Pronunciation/help

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Pronunciation/help
Message from abdoug405 posted on 08-10-2013 at 22:55:37 (D | E | F)
Hello everybody

I would be so grateful if you help me about pronouncing English words.
For example letters are pronounced differently when they form words.To illustrate, "a" is pronounced -ey- but in "are" it is pronounced -aar-.
So, please, are there any rules to know how to pronounce English words.I find it really difficult.
Thanks a lot

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Edited by lucile83 on 08-10-2013 23:57

Re: Pronunciation/help from simplicius, posted on 08-10-2013 at 23:22:09 (D | E)
Hello Abdouq,

There are two solutions. The first one is bulletproof, if tedious: each time you learn a word, you learn its spelling and its pronunciation.

The second one is to learn the rules... there are rules which tell you how to deduce the pronunciation from the spelling of a word. Those rules are a bit complicated, and numerous, and they have many exceptions, but knowing them helps a lot. In particular if you have to pronounce a word you've never met before, you will be able to make a reasonable guess.

There are good books to learn those rules, I used a lot 'La prononciation de l'anglais', by R. Lilly and M. Viel and found it extremely helpful. There is also a famous book by Lionel Guierre ('Regles et exercices de prononciation anglaise'... he wrote other books, such as 'Drills in English stress-patterns).
Probably there are more recent books in the same vein.
If you have access to a library where they have those books, perhaps you could have a look?
Cheers, S.

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