# pronunciation: end vs and [/æ/ vs /ε/]



## newname

Do you differentiate these two sounds? 

When the bbc news reader pronounces them, I can hear the difference and it's a big one. The two sounds are as distinct as the nose on your face. 
I just cannot distinguish them when they are said by, particularly, an American.

Thanks,


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## sdgraham

Do we differentiate?

Formally, yes and frequently no.

The issue is enunciation, not pronunciation, i.e. the "and" becomes 'n.'

See this example for In 'n' Out Burgers where the colloquial enunciation is formalized.


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## newname

Thanks,

But, I meant when and is stressed.
Other examples:
  hat vs het
  hand vs hen

Are the vowel sounds (/e/ and /ae/ ) said the same?


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## brian

Those _e_ words have /ε/, not /e/. For example:

_bat_ = /bæt/
_bet_ = /bεt/

Note that there is no pure /e/ in English - it's always realized as a dipthong (or a vowel with an "off-glide"): [eɪ]. Thus:

_bait_ = [beɪt]

All three of these words have distinct pronunciations, at least in my dialect of AmE.


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## newname

Thanks, Brian, for the extra info.

But at least the bbc newsreader makes bat and bet very clear. When they say bat, it is bat to my ear as clearly as the five fingers before my good eyes.

Let the words be said by a CNN or Bloomberg newsreader and hmm only the context can help me know if it is bat or bet.

To my ear, American-said /bat/ and /bet/ all appear to be /bet/.


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## brian

No, I'm sorry, newname. In fact, all of the following words are distinct, for me:

_bite
bit
bait
bet
bat
bot
but
boot
boat
bought_

as well as _but*_, a hypothetical word rhyming with _put_ and not _putt_.


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## newname

Thanks,

So, it's just my ears.


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## boozer

If you look at the chart linked below, you will see the standard position of /æ/ is between the mid-open /ε/ and the open /a/. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel

In terms of height then, the AE /æ/ is positioned closer to the /ε/ than the BE one. Or, at least, that's how it sounds to me. In some BE accents that I've heard, on the other hand, the /æ/ sound is almost identical with /a/, i.e. the short version of /a:/ in heart. 

But /ε/ and /æ/ are still two distinct sounds in AE.

In fact, out of curiosity, I have asked AE speakers to tell me whether the vowel sound in "mat" sounds to them closer to:
met or
mart (its shortened version)
In both cases "mart" was chosen over "met".

I'm pretty sure I would be better able to distinguish between various AE vowels if I spent more time with AE speakers


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## newname

Thanks, Boozer, but words are for the eyes and sounds are for the ears. Charts cannot help my ears although they look good.

To my ears, American-said /bat/ sounds like bet. So does cant, which rhymes with kent. To me, Americans do not know ae from e.

I have also asked many Vietnamese if they could find differences in sound between Briton-said /bat/ and American-said /bat/ they all said the latter sounds like /bet/.


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## Valvs

newname said:


> Thanks, Boozer, but words are for the eyes and sounds are for the ears. Charts cannot help my ears although they look good.
> 
> To my ears, American-said /bat/ sounds like bet. So does cant, which rhymes with kent. To me, Americans do not know ae from e.
> 
> I have also asked many Vietnamese if they could find differences in sound between Briton-said /bat/ and American-said /bat/ they all said the latter sounds like /bet/.



For what it's worth, I can hear the difference between "bad" and "bed" in American pronunciation very clearly. Many Brits pronounce the sound in "bad" closer to Spanish or, say, Russian "a", which is probably why you find such word pairs easier to distinguish in British pronunciation. But believe me, the difference is there in  American pronunciation too.


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## pickarooney

In my dialect these vowels are very distinct. In any American dialect I can think of these are distinguishable in terms of 'height'. The vowel in _bad _is a shade higher than the one _bed_.



> Note that there is no pure /e/ in English - it's always realized as a dipthong (or a vowel with an "off-glide"): [eɪ].


I disagree. /e/ exists as a monophthong in my dialect of English.


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## Hermione Golightly

Hello newname 

I can sympathise with the difficulties you have distinguishing between American and British pronunciations of and/end, bat/bet and so on. 

