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:

choice vs choir
choice. 選擇
choir. 合唱團

讀音注意:
以上二字的字母ch讀音不同;另外同樣的字母oi,讀音亦不一樣!

耍了解兩者字母ch讀音為何有分別, 可以根據其歷史及源出作解釋:
英語choir一字源於古法語quer (拉丁語chorus), 並於13世紀中古英語(Middle English)時期出現於英語詞彙. 當時串法為queor, 到了17世紀新英語時期(New English), 依照quer的拉丁語根源chorus而改寫成choir. 然而新串法並不影響人們習慣已久的原本讀音, 字母ch仍然發/kw/音.
而choice一字亦源出於古法語(chois), 於中古英語時期引入英語詞彙. 其字母ch讀音為/tʃ/, 因此與choir的ch讀音不同.

-Derek Kwok

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讀音組合,去推算另一生字的讀法而很容易出錯。因此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)。

很多人對Phonics存有誤解,要了解清楚,可收看「英語發音網上講座

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