Posted by Mashika
(here)
Hi nice people of Avalon, this is probably not the place or site for it, but sorry i can't find any other people to ask and i know there are several US members here who have very good english, so please allow me to impose for a bit
Short story, i have some homework to do with pronunciation and i just can't figure it out, here's the problem
"Aluminum"
Is it really pronounced like this?
https://www.google.com/search?q=alum...hrome&ie=UTF-8
i can hear 'ah-loo-mee-num', but that's not how they write it, it says 'uh-loo-muh-nuhm' and it's breaking my head, are there English language rules that determine this?
Why is 'muh' sounding like 'mee', or i'm not hearing it well?
I did not get much advice other than figuring it out and the other word is
"Condominium" which i'm very sure was specifically selected for this practice
I pronounce it as "kon-doo-mee-nee-um'
But here it says it's not like that at all!
https://www.google.com/search?q=cond...hrome&ie=UTF-8
I can see that the British english is closer to how i say these words, but it's still not the right way as far as i can pronounce them, so now i don't even know if i'm just breaking it bad or what, or is it the same?
I can understand that the word Aluminium may have changed over time to be Aluminum, without the last 'i' and that changes pronunciation, but i can't find how the word as written and pronounced do not match well
When i looked on the web, i did not find very useful explanations, see here for example, this doesn't really help, and the video basically says all i already knew :/
https://www.bbcamerica.com/blogs/10-...britain--16928
2. Aluminum = The British pronunciation is a tongue twister. It comes easier after a few tries. But, then you’re in danger of forgetting how to say it in American-English. Sounding it out may help, al-loo-MIN-ee-um … There's a second "i" in the British form of the word, aluminium, hence the extra syllable. Here’s a video to help out.
Oh and also i can see other words on that site but i'm not working on them, but it's fun because same issue
Vitamin:
British: Bit-A-Min
US: Bite-A-Min
Me: Wait-A-Min...
I love the English language, it's so fun and cool, but sometimes.... :D
I was just wondering if there are some rules i can reference for this, since i'm not able to find anything but people basically repeating the same stuff everywhere, i'm not sure if i'm looking for the wrong words, but i've been here for a while and nothing good came up so far, so i thought maybe someone here would know?
Sorry to impose my homework, but i'm really...