@Jece, I wasn't discussing accents at all. My point is that there are very few words in the Romance languages where a vowel "takes" the sound of another vowel - unlike English. I am a native speaker of Portuguese.

Do you know Spanish? Do you know how a Spaniard would pronounce the English word "drive" if that Spaniard didn't know English at all?

If you do, you understand. =)

But Enriador, there are also very few examples in English (at least Midwestern American English) where a vowel takes another vowels sound. Those that do exist usually come another language. German, on the other hand, does it all the time.

>there are also very few examples in English (at least Midwestern American English) where a vowel takes another vowels sound<

You sure? Here's just a couple of examples (these are the same for both British and American English), but there are literally thousands of words like that:

A sounding like E: https://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/may_2

E sounding like I: https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/be

I sounding like A: https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/pie_1

You haven't seen vowel shifts until you have tried to learn Dutch. With words like eeuwwisseling or nieuwigheid you don't even know where the vowels end and the diphtongs begin.

>eeuwwisseling<

BURN IT, BURN IT DOWN

Enriador: You and others have been posting vowels with acute accents.

A Spaniard would read "drive" as something like 'dreeveh' or 'dreebeh', with the 'r' rolled, of course. To get the pronunciation closer to the English word, the spelling would need to be changed to 'draiv'.

Portuguese is a lot less disciplined when it comes to the pronunciation of letters. That's where artifacts like Nova Yorkie or hot doggy come from. The letters can also have totally different pronunciations. An 'r' that is pronounced like an English 'h'! At least in Brazilian Portuguese, words are also much more slurred and blur into each other, making speech sound like French even though the sentence structure and etymology are usually identical to the corresponding Spanish.

Interesting insight @Jece, interesting indeed.

>Portuguese is a lot less disciplined when it comes to the pronunciation of letters<

Not with vowels though. In 99% of words (Spanish and Portuguese both), vowels are pronounced as they are.

Curiously, never heard anyone, neither here in Portugal or back home in Brazil, say "Nova Yorkie" or "hot doggy". If anything, Portuguese-speakers follow the "law of lesser effort" (lei do menor esforço) and cut it short like "Nova YorK(i)", or "hot doG". There might be regional differences I guess. Either way I agree that some consonants don't follow a single pronunciation logic ("r" is a good example) in these languages.

May is a long a like hay and day. It happens to end in a y so is followed briefly by a long e but that is the y. Help and he have the short and long forms of e and neither sounds like a long a which is the sound in may and made.

Be is a long e and sounds nothing like the short I in it or the long I in bite.

Pie is a long I that sounds nothing like the long a in ate or the short a in at.

All three of your examples fail. They sound nothing like the vowels you claim.

>May is a long a like hay and day. It happens to end in a y so is followed briefly by a long e but that is the y.<

The "y" has nothing to do with the way "a" sounds... Another example: is the word "make", pronounced "meɪk" despite having an "a" on it. (https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/make_1)

>Help and he have the short and long forms of e and neither sounds like a long a which is the sound in may and made. <

I think you are confusing things. The point of the discussion is how vowels in English commonly intermix in how they sound; we aren't debating the finer nuances of pronunciation here (as in "help" vs "he" - it's the vowel "e" anyway!).

Remember that the crux of the thread is regarding the difference in English vs Romance languages and how both languages treat vowels in their PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION (which largely follows Latin conventions, hence why a naturally Germanic language like English mixes them so much).

If you don't know what a phonetic alphabet is, I suggest you go take a read at it before returning to the thread (I don't mean at all to offend, but it's really necessary to understand that alphabet if you want to understand the differences without learning a Romance language yourself).

In English, vowels *do* intermix, and "a" *does* gain the sound of "e" in numerous occasions.

