IPA 

Our aim is to promote the teaching and learning of English phonetics in Hongkong. We provide high quality English phonetics (IPA) and pronunciation courses for people at all levels of spoken English.

The course "Practical English Phonetics and Phonology" is one of our most popular choices. We are very proud to say that the quality and popularity of this course has been key to establishing the good reputation of IPA (HK). Mr Derek Kwok, the Course Lecturer, is an experienced phonetics educator with over 10 years teaching experience in English phonetics. His innovative teaching techniques and moderate sense of humour make the complex phonetics principles all the easier to understand.

The courses "English Phonetics Classes for Students" and "Practical English Phonetics and Phonology for Teachers" have provided students and teachers of English in HK with a better channel through which to understand the most important theories and key skills in pronunciation and many other features of spoken English.

As this Web Site comes into existence, we can now offer our students of phonetics with continuous learning and practice support. The pages under our "Club News" section are especially dedicated towards this goal. We believe that through this Web Site, the students of IPA (HK) will be able to further enrich their knowledge of English phonetics and pronunciation even after they have completed our courses.

 

Today's selected word:

horizon
名. Noun. 地平線;眼界(複數plural)

此字雖是horizontal 的字根,但兩字讀音(尤其當中的元音)卻有很大分別。
很多人憑horizontal /ˌhɒrɪˈzɒntl/ 一字減去tal /tl/的讀音部份,錯讀成/ˈhɒrɪzɒn/ 。
比較兩字的音標,不難發現如果把horizon 讀成/ˈhɒrɪzɒn/,所有音節內的元音/ɒ, ɪ, ɒ/都讀錯了!而重音位置亦不正確。(注意最後音節為成節音syllabic,可不需元音而成音節)

以上示範了港人錯讀生字的其中一個原因: 把已經熟悉的字加上或減去一個音節,去估計另一近似生字的讀音。類似字例還有有Eliza/iˈlaɪzə/ ─ 很多人把Elizabeth/iˈlɪzəbəθ/ 減去beth的讀音,錯讀成/iˈlɪzə/。
記得中學時期我的一位地理科老師亦把horizon 錯讀成/ˈhɒrɪzɒn/,可惜今天仍有不少人讀錯這字。
為何我們的錯讀字不易被察覺而自我修正?究其原因,除了部份一開始由老師把錯誤傳給學生、父母把錯誤傳給子女、人們又互相傳染外,近年phonics大行其道,更容易令人養成依賴“看字母、估讀音”的壞習慣,而不去(或不懂)利用字典的音標(IPA)去求證生字的讀音。 港人的大量錯誤讀英文字,很可能仍會繼續代代相傳。

- Derek Kwok (郭 豪)
E.D.530468