For those wondering what the calligraphy people wrote, it was "Ka Er": 卡尔, pronounced "Kah are". In reality, it would be pronounced very quickly, like "car". So they did the best they could given the lack of an ending "L" sound. Shows the limitations of translating english phonetics into chinese language sounds.

Cool, did not know that. The one we get to hear most often is the ghoti = fish example for unphoneticness of English.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
How about Ladle Rat Rotten Hut?

Your point about the sounds shifting is interesting, I've noticed that if I watch a long enough (subtitled!) Dutch movie, by the end I can pick up a few words which are similar or the same as English once a few sounds are changed a little.
In reply to this comment by DerHasisttot:
I've onyl read ballads and such from these periods, I can read middle english Ok, old english: Not really, only if I really get into it and learn some symbols again. Reading frisian is far easier than understanding it by hearing, the same probably goes for swabian. Most of the times you just have to shift some different sounds to certain letters and you've got an approximation of a more standard german.
The northern german intonation (of their dialect) however is hell for me to understand, that's completely different, as you said. Swabian is spoken more softly and sonorant in the back of the throat, whereas northern german sounds 'headier' and nasal to me.

Channels art and dark were chosen purely for their phonetic qualities.

I've got a good quip for when you buy a lot of 2 x 4s at Lowes: "deliver me lumber, ya swab!"

It's not a 'b'. It's a glottal stop. In lazyman's International Phonetic Alphabet: /sıt?u:bu:sıt/

>> ^hpqp:

dead


Fixed and thanks!

Well it's lucky that, like David Mitchell says, a name is just a label and everyone will get used to it. My kids know a girl named "Mustang", which surely would be worse

You're right that sid-knee would be correct.

The masters of spelling a name one way and pronouncing it another are our cousins across the English channel from you. Have you heard of an English TV show called "Keeping up appearances"? The main character is named Hyacinth Bucket, but insists it's pronounced "Bouquet".
>> ^DerHasisttot:

>> I'm not good at transcribing into phonetic language, I admit it :-)

The first syllable sounds like the french "Zut" as in "Zut alors!", the second syllable sounds like the word "neigh". As opposed to a (hopefully) correct pronunciation "Sid-knee".

>> ^oritteropo:

Even in English speaking countries, she may find herself being teased for having a name which is usually a boys name.
Does that horrible pronunciation sound, to a German, like the sound a bavarian horse would make, or like oppression of the south? Or is there another homophone that I've missed?>> ^DerHasisttot:
My father's wife's daughter called her little girl "Sydney." In English-speaking countries this would not be a problem, but here in Germany it stands out like a lighthouse. Even more problematic is the fact that the mother cannot even pronounce the name properly, which would be sth like "Sid-knee." She pronounces it "Süd-neigh," which is just ugly.



I'm mot good at transcribing into phonetic language, I admit it :-)



The first syllable sounds like the french "Zut" as in "Zut alors!", the second syllable sounds like the word "neigh". As opposed to a (hopefully) correct pronunciation "Sid-knee".

In the documentary BBC - Science and Islam http://videosift.com/video/BBC-Science-and-Islam

It suggests that Islam fell out of being the preferred language of science after the invention of the printing press.

Arabic was used for science because of all its phonetic symbols, which enabled people of any nation to understand each other and do scientific debates in person. Production and writing of scientific papers was expensive, since they had to be hand written, no matter what the language. So only ideas that were fully debated would be written down and distributed.

With invention of the printing press, English became the preferred language of science, because now it was cheap to produce and distribute scientific papers. English letters are easily put on printing press block letters. So it became possible to do peer review of scientific papers published anywhere in the world. They tried to print Arabic with the printing press, but the language wasn't well suited for that, because of the same phonetic symbols which had given it the edge in the past.

And that is how the Islamic world fell out of science...

Hmm, 36⁵²?

Numbers: 10
Nato phonetic: 26

so that's the 36 possibilities powered by the number of characters: 52

Well shit, it's right. Trekkies always get their math right...

Yes... it was also on TV in the States. Anyway there are other fish in the sea.

It's a cool cover though... the singer didn't know any English when they did it, he had the words written out phonetically in Russian!

In reply to this comment by JenniferBurger:
with 1,000,000 views, i knew it was too good to be true.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^westy:
obvouse

I actually had to look this word up because I thought you were smart...motherfucker.


Lol I'm a pleb , maybe if there were enough dyslexics the language and spelling of words would naturally change over time and us tards would all be spelling stuff "correctly" . The problem i have is i could spell everything in a phonetic logical way just fine , its when my brain knows a word is a retarded spelling ( silent letters or stuff thats just a language convention ) and instead of getting it right i end up writing something thats a mix of the weird spelling with a phonetic spelling.

>> ^TangledThorns:

Sarah Palin's speech was far better than Obama's ummm, uhhhs... Corpsemen duhhh president. It's a memorial and not a pep rally. If he was a true leader he would of told those attending that but he is not a leader. sooo....


When people use the colloquial contraction of "would have," it reads "would've." Due to the nature of the "ve (vuh)" sound at the end immediately preceded by a "d" sound, in this case similar to "duh" for the case of "would," the result is a "duh-ve" or "dove" sound in "would've." Despite the sound of the pronunciation, however, when breaking down the contraction, it should read "would have" which are the sum of the parts, not "would of" which is merely the phonetic version.

>> ^EDD:
>> ^Maze:
It looks like OMOH to me, which in a mirror would be HOMO. Much like how "ambulance" is written backwards.

Phonetic "N" in Cyrilic looks exactly the same as Latin "H".


-passes hand over head-

WHOOSH!

>> ^Maze:

It looks like OMOH to me, which in a mirror would be HOMO. Much like how "ambulance" is written backwards.


Phonetic "N" in Cyrilic looks exactly the same as Latin "H".

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