I  mostly don't say 'and' unless I want to emphasis it Normally I say _und_ if the word following starts with a vowel or _un_ the u being a schwa, or even 'n'. This is because the word normally has little meaning in itself - it is a filler word. Grammatically it has to be there.

Can't/kent has an additional difficulty for me as a BrE speaker and, in my experience, has  occasionally created serious communication problems. The problem arises from the BrE pronunciation of can vs can't, in which the a of can becomes an ah/ or BrE ar in can't.
If this difference is not reflected in speech and if the final t is not very clearly enunciated or worse still, if it is entirely omitted, I really can't distinguish between can and can't. They sound exactly the same, like 'ken' or sometimes 'cain'. I have only encountered this problem in service industries where, in NYC at least, people are often speaking English as a ( very) second language. They may have great problems enunciating final consonants like 't' and 'd' because these  final consonants do not exist in their mother tongue. They might not realise how important these signposts are in English. 


> To me, Americans do not know ae from e.




The main thing is to adapt and learn to cope with whatever problems some varieties of English might pose to speakers of other varieties.
This doesn't always have to do with talking English with other nationalities or native speakers. I was mocked the other day by another native BrE speaker, a southerner, about my Northern English pronunciation of 'bath'.
It's just different, that's all.




Hermione


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## newname

Thanks, Hermione.

But what is so funny about bath as said by a Northerner like you? Aren't you the same people?


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## ampurdan

newname said:


> Do you differentiate these two sounds?
> 
> When the bbc news reader pronounces them, I can hear the difference and it's a big one. The two sounds are as distinct as the nose on your face.
> I just cannot distinguish them when they are said by, particularly, an American.
> 
> Thanks,



It's not just you Vietnamese. I had the same problem. "Man" and "men" usually sounded the same to me in AE. Now I can appreciate the difference, but sometimes it's still difficult to tell them apart. So, usually only context helps me know if the speaker utters one word or the other. 

Some tips:

-Try to put your mouth as if you were to pronounce /a/, but then try to make /ɛ/ and compare the sound you make with that of an AE speaker saying "bad" or "man".
-this /æ/ sound becomes a sort of a glide before "n" in some dialects and it is easier to distinguish (I think it's called æ-tensing).

I've always wondered why they use the same IPA symbol (/æ/) to represent a sound that to me is quite different in BrE and AE.


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## newname

Many thanks ampurdan for your great tips.


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## brian

pickarooney said:


> In my dialect these vowels are very distinct. In any American dialect I can think of these are distinguishable in terms of 'height'. The vowel in _bad _is a shade higher than the one _bed_.



It's actually lower, at least for me. _Bad_ is /bæd/, and _bed_ is /bεd/; and if you look at the vowel chart here, you'll see that /æ/ is lower than /ε/. It would be impossible for it to be the other way around, otherwise _bad_ would be pronounced more like _bed_, and vice versa, which would be very confusing. 




pickarooney said:


> I disagree. /e/ exists as a monophthong in my dialect of English.



You're absolutely right. I was being very general, since one of the most distinguishing characteristics of (most varieties of) English is its lack of pure vowels, hence why /e/, /o/, etc. have "off-glides."

It also explains why foreigners of languages with pure vowels have a hard time pronouncing English, and conversely, why most English speakers have a hard time pronouncing pure vowels when they're learning Spanish or German, for example: they tend to add these off-glides, a sure sign of a native English speaker.

But yes, I do recall that Irish dialects have pure vowels. So do some of the more hardcore Canadian accents.


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## newname

brian said:


> It's actually lower, at least for me. _Bad_ is /bæd/, and _bed_ is /bεd/; and if you look at the vowel chart here, you'll see that /æ/ is lower than /ε/. It would be impossible for it to be the other way around, otherwise _bad_ would be pronounced more like _bed_, and vice versa, which would be very confusing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're absolutely right. I was being very general, since one of the most distinguishing characteristics of (most varieties of) English is its lack of pure vowels, hence why /e/, /o/, etc. have "off-glides."
> 
> It also explains why foreigners of languages with pure vowels have a hard time pronouncing English, and conversely, why most English speakers have a hard time pronouncing pure vowels when they're learning Spanish or German, for example: they tend to add these off-glides, a sure sign of a native English speaker.
> 
> But yes, I do recall that Irish dialects have pure vowels. So do some of the more hardcore Canadian accents.



