[40four]

I can’t be the only one to click on this to be disappointed it wasn’t a website about beer!

I wasn’t really aware of the IPA, is this mostly used for teaching purposes when learning a new language?

As far as people learning English as a second language it seems like one of the biggest hurdles is learning all the ‘exceptions’. Especially for people coming from languages where all vowels only have one pronunciation.

English pronunciations are so flexible & varied that it must be frustrating. There are so many words that you just have to learn individually through repetition, since they don’t follow the ‘framework’ of the base pronunciation rules.

[bradrn]

> I wasn’t really aware of the IPA, is this mostly used for teaching purposes when learning a new language?

It’s mostly used for linguistic purposes — most often in grammatical descriptions of obscure languages, or for precisely specifying the pronunciation of a word (e.g. in my dialect ‘mutable’, say, is [mjʉːtˢə̆bu]). But I believe it gets used in language learning as well.

[Bud]

It's also used for training singers. For instance, in grad school, I taught Singers' Diction in various languages. Being able to transcribe any given text into IPA, and then of course pronounce it accurately, is a core skill for classical singers. The usual languages covered are English, German, Italian, and French, those being the most important for classical music. Interestingly, the language that a lot of native English speakers have the most trouble with is...English! You'd be surprised.

[tasogare]

> most often in grammatical descriptions of obscure languages

No, it's used everywhere in phonology, for every language.

I started a project like that (also to train myself using web components), except it listed the phonemes of a given language, selectable to the user. I should complete it one day...

[bradrn]

> No, it's used everywhere in phonology, for every language.

Sure, of course, but I was thinking mostly of those grammars (usually Sino-Tibetan ones, for some reason) which use IPA throughout instead of a romanisation. (I suppose that by now I’m just so used to IPA being used for phonologies that I don’t even think about it.)

> I started a project like that (also to train myself using web components), except it listed the phonemes of a given language, selectable to the user. I should complete it one day...

So like PHOIBLE? (https://phoible.org/)

[40four]

Thanks, I’ll have to read about this more. That makes sense, gives you system to precisely describe particular pronunciations I guess. TIL :)

[cjhveal]

Really, with a [u] at the end? That's really interesting, do you mind me asking what dialect you speak?

[bradrn]

I’ve never been quite sure about my accent, but it’s probably closest to Australian English. The relevant sound change is /l/-vocalisation: syllable-final [ɫ] → [w] with accompanying vowel changes, and syllabic [ɫ̩] → [u]. So I have e.g. pool [puːw], wall [woːw], adult [ˈʔæɾʊwtˢ], peel [piːw ~ ˈpiju], apple [ˈʔæpʰu], middle [ˈmɪɾu].

[cjhveal]

Very interesting. After asking I wondered if there could have been some kind of velar connection but L-vocalization makes sense. Appreciate the in depth explanation with lots of examples from your idiolect.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

It's not about IsoPropyl Alcohol (IPA for hand sanitisation) either. tip: don't drink a 70% IPA.