Phonics v. Phonetics

LazyPapa

After all the reading, I want to say something.

For the limited number of phonics and one IPA program that I experienced, phonics are more suitable for younger kids. Apart from the fewer yet simpler things to memorize, most phonics programs are engineered to fit the kids' taste and pace. This is important.

However, just don't be too obsessed over a strict selection when the kids are little. Learning phonics in a fun way then migrate to IPA when they have better cognition may make the process more "friendly".

Afterall, this is only about the "techniques" behind. I do think that listening is as (if not more) important  to learn a language.

Many people in HK just focus on the "technical" part instead of "knowing" the language by listening (to English songs and movies) and reading (books, magazines and newspapers) more and even more.

I also see many parents who try to stay away from English themselves while they want their kids to learn good English. This is hard.

Just my two pennies.

chanhao

which dictionary is showing the sound of BEE is longer than BEEF? thanks.

LazyPapa

Every dictionary which prints IPA for pronounciation is showing such information.

chanhao 寫道:
which dictionary is showing the sound of BEE is longer than BEEF? thanks.

nicolemummy

Absolutely agree! Because I witnessed the result of phonics. Those who learnt Phonics are willing and ready to try to read every English word and ask for correction. They read the words in eyes and try to pronounce them in heart and then spell them out by mouth. The pretty is that, they don't need any additional tools.

If kids learn phonetics in the first pace, they have to bring along with dictionary (or online tools). I guess this is a discouragement of the reading habbit..... We haven't yet considered the hardship of remembering the phonetics symbols.

Although I learnt phonetics and understand how good it is, my personal opinion is to take phonics for kids as the first step. Incubate their reading habit(ignoring some pronounciation exception). Then, we can introduce phonetics a moment later.

LazyPapa

michaelckt & nicolemummy,

You two are so right. Your replies further mine.

Happy to see more rational voices.

leschelems

They are similiar in a way that they are speech sound related.  

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics dealing with the inventory of sounds, such as vowel, consonant, tone and etc, of all languages in the world.  When it comes to teaching, phonetics is good in leading us to differentiate the foreign sounds, for both articulation and listening.  But it lacks the emphasis on intonation, rhythem, tempo and the interaction of different sounds.  It also involves tedious rote learning of IPA symbols.   

Phonics, although it is phonetics-based,  throws away most of the linguistic details.  And it usually comes with a particular language.  On top of the articulation of phonemes (just think about vowel and consonant if the term phoneme is too confusing), it puts more emphasis on the pronunciation of words and sentences.  

For little kids, try phonics first.  The phonetics class avaliable is usually a hybrid of phonetics and phonics.

chanhao

LazyPapa,
Looked up Oxford Advanced Learner's,  the IPA (Jones) are bi: and bi:f respectively. They are both long. But it is short for BEER, b[I][e](r).

[I]: shortened alphabet I
[e]: inverted e

leschelems

That inverted "e" is actually called a schwa in phonetics.   

chanhao 寫道:
LazyPapa,
Looked up Oxford Advanced Learner's,  the IPA (Jones) are bi: and bi:f respectively. They are both long. But it is short for BEER, b[I][e](r).

[I]: shortened alphabet I
[e]: inverted e

嵐豬仔

jp,
please pm me the information.  thanks a lot.   

JP 寫道:
我兩個仔跟私人老師學國際音標，有興趣可PM我比D資料你參考

goodgood

Hi jp,

please send me the information, thanks a lot!

email : [email protected]

cclbaby

please send me the information, thanks!  

email : [email protected]

LazyPapa

oh you mean both bee and beef are long, chanhao. Sorry then, I mistook it.

So you mean the claim of bee sounds longer than beef is wrong.

chanhao 寫道:
LazyPapa,
Looked up Oxford Advanced Learner's,  the IPA (Jones) are bi: and bi:f respectively. They are both long. But it is short for BEER, b[I][e](r).

[I]: shortened alphabet I
[e]: inverted e

chanhao

Yes. If we trust the dictionary (the one I quoted), the difference between bee and beef is the sound f.

If we think one is short and another one is long, we got a problem. How can we tell the difference from the phonetics?

LazyPapa 寫道:
oh you mean both bee and beef are long, chanhao. Sorry then, I mistook it.

So you mean the claim of bee sounds longer than beef is wrong.

[quote]
chanhao 寫道:
LazyPapa,
Looked up Oxford Advanced Learner's,  the IPA (Jones) are bi: and bi:f respectively. They are both long. But it is short for BEER, b[I][e](r).

[I]: shortened alphabet I
[e]: inverted e

[/quote]

freddielau

St. Margaret's teach "honics" in the Junior Class (up to P4, if I remember correctly), and IPA from P5 to S7..........Phonics is more activities based and suitable for kids to handle.  

Uran

Pls PM me those informations.  Tks!

JP

chanhao 寫道:
Yes. If we trust the dictionary (the one I quoted), the difference between bee and beef is the sound f.

If we think one is short and another one is long, we got a problem. How can we tell the difference from the phonetics?
[quote]
LazyPapa 寫道:
oh you mean both bee and beef are long, chanhao. Sorry then, I mistook it.

So you mean the claim of bee sounds longer than beef is wrong.

[quote]
chanhao 寫道:
LazyPapa,
Looked up Oxford Advanced Learner's,  the IPA (Jones) are bi: and bi:f respectively. They are both long. But it is short for BEER, b[I][e](r).

[I]: shortened alphabet I
[e]: inverted e

[/quote][/quote]

chanhao,

sound is short.
[i:] sound is long.

They're basic IPA rules.

chanhao

JP,

I ain't talking about the basics of IPA. Instead, I just try to clarify BEE and BEEF. That's it. Maybe some of you get confused with my symbols coz I don't know how to enter IPA here (maybe graphics is the only way).

What I mean by [I] shortened alphabet I is shortened in height, or

JP

chanhao,

Sorry I misunderstood your query.

IPA can tell you the differences (long/short sound of i:/i) between BEEF and BEER but phonics can't.

Rham

JP 寫道:
[quote]
chanhao 寫道:
Yes. If we trust the dictionary (the one I quoted), the difference between bee and beef is the sound f.

If we think one is short and another one is long, we got a problem. How can we tell the difference from the phonetics?
[quote]
LazyPapa 寫道:
oh you mean both bee and beef are long, chanhao. Sorry then, I mistook it.

So you mean the claim of bee sounds longer than beef is wrong.

[quote]
chanhao 寫道:
LazyPapa,
Looked up Oxford Advanced Learner's,  the IPA (Jones) are bi: and bi:f respectively. They are both long. But it is short for BEER, b[I][e](r).

[I]: shortened alphabet I
[e]: inverted e

[/quote][/quote]

chanhao,

sound is short.
[i:] sound is long.

They're basic IPA rules.[/quote]

The difference between bee and beef is NOT JUST the sound f.  The [i:] in bee is indeed longer than the [i:] in beef.

A "long" vowel followed by a voiceless consonant is shorter than a "long" vowel followed by a voiced consonant.

Oxford Advanced Learner's doesn't tell you that.  Other normal dictionaries also don't tell you that but this is understood by native speakers.

I recommend you get a Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (Daniel Jones, 16th edition) and read the Introduction.  It tells you a lot of things about how to interpret the IPA symbols that a normal dictionary won't tell you.