Yeah the "chaste" one was the big one for me. I know the USA pronounces Ts and Ds the same in some contexts but it's harsh for this quiz to ignore the T sound here.
Correct is insulting. Saying the common pronunciation is better. There are dialects and accents that traditionally use the aspirated "H" in /wh/ pronunciations still.
I agree with gatorsong, and I looked at the website. Their map of the southern US is missing a lot of territory in the upper south where we still use the "hw". I've never heard anyone say "wale" for whale. Apparently the whine-wine merger completely passed us by.
I can understand Taut for Taught. But while "tort" and "torte" may be homonyms of each other, how can they be homonyms for "taught" when "taught" doesn't have an "r"?
That is the wonder of English, and particularly for the “gh” combo - many spellings can be pronounced the same way. Taught and torte are pronounced the same (at least in the generic Southern English accent that I have).
How anyone learns English fluently is beyond me, as it is complicated enough even for those whose first language it is. I guess it comes down to the quality of education, which makes me think of a quote from a German character in a play I once saw: “I like the English. They almost speak as good English as the Dutch”.
Source? LMAO. England pronounces them the same, which means that Europe, Asia, Africa, ANZ pronounce it like this, as they speak English. So just the four continents disagree with you.
My source is Wikipedia. Australia, parts of England, Wales, most African English dialects, and New Zealand drop their Rs (non-rhotic). Ireland, Scotland, USA, Asian English dialects, southwestern England (not even all of England is non-rhotic!!), and Canada are all generally rhotic. Places like India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean all are to some degree rhotic.
"V" and "W" so not sound the same in any native English accent I have heard. However, I suspect short forms are not included as in another quiz in the same series "bi" was not a correct answer for "buy".
Good one. Canada here, and I agree. (So does Merriam-Webster http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/pronunciation-symbols-and-variants-for-the-vowel-sounds-in-tot-and-taught)
whale|wail and wet|whet are not homonyms. the pairs rhyme, but if you lookup the phonetics for whale and whet they start with a slight h /(h)/ sound that wail and wet do not have.
it's subject to both the whine-wine merger and the pane-pain merger - the latter is found in almost all dialects save for some welsh and east anglian accents. the former - also widespread, scotland and ireland (and some new england accents) lack this one ...
generally, the [xʷ] / [ʍ] phoneme has been merged into [w] so it's safe to say that this is an acceptable pair
Things I have learned from doing all of these homophone quizzes:
1. There will always be a complaint from a British English speaker that a word containing a letter 'R' is or should be pronounced the same as a similar word nor containing the letter 'R'. Example above is 'tort' and 'torte' for 'taut' and 'taught'. Another example is 'manna' for 'manner' and 'manor'.
2. There will be a refutal of the above by a US English speaker. US English is rhotic and British English (RP) is non-rhotic. Get over it.
3. Quizmaster puts these examples in purposefully, then retires, popcorn in hand, to observe the subsequent linguistic fisticuffs.
You make the mistake of dividing it into British and USA English, which I see people do to diminish the population that speak English differently to the Americans.
Lots of countries speak English: India, Nigeria, Singapore, Australia, etc. plus all the European countries that learn English at school. They all speak what you call the "British" way.
This is not really true. There are a lot of rhotic countries and dialects. Irish and Scottish speakers are generally rhotic, and so is most of southwest England. Honestly, I’d venture that there are a lot more speakers of rhotic English than non-rhotic, especially considering the large population of the USA. Oh, and Indian English and Pakistani English generally range from semi-rhotic to rhotic. The assertion that most English around the world is non-rhotic is just generally wrong.
To add to what Dimby said, I think it's hugely reductive to say that all of those countries speak the same English. Maybe you are just talking about rhoticity, but even then I'm sure there are at least some differences between them all
The European countries part of your comment is not as true as it used to be some decades ago. Sure we are still taught British English at school, but the impact of US pop culture via music, Netflix shows etc. somewhat outweighs it. So in France for instance we end up speaking a weird mishmash of Hollywood/NYC/Gangsta Rap/British RP + heavy frrrench accenttt ;)
I agree. We don't pronounce the "wh" sound at all where I live. If you do, people make fun of you and then make a Stewie reference like you're trying to say "cool whip".
The difference between well and whale is not the wh sound but the vowel sound: well as in el (elevator, el train) and whale as in ale, ail. Regional differences apply, as usual.
'Lien' is pronounced 'Lee-en', 'mourning' is not pronounced 'morning' except in the USA, and 'clique' is 'cleek' not 'click' anywhere. There are colloquialisms and there are things that are just wrong.
I was surprised that nobody else had mentioned lien in the comments up until now. And I also agree with clique. However, morning and mourning are the same in the UK as far as I am concerned
«morning» and «mourning» are homophones in dialects which have the horse-hoarse merger, which represents the majority of dialects aside from scottish and caribbean and some other english accents...
Everytime I see a British-vs.-American-English face-off, I feel like I'm reliving the Revolution all over again. Good fun. I like to pretend that the war really started during a rousing round of scrabble.
Full marks (for once)! Although l hammered on "lean" for well over a minute. Tried everything (line, leen, leign, liegn, lighn, etc) before getting "lien" by fluke (don't even know its meaning).
lien was the only one I missed, when the time ran out I was expecting something obvious to pop up and make me feel foolish, only slightly relieved to see it was actually a word I had never heard of before.
Look, 'clique' is not pronounced 'click', it's pronounced 'cleek'. Anywhere, period!!! And properly pronounced, 'morning' is not pronounced 'mourning' because the latter has a long 'o' sound, as in 'bone' whereas morning is short as in 'dock'. And you should check out 'lien': it has TWO syllables, 'lee-an'. That's not regional, it's just wrong ...
E.g. chased and chaste, I have just a bit more of a "t" sound in chaste.
I did eventually get them all. I always hated the word "jamb" for some reason. Then again, I guess silent B's are pretty unique, eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZmqJQ-nc_s
And since you like websites...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_%E2%9F%A8wh%E2%9F%A9
How anyone learns English fluently is beyond me, as it is complicated enough even for those whose first language it is. I guess it comes down to the quality of education, which makes me think of a quote from a German character in a play I once saw: “I like the English. They almost speak as good English as the Dutch”.
it's subject to both the whine-wine merger and the pane-pain merger - the latter is found in almost all dialects save for some welsh and east anglian accents. the former - also widespread, scotland and ireland (and some new england accents) lack this one ...
generally, the [xʷ] / [ʍ] phoneme has been merged into [w] so it's safe to say that this is an acceptable pair
1. There will always be a complaint from a British English speaker that a word containing a letter 'R' is or should be pronounced the same as a similar word nor containing the letter 'R'. Example above is 'tort' and 'torte' for 'taut' and 'taught'. Another example is 'manna' for 'manner' and 'manor'.
2. There will be a refutal of the above by a US English speaker. US English is rhotic and British English (RP) is non-rhotic. Get over it.
3. Quizmaster puts these examples in purposefully, then retires, popcorn in hand, to observe the subsequent linguistic fisticuffs.
Lots of countries speak English: India, Nigeria, Singapore, Australia, etc. plus all the European countries that learn English at school. They all speak what you call the "British" way.
A cat has claws at the end of its paws, while a comma has a pause at the end of its clause.
I think you can make an exception for this one
Mourning"
Unbelievable!
some dialects like mine (en-CA) there's a vowel length difference too
Neither are clique (kleek) and click (klik).