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Lecture 13: English is not Spoken as Written, but neither is Korean nglish students all over the world often make a big mistake. They believe English is spoken as it is written. Native speakers of English here in Korea also make the same mistake about Korean. As we saw, they may pronounce with no linking. They may pronounce with an aspirated /k/, and as/ak nyn/. The English last year is also pronounced quite differently from the way it is written, /ls ir/. Written English may at times show spoken English only roughly. The vowel in to is normally the same as the vowel in the unstressed article a, the schwa. In fact, several common words can even be reduced to a lone schwa. This is true for of in lot of beer, to in want to go, and or in black or white. Especially in American English, t often sounds like a d. The famous example is butter, but we also have the t in to sounding like a d in I beg you to go. The t in digital also sounds like a d. As we have seen, words with more than one syllable can be a problem. We write the first three syllables in photograph and photography the same, but the vowels are pronounced differently. However, the rule of vowel reduction predicts that the vowels in photograph and photography are different. |