@ 49: Wenn Deutsche die Aussprache des Singulars
man lernen, nehmen sie zunächst den (kurzen)"ä"-Laut, den sie kennen, nähmlich den von "Äpfel". Wenn ihnen dann erklärt werden soll, dass sich der Plural anders anhört, müssen sie notgedrungen in Richtung "i" ausweichen, und unter Umständen prägt sich das so ein, dass sie dabei bleiben, selbst wenn sie den "cat"-sound irgendwann erlernt haben. Eigentlich ganz simpel. Genau aus diesem Grund finde ich es auch schwierig, den "Äpfel"-Vokal ("Mensch", "Bett")für den Plural "men" zu empfehlen. Den benutzen sie ja schon für den Singular, und wo ist dann der Unterschied geblieben? Das dürfte die weite Verbreitung von "min" im deutschen englischunterricht erklären.
I've only come back, really, to try and clear up a couple of misunderstandings which might arise from ## 25--28.
First: yes, it is very difficult to discuss absolute sound quality without audio. IPA is a way of transcribing distinctions within one language and
between languages. This does not always work.
There are several IPA-charts on Wikipedia (in different contexts) and they all agree to disagree on the question of the right symbol for the vowel sound in
bet, get, bed, men etc. Some say, it is "usually given as /ɛ/" but "sometimes as /e/", others put it the other way round. There is not a single discussion of the topic in Wiki which does not carry at least one cautionary footnote to this particular sound. Here is a short but very instructive article on how lexicographers tried to solve the IPA-problems (on my screen, not all of the (few) symbols in the text display correctly, but the coloured boxes do, so it should be clear enough):
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-engl...Second: I must apologize to hm--us for not having made it clear enough that I concentrated on the variant of British pronunciation which I know best. If American speakers tell me that for them the vowel sound in
bed is the same as in
square, who am I to contradict? I can only say they sound different to me.
Third: I must concede that the vowel in E
bet is very close to that in G
Bett (or in
met and
Mett). It would probably require sophisticated frequency analyses to detect the difference, if there are any. But in words ending with a voiced consonant (which doesn't occur in G) the vowel tends to be a fraction of a bit longer, which gives the speaker a chance to pronounce it more carefully. In my pronunciation of English, which I reckon is fairly close to British RP with a couple of unwanted blemishes, the short vowel sound of
bed, dead is more closed and more to the front than in
bet, debt. And if your tongue is already half its way to your teeth as in
death, the vowel is very much like the G short e-vowel in
enorm. So this may be one of the reasons why several dictionaries prefer IPA /e/ for this sound even if many English dialects have it closer to /ɛ/ in actual sound (additional remark @hm--us: "God knows what they were thinking" -- no lapse of reason at all, and BTW, length of the vowel was and is not the issue). Here is a list of transcriptions used in a (somewhat incomplete) variety of accepted dictionaries for all those who'd like to pursue the matter further (note that the first column is IPA for General American):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_re...And for all those interested in differences between General American (whatever it is) and other varieties of English and how IPA tries to cope with them, see (note that this time the first column is meant to be Pan-English):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_chart_for_EnglishFourth and a bit OT: A personal note to hm--us (#26):
>>Unfortunately, the sound for "man" does not exist in German.<< That I agree with, and thought I had said so.</i> Yes, of course, and I read and understood it. What a subtle and elegant and perfectly polite way to express a slight feeling of indignation or impatience with more-than-daft-readers of your contributions! In this case, I saw that you wanted to avoid "the really tiresome cat-discussion", so I concentrated on why German teachers might recommend the "min"-pronunciation without addressing the problem of the /æ/-sound (see beginning of this contribution). So there is, I hope, no real misunderstanding or problem which needs a solution?
Last: Transkriptionsprobleme in internationaler Lautschrift sind ja nun nicht unbedingt das tägliche Brot beim Spracherwerb. Meine Empfehlung für den Sprachunterricht wäre, mit dem "a" in Vater/father (/a:/ und /ɑ:/) anzufangen. Wenn sie dieses "zurückgezogene" englische a beherrschen, würde ich die gleiche Zungenbewegung für das ä anwenden (Mett/mat; Kette/cat. Von da aus ist der Plural von "man" ein Kinderspiel.
Entschuldigung, dass ich zum Abschluss dieser Diskussion, die ja schon alles Wichtige gesagt hat, noch einmal so ausführlich geworden bin.