I have listened to /bad/ on this site: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bad, which I think 'speaks' AE because it  rolls the 'r' in 'bard'. And you're right, Brian. There seems to be an off-glide, so /ae/ actually starts (though for a very short time) with /a/ then ends with /e/.

However, if you listen to /ae/ on this site: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/cat

/ae/ is a pure /a/ that is exactly the /a/ sound in my mother tongue i.e Vietnamese. Maybe, this is why I noticed immediately the difference between /ae/ and /e/ in Br but not AE in the first place.

Thank you all. It's been very interesting and helpful 'talking' to you.


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## berndf

newname said:


> /ae/ is a pure /a/ that is exactly the /a/ sound in my mother tongue i.e Vietnamese. Maybe, this is why I noticed immediately the difference between /ae/ and /e/ in Br but not AE in the first place.


AE has an alternative realization of /æ/ which is mainly used in front of nasal consonants. It is a weakly nasal gliding which starts as a front vowel somewhere between [e] and [ɛ] and ends as a mid to low centre vowel somewhere between [ə] and [ɐ]. I have heard it described by a native speaker with training in phonetics as a nasal [eə] (no English /e/, whether in a gliding or not, ever hits the cardinal vowel [e] precisely; it is slightly lower and therefore sounds a bit "ɛ-ish" to most foreigners, including me). Since /ɛ/ is never gliding, phonemic separation between /æ/ and /ɛ/ is always preserved and this [eə] is nothing but an allophone of /æ/ which can be used in free variation with [æ]. It is therefore not normally transcribed in IPA.

Could it be that it is this variant you have been hearing? If you have the film "The Blues Brothers" handy, you can study it when they are talking about reassembling their old band and when you listen to the way John Belushi pronounces "band".

PS: It can also be studied here.


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## ampurdan

[eə] aside, I still can hear a difference between GA /æ/ and RP /æ/ in "apple" or "bad", for instance. The way Americans pronounce it, it sounds closer to /ɛ/.


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## berndf

ampurdan said:


> [eə] aside, I still can hear a difference between GA /æ/ and RP /æ/ in "apple" or "bad", for instance. The way Americans pronounce it, it sounds closer to /ɛ/.


Again [eə] aside, how do you perceive the difference? Is the GA /æ/ higher or the GA /ɛ/ lower or both or...? I am asking because I cannot perceive this. At least I find the phonemic separation in both variants equally strong.


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## ampurdan

I don't know if GA /æ/ is higher, but it certainly sounds closer to /ɛ/ (which sounds pretty much the same in RP and GA to me).

GA /æ/ sounds like a blend (not a glide) of /a/ and /ɛ/ to me (and I've learned to make both sounds).

By the way, for what it may be worth, RP /æ/ sounds just like /a/ to me (like in the first part of the diphthong /aɪ/).


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## brian

berndf said:


> AE has an alternative realization of /æ/ which is mainly used in front of nasal consonants. It is a weakly nasal gliding which starts as a front vowel somewhere between [e] and [ɛ] and ends as a mid to low centre vowel somewhere between [ə] and [ɐ]. I have heard it described by a native speaker with training in phonetics as a nasal [eə] (no English /e/, whether in a gliding or not, ever hits the cardinal vowel [e] precisely; it is slightly lower and therefore sounds a bit "ɛ-ish" to most foreigners, including me). Since /ɛ/ is never gliding, phonemic separation between /æ/ and /ɛ/ is always preserved and this [eə] is nothing but an allophone of /æ/ which can be used in free variation with [æ]. It is therefore not normally transcribed in IPA.


Right.  I was going to mention this, the fact that /æ/ before a nasal, as in _and_, is realized as something like [eə] for *some*, but not all, speakers.

It's funny because for a phonetics quiz one time (here in Montreal), where we were asked to transcribe sentences in the way _we_ would pronounce them, I transcribed my pre-nasal /æ/'s as [eə],* and the grader approached me asking if that was a mistake or what. The reason is that in most (I think) varieties of *Canadian* English, the /æ/ is realized as a normal (pure) [æ] before nasals. It's one of the tell-tale signs of a Canadian accent (along with Canadian raising and a few other things).

