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:

warthog
疣 豬 ( 一 種 非 洲 野 豬 )

讀 音 注 意:
warthog 一 字 的 字 母 TH 並 不 讀 舌 齒 音 (Dental fricative) θ / ð, 而 是 分 成 t 與 h 兩 個 音 素.

英文字母組合th, 有5種讀音可能.
1. /θ/ e.g. think /θɪŋk/ 港人常錯讀成fink/fɪŋk/.
2. /ð/ e.ɡ. they /ðeɪ/ 港人常錯讀成day /deɪ/
3. /t/ e.ɡ. Thomas /ˈtɒməs/
4. /th/ e.g. porthole /ˈpɔːthəʊl/
5. 不發音 e.g. asthma /ˈæsmə/

The Myth of Phonics系列
本系列所選出的字例,有助大家認清英語字母及發音的不規律性;我們傾向憑熟悉的字或字母組合,去推算另一生字的讀法而導致錯誤。我們不應依賴字母拼音或Phonics作為語音教學。要避免發音錯誤,除了聆聽可靠的示範外,是參考其國際音標(IPA)。
香港英語教育出現了誤用Phonics的情況,以致 限制了學生的發音水平,詳情可收看「英語發音網上講座

Derek Kwok

Picture below: warthog
 
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