In addition to well-known soft /s/ and hard /k/ pronunciations, 'c' is sometimes pronounced /ʃ/ e.g. special, liquorice? Is there any rule?
121745
How can I tell whether "c" should be pronounced "s" or "k"? I always get confused and pronounce it like "s" because it looks like russian "с".
19206
I know there is no strict rule on pronunciation of words in English but here my question is about the words which begin with 'con' and 'com', more than asking general rule. When I look at the words begin with 'con' and 'com', I see mostly two patterns : One of them is schwa /ə/ sound and the other one is /o/ or /ɒ/ sound.But the second  pronunciation can be pronounced slightly differently depending on dialect. An example word for the first pronunciation is the word computer whose pronunciation is represented    in Cambridge Online Dictionaries. An example for the second type of pronunciation for &quot;co&quot; could be the word contrast whose pronunciation is represented     in Cambridge Online Dictionaries. So my question is there any rule/pattern which can help us guess how to pronounce these words correctly? I am not asking about the words like cool, come or coke. My question is about words like contract, combination, continue, combat.
64863
I teach English to elementary students in Korea.  One day, I noticed an African American female teacher pronounce the word,"singer" differently- "sinGer" , a strong G-sound. Is it common in America? Recently while watching CNN, I saw an basketball star pronounce this word the same way.  I just want to know whether it has to do with region, ethnicity, or etc.  I would appreciate if you could let me know. Thanks.
108989
The words "okay" and "emcee" seem to both be somewhat widely accepted (at least, I can find both in several dictionaries). But it seems to be agreed that these are simply sounded-out spellings of the initialisms "O.K." and "M.C." respectively.  Are there any other words like this, and is there a general term for them?
36113
When do you pronounce ‹s› as /z/ in the middle of words? Is there any rule? I also saw there are some differences in articulating medial s between American and British accents. I already know the rule for pronouncing plural s and es.  Is there any case where ‹c› is pronounced /z/?
14877
What is the origin of “long long i” before voiced consonants (the [ai] of wide, while, &amp; tribe) versus “short long i” before unvoiced consonants (the [ʌi] of white, wife, &amp; wipe)? When did this difference appear? Is it just a secondary distinction, or are there minimal pairs for these two diphthongs?  Obviously the distinction is not present in all accents—though its presence in most leads me to believe it's not a late arrival—and yet I've never found a dictionary that distinguishes them.
5256
Is there a rule to understand how the group "Cha" has to be pronounced?  "Character" sounds with a hard first syllable, while "Charm" sound softer, but I don't find how to tell which sound to use before earing someone saying the word. It could be because of the double consonant "rm" vs "ra"? Or is it just a matter of knowing the rule for every single word?  EDIT: More specifically, let's talk about UK English pronunciation.
115685
How do we pronounce "s" at the end of the word when the next word also starts with "s"? For example,     She has some apples: Do we need to add "s" after has and before   some like "she has s some apples"?      He is single: Do we need to add "s" after is and before single   like "he is s single"?
83670
I caught myself pronouncing the "c" in "grocery" as an "sh" sound.  Is this commonplace/accepted, or is it perhaps geographic?  Does this occur with "c" in other words?  As background, I was raised in Cincinnati, OH and now live in western New England.
104401
Fuck. Shit. Bitch. Cunt. I remember reading somewhere -- a very long time ago -- that these "hard" sounds are virtually necessary in profanities. The explanation I roughly remember is that because these "hard sounds" are unmistakable, that is, because  there is no half-hearting them in , that lends to them to use in words that one wants to be unmistakable in intent, e.g, in profanities where one wants to intensify a phrase or rile someone up.   I remember these being called .    Unfortunately I'm not a linguist, not even a fair amateur one, and when I went to check Wikipedia for the definition of fricative, I really couldn't make heads or tails of the lingo.  I have no idea what those weird letters or the adjective "voiceless" mean.  Moreover, I think I'm just plain wrong about those sounds being fricatives -- the examples I found on that page don't seem correspond very well to the hard sounds I mentioned above. My memory about what I read is obviously horribly dashed. Am I in fact correct in observing that profanities tend to have "hard" sound somehow, and if so, could someone give me a name for them so I can go about content I know something really cool?
110177
As far as I know, those are the only two.  They should be pronounced Soogher and Soor, shouldn't they?  I looked them up on Dictionary.com, and their etymologies reveal no trace of an SH, except where the listing for sugar had:     Middle English sugre, sucre (noun) &lt; Middle French sucre  &lt; Medieval Latin succārum  &lt; Italian zucchero  &lt; Arabic sukkar;  obscurely akin to Persian shakar, Greek sákcharon   I see an obscure kinship to shakar, but the word morphed so many times since then that the SH disappeared pretty much completely.  And sure is even worse, with no sign of SH:     Middle English sur ( e ) &lt; Middle French sur, Old French seur  &lt; Latin sēcūrus   Why are these the only two like this?
110815
In certain words, the letters 'th' are pronounced just like in &quot;the&quot; or &quot;clothes&quot; — /ð/. But in a word such as &quot;filthy&quot;, the sound changes (/θ/). Which sound is more common? When seeing 'th', would you naturally pronounce it like in &quot;the&quot; or like in &quot;filthy&quot;?
80213
What rules of the English language allow the first t in patient to make an sh sound?  Why is it /ˈpeɪʃənt/ and not /ˈpeɪtənt/?  Are there any other words where t behaves in this way?
116698
I confess! Being a non-native speaker, I struggle a lot especially when I come across a new word. And I wonder how do native speakers pronounce perfectly even though they read the word for the very first time. There should be some rule/technique? I'm not sure.  Let's take a case.   If I see a word having 'ch' for the very first time, how do I guess it? Remember, I don't have dictionary. Nor do I have access to this great site when I encounter that word. For example,   Take the word 'chariot'. Being a non-native with quite limited knowledge of orthography, I know that 'ch' is pronounced as in 'Charles'  But then, imagine, I came across the word 'charade'. Undoubtedly, for me, it is 'ch (as in Charles)-re-d-s'. But then, actually, 'ch' there is 'sh' (as in Shane).   It's not just 'ch' but it goes for 'g' as well. 'G' as in 'goat' or 'g' as in 'gymnastic'. Is there any source that teaches how to pronounce a letter if it is placed after/before certain letter? Is there any such rule? The one I remember is when a word ends with 'mb', you don't pronounce 'b'. 'Bomb', 'Comb', 'Tomb' and .      There are a few more words that add another nail in the coffin of my pronunciation complexity!      penis (pee, and not as in 'pen')  asthma (no 'th' pronounced)  Dengue (dengeee)  and many more...
107089
It always bugged me that I do not know how to differentiate "spatial" from "special". I would just say "space" to be clear when "spatial" is the grammatically correct choice. Are the standard pronunciations different? If not, is there a way to indicate that I am saying either of the two?
24637
Wikipedia says , which isn't true at all.  For instance, there's the one usually done twice in rapid succession with the tongue against the upper side teeth/gums - to "gee up" a horse, indicate "mock-conspiratorial" agreement, etc.  So far as I know, we don't even attempt an onomatopoeic written representation of that one, but the one formed by suction against the back of the front teeth/palate is normally written as either "tut" or "tsk". Sometimes people actually say "tut" or "tut-tut" (presumably, influenced by the written form).  But I've never heard anybody say anything remotely resembling "tsk". So where does the "k" come from in that written representation?
81582
What's this notation for marking up pronunciation?      analgesic: ann-ull-JEE-zick   What's a good introductory article or book to learn it?