*actually, the schwa was a superscript, indicating just a slight schwa-like off-glide.




ampurdan said:


> [eə] aside, I still can hear a difference between GA /æ/ and RP /æ/ in "apple" or "bad", for instance. The way Americans pronounce it, it sounds closer to /ɛ/.




You should try to listen to the difference between "apple" and "bad." Vowels before _voiced_ consonants are naturally pronounced somewhat longer in English, so it's possible that "apple" is pronounced with a short [æ] which, because it's so short, sounds like a quick [ε] or something, whereas "bad" will give you a clearer idea of what the /æ/ sounds like, since it's longer.

Nonetheless, I don't really understand why /æ/ would sound like /ε/ since /ε/ is a phoneme in its own right. Can you hear the difference between "bat" and "bet," or between "bad" and "bed"?


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## berndf

ampurdan said:


> GA /æ/ sounds like a blend (not a glide) of /a/ and /ɛ/ to me (and I've learned to make both sounds).


Yes, this is the definition of the phone [æ] as being half way between [ɛ] and [a]. See chart here.




ampurdan said:


> By the way, for what it may be worth, RP





ampurdan said:


> /æ/ sounds just like /a/ to me (like in the first part of the diphthong /aɪ/).


I see. This means you perceive the RP phoneme as lower than /æ/. I do not hear it this way. This is a quite recent British standard vowel chart which shows that /e/ and /ɛ/ are completely merged in an in-between position (though closer to [ɛ]) and /æ/ is at its normal position. According to this chart the distance between /ɛ/ and /æ/ should indeed be greater in modern RP than in GA but because RP /e~ɛ/ is higher than GA /ɛ/.


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## Dan2

In all the posts in this thread there's been only one American commenting on the general /æ/ vs /ɛ/ question, so I'd like to join in the discussion (and back him up).

/æ/ and /ɛ/ are definitely distinct in Amer Eng.  I can't guarantee that there isn't some small subset of speakers that has merged these vowels, but certainly the overwhelming majority of Americans of all educational levels, as well as TV announcers, have two distinct vowels.

However, given the original title of this thread, I wanted to mention that I've heard an alternative pronunciation of both stressed and unstressed "and" with /ɛ/.  Not "land", not "sand", not "Andy", not any other word I can think of; only "and".  So if you hear an American say /ɛnd/ for "and", don't conclude that we don't distinguish /æ/ and /ɛ/.

Next, be aware that there's a small set of common words that look like they should have /æ/ but actually have /a/: "father" in the US and additional cases in standard Brit Eng ("bath", "can't", "castle", etc.).

Finally, altho /æ/ and /ɛ/ are always distinct from each other in the US, the actual pronunciation of the "/æ/ vowel" is hugely variable across dialects and contexts (while /ɛ/ tends to remain [ɛ]).  berndf mentioned what is probably the most important fact, that something like the diphthong [eə] is widely used before nasals (for ex., [beənd] for "band").  In the Northern Midwest, including Chicago, something like this diphthong is heard from many speakers for _all_ /æ/.  So paradoxically, at least as the beginning of this diphthongal pronunciation of /æ/ (actually, of what _used_ to be /æ/), a word like "band" can have a higher vowel than "bed".

But to return to the original thrust of this thread, if you think Americans don't distinguish "bat" and "bed", or "sand" and "send",  you just have to work a little harder at picking up the difference.  Sorry we haven't spaced our vowels further apart!  Good luck.


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## ampurdan

brian said:


> You should try to listen to the difference between "apple" and "bad." Vowels before _voiced_ consonants are naturally pronounced somewhat longer in English, so it's possible that "apple" is pronounced with a short [æ] which, because it's so short, sounds like a quick [ε] or something, whereas "bad" will give you a clearer idea of what the /æ/ sounds like, since it's longer.



Yes. 

 


brian said:


> Nonetheless, I don't really understand why /æ/ would sound like /ε/ since /ε/ is a phoneme in its own right. Can you hear the difference between "bat" and "bet," or between "bad" and "bed"?



