ok, well to be honest I tried the lot and failed miserably on every one. Totally demotivated, to be honest. I like the idea, but I’d love it to be a lot easier, so that I could use it as a learning tool. This way I just give up and start to click at random, and think oh yeah….perhaps if you could make an easy stage for dummies? Or give us the word, so we just have to find the phonemes? My pronunciation doesn’t match the standard one half the time anyway, even if i did know the word.

ˈkʌzən

this is the answer that was displayed

I am so glad you posted this as it has had me thinking ever since. It touches on many concerns that educators have. Please see the post I made at
http://anvil.gsu.edu/EduBlogInsights/2004/03/18#a376

As you can see, I had lots to say so didn’t want to put all that on this comment. I want you to know that I appreciate all your thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to share with all of us.

Best,
Anne

Have you tried using WMA files? They produce the same quality as mp3 and take only about half the space.

I couldn’t hear the first word clearly enough to transcribe it – consonant sounds in particular were sometimes rather vague. But it’s a nice activity!

Works fine on my browser. Just some comments on content:

1) I thought perhaps you should mention that the transcriptions are for the regional accent used mainly in the south of England (RP), so that learners from the US or studying US English won’t get frustrated. For example, I noticed that rhotic forms aren’t accepted, “passport” only accepted the a: and not the usual US pronunciation, etc. Hard to cater to all varieties of English…so the variety you have chosen should be mentioned in the instructions for the activity.

2) Check your phonetic transcription of “though”, you have the unvoiced “th” when it should be voiced (even in RP, I believe).

Other than that, haven’t found anything else – it’s very good!

Lovely resource – looking forward to playing with it. But I can’t hear anything. I’ve pressed the ‘play’ arrow at the top, but nothing so far. Any suggestions?

Bev

No, I’m using IE 5.0 & 98SE.

Quite a few symbols are displayed as squares.
Why not give longer words, or even short sentences? (maybe I haven’t done enough of the exercise?)

But I like it. A good way to get familiar with those symbols.

jc

This is a test to make sure all the links are working OK.