breaths is pronounced as [breθz] or [breθs] ?

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

That's why I mentioned it wasn't useful for plurals, just wanted to make sure you knew about those resources in case you didn't because when I used to teach English in Brazil my students found them very useful in other situations.

In any case, the wiktionary resource gives you IPA pronunciation (if not audio) for breaths: /brɛθs/[/b]

Thank you.

Hope others come here to further confirm this.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

Joe Nation already did, but you misunderstood him and dismissed it.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

MontereyJack wrote:

breaths = [breðz] ? NO

I need a YES reply.

Why? It isn't true.

You wrote,

Quote:

Let's directly confirm or deny this:

breaths = [breðz] ?

Well, the answer is NO (Denied).

Breaths = [breθs]

1 Reply

@contrex,

contrex wrote:

oristarA wrote:

MontereyJack wrote:

breaths = [breðz] ? NO

I need a YES reply.

Why? It isn't true.

You wrote,

Quote:
Let's directly confirm or deny this:

breaths = [breðz] ?

Well, the answer is NO (Denied).

Breaths = [breθs]

Thanks.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Joe Nation already did, but you misunderstood him and dismissed it.

His answer is a bit winding. Very Happy

However, kudos goes to him. Of course.

0 Replies

Now the last time we got into this I found a site where I could type the phonetic symbols but I can't remember where it is, so I;m going to have to make some conventions: the symbol that looks like a backward 3, which is IPA for what English calls"short e" like in "bet" I will call "backward 3". The unvoiced dental fricative (tongue agains back of upper teeth like in "thing"), which looks like the Greek theta I will call "theta". And the voiced dental fricative like the "th" in "this" which looks kinda like an o with a little cross on top, which I believe was called the letter "thorn" in Old English I will call "thorn" (except the modern word "thorn" has an unvoiced "th", so we have to make allowances.

So "breath" is br-backward 3-theta
"breaths" is br-backward 3-theta-s

phonetically, the "long e" sound in "beet" is "i" (that;s the way I learned it, oristar's phonetics has it as a half-height I, so 'breathes' is phonetically bri-thorn-z, not bre

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

Here you go, Jack.

http://ipa.typeit.org/

Sorry, I should have posted this before.

Jack wrote and I've added (Bold emphasis)

Quote:

So "breath" is br-backward 3-theta brʒθ"breaths" is br-backward 3-theta-s brʒθs

Those are wrong, by the way, there's two different 'e' sounds in breath and breathes.

http://englishupgrade.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/phonetic_alphabet1_1.gif

breath (noun) breð Your breath is sweet....

breathe (verb) brɪːð Breathe, my brother, relax!

breathes (Verb) brɪːðz "Breathes there a man ..."

breathes (Noun) breθs It took three breathes before..

I did these really fast, check and see if you think I'm correct.

Joe(one day late)Nation

2 Replies

@Joe Nation,

Quote:

breathes (Noun) breθs It took three breathes before..

the noun form just has the one e...

0 Replies

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

breathes (Noun) breθs It took three breathes before..

rolls eyes

1 Reply

@contrex,

Rolling my eyes too.....

breaths

Joe(shameful, shameful)nation

0 Replies

Joe. people keep writing, in what is apparently meant to be a phonetic transcription, since it has the theta symbol in it, "breath" or "breathes" with "e" as the vowel symbol, BUT phonetically "e" is more or less what is called "long a" in high school English. Phonetically the five symbols "a e i o u" corresond to the vowel sound in the words " ha hay he ho hoo" (English long A is usually a diphthong, so the corresondence isn't exact, but hay is about the closest we come to phonetic "e"), so writing breathe phonetically as bre- actually would mean it would be pronounced as something fairly close to braythe, and breath written phonetically as bre- would be pronounced like brayth.

Yet if you'll look back at the thread, people have been writing both as having the same vowel sound, allegedly phonetically bre-.

I was trying to point out that that is inaccurate, that there are two vowel sounds, one phonetically represented by the backward 3 symbol , and the other by either "i" in some phonetic systems or by the half-height ca;pital "I" in the one whose chart you posted.

I'm really going to have to find the alternate phonetic keyboard symbols again, found it the first time to try to pound a little sense into OmSigDavid and his loopy non-phonetic inconsistent "simplified" spelling, but was too lazy to locat it again. I can see I should have made the effort.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

'tis been a long time since I used it . The closest thing to a backwards 3 is for 'ur' as in wORd.
Joe(now what.?)Nation

1 Reply

yeah, that's thge problem, Joe. /go to the link that came from, and they have the backwarc 3 in their keyboard-- (the one as in word is a frontwards 3--i.e. it looks like a 3).

0 Replies

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

'tis been a long time since I used it . The closest thing to a backwards 3 is for 'ur' as in wORd.
Joe(now what.?)Nation

We need the link to the "pic" above, Joe, for Jack's convenience to copy the standard IPA (Your former IPA link offers us with weird symbols which you've claimed wrong).

0 Replies

ok, I think I'm right and that chart is not standard IPA--I don't know where they came up with some of the symbols they use and what they use as the referent. Go to the IPA site http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html
and pretty much all you need to do is look at their phonetic transcription of "The International Phonetic Association" under that title at the top of the home page. Match up the symbols with the Roman alphabet letters, which nclude most of the ones under discussion here.

In any case, maybe I can make it simpler with words we all (hopefully) pronounce the same way:
breath: no problems with br; ea pronounced like the e in "get"; th pronounced like "think"
breaths: the same, and then s like s in "sink"
breathes: br as always the same; ea as in "heave"; th as in "this" or "then" (i.e. voiced); next e silent; s like z in "zinc"

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

ok, I think I'm right and that chart is not standard IPA--I don't know where they came up with some of the symbols they use and what they use as the referent. Go to the IPA site http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html
and pretty much all you need to do is look at their phonetic transcription of "The International Phonetic Association" under that title at the top of the home page. Match up the symbols with the Roman alphabet letters, which nclude most of the ones under discussion here.

In any case, maybe I can make it simpler with words we all (hopefully) pronounce the same way:
breath: no problems with br; ea pronounced like the e in "get"; th pronounced like "think"
breaths: the same, and then s like s in "sink"
breathes: br as always the same; ea as in "heave"; th as in "this" or "then" (i.e. voiced); next e silent; s like z in "zinc"

You can directly copy them and paste, Jack:

breaths /breθs/

breathes / bri:ðz/

Click the link below to copy:

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm

Everyone makes their emo rants in A2K. We cannot afford so many time to read them through. But we can save time whenever possible.

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phonetically the e in breaths is the backward 3, which is in the IPA but not in that chart.

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I'm going to do some study on this because I think it would be helpful.

Jack: I always had a laugh when one of our professors would say that something was pronounced "like the 'eh' in GET." because my interest, at the time, was in dialects of the United States, wherein GET can be spoken as:
"Get" (Standard heh
it can also be----
"GIT" in Texas, (I git whatchur sayin'.)
"GUT" in North Dakota. ("Out fishing last night, we gut four walleye."
"GAT" in Massachusetts (Well, I've gat to be going.)

Joe(more later)Nation

1 Reply

good point, Joe (but I've lived in MA for decades and never heard anyone pronounce it "gat"). Hadn't been thinking about localisms. How about "met" or "entropy"

0 Replies

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

it can also be----
"GIT" in Texas, (I git whatchur sayin'.)

I git whatchur sayin' = I get what you're saying?

2 Replies

breaths is pronounced as [breθz] or [breθs] ?

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