Question for British Imas

invisiblecircus

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 4:04 pm

mum22 wrote:

TR is a blend
CH is a digraph

My point is that in British English a T followed by an R is pronounced in the same way as the CH in chair. In the word "train," the sound is then blended with the R.

Last edited by invisiblecircus on Mon, Sep 12 2022, 4:12 pm; edited 1 time in total

my mama

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 4:10 pm

birdie1 wrote:

It's just something I was curious about. How an accent affects the way English is being taught. And the Queen's English was here way before the American one.

The “American English” we know and use today in an American accent first started out as an “England English” accent. According to a linguist at the Smithsonian, Americans began putting their own spin on English pronunciations just one generation after the colonists started arriving in the New World.

zaq

Tue, Sep 13 2022, 5:07 pm

invisiblecircus wrote:

I'm British and the consonant sound that begins the word "train" is the same as the sound that begins the word "chair." I thought Americans also pronounced it like that. Is that not the case?

No, it is not. TR is not CH. There are people who ride the chrain to avoid chraffic, but they are guilty of poor diction. I recall an exquisitely painful lecture given by someone with this dreadful speech habit:

"Chravel is shtreshful, but there are chricks and shtrategies that will let you chravel in shtyle. Use a shturdy suitcase and shtreamline your clothes: a chrenchcoat with liner will laugh at shtorms, and chricot sheds wrinkles. Allow plenty of chravel time, allow for chraffic jams, and take the chrain, chrolley or chram instead of jriving."

zaq

Tue, Sep 13 2022, 5:15 pm

angelgirl wrote:

Do all other countries learn phonetically as well nowadays?

Phonics was the preferred method of teaching reading when I was a child. My niece was taught by the "whole language" method and it was a disaster. Rather than sounding out words letter by letter--which of course results in errors because English is spectacularly UNphonetic, but nevertheless results in getting the word right at the end even if it's mispronounced--whole language resulted in children having to guess what the word might be and being way off at least as often as not.

invisiblecircus

Tue, Sep 13 2022, 5:21 pm

zaq wrote:

Are you British?

Btw I said that the T in train is pronounced as the CH in chair, not that TR is the same as CH. That is the case in central and southern England and it is not considered poor diction. In Scotland and some parts of northern England, TR is pronounced T as in top and with a rolled R.

salt

Wed, Sep 14 2022, 3:44 am

PinkFridge wrote:

Someone once said the English can make cars rhyme with vase. Neat trick.

Reminds me of the musical "Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat"

"All those things you saw in your pyjamas
Are a long range forecast for your farmers"

- one of my favourite lines!

Spaghetti7

Wed, Sep 14 2022, 3:56 am

invisiblecircus wrote:

I disagree that the T in train is pronounced the same as CH in chair. I am British, and I just sat here for a good 3 minutes saying each sound, and the movement in my tongue and mouth is NOT the same for those sounds.

imaima

Wed, Sep 14 2022, 4:09 am

invisiblecircus wrote:

I'm British and the consonant sound that begins the word "train" is the same as the sound that begins the word "chair." I thought Americans also pronounced it like that. Is that not the case?

No
It’s not the same sound

imaima

Wed, Sep 14 2022, 4:10 am

invisiblecircus wrote:

My point is that in British English a T followed by an R is pronounced in the same way as the CH in chair. In the word "train," the sound is then blended with the R.

There is no such official rule