"May" is phonetically pronounced "meɪ". "Help" is pronounced "help". Notice how all pronunciations have the same vowel ("e") on them, despite having different vowels in their written form...

https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/may_1, https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/help_1

"He" actually is pronounced "hi", with a strong "i" sound... exactly as I claimed above ("E sounding like I"). ;)

>Be is a long e and sounds nothing like the short I in it or the long I in bite. <

Wrong again buddy.

The phonetic pronunciation of "be" is "bi". With an "I". And it *does sound like the "short I" in "it" (which is pronounced as "ɪt"). Both have an "I" sound.

"I" in "bite" actually sounds like the Romance "á" - again, like I said before ("I sounding like A"). It's the same with "might", for example.

>Pie is a long I that sounds nothing like the long a in ate or the short a in at. <

Poor English speakers - you have a strongly Latinized language, yet your Germanic roots poison your poor mind!

Both your examples ("ate" and "at") are actually pronounced like an "ê" or "é" (respectively) despite being written with "e", which is exactly what I said above ("A sounding like E").

And "pie" has no "I" pronunciation at all under a Romance perspective. It's pronounced "paɪ" (with a big "a").

>May" is phonetically pronounced "meɪ". "Help" is pronounced "help". Notice how all pronunciations have the same vowel ("e") on them, despite having different vowels in their written form...

But May and help do not sound alike. Long vowels are phonetically more complex so that long a is nearly always notated with that eI notation. But that makes it a very different sound from just e in hen. You can't look at just one letter in the phonetic for long vowels in English. And that is where the confusion (and accents of ESL students) come from.

>But May and help do not sound alike<

They do sound similarly, though of course they don't sound the exact same. Both use variations of the Latin "e".

>You can't look at just one letter in the phonetic for long vowels in English. <

If our goal is understanding which vowel is used as the basis of *pronunciation*, of course we can! =)

>Long vowels are phonetically more complex so that long a is nearly always notated with that eI notation<

"Always notated with that eI notation"? Can you elaborate?

>The phonetic pronunciation of "be" is "bi". With an "I". And it *does sound like the "short I" in "it" (which is pronounced as "ɪt"). Both have an "I" sound.

Take it from a native English speaker, they do not sound the same.

The vowel in be is phonetically 'ee' where as the vowel in it is phonetically just 'i'.

eɪ is what I mean. Long a always phonetically notated eɪ. So I guess my point is our vowels have two standard phonetics, long and short, and to a native English speaker, all 10 combinations are very distinct.

The upshot of this is you 'ate' my 'pie' at the 'fete'... you bastard!

English is a cuckoo or whore's language where words are continually being adopted and adapted; the closer to London you get, the more fluid it becomes.

It's pretty fluid way over here to. Ebonics anyone it's "asked" not "axed".

"Curiously, never heard anyone, neither here in Portugal or back home in Brazil, say 'Nova Yorkie' or 'hot doggy'."

You may not notice it, but listen a little more closely. Portuguese speakers, at least in São Paulo, can't bring themselves to end a word in a consonant.

A hard consonant, rather.

Dutch and German largely follow Latin conventions for phonetic pronunciation too, and so, I presume, do most Germanic languages. English mixing their pronunciation of vowels therefore has little to do with English being a Germanic language. English is just an exception.

As a native Dutch speaker, despite not knowing the phonetic alphabet, I can perfectly follow all of your examples, and agree on all of them, Enriador. I only wouldn't claim that a long and short "e" or a long and a short "i" sound remotely similar.

@Skyrock: The vowel shifts in the Dutch language are largely due to Dutch having more distinct vowel sounds than most languages, and weird combinations of letters have to be made to write down these new sounds. If one knows the Dutch rules of spelling, one can always perfectly know how a written word should be pronounced. Not that learning the Dutch rules of spelling is a trivial exercise.

>The vowel in be is phonetically 'ee' where as the vowel in it is phonetically just 'i'.<

You will have to handle me a source for that - perhaps the accompanying consonants are confusing you? My dictionary says "be" is NOT phonetically "ee", but "bi" (the same "i" as in "it"). https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/be

>Take it from a native English speaker, they do not sound the same. <

Of course they don't, you don't speak Romance! In no point I claimed that for a native English speaker they did sound "the same".

