# quartet [pronunciation]



## Sasha Ivanov

Can somebody explain to me whether this is a conspiracy against me?
I always hear on the news (US English) quarantine pronounced as /CORE-uhn-teen/.
But after checking my Merriam-Webster I found that the only pronunciation given was /KWOR-/.
/CORE-/ was never mentioned even as a substandard pronunciation.
I asked about it on this forum and everybody, US and UK English speakers told me they've never heard anyone pronounce "quarantine" as /CORE-uhn-teen/.
I accepted it and started saying /KWOR/ version, when talking to native speakers. But on the news I would clearly hear the /CORE/ version. Then, there's the word "quarterback". It's also given in my dictionaries solely as /KWOR-/, no other option. But I hear it with my defective Russian ear as a clear /CORE-tuhr-back/.
Now, I'm watching an American movie and a man is clearly pronouncing the word "quartet" as /CORE-tet/ (he even stresses it on the first syllable). But my dictionaries only mention its pronunciation as /kwor-TET/. No other option.
And my dictionaries always provide even substandard, regional variants. What is wrong with my ears? I have slowed it down to 0.25x speed, and still I can clearly hear Americans say it /COOOOOOOR/ in all three words!


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## owlman5

Pronunciations differ between individual speakers, Sasha. The _w _sound may vary in strength and clarity. Try not to worry about it.


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## dojibear

quarantine - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
quarterback - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
quartet - WordReference.com Dictionary of English

Check the words in our dictionary. At the top of each page there are audio clips, saying the word in several world-wide accents.

In audioclips (US, UK, US Southern) I hear KW in "quarantine". But I hear K in "quarterback" and "quartet" and "quarter".

I don't know why dictionaries write the pronunciation "kw" in words where I hear (and say) "k".


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## Sasha Ivanov

In all of the three US pronunciations for the words that you gave links to, I can hear KWO.
But it's not what I hear on the CNN, ABC and such!


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## kentix

Kw is the standard pronunciation for all those words everywhere in the U.S. I've ever lived and on TV.

I knew someone from St. Louis my first year in college and was very surprised to hear him say the coin name "quarter" as "korter". I have since learned that that is a pronunciation idiosyncrasy common in the St. Louis area. I don't think it's common most other places but some people might say it that way.

I picked six news videos at random and listened to them and the only pronunciation of quarantine I heard was with kw.

I hear kw in all the WR pronunciation links above under the US category. That's not true under US Southern but I would take that with as grain of salt. There are many different Southern U.S. accents and one example can't possibly represent all of them. And the speaker they have chosen has an accent that is quite strong even by Southern standards.


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## Sasha Ivanov

I picked six news videos at random and listened to them and the only pronunciation of quarantine I heard was with kw.

They pronounce it as KOR?


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## kentix

No... they don't.


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## Sasha Ivanov

*dojibear can hear *KO in quartet. Can you?


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## kentix

It's a clear Kw to me for the general U.S. pronunciation. Some of the UK ones are missing the w sound.


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## Sasha Ivanov

Then it's two vs one.


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## kentix

The standard General American pronunciation for the beginning of qua words is kw

Quail
Qualm
Quarter
Quash
Quarrel


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> The standard General American pronunciation for the beginning of qua words is kw
> 
> Quail
> Qualm
> Quarter
> Quash
> Quarrel


True for those in BE except quarter where both the kw and k versions occur.


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## kentix

I was talking specifically about the so-called General American accent. As we know, there is not one BE accent. 

If you listen at the links above you can hear the "UK" version without the w sound and the "UK-RP" version with the w sound.


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## Sasha Ivanov

"listen at the links"? I thought it should be "to the links".


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> I was talking specifically about the General American accent. As we know, there is not one BE accent.
> 
> If you listen at the links above you can hear the "UK" version without the w sound and the "UK-RP" version with the w sound.


Just to be clear, I was agreeing.  I said both versions occur for quarter in BE.  For the other words in the list, there is no k version in BE either.


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## Egmont

Sasha Ivanov said:


> "listen at the links"? I thought it should be "to the links".


You can't listen *to* a link. Links are silent. They don't make a sound. You can put your ear next to a link all day and you won't hear anything. 

You can listen to the sound clips you find *at* the links, though.


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## sdgraham

Sasha Ivanov said:


> In all of the three US pronunciations for the words that you gave links to, I can hear KWO.
> But it's not what I hear on the CNN, ABC and such!


I watch those networks regularly and do not recall ever hearing 'kore."


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## Hildy1

dojibear said:


> quarantine - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
> quarterback - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
> quartet - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
> ....
> Check the words in our dictionary. At the top of each page there are audio clips, saying the word in several world-wide accents..


I hear corentine, quarterback, and cortet*.

I had never before heard / noticed the dropping of the w.

*This pseudo-word seems to be driving the spell check crazy. When I rejected "corvette", it tried "corset".


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## kentix

Hildy1 said:


> I hear corentine, quarterback, and cortet*.


And you were listening to the US pronunciation?

Because on that one I clearly hear the w on all of them.


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## london calling

JulianStuart said:


> Just to be clear, I was agreeing.  I said both versions occur for quarter in BE.  For the other words in the list, there is no k version in BE either.


Interesting. I've never heard _quarter_ pronounced _corter_ in BE


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## Wordy McWordface

london calling said:


> Interesting. I've never _quarter_ pronounced _corter_ in BE



Nor I! I've never heard anyone say 'quarter' in BrE with just a 'k' at the beginning.  I've listened to the voices from the links above, and I'll admit that the posh fellow with the very clipped pronunciation (UK, RP) had a very light 'w' - but it was definitely a 'kw', not a 'k'.