It sounded like /ε/ at the beginning, not anymore. Still, in some situations, I can easily confuse both sounds. But I'm not a native speaker.

I'm not stating that /æ/ and /ε/ are the same sound, I think that GA /æ/ and RP /æ/ are different sounds.

If anything, I would keep /æ/ for the GA sound and would use simple /a/ for the RP sound, but as I said, I'm not an expert.


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## berndf

ampurdan said:


> If anything, I would keep /æ/ for the GA sound and would use simple /a/ for the RP sound, but as I said, I'm not an expert.


/æ/>/a/ in England is normally seen as a characteristic of Northern accents (click).


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## entangledbank

Younger speakers in the South of England usually have cardinal [a] for their /æ/ these days, obliterating the distinction between Southern and Northern varieties. The third edition of the _OED_ has made the switch and is now using the symbol /a/ for their TRAP vowel. I'm not sure whether the time is ripe to teach this as Modern RP.


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## berndf

entangledbank said:


> Younger speakers in the South of England usually have cardinal [a] for their /æ/ these days, obliterating the distinction between Southern and Northern varieties. The third edition of the _OED_ has made the switch and is now using the symbol /a/ for their TRAP vowel. I'm not sure whether the time is ripe to teach this as Modern RP.


With /ʌ/ having moved forward to the /ɐ/ position in modern RP, is there then enough distance left between /æ/=[a] and /ʌ/=[ɐ] to maintain phonemic separation in minimal pairs like_ hat_ and _hut_? In Northern and Midlands dialects this is not a problem because _hut_ is pronounced [hʊt].

Is then maybe the /æ~ɛ/ merger which existed in RP in the mid 20th century going to be replaced by a /æ~ʌ/ merger in future RP?


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## ampurdan

Humm... It's trickier than I thought.

The word "Paris" is one in which I had noticed the difference. I've checked in a webpage where they record different accents from different parts of England. I've picked one from London classified as RP (Received Pronunciation). I would say the speakers keeps talking about ['pa.ɾɪs], whereas I would expect an American to pronounce ['pæ.ɾɪs].

Well, then I check in the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and it turns out that the US pronunciation can actually be ['pɛ.ɾɪs]. I'm no longer sure of what I have heard. The UK recorded pronunciation (I assume it is RP, since it is a dictionary) has clearly no /ɛ/ element, it sounds like a pure /a/ and still it is transcribed as /æ/.


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## brian

Oh dear - don't pick a word where /æ/ is followed by /r/. It's just as bad (if not worse) than when followed by a nasal! 

/r/, especially in AE, is one of those consonants that tends, in some way, to "color" the vowel preceding it. I have a friend who pronounces _Paris_ with [æ], another who pronounces it with [ɛ], and still others who pronounce it with [eə] - just like in my pronunciation of _and_.


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## ampurdan

Ok, this is the [æ] sound I hear in American English.

When I hear a RP speaker pronounce "sad", "bad", "apple", I think I hear something which sounds pretty much like this.

(I've gotten moderator permission for posting these links).


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## brian

I'm really not familiar enough with RP/BE pronuncation to say much, but I can say that /æ/ is my vowel in _sad, bad, apple,_ etc. and it sounds just like the sound clip.

I can also say that I have heard BE pronunciations of _can't_ with /a/ instead of /æ/, just like in your second sound clip. However, I don't know whether ALL the words where I have /æ/ get pronounced with /a/ in RP/BE.


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## berndf

brian said:


> I can also say that I have heard BE pronunciations of _can't_ with /a/ instead of /æ/


You are aware that the RP pronunciation is /kɑːnt/? I.e. neither /a/ nor /æ/.


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## brian

Whoops - you're absolutely right.


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## ampurdan

Ok, what about comparing this [æ] sound (presumably RP) and the previous one:



ampurdan said:


> Ok, this is the [æ] sound I hear in American English.



The link in this post has been approved by moderator JamesM.


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## brian

ampurdan said:


> Ok, what about comparing this [æ] sound (presumably RP) and the previous one [...]



Wow - no - those are _not_ all the same sounds, whatever the site may claim. 


