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:

ratio vs patio
ratio 名詞: 比例;比率
patio 名詞; 露臺,平臺

讀音注意:
ratio 與patio雖然只是詞首的字母不同,但參考音標會得知兩字內的字母A及T所發的音不相同。
1. ratio的字母A讀/eɪ/,而patio的字母A讀/æ/。
2. ratio的字母T讀/ʃ/,而patio的字母T讀/t/。

字母A除了可發出以上所謂lonɡ a、short a兩音之外,至少還可讀成以下元音:
/ɪ/ - e.ɡ. imaɡe /ˈɪmɪdʒ/
/e/ - e.g. any /ˈeni/
/ɔː/ - e.ɡ. all /ɔːl/
/ɒ/- e.g. wash /wɒʃ/
/ɑː/ - e.ɡ. calm /kɑːm/
/ə/ - e.ɡ. aɡo /əˈɡəʊ/

字母T除了可發出以/t/、/ʃ/兩音之外,還可讀成/tʃ/- e.ɡ. picture, 還可以省略不發音例如listen/ˈlɪsn/。

以 上 字 例 正 好 示 範 以 "看 字 母, 估 讀 音" 的 問 題。
我 們 要 準 確 掌 握 英 語 生 字 的 讀 音,最 有 效 的 方 法 是 利 用 國 際 音 標 (IPA) 及 認 識 實 用 的 語 音 學 (phonetics) 規 律。

- Derek Kwok (郭 豪)
E.D.530468