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Are these two words pronounce the same? Service and surface. What do you guys think?
Sep 28, 2018 11:15 PM
Answers · 14
1
No. Why do you ask pronunciation questions that could be answered by opening a dictionary?
September 28, 2018
No, they aren't. They sound quite different to a native speaker. Here's a recording of me saying the words, five times each, in random order. Let's see if any other native speakers want to listen and identify what I said. I think a native speaker will get this 100% right, the first time, without effort. https://vocaroo.com/i/s0S8SY9PWfnP As you listen, you'll hear "sur?ace." Try to pay attention to whether what you hear in that middle phoneme, where I wrote the question mark. Does the word have a breath-of-air hiss (an f), or a little voiced buzz (a v)?
September 29, 2018
Ok, I will listen to them more carefully. Won't ask this kind of questions again.
September 29, 2018
Part of your issue may be that some teachers of English in certain countries fail to teach the pronunciation of V correctly. If you pronounce W and V the same, and think they are pronounced the same, I am not surprised you find it hard to hear the difference between F and V.
September 29, 2018
Suggestion: Trust the dictionary. If the dictionary shows different pronunciations, then the words are actually pronounced differently and a native speaker will hear the difference. Don't ask if the pronunciations are different (the dictionary answers that question). If you don't hear the difference (many dictionaries will pronounce the words), then just state that you don't hear a difference and ask for a native speaker to record the words (spoken slowly and with moderate exaggeration of the sounds). In reality, a few pronunciation lessons will make a big difference to you. A trained pronunciation teacher will (1) work on your listening discrimination of the sounds (phonemes) of English, and (2) work on your pronunciation of the sounds of English. Not hearing the differences (not recognizing the individual sounds of English) makes it very hard to pronounce correctly because the speaker doesn't have an accurate model of the pronunciation.
September 29, 2018
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