_dead, friend, said, _and _leisure_ all sound like [ε];
_bury_ is almost approaching [e] but not quite;
_leg_ is basically [e];
_treasure_ seriously almost sounds like [ɪ] eek - reminiscent of New Zealand English, actually;
and I can't quite put my finger on _many_.
Just the first two words, _leg_ vs. _dead_, are a dead give-away (pun intended ) that she's pronouncing more than one vowel here.


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## ampurdan

brian said:


> Wow - no - those are _not_ all the same sounds, whatever the site may claim.



Just to be sure (please, excuse my insistence): you mean that the sound here (American) and that of the previous BBC link in "cat" do not sound alike, right?


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## brian

Sorry, I think I must've been sent to the wrong link the first time. Instead of "start," where you can hear _egg, cat,_ and _cup_,  was on "word repeat 1," where you hear a bunch of different words that supposedly all have the same vowel as in _egg_, /e/. (But they don't, as I said.)

Now, to answer your question: *yes*, the American /æ/ and the /æ/ pronounced by that girl in _cat_ sound alike.

*However*, if I click "continue" (twice) and go to word repeat 2, where she pronounces several words that supposedly have the same /æ/ as in _cat_, they sound decidedly British.

One problem is that all the nouns she pronounces, except _sack_, have nasals, which we've already mentioned can be troublesome.

Of all the words, _sack_ is the most "American" sounding, I suppose, but even that sounds different.

So to conclude, her /æ/ is pretty different from mine.  I think mine is more fronted than hers.


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## berndf

ampurdan said:


> Ok, what about comparing this [æ] sound (presumably RP) and the previous one


When you click on "cat" she clearly says [a] and then [kæt]. The two sounds don't match. If this got published and nobody noticed the error, this is a good sign that the sounds are not discriminated by most speakers (at BBC).


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## ampurdan

Hummm... So I guess, that for you, sometimes it's different and sometimes it isn't and, however, it seems that it is more similar for you native English speakers, than it is for me (and maybe for natives of other languages, like Vietnamese?).

Thank you!


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## brian

berndf said:


> When you click on "cat" she clearly says [a] and then [kæt]. The two sounds don't match. If this got published and nobody noticed the error, this is a good sign that the sounds are not discriminated by most speakers (at BBC).



To me she says something between [a] and [æ] first, and then [kæt]; but my /a/ in English is a bit lower & farther back than most people's (because I have to distinguish /æ/ from /a/ from /ɑ/ since all 3 are distinct for me), so that could explain that.

In any case, I agree that her two sounds definitely don't match.


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## ampurdan

berndf said:


> When you click on "cat" she clearly says [a] and then [kæt]



Oh, yes! I agree with that! I hadn't realized before because I was too focused on the stand-alone [æ] sound.


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## boozer

For me the two sounds in question do match. I think the problem may be with the example selected and that preceding /k/. The /k/ sounds differently when it precedes for instance /e/ and /a:/. So my guess is in this instance the /k/ and /æ/ influence each other and we end up hearing a slightly different /æ/ from the one said in isolation. But it is /æ/ nonetheless in both cases. 

I say "cat" differently - my /k/ is the same as the one in "car" followed by the lady's standalone /æ/.


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## berndf

boozer said:


> For me the two sounds in question do match. I think the problem may be with the example selected and that preceding /k/. The /k/ sounds differently when it precedes for instance /e/ and /a:/. So my guess is in this instance the /k/ and /æ/ influence each other and we end up hearing a slightly different /æ/ from the one said in isolation. But it is /æ/ nonetheless in both cases.


I cut out the vowel from "cat" and clipped it to the isolated vowel and when hearing them side by side I still hear [a] and [æ]. Looking at the spectra, both have an f1 of about 1.0kHz; the f2 of the first is at about 1.8kHz. The second vowel has clear f3 and f4 peaks which are almost completely missing in the first vowel. These may indeed be influenced by the preceding velar stop. I therefore applied a very aggressive low pass filter effectively erasing all frequencies above 2.5kHz. I can still hear the two vowels as clearly distinct. If you drop me a note I will send you filtered audio files and the spectra.

In case you are not familiar with those f1, f2, etc., here is a brief introduction.


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