать, что отовсюду
На меня весельем веет,
Что не знаю сам, что́ буду
Петь, — но только песня зреет (Фет).

The thingy that you call «the acute accent» is actually called «ударение», which means «the stress», «the stress mark». The concept of stressed syllables surely exists in Turkish because that Wikipedia page has a link to a corresponding Turkish article.

The stress mark is there to facilitate the pronounciation. Although stressed and unstressed vowels could be pronounced differently, we never consider them to be different letters. The stress mark is never written in most books, official documents, street signs, handwritten texts, etc. Why should it? The readers are supposed to know the pronounciation of each word, so the stress mark would serve no purpose. Even the Russian PC keyboard have no means to type that stress mark conveniently.

As was explained in previous posts, there are certain cases (dictionaries, books for the beginners, ambiguous words) where the stress mark can make a difference. Then it is used.

The acute accent is not the only practical way to mark the stressed syllable. In some electronic texts you may see the stressed vowel typed in capital or bold font: «большУю», «большую». The idea is to make the stressed vowel stand out in some way.

So the short answers to your assertions are:
1. True, one-syllable words do not need the stress mark. False, one-syllable words may have the strerss mark.
2. False, «й» (consonant) and «ё» (vowel) have nothing to do with the stress mark. However, in simple native words (not adopted from other languages) «ё» is always stressed.
3. Mostly true, with the exception of long words composed from several base words, or acronyms.
4. True, consonants cannot be stressed.

I always wonder why the accent mark is placed so strangely in the Russian texts on the web.
In our Russian printed textbooks the accute accent is placed in a «normal» position:

О́канье, моско́вское произноше́ние (from Russian Wikipedia)

Óканье, москóвское произношéние (our textbooks and dictionaries)

I always wonder why the accent mark is placed so strangely in the Russian texts on the web.
In our Russian printed textbooks the accute accent is placed in a «normal» position:

О́канье, моско́вское произноше́ние (from Russian Wikipedia)

Óканье, москóвское произношéние (our textbooks and dictionaries)

But aren’t these two variants identical? At least I can’t notice any difference.
Or you mean that sometimes the accute mark is placed before the stressed vowel? In such an event, this is just a problem of the browser or scripts.

But aren’t these two variants identical? At least I can’t notice any difference.

I can notice a visible difference on my screen. In the first case the acute mark is placed much higher than in the second case. There is an excessive space between the acute mark and the vowel character.

Or you mean that sometimes the accute mark is placed before the stressed vowel? In such an event, this is just a problem of the browser or scripts.

I also noticed that sometimes the acute mark is placed above the preceding (or perhaps following?) consonant. Also the acute mark is mostly an independent character. You can delete it independently, but I never know which character I am deleting as the cursor is under the vowel character. In other languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Czech, etc.) the accent mark is a part of the vowel character and cannot be deleted independently.

So all this just a script issue. In Russian it is always above the vowel, on the same height above the letter like in case of other «marked» letters and like it is provided at WordReference: а́и́о́у́е́ы́э́ю́я́.

First of all foreigners should learn by heart short words with correct accentes.Especially pronouns.If you tell somebody Мо́я insted of Moя́(my,mine) nobody would get it.And such words as (for example) электрооборудование or предупреждение or smth else like these ones it´s easy to understand without any accents.Just advice.

Thank you for your responses. But I have also one little question:
Русский = Russian

but also;

Ру́сский= RussianWell, why don’t we use an accent over the «y» in the former?Is it because that the former was written by majuscule letters?So, can I interpret it as: «Majuscule letters never get » ‘ » accent?? «Again, from the same site: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Русский_язык( I know that I bored you ,but do me a favor )

Last edited: Sep 27, 2014

Russian language doesn´t use graphical accents in texts.Only in dictionaries.Seems it was written above.

Russian language doesn´t use graphical accents in texts.Only in dictionaries.Seems it was written above.

Ok, I got it.

In Ру́сский язы́к on the provided site, the acute accents are written because it is an entry in an encyclopaedia (Wikipedia in this case). The entries in (nearly) all Russian dictionaries and encyclopaediae are printed with the marked stress.

I have Enciklopedičeskij slovaŕ (Mockva 1953, B. A. Vvedenskij). All entries are in upper-case letters (majuscules) and with the marked stress.

In Ру́сский язы́к on the provided site, the acute accents are written because it is an entry in an encyclopaedia (Wikipedia in this case). The entries in (nearly) all Russian dictionaries and encyclopaediae are printed with the marked stress.