In fact, I'm confused by this whole idea of the 'k' versions.  'Quarter' is always pronounced  'kw', isn't it?

Likewise all other words beginning with 'qu' (apart from Don Quixote, perhaps)


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Wordy McWordface said:


> Nor I! I've never heard anyone say 'corter'.


Really?  I don't think I have ever heard anyone way "kwarter."  The common pronunciation around here is "corter" (or "kawtuh", if you are very non-rhotic.)



> In fact, I'm confused by this whole idea of the 'k' versions.  'Quarter' is always pronounced  'kw', isn't it?


_Vide supra_.


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## PaulQ

Wordy McWordface said:


> In fact, I'm confused by this whole idea of the 'k' versions. 'Quarter' is always pronounced 'kw', isn't it?


I tend to agree: sometimes the "w" sound is faint, but it always there in BE.


Sasha Ivanov said:


> I always hear on the news (US English) quarantine pronounced as /CORE-uhn-teen/


I listen to a lot of CNN; I tend to agree. There is an American accent in which the "w" is _almost_ fully elided. I've no idea which region the accent is from.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

The loss of the "w" is common in northeastern US accents.  You might want to look on YouTube for Al Jolson (who came to New York from Lithuania when he was five years old, and developed a New York accent) singing the song "A Quarter to Nine".


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## Myridon

PaulQ said:


> _almost_ fully elided


ALMOST being very important there.
While I have heard a few people with a dialect say "corterback" and "corter" (words that one learns as a child), I've never noticed anybody saying "corentine" (not a word usually learned from one's parents prior to 2020 ).


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Myridon said:


> ALMOST being very important there.
> While I have heard a few people with a dialect say "corterback" and "corter" (words that one learns as a child), I've never noticed anybody saying "corentine" (not a word usually learned from one's parents prior to 2020 ).



I agree.  While I say both "corter" and "corterback", around here "quarantine" has a distinct "kw" sound at the beginning, and a very different vowel that is like the "a" of "father".


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## LVRBC

All the words mentioned have a kw sound for me. Regional accents are common in the US, Sasha, as you must know from having engaged in similar discussions in this forum.  I am in the western US.


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## Hermione Golightly

> Can somebody explain to me whether this is a conspiracy against me?


It's most unlikely to be a conspiracy, but some things are more worth worrying about than others, Sasha. As you know, there are varieties within varieties.
 I'm astonished that 'qu' isn't always pronounced as 'qw'.

I can see why certain American accents might lead some uneducated speakers to pronounce the first syllable 'quar' as if it were 'cour' in court.

Around Louisiana, there might be French influence, 'qu' being pronounced 'k' in French.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Hermione Golightly said:


> I can see why certain American accents might lead some uneducated speakers to pronounce the first syllable 'quar' as if it were 'cour' in court.



Excuse me, but I do not consider myself to be even remotely describable as an "uneducated speaker".


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## Hermione Golightly

No native speaker on this forum is an uneducated speaker. My apologies to you and anybody else who imagined I would be referring to them.   I said 'some' ,'with certain accents'.


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## Hermione Golightly

I hear 'qw' on all the UK and the Irish voices. All the rest too!


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## swift

You may want to watch the movie “Quartet” with Maggie Smith. The word is all over the place!


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## kentix

I don't hear the w on the UK pronunciation of quartet, but I do with the UK-RP one.


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## natkretep

The only word where I hear the variation is Quebec - depending on whether you want to sound more French or more English. Otherwise, I hear /kw/ in _quartet _etc.


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## kentix

Quiche, of course, has no w sound nor quay when pronounced key. And there is no w sound at the end of words like mystique.


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## Hermione Golightly

_Quiche_ is a French word. As noted above, 'qu' is pronounced as 'k' in French, same for 'que'.


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## kentix

I don't speak French and I say quiche. It's in my American English dictionary.


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## Wordy McWordface

Forgive me if I've missed something here, but isn't the issue of _quiche, quay _- or _quetzacoatl, _for that matter - beside the point?  Nobody is questioning how or why we pronounce these particular words as we do.  We all know that they're the exception to the rule.


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## kentix

The point being made was there are a small number of qu words where everyone agrees there is no w sound. These words are not in that category. I'm personally surprised by the number of people who say they pronounce these quar words without a w sound. Something about the r changes things. I can't imagine anyone pronouncing quail as kale (right?).


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## natkretep

I suspect it might be the vowel itself as well. The shape of the lips for forming the 'aw' sound is similar for forming a /w/. It's a completely different shape for _kale_.


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## Keith Bradford

I wonder if we're confusing what one person _says _and what another person _hears_.

I've never been aware of hearing _korter, kortet, korenteen,_ etc.  But then I know no such words exist, so if someone did pronounce them that way I'd probably subconsciously discount them and "hear" _kworter, kwortet _and _kworenteen, _in the same way as I "hear"_ handbag _when the person has most certainly said _hambag._  (Unless it was Lady Bracknell.)

But the more I think about and repeat the words, the more aware I become that in many words where we use the /ɔ:/ and /ɔ:ʳ/ sounds, as in British _quartet _(sometimes) and American _quarantine  _the 'w' does tend to disappear: /kɔ: tet, 'kɔ:ʳn ti:n /_. _ This is what Natkretep describes in #40; it doesn't happen in British_ quarantine _/'kwɒ rən ti:n/ because the following vowel is different.

However, I still don't expect that I shall "hear"_ kortet, korenteen..._


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