IPA Learning Centre

Our aim is to promote the teaching and learning of English phonetics in Hongkong. Our teaching centre, the IPA Learning Centre, is an Education Bureau registered school located in Kowloon. 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:

arɡue vs seɡue
arɡue v. 爭論;爭吵
seɡue v; n. 流暢地轉換; 連續,不間斷

昨天我為大家解釋過為何arɡue及vaɡue同樣有字母ue,一個發 [juː]音,一個卻不發音的原因, 今天比較arɡue及seɡue同樣有字母ue,一個發 [juː]音,一個讀[weɪ]音的原因.

昨天提及argue一字, 源出於古法語(Old French) arɡuer, 在13世紀中古英語時期被引入英語詞彙. 而法語arɡuer 發音為[aʀɡe], 即字母uer是發元音的. 故英語arɡue的ue亦發音.
而segue一字, 卻源出於意大利語seɡue(seguire), 於18世紀出現於當代英語.
而seɡue的意大利語的讀音是[ˈsɛɡwe], 因此英語seɡue的讀音仿傚其意大利語的讀法而讀[ˈseɡweɪ].

今天的英語, 經千多年的發展及改變, 加以大量外來字(如法語)影響, 使其字母拼音成為歐洲語言中最不可靠的一種. 香港學校教育, 卻著重教導小學生字母拼音(Phonics), 是對學生掌握英語發音的最大障礙, 耍改善學生發音水平, 中小學推行IPA教育刻不容緩.


國際語音學會Derek Kwok
E.D.530468