Re: Pronunciation (was Chinese Learning English)

> 
> My fave hobbyhorse is that vowels don't matter much. 
> Dave Nevin


Sadly, they do matter.

To go back to can and can't, in UK English we have (* = schwa) 

c*n (unstressed)

can (stressed)

and the negative cahn! (! = unreleased glottal stop) or sometimes cahnt

The major distinction between negative and positive is in the vowel.

Then you have more simple cases like ring, rang, rung, where tense is
indicated by the vowel and plenty of others where meaning is changed,
like pan, pen, (sorry Australians) and pin. Here the vowel is not
quite so important but it does mean the learner has to place a heavier
load on context which makes comprehension that much harder.

Dick Tibbetts








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