I never said, actually, that English vowels "sound the same". What I said is that they "take over each other's sounds" (A -> E -> I -> A, O and U being notable exceptions), which is true once you learn how vowels "truly" sound (again, you really should look for a phonetic alphabet, it's very interesting).

>Portuguese speakers, at least in São Paulo, can't bring themselves to end a word in a consonant.<

That's the regional flavor we were talking about then - is it only at the capital or do you include the countryside too? I lived near Campinas when I was younger and I can't recall people speaking "Nova York" like that. It was more like "Nova YorrrrrrrrrrK".

In Rio that's not a thing.

>Dutch and German largely follow Latin conventions for phonetic pronunciation too, and so, I presume, do most Germanic languages. English mixing their pronunciation of vowels therefore has little to do with English being a Germanic language. English is just an exception.<

My knowledge of Germanic languages stops at English, so that explains the confusion. Perhaps English's weirdness derives from the fact it's such a mixture of roots (much greater than any other Germanic language)? Or perhaps the Celts are to blame. Bastards! /s

>I only wouldn't claim that a long and short "e" or a long and a short "i" sound remotely similar.<

Where did I claim that an IPA "e" sounds like any kind of "i"? What I said is that English words with "e" will most likely sound like an IPA "i" (be, demon, respect, etc). There are exceptions though, like the word "bet".

P.S.: @YouCan't, you meant "ee" as in "feet"? Then, again, this is an example of English mixing how vowels sound. "ee" has the sound of a "i".

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/be?s=t

bee is the primary phonetic with bi the secondary.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/be

MW uses the long and short notation used in the US and you will see be is a long e same as feet. In American English be and feet are the same as are hi and
Write, hay and mate, ho and oat, and hue and cute. These are all consistent long vowels that native English speakers cannot see a similarity to any counterpart short vowels.

Enriador: I think that you just can't hear it. Notice how you capitalize the 'k'. You add some sort of emphasis.

>bee is the primary phonetic with bi the secondary. <

1) "bee" is an "i"-like sound (as in English double "e" usually sounds like an "i"). There is a minor variation in stress between "bee" and "bi", but both sound like an "i".

2) My point stands correct - vowels in English do shift. Also, funnily enough, most websites I go to point out "bi" as the primary (if not only) pronunciation.

>you will see be is a long e same as feet<

As I said above, double "e" also sound like the vowel "i" - it's more stressed, but it uses the same vowel.

> be and feet are the same as are hi and
Write, hay and mate<

Can you write down these words again, this time using the International Phonetic Alphabet? Then you tell me which vowels are used to make these sounds. Thanks in advance!

>Notice how you capitalize the 'k'. You add some sort of emphasis. <

There is an emphasis in the "K", precisely because it ends the word. The "k" sound at the end sounds like "tactiC".

The first few videos I found all agree with me (Nova York is mentioned in the first 10 seconds in each):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_lkm9U9kek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMF5LLNCuuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_NilnZ51TM

And here is one of your fellow cariocas doing the same thing, though a little more subtly (first video I could find where I know that the speaker is a carioca):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zA0KQ9TiVY

@ Enriador, I (native ignorant american) am sort of able to hear what you are talking about but I am unable to extrapolate what you are saying, so I assume I am misunderstanding something. Can you point out where I have it wrong?

You are saying the english would "Be" is pronounced with a "i" sound and that the "ee" sound is the "i" sound. I can almost hear it, but that would imply that "beet" and "bit" should be homophones, but they are not.

Though... now that I think it through, there exist more that a few accents that in which those words would sound the same. Is this what you mean?

As a point of Clarification, the reason I can almost see it is the Homophonic relationship between "bin" and "been", but I was under the assumption that this was the exception, rather than the rule.

OH! This is what you're talking about?: http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/

I get it now