I have Enciklopedičeskij slovaŕ (Mockva 1953, B. A. Vvedenskij). All entries are in upper-case letters (majuscules) and with the marked stress.

This explanation makes things much more clear now. bibax, you’re great. So it is possible for a beginner to write ПÁПA instead па́па,if some wanna write with upper-case letters in Russian. :tick:

awesome

Last edited: Sep 27, 2014

Yes, it is possible. But I learned ПÁПA (father), not ПÁПÁ.

Drink

This explanation makes things much more clear now. bibax, you’re great. So it is possible for a beginner to write ПÁПA instead па́па,if some wanna write with upper-case letters in Russian.

awesome

In general, you should not write the accent at all ever, unless you are specifically trying to indicate where the stress is.

Textbooks are usually composed with custom fonts, where letter with (manually placed) accents are separate characters.
Stressed texts in Wikipedia and elsewhere in the Net relay on OS capability to place combining accent marks. As most fonts of those included with Windows do not contain the necessary information for correct accent attachment they are looking strange indeed.

I know this is an old thread but just a minor comment for anybody who might come read this later.

For what it is worth, the reason some languages like Spanish have accept marks as part of the orthography is that they are tonal. That is to say that changing the stress or pitch on particular syllables changes the meaning of the word. By contrast Russian, like English, and most languages, is not really very tonal. So in Russian changing the stress on a syllable may not be correct, but it does not change the meaning of the word. As result the Russian language (like English or Latin mentioned above) does not actually have accent marks as part of the orthography because they are not strictly necessary for a native speaker. But there is a convention for using the accent marks to teach foreigners how to pronounce things correctly.

So in Russian changing the stress on a syllable may not be correct, but it does not change the meaning of the word.

A minor correction: although this is true for the majority of Russian words, there is still quite a lot of so called homographs, differing only by stress (две зимы́ — долгие зи́мы; вкусное жарко́е — жа́ркое лето etc). However the meaning of the word is usually clear from the context.

Awwal12

So in Russian changing the stress on a syllable may not be correct, but it does not change the meaning of the word.

I am sorry?..
Мо́ю (I wash) vs. мою́ (my, fem. acc.sg.);
ро́га (of a horn) vs. рога́ (horns);
си́нее (blue, neut. sg.) vs. сине́е (more blue),
etc.
Only the context helps to decide what is what.

A minor correction: although this is true for the majority of Russian words, there is still quite a lot of so called homographs, differing only by stress (две зимы́ — долгие зи́мы; вкусное жарко́е — жа́ркое лето etc). However the meaning of the word is usually clear from the context.

Oh, this is interesting. My knowledge of Russian is limited and I was not familiar with this type of problem. So perhaps it is fair to say that Russian is somewhere in between Spanish and English in terms of tonality? In Spanish it is not necessarily possible to infer the meaning of a word if you do not have the accent correct. Though perhaps in typical cases you could glean the intended meaning from context, it is certainly possible to misinterpret the meaning of a word in some cases if the accentuation is not correct (e.g. «mi papa está aquí» My potato is here, vs. «mi papá está aquí» My dad is here). Is it fair to say that in Russian it would be virtually impossible to misunderstand the intended meaning of a word without the accent information provided which is why it is not a standard part of the orthography?

Last edited: Mar 15, 2017

Is it fair to say that in Russian it would be virtually impossible to misunderstand the intended meaning of a word with the accent information which is why it is not a standard part of the orthography?

Exactly.

Rosett

I am sorry?..
Мо́ю (I wash) vs. мою́ (my, fem. acc.sg.);
ро́га (of a horn) vs. рога́ (horns);
си́нее (blue, neut. sg.) vs. сине́е (more blue),
etc.
Only the context helps to decide what is what.

Even the context can’t help in certain notorious cases:
Бо́льшая часть vs. Больша́я часть, for example.

Drink

Actually, I would say that Russian and Spanish would be on a similar level in terms of understanding words without stress marks. Of course with Spanish people simply aren’t used to reading without stress marks so they would tend to think it would be more of a problem than it really would be. Now if you looked beyond just comprehension, I would actually say that stress marks would actually be more useful for Russian than for Spanish, simply because in Russian stress is much less predictable for unfamiliar words than in Spanish.

Anyway, the real reason that Spanish writes stress, but Russian does not, is simply because of tradition.

