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Sat 25 May, 2013 01:37 am
In a discussion, if I wanted to say a speaker has made a good point,
1. is it natural English to say: 'it's a good point to make'?
2. Do native speakers really pronounce the T in 'point'? I'm not sure, because, like the past tense inflection in verbs, I find that many native speakers in videos don't pronounce these 'trivial sounds', but I don't know whether it's because the acoustic function was too poor to receive the sound...
Yes, that is an acceptable thing to say. Yes, English speakers pronounce the "t" in point.
@Setanta,
Thank you~
But when they speak very fast, will it be retained?
@WBYeats,
We always retain the 't', no matter how fast we speak
English uses explosive consonants. There may be particular cases in which consonants are not pronounced, but they would be exceptions and i can't think of any off-hand as i type this.
@WBYeats,
It depends on which particular accent the native speaker has, sometimes the t is substituted for a glottal stop.
Thank you~
How about the past tense inflection in verbs? I find that many native speakers in videos don't pronounce these 'trivial sounds' like TRIED/QUALIFIED, or is it because my listening ability is too poor?
@Setanta,
As hard as I have tried to disguise my New Joisey accent, I still have difficulty pronouncing the interior t in bottle and turtle. I also tend to omit the d in and.
@neologist,
neologist wrote:
As hard as I have tried to disguise my New Joisey accent, I still have difficulty pronouncing the interior t in bottle and turtle. I also tend to omit the d in and.
When I was staying in Bensonhurst I marvelled (among other things) at the way the locals pronounced "mirror". It sounded like "meer".
@contrex,
In my neck of the woods, it's pronounced "mira."
@WBYeats,
Quote:or is it because my listening ability is too poor?
That would depend, WB.
How have you learned English so far? How much exposure have you had to real contextual English?
@JTT,
Q:How have you learned English so far?
A:Talking to foreigners and reading, sometimes listening to English.
Q:How much exposure have you had to real contextual English?
A:What is real contextual English? Do you mean conversational English?...
@WBYeats,
Quote:What is real contextual English?
Situations where you have to respond to real life scenarios as opposed to empty repetition of grammar structures/word phrases/sentences/etc.
@JTT,
The only situation I can think of is when I talk to foreigners...
@WBYeats,
How common an occurrence has that been, WB?
@JTT,
Rare. On average, a several-sentence conversation a day.
In the first post I said:
if I wanted to say a speaker has made a good point, ...
Is it grammatical to continue it with 'can I say'?
I'm not sure because WANTED in its past tense form is used to show politeness, rather than really referring to a past situation, but this past tense verb seems incompatible with CAN, a verb very often considered too present( I'm not sure whether COULD is the correct one....
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