There’s also the even more extreme examples of Lithuanian and Bosnian-Serbo-Croatian that have the unpredictability and mobility of Russian stress, but the stressed syllables can also have 3 kinds of intonation which changes the meaning, and even unaccented vowels can be long or short. Yet, not a single thing out of the above is marked. So it really is nothing more than tradition.

Is it fair to say that in Russian it would be virtually impossible to misunderstand the intended meaning of a word without the accent information provided which is why it is not a standard part of the orthography?

Thank you. You rephrased your message, now I can understand it. The answer is, as you can expect, the opposite: it would not be fair to say that, if you want to be fair in any reasonable degree, as Maroseika and Awwal12 have already pointed out in his posts about homophones.
Regarding the second part of your sentence, the why, maybe others can answer. Why questions are not easy to answer.

Last edited: Mar 17, 2017

In one syllabled words there is no need any acute accent. (actually being acute accentless is obligatory for those words—i.e.:век)

Not exactly. In sentences one-syllable words are usually pronounced jointly with neighbouring words. So phonetically several words make one multi-syllable word with one acute accent.
For example «дай бог» (pray heaven, I wish, hopefully), «на два» (for two, into two), «во сне» (in one’s sleep), etc.

Getting back to my initial comment that caused an off-topic discussion…. The topic starter asked to confirm the statement that one one-syllable words don’t need the stress marks, as they are always stressed by default. So the question was actually about practice of usage of the stress marks, if I got the author right. Considering what I said above, a one-syllable word in a sentence might be stressed or unstressed. Accordingly, the stress mark is used over one word in a group only, as demonstrate the following examples:
О́н был жена́т на бе́дной дворя́нке…
— Ну что́ ж? Пра́вда ли, что о́н так хоро́ш собо́й?
Пусть две́ из вас возьму́т в свои́ клю́вы пру́тик… etc.

Some stress-marked texts can be found here Категория:Тексты с ударениями — Викитека

Drink

Since this post got moved to a new thread, I will repost it, because it is still relevant to this thread (note that there was a dispute as to the validity of the example «на голову», but all that matters here is that at least in some expressions this stress pattern exists):

It’s not about the number of syllables, it’s just about what type of word it is and whether a phrase has been lexicalized and become a sibgle stress unit. The latter is the case for дай бог, because in ordinary circumstances both дай and бог would be stressed (not necessarily equally, however, because of sentence-level stress rules). Meanwhile you have multisyllable prepositions that have no stress, for example передо мною (I used мною instead of мной to demonstrate that even the following word need not have only one syllable), not to mention cases where a preposition steals the stress from a multisyllable noun, for example на голову.

Since this post got moved to a new thread, I will repost it, because it is still relevant to this thread (note that there was a dispute as to the validity of the example «на голову», but all that matters here is that at least in some expressions this stress pattern exists):

It’s not about the number of syllables, it’s just about what type of word it is and whether a phrase has been lexicalized and become a sibgle stress unit. The latter is the case for дай бог, because in ordinary circumstances both дай and бог would be stressed (not necessarily equally, however, because of sentence-level stress rules). Meanwhile you have multisyllable prepositions that have no stress, for example передо мною (I used мною instead of мной to demonstrate that even the following word need not have only one syllable), not to mention cases where a preposition steals the stress from a multisyllable noun, for example на голову.

All this is true, but I was commenting on the particular sentence regarding one-syllable words.

Источник

I. Word accent. Word accent in English.

Accent vs dialect definition

Other Relevant Definitions

Dialect and accent

Slang vs accent vs dialect

Slang vs dialect

90s slang

21st century slang

Dialect

Slang vs Accent

Accent

Dialect

Accent and dialect: A-level English Language

The importance of dialects

The importance of accents

Accent vs. Dialect — Key Takeaways

Improve Your Accent: 5 Tips for Sounding Native in Any Foreign Language

Contents

The Guide to Improving Your Accent in a Foreign Language

1. Listen, listen, listen

2. Teach your mouth and tongue the right moves

3. Do a sound check

4. Make a sweet playlist

5. Act out the role of a lifetime

ACCENT VERSUS DIALECT

ACCENTS AND DIALECTS IN ENGLAND

1. RP (Received Pronunciation)

2. COCKNEY

3. GEORDIE

4. SCOUSE

5. WEST COUNTRY

6. SCOTTISH

7. WELSH

8. NORTHERN IRISH

AN ABUNDANCE OF ACCENTS

**ACCENT VERSUS DIALECT**